But ROGD totally doesn't exist

[Zeev]

www.wsj.com/articles/teen-girls-are-developing-tics-doctors-say-tiktok-could-be-a-factor-11634389201

Apparently young girls are developing Tourette-type tics after watching TikTok videos of such.

This is an odd one - gender identity hasn't really taken hold where I live, yet my son says multiple children at his high school have tics. Nobody had tics in my day.

Yeah, I've seen this in kids. I thought it was weird at first, I couldn't figure out what was going on.

They read all these things about self-diagnosis of this and that. Medicalizing themselves in various ways seems to be the modern equivalent of taking personality tests in teen magazines or doing a myers-briggs profile.

@Diaryofamadwoman

This is an odd one - gender identity hasn't really taken hold where I live, yet my son says multiple children at his high school have tics. Nobody had tics in my day.

I read about Tourette's in an Oliver Sacks book. But it is supposedly very, very rare.

Obviously only a fool would be taken in by the myth of social contagion in girls:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_laughter_epidemic

dr Grande on youtube has a video about this

I'm beginning to wonder whether the perception gulf isn't between those from the pre-Internet era and those from post, but rather those from the social media era when information came from algorithms based on a constructed profile and those from before that time.

@nauticant

I'm beginning to wonder whether the perception gulf isn't between those from the pre-Internet era and those from post, but rather those from the social media era when information came from algorithms based on a constructed profile and those from before that time.

An excellent question.

‘Mass hysteria’ still remains a contemporary psychiatric diagnosis, and is known to happen relatively frequently - especially in schools and other similar communities (and especially amongst girls). There are also other psychogenic conditions where sufferers seem to be experiencing something akin to internet-induced mass hysteria - look up “Morgellons disease” if you have never heard of it - fascinating!

If you know a bit about these kinds of psychological conditions, it becomes very easy to see how gender ideology works as a form of social contagion producing something very similar. These kinds of psychosomatic or psychogenic pathologies arise every so often in different forms, and often then disappear again when the historical conditions change.

Not many young women with mental distress are displaying the classic stigmata or the “arc en cercle” of the nineteenth century these days; but other kinds of forms of manifesting mental illness have taken their place.

I posted another version of that story a few weeks back I think.

I'm 20, grew up online, and it blows my mind that people say ROGD is a myth even after looking at the online behaviour of groups of young girls.

I've always been able to tell who in my friend group spends the most time on the internet, and which circles they hang out in, just from the way they talk and express themselves. If you give me like five minutes with anyone aged 12-25 I can probably predict their views on gender (if not their entire gender identity) from their stock phrases, mannerisms and language choices. It is seriously that easy for us, because these intense online circles do alter behaviour. I've noticed my own mindset/outlook on life/philosophy changing dramatically within a 2-year-period purely based on the websites I use day to day ffs.

It's natural for people to mimic the behaviours, opinions, identity markers, speech and movement patterns of those they perceive as their community, even if that community is online. Unsure why this phenomenon is supposed to exclude more serious self-identified conditions such as gender dysphoria.

If anyone's read anything about anorexia/bulimia forums, Tumblr circles valourising anxiety/depression, even (on the flipside) 'studyblr' where young women motivate each other to revise - it's all the same! These behaviours are being spread in the same way - teenage girls get together, become close and glamourise them! But somehow gender dysphoria is this magic inborn condition which only exists deep within. Suddenly being thrust into a community where all the most praised and powerful people are 'trans' somehow does absolutely nothing to warp a young person's thinking.

This type of thing had been doing the rounds since Kitty was a cat. Stories of fainting fits, hysteria... mostly young women/girls isn’t it?

Also - just think back to when Australian soaps became very popular and the voices be an to rise at the end of a word. Also the whole ‘California stoner’ talk, like when, y’know, people started, I’m, talking...like... y’know, shaggy from, like scooby... doo?

Try this: The Town that Caught Tourettes:

All girls except for one adult woman, if I recall correctly.

Their physical symptoms are really reminiscent of the shell shocked soldiers of WW1

@NoWireHangersEver

I posted another version of that story a few weeks back I think.

I'm 20, grew up online, and it blows my mind that people say ROGD is a myth even after looking at the online behaviour of groups of young girls.

