URGENT MENTAL HEALTHCARE NOTICE

This actual advertisement appeared in "The Pasadena Weekly" of 3 August 2006. And even though it is ungrammatical, it speaks to a disorder recognized by medical authorities in both the for-profit and non-profit mental health sectors and sends out a powerful message to those who might be afflicted with Social Anxiety Disorder with its implicit acronym, SAD. That acronym could however be confusing and that's why VERITAS is speaking out. We're on your side.

The actual advertisement seen above is being reprinted here with neither permission nor compensation. We are publishing this advertisement as a public service because we are concerned about that possible confusion of acronyms. A SAD confusion. For what is referred to above is not the SAD of Seasonal Affective Disorder, a depression caused by lack of sunlight for days on end, sometimes called winter. No, again, what is being addressed here is the SAD of Social Anxiety Disorder.

When you call your publication VERITAS, and Truth is on your first page, right there at the top, you damn well better be concerned with confusion, in this case involving mental healthcare acronyms. In that spirit, VERITAS will examine the two SAD acronyms and their associated disorders so that the public and mental healthcare professionals will be aware of the difference and know the truth. And more importantly so that mental healthcare professionals can profitably put glutei maximi in waiting room chairs and patients can receive the appropriate colorful pill.

Here are some word pictures that will allow us to understand the SAD-SAD distinction.

If you live in an area that actually experiences winter and have reached that time when the sun comes back (called by some recovery and by others spring), and you are still quaking so hard at a dinner party that your table mate strikes you on the head with a fork, you have the SAD of Social Anxiety Disorder. If, on the other hand, you live in an area that experiences winter and during that dark time you are part of a roomful of people all of whom are weeping and holding each other while drinking pure grain alcohol from a trough, that's the SAD of Seasonal Affective Disorder, sometimes called Seattle.

This SAD-SAD distinction is particularly important in a psychiatrist's office where patients frequently wait in disorder-specific areas. Both patients and nurses must be scrupulous in the recognition of the SAD-SAD distinction so that patients are seated properly, billed appropriately, and given proper treatment, i.e. different colored pills.

To illustrate with revenue streams disorders not associated with the SAD-SAD confusion, please note that bi-polar patients sometimes wait in chairs that rotate on a horizontal axis, as in "Sometimes I'm Up and Sometimes I'm Down" so that they can adjust themselves according to their mood, minute by minute, up or down. And in another area of the waiting room, paranoids frequently strap themselves into chairs equipped with appropriately sterilized, multiple-user pacifiers and dark goggles.

So now, having given those examples, let's examine our primary concern, the SAD-SAD confusion. Patients who are being treated for the SAD of Seasonal Affective Disorder should be seated in a well-lighted area with expensive and billable full-spectrum lighting. Whereas regarding that other SAD, the last thing that a patient with the SAD of Social Anxiety Disorder needs is to find him- or herself in a well-lighted area surrounded by other psychos patients, no matter how bright.

To continue, if the waiting area for patients with the SAD of Social Anxiety Disorder is isolated and womb-like and dark, such an area would not be appropriate for patients with the SAD of Seasonal Affective Disorder. So nurses and patients must be aware; vigilance is your friend. Particularly if you're paranoid.

As a patient, insist on the the appropriate waiting area, and as a nurse seat the patient appropriately. At the very least, think of them as revenue streams that should be well maintained.

One more financial consideration. Patients with the SAD of Seasonal Affective Disorder tend to be more suicidal than patients with the SAD of Social Anxiety Disorder and often can be found in a line at the cashier's window of a psychiatrist's office in that they are required to pay in advance for a regimen of treatments during their depressive season, sometimes called winter. Among psychiatrists, this season is often referred to informally as St. Bart's.

In summation, as a patient or a mental healthcare professional, it is important that the SAD-SAD disorders be rigorously differentiated, particularly if you are a mental healthcare professional working in accounts receivable. The SADs of Seasonal Affective Disorder will kill themselves in a heartbeat during St. Bart's or winter. So do your best to get those payments in advance; remember that your house payment is a big chunk of change and that your boss, the psychiatrist, is asleep in her cabaña and doesn't want to hear any bad news.

We hope that this notice has been informative. VERITAS is on your side. We care. ###

11 August 2006

—B.L.

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