8 ms·
The Diseases You Only Get If You Believe in Them
- glangdale 10y agoI like this book/article/interview for its willingness to explore (at times controversially) what Western cultural syndromes might be. So much of the coverage of 'cultural syndromes' seems to be in the Entertaining Stories of Benighted Cultures genre - snickering about penis thieves and latah.
- jameskegel 10y agoI am curious if these types of beliefs are similar to western "fad disorders"
- eon1 10y agoThat's addressed several times in the article, and the answer is yes, we're not immune to this. Calling things a fad disorder is a bit dismissive, though. They're consistently at pains to point out that whatever the person is feeling is real, even if their suffering is perhaps built upon further by their beliefs.
- dewyatt 10y agoPerhaps of interest: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/chronic-whiplash-is-a-medical-mystery/476052/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/chronic-w...
- jameskegel 10y agoThis was an interesting read, thanks. My assumption, as someone who worked with cervicospinal injuries professionally, some whiplash doesn't go away quickly because it damages areas that are largely avascular, like cartilage and bone and connective tissue which take much much more time to heal than soft tissue like the rotatores and multifidi of the neck
- bane 10y agoAnorexia nervosa is often considered a culture bound disorder. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1376499 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1376499
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- CobrastanJorji 10y agoOkay, one thing the article didn't make clear to me that maybe somebody else knows: what is penis theft? The Internet seems to think it's when people believe their penises have been shrunken or have entirely disappeared. Do sufferers believe that they don't have genitalia anymore? If you point to it, would they not see anything?
- mtempm 10y agoYou never played American Football, did you? Basically, if you have a small penis and gain weight (especially for already heavyset guys) everything around it grows while it doesn't get any bigger. This is otherwise known in the west via the not-unheard-of insult to overweight men: "You can't even see your own penis " In other words, they might imagine it shrinking into their body when their body is really just growing around it.
- justbaker 10y agoReally low self esteem it seems. I'm concerned people think this.
- brootal 10y agoSo... I live in America and I had this (or something like it) growing up. I'll never forget the first time it happened. I was 11 and we were preparing for church and I was peeing upstairs when something happened and it felt like my penis was... pulling inside me. I freaked out but was somehow able to stop the sensation. I didn't tell a soul out of embarrassment. It continued for years and was fairly debilitating. I would get the sensation when running or when I was scared. It was a bit of a catch-22 because I would get scared of it happening, so the sensation would get stronger, and I would get more scared ... If I was in a tight space, it would be worse. This was the sole reason I didn't go on roller-coasters or the like. Finally, when I was 19 or so, I stumbled upon a Wikipedia article detailing the "condition" and it's prevalence in other areas of the world. It was such a relief to know I wasn't the only person in the world to have experienced it; I honestly couldn't imagine anyone else experiencing it. I showed two of my brothers and we laughed about it. It felt good to tell someone else. I don't experience it anymore.
- aadri 10y agoWell, ADHD is one of them. We don't have ADHD in Europe (and no where else in the world).
- andrem 10y agocough http://adhdeurope.eu/ http://adhdeurope.eu/
- Qwertystop 10y agoIf I were to point fingers at ADHD at all, I'd be more likely to mark it as an example of overzealous diagnosis of normal human variance than as a culturally-created disorder. At least in the relatively high-functioning cases. (Are those stories of people with ADHD who are completely distracted by any arbitrary stimulus true? I've never heard of them closer than two or three degrees of separation from where I heard the story, and never a trustworthy source. Regardless, I don't mean those, hence "high-functioning")
- sp332 10y agoHere's how a friend of mine described it: Think about how well you'd behave if you lived your life trying to sort out the information you needed with three radio stations and five televisions all playing different things blaring at you all at once 24/7. That's kinda what it's like. If you struggle, see about medication. I resisted for years. I was afraid it would take away the sparkle. Now, medication probably isn't for everyone, and some medications will not be for certain people, but let me tell you something: life works now. My apartment is clean; I know where my stuff is; I do better with relationships; I show up to meetings early; life doesn't feel like I'm constantly on the edge of imploding. And the sparkle is far from gone. I'm still the same person. I just feel like I can actually be that person without a wall of fog and noise to constantly battle through. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155177616989700&id=557909699&ref=content_filter https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1015517761698970...
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- mtempm 10y ago>Hikikomori I believe this is pretty much agoraphobia
- bostonvaulter2 10y agoNo it's much more cultural and social than pure agoraphobia.
