There are a lot of bitter people in the world, folks with chips on their shoulder bigger than their cars, convinced that life itself has wronged them in a such a big way that all they can seem to accomplish is complain about how much they’ve been wronged.

Those people are about to have one more thing to be bitter about:  a new mental illness named in their condition’s honor!  Post-traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED) is the proposed name for the illness in which extreme bitterness keeps a person from functioning normally.

The German psychiatrist who named the condition says its sufferers are usually good people who work hard, but experience some supreme disappointment from which they can’t seem to recover the way most people would:

Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters.

I suppose it’s a good idea to get more attention to the fact that such a condition might exist, but I don’t really think it’s likely to help those who have it as much:  they’re the people who are least likely to think they’re the ones who are in the wrong.

And being a victim is a very powerful thing.