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November 16, 2004

If You Think It's Scrappleface, But It's Not

I read this story.

Then I read it again.

And a third time.

And I figured "It just has to be a parody, a clever hoax planted by a wry Republican hoaxter.

But for the life of me, I can't prove it.

It starts off like a Scrappleface post:

Mental health officials in South Florida blasted Rush Limbaugh on Monday, saying the conservative talk show host’s offer of “free therapy” for traumatized John Kerry voters has made a mockery of a valid psychological problem.
“Rush Limbaugh has a way of back-handedly slamming people,” said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed clinician with the American Health Association (AHA) who listened Friday as Limbaugh offered to personally treat her patients. “He’s trying to ridicule the emotional state this presidential election produced in many of us here in Palm Beach County. Who is he to offer therapy?”
Mocking the bloated self-importance of a soft-scientist? Totally Scrappleface.

And it gets better:

The Boca Raton News reported last week that more than 30 distraught Kerry supporters in South Florida contacted the non-profit AHA following their candidate’s Nov. 3 concession to President Bush. AHA officials have diagnosed the disorder as Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST) and have scheduled the first of several free group therapy sessions for just after Thanksgiving.
PEST?

PEST?

No. No way this is legit.

Is there?

I googled it. Oof - if it's a hoax, it's a pretty elaborate one:

Florida trauma specialist Douglas Schooler alone has already treated 15 clients and friends with intense hypnotherapy since the Democratic candidate conceded on November 3.

"I had one friend tell me he's never been so depressed and angry in his life," Schooler said. "I observed patients threatening to leave the country or staring listlessly into space. They were emotionally paralyzed, shocked and devastated," he told the daily.

More or less the same way my 11-year old is "emotionally paralyzed, shocked and devastated" when I tell him he can't have a TV in his room, I suspect.

Limbaugh, of coursed, offered to counsel PEST victims - an offer the South Florida soft-science community apparently takes deadly seriously:

“Rush Limbaugh has no clinical qualifications to counsel anyone,” Cooperman said. “He’s not only minimizing PEST, but he’s bastardizing the entire psychological field and our clinical expertise.”
Any snarky comment would be superfluous at this point.
...a lot people who felt the same way. You have to understand that to many of us, this was the key election about the future of our country, and with a Bush win that future is pretty much destroyed. Naturally, there’s going to be some significant grief.”
“The people here in Palm Beach County now in therapy or support groups are the canaries in the mine shaft,” Gordon said. “There could be thousands of others, even Republicans, who need to be in therapy over this election.”
Gordon said the AHA on Monday also received its first out-of-state call – from a fixed-income woman in Texas who is “absolutely terrified of what Bush will do” – and scheduled a free telephone therapy session with her for today.
Wow. All that Soros-funded Democrat hate-speech did its job, I guess.
ouglas Schooler, the Boca Raton trauma specialist who treated 20 people with hypnotherapy following Kerry’s loss, said he believes many people suffering from election-related symptoms are still afraid to step forward.“The Republicans want Kerry voters to shut up and pretend they’re not feeling anything,” Schooler said.
"The Republicans"?

Actually, I don't want them to shut up. I just want the psychological "profession" to quit classifying "petulant, spoiled whining" as a disease.

AHA officials, listening to the taped broadcasts, described Limbaugh’s tone of voice as sarcastic.
Which will lead to increasing diagnoses of Smug Liberal Understanding Gap (SLUG), Post-Limbaugh Un-Intellectual Derangement (PLUNDER) and Sudden Implosion of Mindless Entitlement Reaction (SIMPER).

Posted by Mitch at November 16, 2004 10:56 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Mitch, this is a serious problem. I think that they are actually suffering from WRETCH (Wide Ranging Emotional Trauma Caused by Hate).

Posted by: Michael at November 16, 2004 11:49 AM

I thought this whole PEST thing was a joke. That's what I get for giving some people too much credit I guess. Silly WRETCHed PESTs.

Posted by: Jarhead at November 16, 2004 12:01 PM

The insidious part of stories like these (and no, it's not a hoax) is that it sets back the cause of REAL mental health problems being addressed and taken seriously. Giving names to phony psychiatric diseases like this (which is more properly called "being mad you didn't get what you wanted and so you're taking your ball and going home" syndrome) is demeaning to people with actual, real, biologically-based mental disorders.
If I heard a radio report correctly Schooler also flew to New York to counsel 9/11 families. If true, a noble effort on his part. However, equating your guy losing in an election with family members being burned alive in a horrific attack by labeling them under the same heading of 'trauma' is nauseating.

Posted by: chriss at November 16, 2004 01:08 PM

Chriss, I agree. Entirely. I'm using the only weapon I have with which to fight back; mockery.

Posted by: mitch at November 16, 2004 01:10 PM

This just further proves that liberals are really just the wimpiest,whiniest, weakest babies that ever crawled on the surface of the earth.

Posted by: mlp at November 16, 2004 01:13 PM

I'm currently being treated for SCHISM; Serious CHuckling and Indifference for Suffering Moonbats.

Pray for me for I too am a victim.

Posted by: swiftee at November 16, 2004 05:21 PM

I was thinking just the other day that the only possible way to achieve the worldwide harmony that the left actually believes could someday exist would be via lobotomy. It seems that we already have our first group of volunteers.

Posted by: Elizabeth at November 17, 2004 06:51 AM

I've given this further thought and the distinct possibility occurs to me that this is a vast left wing conspiracy to cover up voter fraud in Florida.

That's right. We know the lefty's registered dead people, cartoon characters, illegal aliens and bobbed in the bottom of the barrel to pluck out elegable (or not) felons.

This is positive proof that they also raided mental hospitals for voters. All the excitement has agitated the unfortunates so now the lefty's need an explaination.

Posted by: swiftee at November 17, 2004 08:30 AM

Let's accept for a moment that a small percentage of Kerry supporters were indeed "devastated" enough by his loss of the election to experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. This appears to be the claim. If so, why invent a new name for a known disorder? Why "PEST"??

Given the history of abuse of psychiatry to achieve state directives (e.g. the Russian gulags), one would have thought that those involved in psychiatry would take great pains to avoid politicizing mental health care. It is symptomatic of leftist thinking to a) never learn from the past and b) to favor short term results even at the expense of long term outcomes.

Further, this story encapsulates the therapeutic approach to life I voted against.

Posted by: Pogo at November 17, 2004 01:55 PM
hi