I've always been able to tell who in my friend group spends the most time on the internet, and which circles they hang out in, just from the way they talk and express themselves. If you give me like five minutes with anyone aged 12-25 I can probably predict their views on gender (if not their entire gender identity) from their stock phrases, mannerisms and language choices. It is seriously that easy for us, because these intense online circles do alter behaviour. I've noticed my own mindset/outlook on life/philosophy changing dramatically within a 2-year-period purely based on the websites I use day to day ffs.

It's natural for people to mimic the behaviours, opinions, identity markers, speech and movement patterns of those they perceive as their community, even if that community is online. Unsure why this phenomenon is supposed to exclude more serious self-identified conditions such as gender dysphoria.

If anyone's read anything about anorexia/bulimia forums, Tumblr circles valourising anxiety/depression, even (on the flipside) 'studyblr' where young women motivate each other to revise - it's all the same! These behaviours are being spread in the same way - teenage girls get together, become close and glamourise them! But somehow gender dysphoria is this magic inborn condition which only exists deep within. Suddenly being thrust into a community where all the most praised and powerful people are 'trans' somehow does absolutely nothing to warp a young person's thinking.

Excellent analysis. I'm a lot bit older than you but from late primary school onwards was locked into the online world and the increased sophistication of the online algorithms mean it is substantially worse for your generation.

The Tumblr style of #thinspiration tags and the way it encouraged (and continues to encourage) young women in particular, to identify into particular groups which come with set behaviours that unsurprisingly enough, these girls suddenly seem to develop. Tumblr was eventually forced to do something about the pro-anorexia sub-culture but no action is being taken against the gender dysphoriac culture. Indeed, it is a movement which is openly celebrated by Tumblr and promoted to their users.

There was a ‘trend’ for self-harming in my high school when the Gemma-from-Hollyoaks storyline was on the TV in the early 00s. People would come in in the morning and compare wounds, sit at the back of the class scratching words in to their legs using a compass or a pair of scissors. Without in any way invalidating the experiences of those who self-harm due to psychological trauma, it was so clearly social contagion in this instance that the school ended up having to step in. Really disturbing example of this sort of behavioural pattern from 15-20 odd years ago, and I can absolutely see how it could happen now, and in an even more pernicious way.

There's an interview (not available publicly) with the author of this book about some similar phenomena. I didn't agree with her on all points but it was intriguing and educational (it sent me scurrying to look up various items).

www.panmacmillan.com/authors/suzanne-osullivan/the-sleeping-beauties/9781529010558

Synopsis
'In my view the best science writer around – a true descendant of Oliver Sacks.' – Sathnam Sanghera, author of The Boy with the Topknot

In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, high school students develop contagious seizures. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees complain of headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night.

These disparate cases are some of the most remarkable diagnostic mysteries of the twenty-first century, as both doctors and scientists have struggled to explain them within the boundaries of medical science and – more crucially – to treat them. What unites them is that they are all examples of a particular type of psychosomatic illness: medical disorders that are influenced as much by the idiosyncratic aspects of individual cultures as they are by human biology.

Inspired by a poignant encounter with the sleeping refugee children of Sweden, Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan travels the world to visit other communities who have also been subject to outbreaks of so-called ‘mystery’ illnesses.

From a derelict post-Soviet mining town in Kazakhstan, to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua via an oil town in Texas, to the heart of the Maria Mountains in Colombia, O’Sullivan hears remarkable stories from a fascinating array of people, and attempts to unravel their complex meaning while asking the question: who gets to define what is and what isn’t an illness?

Reminiscent of the work of Oliver Sacks, Stephen Grosz and Henry Marsh, The Sleeping Beauties is a moving and unforgettable scientific investigation with a very human face.

