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If you're the parent of a teen, dealing with peer pressure is just part of the job. We expect to be nagged on a daily basis about our kid's desperate need for the newest iPhone or whatever (everybody else has one!). That said, I kind of doubt the parents of those 12 high school girls who all suddenly came down with a mysterious Tourette's-like syndrome thought peer pressure could be to blame.
Still, if Dr. Laszlo Mechtler's theory is correct, it is an extreme sort of peer pressure that's making the girls sick: Mass hysteria.
Mechtler, an Amherst neurologist who's been treating several of the afflicted students, says mass hysteria (otherwise known as conversion disorder) is the most likely explanation for the outbreak:
"It's happened before, all around the world, in different parts of the world. It's a rare phenomena. Physicians are intrigued by it. The bottom line is these teenagers will get better."
That last bit is good news, of course, but as a parent, the thought of your kid succumbing to mass hysteria isn't exactly a comforting one. We all know teens can be a bit too open to suggestion, especially when that suggestion is made by somebody "cool." It's one thing if your kid's urgent desire to "fit in" leads to an obsession with expensive clothing or gadgets.
But a "movement disorder" characterized by tics, outbursts, and sudden stuttering? It's like the Salem witch trials all over again. Most modern scholars point to mass hysteria as the driving force behind the frenzy (though others think a hallucinogenic plant fungus was the culprit).
Of course there are more recent examples of dangerous teen copycat behavior, too: How about those incredibly sick, sometimes even fatal "games" kids are into these days involving reckless driving, violence, prescription medications, and the like? Or the pregnancy pact supposedly made by a group of Massachusetts girls?
Just one more reason to focus as much parental energy as possible into raising strong, independent kids who think for themselves. Kids who value their worth as unique individuals. Kids who can spot a stupid trend when they see one.
Do you think mass hysteria is the cause for this unexplained outbreak?
Image via Svenstorm/Flickr
Comments (17)
No.
Probably more like mass environmental poisoning.
My daughter is the only one in our school w/this issue and it happened months prior to these girls. So mass hysteria doesn't really seem correct. My daughter twitched in her sleep, makes that weird noise in her sleep & has massive, body numbing headaches. Doctors don't seem willing to search anymore and instead just write kids off as imagining things.
The only thing I know about this is from a story I caught yesterday on GMA. Two of the girls were interviewed with their moms. And the moms said that, although doctors and scientists have "tested" the environment of the school, and looked at the girls' bloodwork, nothing has been shared with them. In my uneducated opinion, that smacks of "coverup" to me.
I understand that sometimes things happen with our health that can't be explained easily with a blood test. And I understand the huge role that stress can play in any person's life. But for 12 people to react the exact same way, with the exact same symptoms (the twitching and verbal outbursts), that speaks more about an environmental pollutant - whether in the air, the water, food that was served, whatever - than to stress. Because people react differently to stress. This is too local a thing for it to be attributed to "stress". I would be more understanding if it was 12 girls across the country. But this is 12 girls in the same school.
To be honest, when I first heard about this, that's the first thing I thought of. So much of it doesn't make one bit of sense. If it's environmental, why aren't more kids showing signs? Why aren't there any adults showing signs? I mean, if it's environmental and the school's doing, teachers are there way longer than the kids are. If it's not environmental why aren't younger or older siblings sick? Why aren't there other symptoms?
And I haven't heard anything about this, but it seems pretty convenient to me that the symptoms are all things that COULD BE controlled, if this isn't actually real. As in, there are no fevers, no constant throwing up, no aches or pains, no muscle spasms, no bloodshot eyes, no high RBC or WBC counts, etc...nothing that can't be physically controlled.
Teenagers, sometimes especially teenage girls, are absolutely drama-driven little nutcases. And of course every parent thinks, "Not my kid!" Trust me, as a hs teacher for over a decade, EVERY parent thinks that, and every parent is almost always wrong.
COVER UP...
EVERY parent thinks that, and every parent is almost always wrong.
~~
Comments like that piss me off to no end. Instead of investigating and sharing information with parents, this is what they're told...it's your kid. You don't know your kid, I do, I see them at school, I know them.
No, you do not. You know an aspect of them, but you do not know them. The terror on my daughter's face when she was throwing up and inhaling at the same time b/c of a body tic was not fake and I don't think these kids' are faking either...for drama. Their entire lives change b/c of what is going on, not for the better.