Last week as I was driving my son to a tennis tournament in Nashville, we both laughed at what we initially thought was an SNL-type spoof on talk-radio. About five minutes into the “sketch,” we realized these guys were serious. “Dr. Expert” was explaining a newly-discovered psychological condition called, “Intermittent Explosive Disorder.” When someone goes postal in traffic, it is no longer about self-control or stress, and it is not that he just “had a bad day.”
It is now a psychological disorder, that may require therapy and probably needs to be medicated. Of course it should be covered by government health care. When a man yells at or beats his wife, she is not the only victim, because he is a victim of “Intermittent Explosive Disorder.”
As we listened to this psychological expert, my son and I realized that the boys who occasionally cheat on the tennis court with bad line calls, are not really cheating, they are actually suffering from a yet to be discovered condition called, “Intermittent Bad-Call Disorder.” It also explained what happened to my son in another tournament: “Intermittent Double-Fault Disorder.”
Being a disorder, double-faults have nothing to do with lack of practice or focus. Then there was that guy on center court who was obviously suffering from “Intermittent Cursing Disorder,” a condition that often leads to “Intermittent Racquet-Throwing Disorder” resulting in warnings and point penalties if the roaming tournament ref happens to witness it. We were both thankful that miraculously, without the help of therapy or medication, my son was not afflicted with “Intermittent Disappearing-Back-Hand Disorder” in this tournament.
I always had a hint that there were invisible and uncontrollable psychological forces behind most of the bad behavior on the tennis courts. Thanks Doc, you really helped me understand the unsolved mystery of a teenage boy on the tennis court.