There is a book called the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I think they are using version IV now, working on five.  The book lists symptoms and describes  the gradated spectrum of each diverse, specific, and sometimes subtle, mental disorder.  

Among these are the perfect statistical descriptions of each of the several distinct types that make up the editorial board of the American Psychiatric Association– brilliant and nervous,  dour and paranoid, voluble and smiling but filled with unspeakable rage, intense, taciturn but almost completely quiescent.  Those who twitch and those who smile fiercely, with one eye twitching slightly from time to time.  The trained observer may catch the occasional micro-expression showing the primal will to violence, but, for the most part, the editorial board of the DSM looks like a high-level group of accomplished professionals.

And it is.   I drop this all casually, though, of course, it’s a cliche: the crazy psychiatrist.  But the authors of the DSM, the book that categorizes every insurable mental disorder, are a select breed of psychiatrist, true experts, standing at a rare vantage point, on the defining edge, that hair’s breadth between normalcy and disorder.  

Diagnostic:  their diagnostic checklists of symptoms will decide what mental disorder you suffer from, please answer the following questions.   Are you ever sad?  Do you ever have bad dreams?  Do you become sexually aroused at odd times?   Do you like to shake your leg rhythmically for long periods of time?    A code is issued for each customized disorder and the psychiatrist  prescribes, and a pharmacist dispenses, the suggested drugs, according to the scientific recommendations of pharmaceutical industry expert psychiatrists.   Because a code number has been submitted with this claim, everyone along the line will be paid well for the patented medication to make this poor bastard function better.

Except that sometimes the poor bastard functions well, medication or no, and at other times not so well.   These mood fluctuations are a symptom of our condition here, buffeted by the pressurized demands of the world around us.  I’m just saying– a person who is freaking out might do better resting in a quiet room with soft music than strapped to a gurney, people screaming, lights flashing, men with guns, as the sedation is administered.

On the other hand, I’m no psychiatrist.