We're Gucci | 7

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[2] Previously on Hysterical.

[3] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[4] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[5] She's like, I can't.

[6] My eighth or ninth day, straight ticking and doesn't stop.

[7] That's when things got scary for everybody.

[8] She basically said, oh, well, it's all in your head.

[9] Am I going crazy?

[10] Is this really happening?

[11] That just does not fit.

[12] That doesn't land with me. That is not it.

[13] I know it's not.

[14] We broached the following question briefly at the very beginning of this series, but I feel like now, this being our final episode, we have enough background knowledge to actually hazard a guess.

[15] The Waldorf Jello salad.

[16] Is it a salad or is it a dessert?

[17] No, seriously.

[18] In the original Joys of Jello cookbook from 1963, which I own, and shut up.

[19] The Waldorf salad is made with lemon or mixed fruit or orange pineapple jello.

[20] Sounds like dessert.

[21] And it's got apples in it and walnuts in it.

[22] Dessert.

[23] But it also has celery in it and vinegar.

[24] Salad.

[25] It also upsettingly has mayonnaise on it, salad.

[26] But the recipe says the mayo is optional.

[27] Dessert.

[28] In the end, of course, it's salad, it's dessert.

[29] It's neither.

[30] It's both.

[31] Honestly, it's dealer's choice.

[32] Such states of in -between this work for something like Jello.

[33] The stakes are gloriously low.

[34] But when a mystery illness is tearing through your town, settling on labels and definitions takes on a little more import.

[35] We're not just trying to categorize our lives here.

[36] We're looking to stop this thing from spreading, and we're looking for a cure.

[37] But how do you solve a mystery illness that no one can agree on?

[38] On today's episode, this is how it ends, and also in a way how it never will.

[39] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[40] From Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, this is the conclusion of hysterical.

[41] Episode 7 were Gucci.

[42] I think I was one of the youngest girls in the whole group of everybody and everything.

[43] You all know, Emily.

[44] Emily was in eighth grade and in the marching band when this all happened and her tick started.

[45] Hers were mostly a big jerk of the head and arm.

[46] So I kind of felt alone for the most part because like all the other girls were, Like, they were friends with each other and, like, they knew each other and everything.

[47] And I was like, oh, I'm kind of alone in this.

[48] But, like, I know I'm not alone, but I'm alone in this.

[49] Did you think that this is how you were going to be forever now?

[50] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[51] I'd walk home from school and I'd be like, man, I'm never going to be able to drive because I'm doing this.

[52] The thing that struck me was just that there was no build up to her having tics.

[53] It was just like instant.

[54] It was like a switch had been flipped.

[55] Remember, Emily's mom, Kathy, was weirded out by the fact that almost everyone was going to the same doctors, the ones at Dent Neurologic Institute nearby.

[56] She wasn't totally opposed to the idea of conversion disorder.

[57] She wasn't like anything but that.

[58] But there were so many voices and so many theories, she didn't know who to believe.

[59] Kathy's 13 -year -old daughter, Emily, started to tick just two weeks ago.

[60] So they did the TV thing, looking for answers that way.

[61] They explored different doctors, different natural remedies were prescribed, even a juice.

[62] So, I mean, it was juice.

[63] It was 100 % natural, and we thought it can't hurt.

[64] I still crave that juice.

[65] Not going to lie, it was really good.

[66] You crave it?

[67] Oh, all the time.

[68] Tastes good didn't do much.

[69] But they kept trying.

[70] There was no, like, right thing to do.

[71] It was just, let's try this.

[72] All right, that didn't work.

[73] Let's try this.

[74] That didn't work.

[75] Let's try this.

[76] Until eventually.

[77] Ding, dang, ding, we got a winner.

[78] Through this little network of all the parents talking to each other, I got connected with the mother of one of the girls.

[79] She said, we got in contact with this doctor from New Jersey, New York City area.

[80] This is Dr. Triffletti.

[81] This is Dr. Trifoletti.

[82] Dr. Rosario Trifoletti is a pediatric neurologist.

[83] And they said, well, he's an expert on pandas.

[84] Pandas.

[85] P -A -N -D -A -S.

[86] Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder associated with Strep.

