Hello Everybody
I found this very interesting article just a while ago and I thought I would share it with you all. The reason I found it so interesting is because it poses actually two questions at the same time.
One, how do we define an mental illness and two, can it be treated with medication.
This particular mental illness has to do with a very common part of the daily lives of those of us who live in big cities with a lot of traffic. ROAD RAGE. Please reply with your thoughts on this.
COVER
Driving ourselves crazy
Is road rage a mental illness?
Rush-hour traffic crawls through Atlanta’s downtown connector—but is it enough to drive you crazy? CREDIT: Barry Williams/Getty Images
“They're not paying attention; they're oblivious of their surroundings.”—Rome Cagnina, a motorist in Druid Hills on drivers who irritate him
CREDIT: Kevin Daniel
By Stephanie Ramage
“Do I ever get road rage?”
Elizabeth’s blue eyes take on a piercing intensity and her voice slows to mark the gravity of each word as she pumps fuel at a gas station on Howell Mill Road.
“Every day I visualize having a very large shotgun and blowing the heads off of every f***ing idiot that cuts me off. I wish they would die.”
Then, she quickly adds, “Of course, you know, I don’t.”
Elizabeth, who lives in Atlanta’s West End, wants to keep her last name anonymous—for reasons that she says should be obvious. Besides, she’s just one of the thousands of drivers in the city fed up with its traffic and inconsiderate drivers. As the driver of a diesel truck, she has to deal with this stuff on a daily basis.
Road rage has become a fact of life for congested cities across the country, affecting people’s commutes, work productivity and relationships, but Atlanta, believe it or not, is one of the most laid-back cities in the nation when it comes to edgy tempers in traffic. Not that we don’t have frustrations—and even the occasional shoot-’em-up and traffic fatality. But while that may sound crazy enough, isn’t road rage just one big temper tantrum? Or is it, in fact, a verifiable psychiatric disorder?
These days, some researchers are going with the latter. They say it’s a manifestation of “intermittent explosive disorder” (IED), a condition characterized by multiple outbursts far out of proportion to the situation. According to an article published in the Archives of General Psychology earlier this month, a new study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health found that about 5 to 7 percent of the 9,282 American adults studied face-to-face from 2001 to 2003 had the disorder, which would equate to roughly 16 million Americans—more than those diagnosed with better-known mental disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
According to the study, the average number of lifetime attacks was 43, with $1,359 in property damage per person. About 4 percent have suffered recent attacks. Specialist maintain that the disorder involves inadequate production or functioning of the mood-regulating chemical serotonin and that, along with therapy like anger management, treatment with antidepressants has often proved helpful.
But William Narrow, director of research for the American Psychiatric Association, cautions that the study’s questions and criteria leave far too much room to definitively designate road rage as a manifestation of IED—about which, he adds, not much is known.
“Let’s say someone cuts you off and you tailgate them for a few blocks and give them the finger. Well, that’s not intermittent explosive disorder,” says Narrow. “If you pull them out of the car and smash their windows with a tire-iron, that’s more like intermittent explosive disorder.”
http://www.sundaypaper.com/NEWS/News/NewsArchives/tabid/202/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1545/061806-NewsCover.aspx
May a smile follow you to sleep each night,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
and be there waiting,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
when you awaken.
Sincerly, Bill Vanderbilt
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