We’ve all seen Woody Allen movies. We all know what your typical neurotic looks like. They’re constantly distressed, always worried about the consequences of their actions and the actions of others. For some, it gets to the point that they can barely function in normal social situations.
That’s the old’skool style of neuroticism, though. Our modern society has brought about an abundance of new forms of neuroticism that make the old Woody Allen-style to shame.
Hollow-Tooth Syndrome
Remember how you really needed to go to the bathroom right in the middle of your performance as Flying Monkey #3 in your 4th grade production of The Wizard of OZ? But you couldn’t get off the stage in time, so you peed yourself in front of an entire auditorium of friends, classmates, parents and teachers?
If you do remember that moment, or a moment like it, and you keep trying to forget it, but it only stays in your mind longer, that’s Hollow-Tooth Syndrome. It’s when you try so hard to forget a specific bad memory that you just end up fixing the memory in to your brain; thereby, not forgetting it at all.
The behavior is very masochistic, and it just ends up causing more damage than the initial memory could on its own. In fact, some people with rather intense cases of Hollow-Tooth Syndrome actually yell, scream or cry out the very moment the person recalls the memory.
Anglolalia
Have you ever watched or heard an interview with Madonna and wondered to yourself, “Why is that lady from Michigan speaking in a British accent?” Well, it’s because she suffers from Anglolalia, which is the uncontrollable and unstoppable need to speak as the Brits do.
There really isn’t a whole lot of science to support the phenomena that’s mostly exhibited by celebrities, but it happens and it even has a fancy little Latin-sounding name.
Of course, calling the people afflicted with Anglolaia “suffers” probably isn’t accurate because it affliction causes no pain and most of the time the person isn’t even aware that they are speaking that way. By the same token, there really isn’t a need to say they’re “afflicted” either. It’s simply a strange occurrence that there isn’t very much reason for.
Cell Yell
You know when you see a guy walking down the street and he’s yelling in to his cell phone loud enough for everyone to hear? In that time you’re probably wondering just in the hell that guy’s problem is. Well, it turns out that that guy actually does have a problem. He’s emotionally needy and, contrary to most people, he actually wants you to invade his privacy.
By speaking loudly or yelling into the phone, he is satisfying his need to let everyone know that he is dealing with an issue that is, in his mind, of grand importance. Think of it like a child acting out for attention by yelling at a parent, just instead of a child it’s probably a 43-year-old man that wants people to give him their unearned attention.
Acquired Situational Narcissism
When a person that came from meager, humble beginnings becomes wildly successful in their adult life, there seems to be a point where they begin to think that they’re the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The syndrome is characterized by a wide range of emotional swings; from rage to isolation, to a complete lack of anything that even closely resembles empathy. In some, it stems from a belief that a person would never be able to get themselves out of the meager beginnings they came from. When they eventually do get themselves out of it, they blow their power to achieve way out of proportion and grossly exaggerate their own self-worth.
Kanye West, basically.
Hathos
Pick a celebrity or politician that you hate. I mean really, really hate. The kind of hate that drives you to curse at your Tv screen whenever they appear. The kind of hate that makes you laugh whenever you hear about that person’s misfortune. The kind of hate that makes you constantly google that person’s name so you can watch random videos of them or read random articles about them, just to hate them some more.
After you’ve done all that hating, ask yourself this, did I derive any pleasure from all that loathing? If you answered with a resounding “Yes!” then Hathos is what you’re experiencing.
Simply put, Hathos is the mysterious attraction to something that you truly cannot stand.
Pronoia
If you walk around town tripping people as they walk, slapping people in the face, shooting everyone the middle finger, insulting the children of young couples, and spitting in peoples’ food, yet, you still go to bed at night thinking people love you and really like your existence; then Pronoia is what you’ve got.
Classified as the irrational belief that people like you, Pronoia is the number one cause of people getting beat up when they try to get chummy with the wrong kind of people.
Telephilia
It may sound like telephilia involves having sex with television sets, but that’s not what it is.
But when you think about it…it’s not too far off from what it really is.
Every time you watch a reality show and you see the contestants degrading themselves to the point where they’re basically lower than a worm on the food chain; or, every time you see a reality show contestant bounce from one reality show to another; or, really, anytime a friend of yours who happens to think that they’ve got enough talent to make it to the top, but in reality, they’re a talentless hack that should keep their day job, thinks they’re entitled to a spot on the glorious television; that’s telephilia.
It’s the bizarre pathological desire to be on television, regardless of how little talent a person possesses.
Twitter is pushing ahead on two fronts with just one move. The company is now launching a new Sign-Up API which allows users to sign up for the service from any third party site or app which implements it. For now, the API isn’t public but has already been implemented by online local guide Citysearch. This last bit is important as it shows one way Twitter plans to tackle the business services market. 
Raymond James strategist Jeff Saut — who believes that with credit spreads hitting pre-Lehman levels, there’s nothing stopping stocks from hitting pre-Lehman levels — has been sounding the alarm on this phenomenon for awhile
(This guest post originally appeared at the 
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