[87] With pandas, a child develops psychological and neurological symptoms after a lingering strep infection.

[88] Symptoms that can include obsessive -compulsive behaviors and Tourette -like ticks.

[89] It's rare and was only identified as an illness in 1998, so still a lot of unknowns about pandas.

[90] But this new doctor seemed confident that it might be a match.

[91] He's willing to travel here to Leroy to see these girls free of charge.

[92] And I thought, well, what's it going to hurt?

[93] It's another doctor.

[94] It's another opinion.

[95] Let's go for it.

[96] Local neurologists who've seen the Leroy teens believe they are suffering from conversion disorder, a psychological condition.

[97] Another specialist disagrees, and he has traveled to test the high schoolers for a bacterial infection.

[98] So in late January, at the height of the outbreak, and the day after Bob Bocock and Team Brockovich exploded into town, Dr. Trifoletti arrives.

[99] They probably pass each other in the street.

[100] And he meets with nine of the affected kids and their families, including Kathy.

[101] He kind of sat with us all together in a big group and was explaining what Pandas is, why he thinks maybe there's a connection there.

[102] He says, and I'd also like to do blood tests if you all agree to it, you know.

[103] And I was like, okay, makes sense to me. Blood tests sounds like a good idea.

[104] If there's no infection in her bloodstream, then we can say, yeah, it's a conversion disorder.

[105] If there is an infection, then we can say it's something.

[106] You know, so I was like, let's test her.

[107] And I think it was maybe less than a week later, we got the results back that Emily had evidence of walking pneumonia.

[108] Triffoletti makes a public announcement.

[109] He says he has found elevated levels of strep antibodies in four.

[110] five out of the eight girls tested.

[111] And he found elevated levels of mycoplasma pneumonia antibodies in seven of the eight girls.

[112] He couldn't quite call it pandas.

[113] Pandas is related to strep, and they found more than that.

[114] So based on his findings, Trifoletti announces that he is ready to give this mystery illness a name.

[115] Leroy syndrome.

[116] Then he begins treatment.

[117] And it was steroid, anti -inflammatory, which was ibuprofen, and I believe there was something to treat the infection.

[118] Like antibiotic?

[119] Like an antibiotic?

[120] And I don't remember 100 % on that one.

[121] But I remember it was heavy on the ibuprofen and the steroid was one of those ones where you start heavy and taper off.

[122] And it took her 11 days and the symptoms were gone.

[123] No more sudden headjurks.

[124] No more flailing on.

[125] arms.

[126] No more ticks.

[127] And I thought, okay, what else?

[128] There's the proof.

[129] There's my evidence to me. That was just like I closed the book on it.

[130] This is what it was.

[131] But let's take a beat for a minute.

[132] Does all this make sense?

[133] After all this time and all this grief, could it really be that simple?

[134] So Pantas does not square with you.

[135] It didn't pan out for my patience.

[136] Yeah.

[137] Dr. McVig, the neurologist at Dent, had already seen 14 of the affected girls, and she says that she had already ruled out pandas.

[138] Now, I can't speak of the four that I didn't see, but when you look at the literature and you compare it to evidence -based medicine, absolutely did not fit with pandas.

[139] Those patients did not.

[140] Here's the first problem.

[141] The presence of strep antibodies in and of itself doesn't mean pandas.

[142] In fact, test any random group of kids for strep or other lingering bacterial infections, and as many as half or more are going to come up with elevated levels, especially during winter, especially in a place like Leroy, where snowfall gets measured in feet and keeps everyone inside and germy for months.

[143] Also, unlike conversion disorder, pandas is a disorder that appears overwhelmingly in boys, not girls.

[144] Also, pandas is a pediatric disorder.

[145] happens to children.

[146] All the known affected people in Leroy were past that stage.

[147] They were teenagers and a woman in her 30s.

[148] Also, Pandas is not contagious.

[149] So is this the correct diagnosis for what's happening in Leroy?

[150] A non -contagious, very rare disorder that occurs mostly in prepubescent boys?

[151] Even, let's say, it's pandas.

[152] Why is it all young, healthy, previously healthy girls.

[153] They don't have autoimmune disorders.

[154] They don't have a weakened immune system.

