This Is What I Get For Watching Daytime Television

I was just watching some television -- The Cosby Show to be exact -- and a commerical came on for pills to deal with overactive bladders or something and they referred to the condition as a "real medical disorder." It reminded me of my old rants about how baffling it is to me that people are relieved to find out that their issues are "real medical disorder[s]." For example, I was reading a book about ADD a while back and it contained all sorts of anecdotes about people being intensely relieved to find out that all their organizational problems, troubles in school, et cetera, were the result of "real medical condition."

I don't understand how that brings someone relief. Well, I guess I can understand why putting the blame for organization failings on something else can be relieving. "It's not my fault. I can't help it," but, for me, I would be extremely distraught to find out that I had a condition that caused the problems, as if I had no ability to fix the symptoms myself. I'd much rather think that I was the cause of the problems, but that I could fix them myself, than to think a chemical imbalance or whatever is the cause and it would take medication or external treatment to bring about changes.

To me the idea of a "real medical disorder" is quite the opposite of relieving, but the way the commerical put it, the overactive bladder commerical if I must remind you, the embarrassment involved with such a condition should be reduced by the idea that it's a sanctioned, official, board certified medical problem. I don't see what the difference is.