4 ms·
Is it so surprising that he wouldn't have been considered mentally ill, especially at the time? Imagine someone who's generally affable, who can more or less ho
by quotemstr 5y ago
Is it so surprising that he wouldn't have been considered mentally ill, especially at the time? Imagine someone who's generally affable, who can more or less hold down a job, who speaks in complete sentences, obeys the usual social rules about manners, dress, and speech --- an ordinary guy --- except that he has a habit of eating a variety of unusual objects. Would you consider him eccentric or would you go straight to mental illness?
I think we're too eager to medicalize personality quirks nowadays. Traditionally, a mental illness is a set of behaviors or beliefs that impair one's general functioning in society. Mere weirdness doesn't count.
- iqanq 5y ago
- maze-le 5y agoOr starving... Dogs, cats and corpses is pretty mild compared to what happened to people during the "Great Leap Forward" or the "Potato Famine" (or any other famine or prolonged siege in history)...
- caminante 5y agoNot comparable :-). There weren't other "Tarrares" around "surviving."
- iqanq 5y agoThat is part of the illness. He was not starving.
- OJFord 5y agoWhat makes you say that? He weighed 45kg at 17 despite the appetite. (Unless you're using an annoyingly rigid definition of 'starving' I suppose, that precludes just about anyone in any developed country experiencing it; in which case yes, fine, true, not the point.)
- crooked-v 5y agoSomehow he was noticeably underweight despite eating prodigious amounts regularly. Who's to say he wasn't experiencing the physical and mental symptoms of starvation?
- serf 5y agohe was thought to have a damaged amygdala leading to hyperthyroidism, and his autopsy discovered exudative diarrhea common among IBS/UC sufferers. One illness increase metabolism and appetite, the other diseases decrease absorption across the board. I think it's a fair assertion given the behavior and the medical nuances that he likely felt a pretty powerful hunger.
- lifeformed 5y agoOkay yes, but... eating a toddler is crossing a line.
- mandernt 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zwkrt 5y agoWell it is true that weirdness is more of a mental illness over time. The more society becomes rigid and codified and dense, the less room for weirdness to exist, as there are more ways to be transgressive and more people to transgress against.
- nrdgrrrl 5y ago
- gambiting 5y agoStephen Fry's podcast on Victorian England has an episode on exactly this - there was no concept of "disabled" person back then. Either you were "abled bodied" or not. Someone who could work and provide for their family was considered "able bodied", even if they were physically disfigured, missing limbs, having some mental illness or any other issues - if you can be a functional member of the society then you're able bodied.
- dematz 5y agoIt's interesting that in the British navy, "Able" seaman was not about disability as we would think about it at all (even though they would, like, climb up ropes or whatever sailors do). It seems much closer to how we'd think of junior engineer/engineer/senior engineer in terms of increasing experience.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]