[155] For all of them to have it concurrently at the same time, in the same school, that's just logically, like, let's just think about this people.

[156] Eventually, Trifoletti says he treated six of the girls based on his diagnosis, and he says all six saw improvement.

[157] Emily is cured completely.

[158] So here's the big question.

[159] If Trifoletti's diagnosis is wrong, Why would the treatment for it work?

[160] Well, some people suspect, okay, I suspect.

[161] I suspect that what Triffoletti has to offer isn't necessarily the right answer, but something may be just as useful, an answer that's easier to believe in.

[162] You know when something makes sense, like...

[163] This is Alicia.

[164] You remember her.

[165] She was one of the satellite cases that had popped up after she and her softball team passed through Leroy, and she came down with symptoms.

[166] Alicia, too, went to see Dr. Trifoletti.

[167] See, I might not have, I'm the same way with movies.

[168] I might not remember lines or scenes perfectly, or at all, really.

[169] I have an awful memory.

[170] But I remember how things feel.

[171] That's, like, what I go by, like, how I felt on the inside.

[172] That's what I can remember.

[173] And when she saw Trifoletti?

[174] I just remember feeling a little more at ease.

[175] Just in his presence, I just felt a little bit more at ease and heard.

[176] And I was maybe optimistic, too, that he would have.

[177] have more answers, which he did.

[178] I feel like he almost was like the voice of reason sometimes, you know.

[179] Kathy describes a similar feeling.

[180] Just what he said, just to me, it made sense.

[181] It just felt like an answer and a possibility.

[182] And if nothing else, I was like, at least it's somebody who's like seems sincere.

[183] And just for the fact that he traveled here, he's doing it free of charge.

[184] like that's that spoke to me that was like telling me that hey this is somebody who at least seems concerned for their well -being so did anybody suggest that it was the placebo effect that yeah that be that they had treated the pandas with with these things but because she believed in it she got better um we did follow -up blood work after like a few months later and it showed no infection in the blood.

[185] And I was like, okay, so no infection in her blood, no ticks.

[186] I see that as a connection.

[187] And there was just a lot of people that still insisted, no, it's conversion disorder.

[188] And I said, I've got my answer.

[189] Like, it worked.

[190] So I'm not going to dig anymore.

[191] And even Dr. McVig acknowledges the diagnosis that she's offering, conversion Disorder is almost more confusing than no answer at all.

[192] She says she saw this play out in one of the families who resisted conversion disorder, who really just didn't want to hear it.

[193] So this family wanted there to be something more other than this is an emotional, social, emotional issue and we need to do some internal introspection and calming and relaxation techniques and felt like I was hokey and, you know, that this wasn't genuine on my end.

[194] there must be something medically or someone to blame or someone to sue.

[195] It's a hard thing to look at self.

[196] It's harder than blaming others.

[197] I do not to say it does strike me as something that I can relate to, like, to go to the doctor and you're having these things happen to you, and for the doctor to look at you and just be like, look at self.

[198] Like, that's hard to hear because that's just more fucking work.

[199] And you're a teenager, too.

[200] Because that's just like a nightmare.

[201] Who wants to look at themselves when you're 16, right?

[202] When I was 16, I don't know if I had the, I don't know if I had the capacity to, look at myself.

[203] Tonight we have some news.

[204] Tell it, Dr. Drew.

[205] Some of the girls, apparently have gotten better over the past three weeks.

[206] Some did have antibiotics, and the question is to what extent that they played a role here, or was this a placebo or something else.

[207] And perhaps what Tripholetti was really offering was an off -ramp from all the craziness that had come to surround the mystery.

[208] We tried to ask Tripholetti about all this.

[209] He in his office told us multiple times he won't talk about what happened in even though it's got to be said headlines about his involvement are still splashed all over his website and i understand conversion disorder worked it was accurate for those other girls that it worked for as long as they were satisfied with that answer i didn't that's fine that's fine for them and then there was still the group that legitimately had this pandas -like infection And it was just happened to be this terrible, perfect storm of a situation.

[210] You know, they were in a little terrarium together, and this is what happened.

[211] So, in the end, it's mass psychogenic illness and it's Leroy syndrome.

