The last time I left you, I was talking about gas, and not the kind that you put in the tank either, although speaking of the one that you put in the tank, it’s costing an awful lot lately, isn’t it? And you know where that hurts, most, the worst: the wallet, which brings me to the subject of today’s post.
Category
Anxiety Disorders
Etiology
By definition, sudden wallet awareness disorder is a result of a traumatic event in which the person, usually male, suddenly — hence, the term “sudden” — becomes aware — hence, the term “awareness” — that he doesn’t know where his wallet — hence, the term “wallet” — is located and responds in a manner not dissimilar to the seven stages of grief as defined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her seminal work “On Death and Dying.”
Symptoms
So symptoms include:
- Shock or Disbelief: “I can’t believe I lost my wallet again.” Or even the person’s significant other commenting to the effect: “I can’t believe you lost your wallet again.”
- Denial: “I didn’t lose my wallet.” Or again even the person’s significant other commenting to the effect: “Don’t tell me, you lost your wallet again?”
- Bargaining: “Why couldn’t I have lost something else like a pen? I mean, I’m always losing them. Why not a simple Dollar Store pen?”
- Guilt: “I’m always losing my wallet.”
- Anger: “Where’s the *@!#$#! thing? I just had it a moment ago.” And the significant other’s response: “I don’t know, but I’m not helping you because you all go through this and it’s always in the stupidest place.”
- Depression: “I don’t know if I’ll ever find it, and if I don’t, the world will end in a fiery cataclysm.” Or the significant other’s response: “What’s the worse that can happen? Will the world end in a fiery cataclysm?” And your response, “Dammit, yes.”
- Acceptance and Hope: “I guess I’ll just have to accept that it’s lost forever and hope that a criminal doesn’t find it on the street and decide to use my identity or my credit card or my library card and start checking out books that the NSA might find seditious.”
Also like Acute Stress Disorder, other symptoms include:
dissociative symptoms such as numbing, detachment, a reduction in awareness of the surroundings, derealization, or depersonalization; re-experiencing of the trauma — where’s the last place I put it? that usually solves everything — avoidance of associated stimuli, and significant anxiety, including irritability — usually accompanied by the f-word, poor concentration, difficulty sleeping — if God forbids that it last that long, and restlessness — maybe if you just sit down and think about where you left it last, you’ll remember — which by the way never works. [italicized definitions added by author].(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition – Text Revision (DSMIV-TR), 2000, as cited at
AllPsych.com, 1999-2003)[1]
But unlike Acute Stress Disorder, symptoms don’t have to take that long to arrive. Symptoms can be present for a minimum of two seconds to a maximum of 24 hours, at which time you have to call to cancel your credit cards, and you don’t have to check out the entry: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Treatment
The disorder may resolve itself with time just as the wife says it will — It will show up sometime — or may develop into a more severe disorder, not PTSD, but close. If you’re going to self-medicate yourself during this point, hard liquor (a personal favorite: Jagermeister) is highly recommended as that always clears your head of everything.
Prognosis
Like Acute Stress Disorder:
Prognosis for this disorder is very good. If it should progress into another disorder, success rates can vary according to the specific of that disorder.(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition – Text Revision (DSMIV-TR), 2000, as cited at AllPsych.com, 1999-2003)[2]
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[1] “Acute Stress Disorder in Anxiety Disorders at ALLPYSCH Online. (1999-2003). Retrieved April 28, 2008 from http://allpsych.com/disorders/anxiety/acutestress.html
[2] Ibid.
To learn about every disorder under the sun, and then some, visit Humor-Blogs.com. It may cost you your sanity if you don’t visit. Of course, if you do visit, it may cost you too.
