Nearly 30 years after a psychiatric study first described and named the syndrome, scientists are confirming the psychologist who discovered Seasonal Affective Disorder’s acronym, SAD, is still pretty fucking proud of himself.
“You should have seen the hacky names these losers who did 95% of the work on this study were calling this shit in our pitch session—Vitamin D Deficiency Disorder, Winter Calciferol Conundrum, Seasonal Hypomania – I was like ‘Ugh, like what kind of scientific study copywriting agency are we running here?’” said psychologist Dr. Norman Rosenthal, recalling his fateful day of peak scientific wordsmithing genius. “And that’s when it came to me: After I cut off a chick on the team who came up with the term ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’, I was like, ‘And we’ll call it SAD for short! Get it? Because the people who have it are sad.’ Mic drop, and my work there was done. Best believe I got top-billing on that study.”
Although Dr. Rosenthal said his discovery of the acronym wasn’t complete luck, it also requires a level of genius that’s hard to replicate — and he does wish he could have.
“Think of where we’d be now if PMS had just been named Menstrual Affective Disorder, or MAD for short,” Dr. Rosenthal gazing with regret at photos on his desk of all four of his ex-wives. “But, hey, not every scientific study team has got someone with the kind of sharp, interdisciplinary literary skill that eventually gets you published in the DSM-5.”
At press time, Dr. Rosenthal just wanted to make sure we knew he was the one who started calling the South Lake Union Trolley “S.L.U.T.”