[212] It's a salad and a dessert.

[213] It's neither.

[214] It's both.

[215] It's dealer's choice.

[216] But are we satisfied to just Waldorf -Jello salad this thing and call it a day?

[217] Not quite yet.

[218] There's one more Leroy girl I want you to hear from.

[219] This person never made it into any of the news reports.

[220] You never saw her face on TV.

[221] She never even caught the Tourette's -like symptoms that had spread through the high school so ferociously.

[222] Because this person had already been dealing with Tourette's syndrome itself for years.

[223] And she ended up in the center of it all.

[224] What if your partner developed 21 new identities, or you discover that your friend who helped you through the darkest times was actually a conniving con artist?

[225] Or what if you began seeing demons everywhere, inhabiting people around you, including your son?

[226] What would you do?

[227] I'm Whit Misseldine, the creator of This Is Actually Happening, a podcast that brings you extraordinary true stories of life -changing events, told by the people who lived them.

[228] In our newest season, you'll hear even more intimate first -person accounts of how regular people have overcome remarkable circumstances, like the man who went to jail for 17 years for accidentally shooting the person who tried to save his life, to a close friend of the infamous scam artist Amanda Riley.

[229] These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you, this is actually happening.

[230] Follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad free on Wondry Plus.

[231] You know, in the days of the witch trials, they too had a way to solve an unsolvable mystery, an A -B test that gave an answer every time.

[232] When someone was accused of being a witch and the question was, is she or isn't she, some places would use a test called Swimming the Witch.

[233] And it's simple.

[234] They would tie you up and throw you in a pond.

[235] If you float, you're a witch.

[236] If you sink, you're not a witch.

[237] You're tied up at the bottom of a pond now, but no one thinks you're a witch.

[238] swimming a witch was effective not because it gave a rational answer it is of course craziness but it did give them an answer no in between and it gave a town someone to pin all this unpleasantness on some poor buoyant witch who they'd pull out of the water and perhaps hang on a hilltop nearby there's at least one human instinct we can all recognize when it's too difficult to sit with the unanswerable the next best thing is finding someone to blame.

[239] I was first diagnosed when I was about eight years old.

[240] I had started this weird facial twitch thing.

[241] And, you know, we went to the doctor and she looked at me and she's like, yep, that's Trest.

[242] Let's send you to NURL.

[243] This is Rose.

[244] But looking back at it, now knowing that information, we can notice ticks that I had as young as like two and three years old.

[245] The development of Rose's ticks as a kid came gradually.

[246] It's a common marker for Tourette's syndrome.

[247] As opposed to the sudden onset of the mystery illness in Leroy.

[248] Other differences, you've got to have multiple ticks for at least a year for it to be considered Tourette's.

[249] Also, Tourette's occurs overwhelmingly in boys rather than girls, but not for Rose.

[250] In 2011, she had just entered eighth grade at Leroy High School.

[251] I mean, I had always had very prominent ticks from the time I was diagnosed.

[252] Like, I had facial twitches.

[253] I would go through spurts where I would be throwing things.

[254] I was always very loud.

[255] Like I always have very loud vocal tics.

[256] You will always hear me. Everybody always knows who I am.

[257] Can I ask you, how disruptive did you feel?

[258] Like, when you say you were taking a test and you'd, like, throw a pencil, like, did it feel like you were getting in other people's way?

[259] I wasn't worried about being the weird kid that needed extra testing.

[260] I wasn't worried about being the weird kid on meds.

[261] Like, everybody's a weird kid for some reason.

[262] That was just my thing.

[263] And I was fine with that.

[264] But then the arrival of the mystery illness.

[265] or, as Rose might have called it, attack of the clones.

[266] Like, I can remember sitting in school and someone looked at me and was like, oh, did you hear like so -and -so caught your tics?

[267] And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[268] Like, I was just confused.

[269] I'm like, dude, how, what?

[270] Like, what do you mean?

[271] Somebody caught my, is it?

[272] What?

[273] In fact, you can't actually catch Tourette's.

[274] It's not that kind of disorder.

[275] So, yeah, like Tourette's in itself is not contagious.

[276] Like, I have two brothers.

[277] Neither of them are ticking.

