This is the season of vacations, and let’s be honest, no matter who you are or what you do, a break from the demands of your daily existence would be welcome. Interestingly, no matter how glamorous your day job might be, research indicates that when you vacation you want to get as far away from it as you can. For example, a recent study by psychologists at The University Of Basingstoke revealed that 77% percent of NFL quarterbacks said scrapbooking is their favorite leisure activity, with interpretive dance running a distant second. Pickpockets, not surprisingly, take a break from the rigors of their job by vacationing in nudist colonies. Without a scrap of temptation to be found they are safe from themselves and can unwind, secure in the knowledge that work is not even an option. Voyeurs, by contrast, go Polar to relax – North and South – in search of climate so ferociously cold that inhabitants must stay clothed 24/7. Freed from the prison of their pathology they take up residence in the safe, warm expanse of imagination – like the rest of us.

Mental illness is a vibrant, evolving discipline that is never the same two days in a row. The skilled professionals in our midst are continually wrestling disorders and syndromes to the ground, subduing them, and teaching the rest of us how to deny them a second chance. But, to paraphrase Zig Zigler, “Every time a window slams shut on your fingers, a trap door to the basement opens.” In other words, mental illnesses are leaving us all the time, but new ones are always emerging to take their place. Indeed, without a steady stream of newly minted mental illnesses producing an endless succession of chat show guests, virtually all TV hosts would be unemployed. While the traditional wellsprings of mental illness may still be relied upon, forward thinking psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, and tattoo parlors are looking to social networking – dubbed “social nutworking” by insiders – as the greatest growth area for psychological disorders in years to come. Here are just two of the newly minted mental disorders resulting from our cultural obsession with water-skiing squirrels.

According to a recently released survey conducted by The National Association of National Associations, your choice of vehicle may be telling the world a whole lot more about you than you think, in fact, it might even reveal what, if any, form of mental illness hounds you, dogs your every step, and accounts for ruff patches in your life. Ashton Frampton, spokesman for the HMMA (Heavy Mental Motoring Association), which sponsored the study, put it like this. “While automobile ownership is not proof of insanity, we have noticed that many different forms of mental illness track closely with specific cars. To start with a very simple example, every Hum V owner in the study was plagued by delusions of other people’s grandeur.

Savvy marketers everywhere understand that branding is an essential element of market domination, sustained growth, and “share of mind”. Put simply, your brand is your customer’s opinion of you, a complete set of assumptions which influence every interaction.

If you’re anything at all like me, looking for something to watch on TV is not so much a matter of choosing the ideal option as it is determining the selection that’s least revolting. I remember a day when there were just three competing major networks, a few ridiculous UHF channels that showed Godzilla movies, and Public Television, which nobody watched. That was it. (This was before PBS became cool. Back then their only program was hosted by a lonely old man in overalls who showed viewers how to make birdhouses.) The explosion of options seemed to usher in a new age of video entertainment. There are now 100s of channels competing for the viewer’s attention and amazingly the vast majority of programming is what is euphemistically referred to as “reality TV” – which means, in English, programming that will never contain anything even remotely associated with reality. Today, you can be immersed in shallow misrepresentations of all sorts of lives including: the wretched drug-addled remains of rock “musicians” and those unfortunate enough to be related to them, exterminators, crab fishermen, ex-cons who escort pit bulls, midgets riding miniature tractors, fat campers, pathological hoarders, competitive eaters, and sewage farm attendants…among others. And so I survey this landscape of hideous refuse and deep within me swells yet again the furious resentment which can only be felt by those who have suffered beneath the cloud of stigma following me and my fellow whackadoomians and I ask – If they have time to showcase every last scrap of humanity down to the very bottom of the barrel why oh why have they no room, no time, for the mentally ill?

As Tiberius said to Caligula, “It is better to be feared than to be loved.” You history buffs out there will recall that Caligula took these sage words to heart and ruled ancient Rome with a flamboyant accent on intimidation. Was Caligula crazy? Frankly, it’s too soon to tell. But one thing is certain, in fairy tales, foreign films, comic books and ballads – crazy is way scary yes indeed. Even bad guys – (guys so bad they would tear the tag off a mattress – so thoughtless and cruel they would blabber away at the top of their lungs in a crowded Starbucks – so insensitive to the fate of our dear mother earth they would purchase and drive a Hummer!) – are frightened by the whackadoomious among us. Speaking as a card-carrying resident of Cookoopantsatopolis, I am here to tell you that all of us have been overlooking a significant strategic opportunity! Instead of feeling contrite and embarrassed about our disabilities – (or “differences” if you prefer) – let’s flaunt them! Naturally we would all prefer to be loved for who we really are, but candidly, will that be happening soon? I thought not. So, in the interim, let’s find ways to make fear of the mentally ill a wedge in the door that opens up into social acceptance.

Younger readers may be astounded to learn that physical fitness was not always admired in America, universally acknowledged as the planet’s fattest nation. Oh no! Not so long ago, smoking cigarettes was the very height of chic, pizza was considered a health food, and the ability to drink into oblivion was widely viewed as proof of character. (Extra points were awarded if you woke up in a Tijuana brothel sporting an armadillo tattoo.) Back then, there were two places where you could find exercise equipment, the YMCA and the weight rooms of prosperous academic institutions. Men who paid attention to their physiques were thought to be fabulously unintelligent, gender-ambivalent, or professional wrestlers; or all three. Women did not engage in any exercise at all other than pushing vacuum cleaners and lifting chubby infants.

When the Disney Corporation, icon of social conservatism, first actively began pursuing gay tourists, many consumers were shocked. However, hospitality industry insiders were not; they understood that, like other American businesses, Disney places profit over prejudice ten times out of ten. So, much to the consternation of Grumpy, Doc, Goofy, Minnie and Snow White, wonderlands of all things Mickey were suddenly gay-friendly and in no time at all the music of cash registers began wafting breezily through the sheets of fiberglass snow falling gently on plastic hills and valleys. Disney Corp. even bundled special events, tours, and vacations specifically for this demographic. For mentally ill Americans like me, it was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, we were delighted to see members of a beleaguered minority group finally welcomed into the inner sanctum of what passes for culture in this country. But, on the other hand, we felt our own exclusion even more painfully. When – we wondered – when would our day come?

For decades, Americans have used their automobiles as traveling billboards, plastering promotional messages across chrome bumpers in hopes of advancing a vast spectrum of causes and opinions. Why, one wonders, has the mental health community been slow to adopt this ubiquitous form of persuasion? The answer, almost certainly, is to be found in the curse of stigma, which runs so deep in our culture that the afflicted – us – would rather remain silent than boldly declare our beliefs right next to declarations regarding the intelligence of our Jack Russell Terriers. All of us at Funny In The Head would like to see Whackadoomius Americans shamelessly declare their mental health advocacy with charming bumper stickers like the following:

For days I have been tormented by blinding headaches, merciless nausea, recurrent waves of despair, and an overwhelming premonition of impending doom. At last I have discovered the source of my torment. The 2012 presidential campaign has officially begun. I am writing today from the New Hampshire hamlet I inhabit having just come back from voting in the nation’s first primary election. Returning home after exercising the franchise so many take for granted I had what people like me refer to as “an aha moment” – which is to say, I stumbled across an original thought. This is it – mentally ill people are uniquely qualified to redeem the unsightly quagmire we refer to as American politics.