Wednesday, February 18, 2009

DSM V Suggestion 1: Histrionic Blogger Personality Disorder

My dear and wise husband reminded me that I write this blog for fun, and not to be pithy, insightful and win the on-line version of the Booker. So, may I present to you what will hopefully be the first in a series:

Histrionic Blogger Personality Disorder: 
A pervasive pattern of excessive emotional and attention seeking blog-writing, beginning at the start of the blog, and present in a variety of on-line writing locations, such as Blogger, Twitter, Wordpress, the comments section on many other blogs, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
  1. is uncomfortable when not nominated for random meaningless online blogging awards
  2. interaction with others is often characterised by inappropriately provocative posts or comments on other blogs
  3. displays rapidly shifting and shallow cartoons, illustrations or impressions of fellow/supervising staff
  4. consistently uses appearance or existence of blog to draw attention to self
  5. has a style of writing that is excessively lacking in detail, and writes about deep and meaningful concepts at an emotionally immature level (e.g., "The patient cried, and I held her hand, which made me feel like Character X on Medical Show Y.")
  6. shows self-dramatisation, theatricality, and puts self in centre of multiple exaggerated tales of adventure, heroism and superior skill 
  7. is suggestible, i.e., constantly writes blog posts about other blogs or writes every week with the specific aim of being in every Grand Rounds
  8. considers readership to be larger and more loyal than it actually is.
Stay tuned for more tongue-in-cheek suggestions for Blogger diagnoses. May they help us remember the real criteria with a bit more ease. ;)

7 comments:

Milk and Two Sugars said...

ROFL!

The Girl said...

Glad you liked it. :)

Milk and Two Sugars said...

I really did, that's so creative. Also, there's a girl in my year who meets the criteria for histrionic personality and she's totally absolutely hooked on MySpace / blogging and cannot bear not to update as soon as she gets home from uni, and her profile photo is carefully composed showing her left side because that's her best, and all of her friends online just love hearing about how exciting but scary it is to be a medical student (nearly a doctor, OMG!)... ;)

The Girl said...

Wow, she sounds . . . fun. Keep your distance, otherwise you risk being sucked into her whirling vortex of high drama and tragedy. ;)

Dragonfly said...

Sorry to tell you, but that was pithy and insightful :-)
Hilarious...

The Girl said...

So where is my Booker? ;) Just kidding. :P

Dragonfly said...

Thought it was more Pulitzer than Booker....but I will talk to my contacts on the panel of judges and give them a hurry up for you :-)