[278] I'm not like, I don't need to be quarantined in a little bubble.

[279] Like, I work around people's food every day.

[280] Nobody else has Tourette's, like, we're Gucci.

[281] But, like, Tourette's can be suggestive in the sense that when you're around other people that tick, you tend to tick more.

[282] That's when Rose says she became the target as the obvious source for all of it.

[283] Because that was it immediately, immediately.

[284] It was, you're contagious and all this stuff, like, right from day one.

[285] Who was saying that?

[286] I mean, at first it was the kids.

[287] started with just the kids.

[288] It was, oh, you're contagious.

[289] Oh, she caught it from you.

[290] Oh, blah, blah, blah.

[291] And I'm like, I'm just trying to go to school, dude.

[292] But like, nobody stood up and was like, hey, this isn't their fault.

[293] Don't blame them.

[294] Like, not once.

[295] Did an adult say that's not how that works?

[296] This isn't their fault.

[297] Leave them alone.

[298] People were like yelling at me in grocery stores.

[299] Like, like, and again, I'm 14.

[300] Grown -ass men would walk up to me and scream at me for causing this in the middle of a grocery store.

[301] Like, wow.

[302] And then there was the Horde.

[303] Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[304] Cameras and reporters everywhere and approaching the girls outside the school.

[305] And I just kept being like, this is not me. Like, I am not a part of this.

[306] Leave me alone.

[307] Like, the only thing I could really tell them was that I had threats and it wasn't contagious and I didn't know what was going on.

[308] And then they'd leave me alone after that because, oh, you're not a medical mystery.

[309] That's not what we want.

[310] no literally that's what it was as soon as i was like i have a real answer for you they were like no we're done we're good and at the same time the stress of it all is making rosa's Tourette's ticks worse much much worse so i had a tick where i would punch myself right here in the face over and over over and like i and your chin that was your tip like my tick was literally to like cold cock myself and like with force not just like with force so i had fractured part of my jaw line And another one of my ticks, I have permanent damage in my right eye because my other tick was to punch myself in the eye.

[311] I was literally beating the shit out of myself.

[312] Rose developed a kicking tick that was so severe she began coming to school in a wheelchair.

[313] I had a tick for a little bit where I would slam my head off the table.

[314] I had to get sent home one day with like a goose egg on my forehead because I would just like bang my head on the table.

[315] And I was going through that while all of this was going on, while all of the other tick stuff was happening.

[316] And that was all starting for me. And that's when Rose says that the school took action.

[317] And so the school was like, well, none of these other girls take when Rose isn't around because she's not there to start it.

[318] So they pulled me out of all my classes.

[319] And I was doing all of my classes in the sound booth for the auditorium.

[320] Like it was like this little like closet like thing.

[321] And we'd go to my class.

[322] I'd get my class work.

[323] And then I'd go sit there and do my class work so that none of the other girls could hear.

[324] hear me tag.

[325] So you would go get your classwork and then you would go sit in a soundproof audio booth.

[326] Yes.

[327] Yep.

[328] Yep.

[329] And do your work.

[330] Yes.

[331] I was like, you guys are alienating me for something I've been diagnosed with something you know about.

[332] And I don't have what they have.

[333] And I haven't caused what they have.

[334] You know, I remember being told the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

[335] And right now you are the few.

[336] I was told that by an adult at Leroy Central School district and I just remember okay all right that that sucks I guess like that sucks what do you do with that you go home and cry about it and then go to school the next day you know I took that one on the chin I just kind of said you know what okay hurt wow needs of the many needs of the few you know who coined that phrase Carl Marks, FDR?

[337] You proceed from a false assumption.

[338] I'm a Vulcan.

[339] It was motherfucking Spock.

[340] To James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise, Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan.

[341] In any case, we're I to invoke logic.

[342] Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

[343] It's a harsh logic.

[344] But, hey, Spock's a harsh guy.

[345] with harsh bangs.

[346] But more than that, he's a logic guy.

[347] He's the logic guy.

[348] That's his whole bit.

[349] But is that the logic we're going with in this situation?

[350] The one girl who actually has a diagnosis, a diagnosis that isn't mass psychogenic illness, and she's the one we put in the audio booth all day, the de facto padded cell?