O’Sullivan’s beautifully written book interweaves the stories of those afflicted in this way around the world, in a travelogue of illness that is ultimately a travelogue of our own irrational, suggestible minds . . . It is a measure of how effective O’Sullivan is at describing the dilemmas and difficulties of treating psychosomatic conditions that, by the end, a visit to a witch doctor begins to feel like the most sensible medical intervention in the book. - Tom Whipple, The Times

O'Sullivan travels the world collecting fascinating stories of culture-bound syndromes, which she relays with nuance and sensitivity. - Alice Robb, New Statesman

By making social problems visible on the body, O’Sullivan believes, these conditions allow voiceless people to make themselves heard. Perhaps this eloquent and convincing book will be the start of making people in authority listen, make change and help. - Katy Guest, Guardian

@GuckGuckDoose

There was a ‘trend’ for self-harming in my high school when the Gemma-from-Hollyoaks storyline was on the TV in the early 00s. People would come in in the morning and compare wounds, sit at the back of the class scratching words in to their legs using a compass or a pair of scissors. Without in any way invalidating the experiences of those who self-harm due to psychological trauma, it was so clearly social contagion in this instance that the school ended up having to step in. Really disturbing example of this sort of behavioural pattern from 15-20 odd years ago, and I can absolutely see how it could happen now, and in an even more pernicious way.

My sister was the year above me at school. When she was in sixth year there was a trend for the ‘cool girls’ to self harm - this wasn’t ‘a thing’ in my year though. There was also a ‘gay tribe’ too. My year had some computer geeks, and girls who seems to want to be Debbie Harry.

@GuckGuckDoose

There was a ‘trend’ for self-harming in my high school when the Gemma-from-Hollyoaks storyline was on the TV in the early 00s. People would come in in the morning and compare wounds, sit at the back of the class scratching words in to their legs using a compass or a pair of scissors. Without in any way invalidating the experiences of those who self-harm due to psychological trauma, it was so clearly social contagion in this instance that the school ended up having to step in. Really disturbing example of this sort of behavioural pattern from 15-20 odd years ago, and I can absolutely see how it could happen now, and in an even more pernicious way.

We had this exact same trend in my high school, also early 00s. Imagine if the response had been that some people need to self harm and to offer counselling to help them stop was denying their existence as self barkers.

I was at school in the 90s, at a girls’ comp, so there wasn’t even much evidence of eating disorders. My sisters were there at the time when self-harm was a real fad. These things kept appearing and disappearing depending on fashion - like the pro-ana webrings of the early 2000s. It’s just clearly obvious when you look at the sudden increase in girls with gender identity issues that there’s an element of social contagion.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus I'm reading a book by her now, called It's All in Your Head: Stories from the Frontline of Psychosomatic Illness. Really interesting stuff.

If you're interested in that, another good one is Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the Western Mind by Ethan Watters

At my school it was one friendship group where they all became anorexic. Coincidence? These things always make me think of the film The Beguiled.

There's been some previous threads on this, but I don't have them saved.

Iirc quite a few tweeters made the analogy; possibly (?) Oliver Burkeman too?

@GuckGuckDoose

There was a ‘trend’ for self-harming in my high school when the Gemma-from-Hollyoaks storyline was on the TV in the early 00s. People would come in in the morning and compare wounds, sit at the back of the class scratching words in to their legs using a compass or a pair of scissors. Without in any way invalidating the experiences of those who self-harm due to psychological trauma, it was so clearly social contagion in this instance that the school ended up having to step in. Really disturbing example of this sort of behavioural pattern from 15-20 odd years ago, and I can absolutely see how it could happen now, and in an even more pernicious way.

At my school it was eating disorders, who could eat the least and the most restricted diet. Our school was next to the local leisure centre so we would go and use the gym facilities at lunchtime instead of eating! I had a friend who would eat one boiled egg a day and she was the inspiration for most girls.

Agree with NoWireHangers too and you make some excellent points about SM. I just don't know how people can say something that has always existed amongst young girls doesn't happen.

I was listening to the Unspeakable podcast when the Dr was doubting that it exists but at the same time says gender disphoria has increased almost 100 fold in young people and her patients are now almost exclusively girls. Do they not question that?

Sleeping Beauties is an excellent read - I definitely recommend it. And pertinent to this debate.

My DD age 15 has ROGD and Tourettes. She recently went on a weekend away with a tourettes group and came back with loads more tics than normal. She says even watching someone with tics on youtube makes her tic more.

Gender dysphoria, anorexia, self-harm, attempting suicide, these are all things that have been shown to be socially contagious among teen girls. Only gender dysphoria, wearing binders which damage your body, leading to taking drugs and having surgery is encouraged. When I tried to draw this parallel with my teen eg if your friend was going to self harm, would you encourage them and give them a blade? She was outraged and said it's not the same. It totally is.

I expect this sells an awful lot of pharma. One way or another.