5 January 2013 
It’s been a while since we last did a caption competition, which we use to poke fun at the stock imagery that news websites regularly use to illustrate mental health stories. In fact the last one was back in August, for which the winner appears to be Socrates. There’s no excuse for not doing this more often, especially when there’s such an inexhaustible supply.
Actually, browsing the various tabloid sites, there actually seems to be a bit of a shortage of them lately. Have news editors suddenly developed an imagination?
Then it was over to the Daily Mail, and it was back to form, where this article describes some research that suggests emotional and physical pain may be processed by the same areas of the brain.
People who feel they are constantly misunderstood may be more sensitive to pain.
American scientists have discovered that physical and social pain may be processed in the same regions of the brain, meaning one has an effect on the other.
The findings appear to work both ways; if someone is happy, they feel less pain. But if they feel miserable, they are less tolerant to it.
And to illustrate this concept, they provide these two images of people who are apparently feeling misunderstood.
As so often the case in stock imagery, you can tell that the woman in the second pic is suffering deep psychological anguish, because she’s not wearing shoes.
Also, thanks to the Mail’s ever-present sidebar, I can report that Justin Bieber is smoking a “suspicious cigarette”, and Melanie Sykes, 42, is “showing off her dazzling figure in an incredibly tight bodysuit”.
So, what are our illustrated figures saying? As per usual, give your caption suggestions in the comments thread. Vote your approval for a caption by clicking on the thumb-up icons. (Thumb-down votes will be ignored) At some arbitrary point we’ll count the votes to declare a winner.
A couple from me to get the ball rolling.
Man in pic 1: “Sorry, I can’t tonight dear. I can’t stop thinking about Justin Bieber’s suspicious cigarette.”
Pic 2: “Aaaargh, they used this game of hide and seek as a ploy to steal my shoes!”
Pic 1 – “Curse you Twitter!” thought John as he prepared to spend another night alone
Pic 2 – “91… 92… 93… hope they didn’t drive off again… 94… 95…” Sally thought during another family game of hide m seek
Pic 2: Not winning the Hanson lookalike contest was simply too much for Johnny to bear.
Top picture appears to be the result of a typical OK Cupid mating. So does the bottom one. Enjoy (but believe me, don’t bother joining)
Image 1: He’d said “no biting in the bedroom”
Image 2: “These jeans are just too small,” she wailed, “straight leg ankle swingers are not cool.”
Can I make a suggestion that if people are putting captions for both images that they put them in two seperate comments so we can give the thumbs up to both seperately? (Sorry if I’m being pedantic)
Pic 1: Well I have taken all my clothes off, gyrated in front of her while singing the theme song from the Titanic, jumped on the bed while reciting “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”, and she still won’t turn off the bloody TV!
Pic 1: But baby, that fart was fecking awesome!
Pic 2: He’s right you know, I can smell it from here. Smelly bastard!
Thumbs up for Pic 2!
Pic 1: Baby. I can’t stop looking at that … THING on your backside!”
Pic. 1: Sorry, but the voices told me to do that. They said you’d like it. Honest…
Pic. 2: If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. Fact.