Mental illness is typically NOT just a plain absolute, with all its dreadful victims ensconced within nuthouses–restrained in clumsy straitjackets and leering like Hannibal Lector–while receiving electric shock treatments coupled with monstrous doses of lithium every day of the week. Rather, in easily the greatest majority of cases, true mental illness manifests in varying gradations of intensity, ranging from very trivial to very severe. You can see these gradations in every direction you turn, whether it is “collecting” versus hoarding, “hot-tempered” versus uncontrolled anger, “methodical” versus obsessive/compulsive, “high-strung” versus wanton anxiety, “on guard” versus paranoid, “rambunctious” versus suffering from attention deficit disorder, etc., etc., etc. I hope you’re getting the general idea by now: One does not have to be a complete basket case frantically gulping down handfuls of serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or Haloperidol to be experiencing mental illness. No, you can see it all around you in a whole lot of individuals in sundry degrees of severity. But what is the common denominator connecting this disparate group of sufferers, you ask? Almost without exception, these people would all vehemently deny and scoff at the suggestion that they suffer from any form of mental illness whatsoever, acutely aware of the onerous stigma which attends mental illness and which unfortunately is still so prevalent in today’s so-called “modern” society.
Fred's Soapbox 