[351] Is logic even the thing to be grasping for here at all?

[352] Did it feel like mass hysteria?

[353] It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me. Like, I don't think, like, I know I wasn't contagious.

[354] I know it wasn't bad tampons.

[355] I know it wasn't yucky water.

[356] But I didn't necessarily know what it was.

[357] And I knew that it wasn't my job or problem to figure out.

[358] And I knew that the reason everything was such a shit show was because everybody decided they were a detective and tried to figure it out instead of letting the people that knew what they were doing try and handle it.

[359] You know, had everyone stepped away from the beginning and let the professionals try to figure this out, I don't think it would have gotten as bad as it did.

[360] It's probably the most frustrating paradox about mass psychogenic illness.

[361] It seems the harder we try to figure it out, the reporters, the soil tests, the town meetings, the pontificating, the brocoviching, the worse the outbreak gets.

[362] I'm not sure there's a way around it.

[363] If I were a parent, I'm sure I'd be ransacking the Mayo Clinic looking for an answer.

[364] But it really does seem to be the thing that puts the hysteria in mass hysteria.

[365] We tried to talk to the school about what happened to Rose.

[366] and about any of how they reacted when the mystery illness showed up in Leroy.

[367] They declined.

[368] And so in terms of what the truth of what happened 10 years ago, you're still not sure.

[369] I'm not, and I don't ask.

[370] It is.

[371] It was.

[372] It's done.

[373] Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.

[374] I kind of get why they used to blame witchcraft for events like the one that happened in Leroy.

[375] It's contagious, it's unexplainable, and it's scary as hell, all things that bring out the worst in us.

[376] It feeds off our attention, and yet it's totally impossible to ignore.

[377] It's not hard to imagine some witch behind a tree laughing her ass off, which, frankly, we would have had coming after the whole pond thing.

[378] But there's another quality to it.

[379] It's one that's hard to acknowledge when we're in the throes of an outbreak.

[380] But when the stakes are a bit lower, it's easier to spot.

[381] Anyone speak French?

[382] No worries, what's about to happen runs deeper than language.

[383] It's a French talk show, candy -colored set, studio audience, perky host, panel of guests.

[384] And the topic of today's show, people with unusual laughs.

[385] Like that one.

[386] Everyone on the panel has some sort of bizarre laugh.

[387] There's another one.

[388] Unleashed by a panelist after hearing that weird one before it.

[389] And maybe you can guess how all this is going to evolve.

[390] People have genuinely lost control.

[391] Even the host is helpless.

[392] I still laugh every time I watch it.

[393] Across time and space and screens.

[394] Maybe you're laughing too.

[395] A contagion.

[396] Of all the meanings of the word we've explored, this is my favorite hysterical yet.

[397] How the contagion here is almost magical, even if we can't quite fathom why our minds tether themselves together like this, and why it feels so good.

[398] I've come to see that it's no less magical when instead of a laugh, it's a symptom, a distress call of sorts, sent out by one person and picked up by another, who doesn't just mimic it, but experiences it themselves.

[399] And then another and another, a human chain connecting each to something larger.

[400] A couple of years ago, at a sheep farm in Inner Mongolia, several sheep begin doing something strange.

[401] They begin walking in a circle.

[402] Not walking around the edges of their pen so that it looks like a circle, they're actually walking in a perfect circle, and they don't stop.

[403] Soon, they're joined by more sheep and more sheep, till there are hundreds of them circling, like pilgrims around a holy shrine, for 12 days straight.

[404] Experts have theories as to why, but no pat answers.

[405] It's a mystery.

[406] In 1987, a female orca is spotted off the coast of Washington, state, swimming around with a dead salmon on her head, wearing it like a hat.

[407] Why?

[408] You'd have to ask her.

[409] But soon, the behavior spreads to other orcas in her pod, and to other whales in other pods nearby, all swimming around wearing fish like hats.

[410] It goes on like this for about six weeks, and then they all just stop.

[411] No more salmon hats.

[412] No one knows why.

[413] These kinds of things, These uncanny, unexplainable connections, they occur in the natural world all the time.

[414] And we are part of that natural world.

