Age-old road rage = brand-new drug craze
IED – it doesn’t just mean Improvised Explosive Device anymore
We’ve all heard of road rage incidents – and I’m sure most of us have been on the receiving end of them at one time or another. They’re nothing new. As long as there have been cars (and before that, horses), there have no doubt been hotheads on the road acting like crazed morons when someone accidentally cuts them off in traffic
But now, all of a sudden, road rage is part of a “disorder.”
According to recent articles from the Associated Press, Reuters, and ABCNews.com, psychiatrists have now given these and similar outbursts a name: Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). They’re even citing a large-scale study to help lend this absurd notion some credibility. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and affiliated with the University of Chicago, the research evaluated questionnaire responses of over 9,200 American adults surveyed face-to-face between 2001 and 2003.
Somehow, the results of this survey have led these quack-pots to the conclusion that as many as 16 million Americans are suffering from the condition. That’s one out of every 18 of us! According to the profile they’ve cooked up, you could be formally diagnosed with IED if you have done one of the following more than three times in your life:
* Exhibited angry outbursts disproportionate to the situation
* Damaged yours or someone else’s property in a fit of rage
* Threatened anyone or acted aggressively in response to stress
So basically, anyone who ever loses his or her temper over something stupid once in a while (or has honked his horn at someone in traffic) is now the victim of IED, not simply guilty of exhibiting momentary bad behavior. According to the AP and other articles, symptoms typically first show up in adolescence, around age 14 for boys and somewhat later for girls
Hmmm. Temper tantrums among adolescents – how unusual! It must be a DISEASE!
Like with other largely made-up disorders such as ADHD, psychiatrists are pointing to an imbalance in brain chemicals as the “cause” of Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Funny, I always thought the cause was traffic jams or other frustrating and stressful situations. And naturally, the head-shrinkers have developed a course of treatment for the condition – psychotropic drugs, of course. Keep reading
At least one psych-specific medical website (PsychNet-UK) is claiming that some studies suggest that no less than eight prescription drugs can help to control IED. Among them are some perennial favorites of the straightjacket set like Prozac, Dilantin, and Zoloft
What’s funny (more like tragic) here is that the mainstream media is buying into this farce hook, line, and sinker – just like it did with ADD/ADHD. Instead of pointing a finger at the medical establishment for reclassifying as “disorders” behavior patterns that fit well within normal parameters (then pumping the “sufferers” full of mind-altering psychotropic substances), the talking heads are acting like sycophant zombies numbed by medications themselves!
And what’s really disturbing about all this is that the rise of IED is just another example of how the lines demarcating the poles of normal behavior (like occasional temper outbursts in adults or periods of hyperactivity in kids) and those that warrant therapy are being moved ever closer together by the establishment – and for no other aim than to sell more drugs and breed more dependency on medical treatment
If this trend continues, soon any conduct that falls outside some narrow theoretical model of what’s considered by the white-jacket folks to be “normal behavior” will result in medication – it’ll be like something out of an Aldous Huxley novel.
And since the pointy-heads already think people with a hot tempers need their happy pills (remember, their study indicates that 7% of us are suffering from IED), how long will it be before one of YOUR personality traits falls outside their idea of normal?
Think about this, to With more than 50% of Americans taking at least one prescription drug for some ailment or another, NOT taking pills is now abnormal
Losing my cool over the mainstream’s fools,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
