“DSM-5: The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis”

Does that read like a movie poster headline to anyone else?

DSM-V, The Movie: Let No One Escape Diagnosis!

I can see the plot now: “Tim Feltcher’s new job lands him in the town of DSM-V, a quirky little settlement amid dozens of other settlements across the American Midwest.

Upon settling down and living in the town for a few days, however, Tim notices there’s something odd about it. His office mate spends an obscene amount of time in the bathroom washing his hands. His neighbor shouts at imaginary passers-by and often warns him of bats flying through the neighborhood, even though there are never any to be found. His new girlfriend, Becky, stutters incessantly; his boss is too afraid to come out of his office for board meetings.

Tim wonders how he could feel out of place in a town so full of strange and different people. Then one night, just before he drifts off to sleep, it hits him: he is normal.

It isn’t long before Tim is contacted by Steve, a masochist who claimed that he escaped the town because “he no longer fit the manual.” Curious, Tim breaks into Town Hall late one night and discovers, under the floorboards of the mayor’s office, a large book. After strategically dodging the sleepwalking mayor, Tim gets away with the book and meets up with Steve.

It turns out that the people of the town live by the book—that every individual who resides there must be diagnosed with at least one disorder mentioned. The disorders are inflicted upon people by telling them they’re exhibiting problematic symptoms and then placing them on a series of placebo vaccines that help create the illusion that they truly are sick and require treatment. Steve recalls that the book has been revised multiple times, and that back when DSM-III became DSM-IV, he was able to escape between the time that his old diagnosis had been removed and a new one had been put in its place.

Tim decides right then and there that he has to get out of DSM-V. However, the next day he is brought to the mayor’s office and told that he’s been showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and that he must be given vaccines to help combat the further “infection” of the illness. Upon looking for the book, the Mayor discovers it missing! Tim jumps out of the office window [insert overly dramatic movie scene here], sprints back to his apartment, grabs the book, and rendezvous with Steve on the outskirts of town.”

OH GOD,  IT’S A CLIFFHANGER PLOT, HOW WILL THEY SAVE THE TOWNSPEOPLE?!

Haven’t thought about that part yet. Maybe they burn the manual.

Hey, at least I didn’t make a poster. A possible NaNo, but no poster.

Today’s song: Raise Your Hands by Bon Jovi