[415] And apologies to Spock, but forcing rationality can sometimes be the most irrational thing to do.

[416] So, like, I volunteer at Tourette Syndrome camp every summer, right?

[417] Wow.

[418] Yeah, and I love it.

[419] It is one of the best things I do with my life.

[420] Case in point, Rose.

[421] Every year.

[422] It's so amazing.

[423] But we all tick so much.

[424] more because we're all ticking.

[425] Does that feel good or bad?

[426] Oh, I love it.

[427] Like we said, Tourette's is suggestive.

[428] One ticking person being around another can make the symptoms worse for both.

[429] Now, imagine dozens and dozens of them.

[430] Like, I, you know, when you go to camp and all these kids, like, a lot of times it's the first time they're around somebody else that has it, and so they just go ham.

[431] And it's the funniest thing.

[432] But instead of resisting, they just let it happen.

[433] They don't hold back.

[434] It is so worth every second of it because you are having the best time and you are around your people.

[435] And the other thing is there's something called tick shopping.

[436] That's the actual name for it.

[437] And you can pick up other people's ticks.

[438] They're not just aggravating each other's symptoms.

[439] They are sharing them, passing them back and forth unconsciously.

[440] There's still so much about Tourette's that's unknown.

[441] But these kids are able to revel in the mystery of it.

[442] Even if only for one humid, buggy, wonderful weekend in the day.

[443] the summer.

[444] So I always have to take, like, the day after camp off, because I'll come home with God knows what takes, doing what.

[445] Like, it's, it's the, it's the, but it's like the best feeling ever.

[446] It is the best feeling ever.

[447] The line between contagion and connection is a thin one.

[448] Sometimes barely there at all.

[449] Eventually, the mystery illness in Leroy followed the pattern of many mass psychogenic illnesses over the centuries.

[450] It flared up, it caused havoc, and it faded away.

[451] way.

[452] It died down in part, it seems, because the attention died down.

[453] The TV appearances dried up.

[454] The camera crews tiptoed away.

[455] The headlines got smaller.

[456] Almost starving hysteria from getting the attention it needs to survive.

[457] At the height of it, Dr. McVig and her colleagues even asked the TV stations to stop showing video of the girls taking on the air because that was potentially how it was spreading.

[458] A couple local stations actually did.

[459] Dr. Drew did not.

[460] And in the spring, many of the affected kids began to improve.

[461] Some with Dr. Triffeletti, more with Dr. McVig.

[462] So the kids that started to get better, there were some that got better right away.

[463] And honestly, did not want to be involved with anything at all.

[464] Like, they were out.

[465] They were done respectfully.

[466] Did it get, I wonder if the media, if the craziness actually were just like, you know what?

[467] I'm out.

[468] I'm out.

[469] I feel better.

[470] They did.

[471] And there was a handful that it happened.

[472] As time passed, it also became clear that in some of the individual cases, there seemed to be more stress and trauma than many of the girls had been willing to let on, especially on national TV.

[473] And there was a lot of stuff that evolved at that point in time that was not revealed to me about stressors that they had in their life, that now the event was quote unquote over or ending, that they actually felt like they had internal permission to tell me, oh, by the way, you know, I was struggling with my sexual ideas.

[474] identity.

[475] Or, oh, by the way, I had this internal family conflict.

[476] Or, oh, by the way, this happened at school and someone accused me of this.

[477] And it was pretty profound.

[478] And, you know, it was like, wow, that would have helped me in the middle of this crisis to understand where you're coming from.

[479] Even Dr. Triffeletti, the panda's doctor from New Jersey, even he was surprised.

[480] When told by Times reporter Susan Dominus about some of these traumatic situations, Trifeletti said, quote, geez.

[481] I didn't realize the extent.

[482] I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

[483] It's hard to distinguish between the drug and the placebo effect.

[484] As far as what I believe happened, I believe it's impossible to say what each individual girl experienced.

[485] Each one really did have their own symptoms, their own comorbidities, their own aggravating circumstances.

[486] But as a group, as a town, as a collective, I think it was mass hysteria, a mass psychogenic illness, and among the rarest of kind.

[487] to affect so many with such prominent symptoms for such a sustained period of time.

