<p><a href=“http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002682[/url] ”>http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002682</a></p> ;
<p>Now, I realize this was from 2002, but there was a seminar exactly about PTSS at the local community college not so long ago. Can this theory actually be gaining credibility?</p>
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Earlier this month we noted a Boston Globe report that a pair of social workers and a psychologist “are writing a book about what they call ‘post-traumatic slavery disorder’–a derivative of post-traumatic stress disorder.” Social worker Sekou Mims’s 16-year-old son had a psychotic breakdown in which he suffered from delusions that white people were menacing him. Psychologist Omar Reid told Mims that, as the Globe reports, “black and Latino males were showing up ‘in droves’ with similar symptoms.” Reid and Mims, along with another social worker named Larry Higginbotham, came up with an imaginative theory: that somehow these young people were traumatized by things that happened not to them but to their ancestors–or, in the case of “Latino males,” not even to their ancestors.</p>
<p>History, of course, has no shortage of peoples who have suffered oppression and trauma, so the Reid-Mims-Higginbotham approach, with its narrow focus on American slavery, is only the beginning. Reader Mark Schulze, for instance, is part-Irish, and he e-mails us that he may be suffering from “post-traumatic potato disorder.” In the interest of promoting advancement in medical science, we asked readers to submit suggestions for other possible psychological disorders. We received nearly 500 responses; here are some of the best ones.
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<p>The list includes…</p>
<p>
Pre-post-traumatic reparations disorder. The present fear of being held responsible in the future for actions that aren’t in your past.</p>
<p>Post-traumatic trailer disorder. This theory proposes that low educational attainment, tattoo abuse, multiple remarriage to the same partner or his siblings, poor dental hygiene, a fondness for Jerry Jeff Walker music and a hankerin’ for pork rinds can be linked directly to the trauma of growing up in modular housing.</p>
<p>Post-traumatic Big Bang disorder. Why waste time with a multitude of lesser excuses, errr I mean “disorders”? This one goes right to the atomic level and supersedes all others.</p>
<p>Pretraumatic middle-aged white-male disorder. As I grow older I become increasingly traumatized by the mantle of responsibility that I will acquire. It will soon be my fault that African-Americans were forced into slavery. It will be my fault that Native Americans were stripped of their heritage and lands. It will be my fault that women were second-class citizens and don’t earn as much as I do. It will be my fault that Muslims around the world must face Zionist aggression (and I’m a Methodist!). It will be my fault the homeless have no home, the pro-choice have limited choice, and the poor have fewer tax breaks. And I’m supposed to laugh all of that off on the way to the bank?</p>
<p>PTPD, post-traumatic paradise disorder. My ancestors were thrown out of the Garden of Eden when Eve bit into the apple, at the prompting of the serpent, both of which were placed there by the Supreme Deity. The eons of suffering and pain that befell men and women can be directly linked to this event. Wars, famine, disease, drugs, Michael Bolton–every bit of suffering came from this. You might call it the “mother of all root causes.”</p>
<p>PTID, post-traumatic Inquisition disorder. After Spain threw out all the Jews in 1492, my family lost all their money and had to wonder around Europe for years. I can’t even hear the word “Spain” or “Spanish” or anything even close to that without going into convulsions. I cannot enjoy My Fair Lady (“The rain in S---- stays mainly in the plain”). In high school I had to take French, because the other language offering was S—ish, and you can’t believe how much I hated that. Even the word “Danish” gives me the creeps; it ends in “nish”! Thus, I can only eat cookies, and cannot enjoy a good Blueberry da----.
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<p>And etc.</p>
<p>Discuss?</p>
<p>That is pretty ridiculous.</p>