“It is not a disease and it has no place in a book dedicated to listing mental disorders,” write two observers in Slate, as they anticipate (dread, really… dread is probably a billable disorder too… or will soon be…) the phenomenon of our grief at the loss of people we love entering the Diagnostic and Statistical pantheon. “The new diagnosis, spearheaded by two professors of psychiatry, Katherine Shear and Holly Prigerson, at Columbia and Harvard University,” will go after melancholic malingerers, sickos who stay sad beyond happiness’s due date.

So what are the downsides of treating grief as a disease? For one thing, more people will be prescribed antidepressants that can have adverse physical and psychological side effects, including increased risk of suicide and addiction and withdrawal problems. (To date, the research has consistently shown that grief counseling and medications do not alleviate grief; they seem most helpful in the cases of people who had pre-existing mental health issues.) It also means that more people will feel shame and embarrassment about not grieving “properly” or getting over their loss fast enough. And the very language of “symptoms” and “duration” seems only to further diminish the significant event that precipitated these feelings in the first place — the death of a beloved person who can’t be replaced.

On the other hand – America’s already crawling with millions of people who shouldn’t be on antidepressants – what’s a few more? C’mon in! Water’s fine!

And there’s so much money in it. Think of it! Convincing non-mourning people they’re depressed is tricky – you need wall-to-wall advertisements. Convincing mourning people? Piece of cake.

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Once pill distribution begins, mentally disordered poems like this one will be a thing of the past:

The Eden of the Author of Sleep
By Brian Teare

for Jean

And sleep to grief as air is to the rain,
upon waking, no explanation, just blue

spoons of the eucalyptus measuring
and pouring torrents. A kind of winter.

As if what is real had been buried
and all sure surfaces blurred. Is it me

or the world, risen from beneath?
Mind refining ruin, or an outside

unseen hand, working—as if with
a small brush, for clarity—the details?

To open my eyes is the shape of a city
rising slowly through sand. Cloudy

quartz, my throat, cut unadorned
from the quarry, stone of city cemetery

and roads, to breathe is a mausoleum
breached. To think of Eden is speech

to fill a grave, tree in which knowledge
augurs only its limits, the word snake

a thought crawling in the shadow
of its body. Was it, Adam, like this

always, intellect in the mind’s small sty
miming confinement for meaning, sleep

to grief as air is to the rain, upon waking,
the world’s own weapons turned against it—

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I mean, just look at this guy, luxuriating in it (how long has it been since his dedicatee died, I wonder?), wallowing in his misery instead of getting over it!

The Eden of the Author of Sleep

By Brian Teare

for Jean

And sleep to grief as air is to the rain,

[Lost in vaporous air. Disturbing symptom right off the bat. Sleep disturbance.]

upon waking, no explanation, just blue

spoons of the eucalyptus measuring
and pouring torrents. [Describes himself as permanently under a rainstorm. Classic sign of depression. Nice assonance on the u‘s of blue, spoons, eucalyptus, by the way.] A kind of winter.

As if what is real had been buried
and all sure surfaces blurred. [Diminished sense of reality. Pre-psychotic.] Is it me

or the world, risen from beneath? [It’s you. Consult your doctor.]
Mind refining ruin, or an outside

unseen hand, working — is if with
a small brush, for clarity — the details? [Mentally going over and over the details of the lost loved person, life before, whatever. ]

To open my eyes is the shape of a city
rising slowly through sand. [Slowed thoughts – Depression 101.] Cloudy

quartz, my throat, cut unadorned
from the quarry, stone of city cemetery [Strikingly morbid poem.]

and roads, to breathe is a mausoleum
breached. [Reports feeling that every breath he takes is an approach to the loved one’s grave. Abnormal.] To think of Eden is speech

to fill a grave, tree in which knowledge
augurs only its limits, the word snake

a thought crawling in the shadow
of its body. [Hopelessness. Words seem meaningless, understanding impossible.] Was it, Adam, like this

always, intellect in the mind’s small sty
miming confinement for meaning, [Seems to feel he can only function by becoming a mental midget.] sleep

to grief as air is to the rain, [Note the recurrence of this phrase. Circular thinking.] upon waking,
the world’s own weapons turned against it— [Clear cry for help here.]