- freyir 10y agoThe best disease prevention in this case is to not read the article. You can't believe in these diseases if you don't know about them.
- daveguy 10y ago> “hikikomori,” in Japan, when people socially withdraw to the point where they never leave home. That's not a "made up disease you only get if you believe in it" it is a well established mental illness. Also known as agoraphobia commonly linked to severe depression. I was hoping there wouldn't be mental illnesses listed here. I was disappointed. This is the worst kind of click bait. Quackery that encourages the harmful notion that people suffering from mental illness should "just get over it".
- plorkyeran 10y ago> Quackery that encourages the harmful notion that people suffering from mental illness should "just get over it". That is the exact opposite of the author's position. Perhaps you should actually read the article.
- daveguy 10y agoI did read it. Did you? It is full of this garbage: > The more powerful those stories are, the more you believe in the root forces in them and the causal forces that are holding those stories together. In our culture it would be biochemistry, in traditional Chinese medicine it would be balancing between yin and yang, balancing the forces in the universe, in Nigerian traditional beliefs it would be the power of magic and the ability of people to manipulate that. And another: > You think when you take an aspirin that your pain relief is coming purely from the aspirin doing something biochemical in your body, but part of that's also coming from your belief in aspirin, and the knowledge that you took the aspirin. The whole article is about "placebo" disease. This is a crappy way to think about mental illness.
- aarpmcgee 10y agoWhat, in your mind, is a better way to think about mental illness?
- daveguy 10y agoAs an illness to be studied scientifically with the best medical practices available. As an illness to be closely monitored by healthcare professionals and treated with therapy and medicine if necessary. Implying that mental illness is a negative placebo does more harm than good.
- 21 10y agoIn Romania "the draft" (ie: air current when you have two open windows) is a powerful enemy which can cause many symptoms or diseases: back pain, neck paralysis, ... The "draft" can only happen inside, outside wind can't cause such symptoms. If you feel such an air current inside you must immediately close something to stop it. Damage is cumulative. A bit of draft today, a bit tomorrow, and 10 years later you are paralyzed.
- leesalminen 10y agoThis reminds me of people's beliefs of water with ice in Chile. It can cause colds, nausea and just about anything else. Chilled water is fine.
- derefr 10y agoI'm not sure of the cause, but it's a common observation in nursing homes that old people prefer stuffy air. (Not warm air; just, stuffy. High-CO2-sat air.) Given that old people also have more random aches and pains, I wonder whether that's just an instance of confirmation bias (you're old, you ache, and you want to shut the windows, so you think it's the breeze making you ache) or whether it's actually something causal (e.g. decreasing oxygen quality has an analgesic effect on the sort of inflammatory joint pains you get as you age?)
- submeta 10y agoSame in Turkey. Actually I think even in Germany ("im Zug gestanden haben." Where "Zug" = "Zugluft")
- mercer 10y agoOn the other hand, one peculiar thing I noticed about all Germans that I've lived with is their obsession with opening all their windows to 'air out the apartment'. They do this regularly (almost daily it seems) and regardless of season (freezing icy winter-wind? No matter, we need fresh air!). I've also lived with many other nationalities and none of them do this. Fascinating.
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- matz1 10y agoAt one point I thought I had some kind of gender identity disorder until I realise of how much culturally bound it is.
- booleandilemma 10y agoThere's Fan Death in Korea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
- robterrell 10y agoThat's a great example!
- ghughu 10y agoThey're diseases of the superego, not social or cultural diseases. It makes no sense to say that a culture or society can directly bring about mental illness, but it makes sense to say that a person's superego is influenced by society and culture, and it makes sense that the superego can make a person mentally ill. Otherwise, people will (correctly) argue that society and culture doesn't have that much power over a person's psyche. Just use the correct term: superego.
- ggggtez 10y agoI think you'll find Freud is largely not taken seriously. You can't use whatever model you want, but I wouldn't call it correct.
- chrismealy 10y agoI caught RSI from a coworker. 20 pages of the Sarno book cured it. Never would have believed could happen if it hadn't happened to me.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoMy roommate blames everything on invisible mold that I can't see and is impossible to detect.
- 32h8 10y agoThats funny, but also freakin scary and possible if u think about it.
- kens 10y agoI was expecting a mention of Morgellons, a disease in the U.S. where the skin is invaded by fibers. It was discussed a couple years ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925