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Joy_I_Am
United Kingdom
138 Posts |
 Posted - 10/26/2012 : 07:09:38
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Hi there. Saw an interesting programme on UK television yesterday - you're probably familiar with the story in the US - about the Le Roy High School 'outbreak'.
Basically, a group of teenage girls started getting Tourette's-type tics. Parents were up in arms about what could have caused it - a chemical spill four miles from the site some years previously, some other environmental factor; Erin Brockovitch got involved. People were asking about the water, the food served at the school...
But this only seemed to afflict teenage girls from a certain social group; many of them were found to have stressful factors in their lives (one girl's mother had had repeated brain surgeries, others just had the usual stresses of teenage life). One mother claimed forcefully that her daughter's life was perfectly happy - she was a star athlete, her grades were good, she had a new boyfriend - no question that any of these kids were under pressure to maintain their grades, to perform well, to take drugs or alcohol or start sleeping with their lovely new boyfriends, of course... no question that the families were anything other than 100 percent happy!
Also, there were apparently two girls in the school with genuine Tourette's-style medical conditions before the outbreak started. One adult woman developed the condition, but it later emerged that she had suffered sexual abuse as a child, and once she started to explore this, and realised that she had been 'triggered' by the girls (who she treated as a nurse), her condition cleared up.
The daughters of parents who accepted that it could be a psychological condition gradually got better. Only one remains unable to return to school, receiving regular intravenous antibiotics for the 'Lyme disease' that was inevitably diagnosed... her family are fighting ferociously to find the 'real' cause...
So sad. But such a clear and obvious case of TMS! And once you google 'high school hysteria', it's clear it's not an isolated case.
Just sharing!  |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2012 : 07:47:37
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Yes, recall that, very interesting case, saw it on the news a while back. Like you, immediately thought TMS. Clearly an epidemeic of TMS/hysteria. I feel sorry for all the innocent parties who are being wrongly accused of contamination and having their lives also ruined needing to defend themselves from wrong-headed attacks. I'm going through a mini-version of it myself involving an absurd "mold" accusation. Very well written post BTW, J.I.A., thanks for sharing.
Cheers |
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mass hysteria