[488] That's not an accusation.

[489] It's an acknowledgement that, yes, something truly scary happened in Leroy, New York, but also something truly remarkable.

[490] By the time graduation arrived and summer break was upon them finally, the sickness was all but gone from Leroy Jr. Senior High School.

[491] The yearbook makes no mention of how jacked that whole year had become.

[492] And that letterboard sign in town at the church that just a few months earlier read we're praying for our Leroy High School girls, its letters got rearranged.

[493] Now it said, Leroy, still a great place to live.

[494] How are you doing now?

[495] Better.

[496] I feel, yeah, yeah, I feel better.

[497] Emily's symptoms went away, but the memory of them, and of that time, still looms large in her mind.

[498] Do you have a tick?

[499] No. And I think about it I'm like I do because I still think about it to the same I'm like this just like came and went almost like a season basically like a like almost like a Netflix season like you got nine episodes here you go run with it how come I still don't do this like what did we do like how am I am I fixed am I gonna something gonna happen I'm gonna hear some noise and that's gonna set me off or it's just still kind of like question mark.

[500] Number one, I don't have conversion disorder.

[501] I never did.

[502] Alicia also rejected conversion disorder.

[503] She accepted Triffeletti's diagnosis, but only is one part of a larger series of health problems that she was dealing with.

[504] Last year, she got her master's in social work, and now advocates for kids with autism.

[505] I absolutely love it.

[506] Really?

[507] Oh, yeah, because they're another population that's often dismissed and not heard and not advocated for, don't get the services and treatment that they deserve.

[508] People ask me all the time.

[509] They're like, well, do you wish you didn't have it?

[510] And I'm like, I can't fathom that.

[511] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[512] Rose, of course, never had it at all.

[513] But she still has Tourette's, and she's still mostly okay with it.

[514] Like, are there times where I could wish I could just shut the hell up?

[515] Like, yeah, do I miss a movie theater?

[516] Absolutely.

[517] But, like, I think I'm good.

[518] Like, because it would just feel funny.

[519] It would just be weird to just be still and quiet.

[520] I can't.

[521] It doesn't.

[522] doesn't click in my head.

[523] Rose still sees Dr. McVig to help manage it.

[524] And it's just so funny now to be on the adult side of it, but still seeing her to be able to look back and be like, bro, that was some shit.

[525] Like, you know.

[526] In the end, the only person we talked to who really embraced conversion disorder, Marge, the 36 -year -old nurse and mother.

[527] I went through the Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and I did the work, and I saw her three times a week for what felt like forever.

[528] It always does.

[529] And as for why, it's more common among women than men?

[530] I don't know why.

[531] It's mostly women, but it's why are there more male serial killers than female serial killers?

[532] Well, shit.

[533] Marge left her job in health care and now works in sales online.

[534] And she sells appropriately enough vibrators.

[535] It's not just vibrators.

[536] I'm telling you, we have an excellent line of bath products.

[537] You are beautiful for morning tonight.

[538] I will give you my card.

[539] That's nice to hear.

[540] And how else can I help out hysterical women other than selling them a great vibrator?

[541] Follow hysterical on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[542] You can binge all episodes early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wonderry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[543] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery .com slash survey.

[544] And if you have a tip about a story that you think we should investigate, please write to us at Wondery .com slash tips.

[545] Hysterical is a production of Wondery in Pineapple Street Studios.

[546] Our lead producer is Henry Molloski.

[547] Our associate producer is Maria Alexa Kavanaugh.

[548] Producer, Sophie Bruey, Bridges.

[549] Managing producer, Aaron Kelly.

[550] Senior producer, Lena Mazzis.

[551] Additional production by Zandra Ellen.

[552] Diane Hotson is our editor.

[553] Our executive editor is Joel Lovell.

[554] Fact -checking by Natsumi Ajisaka.

[555] Mixing by Hannes Brown.

[556] Our head of sound and engineering is Raj Makija.

[557] Original music composed and performed by Dina McAbee.

[558] Legal services for Pineapple Street from Crystal Tupia.

[559] For Wondery, our senior producers are Lizzie Bassett and Claire Chambers, coordinating producer Mariah Gassett, Senior Managing Producer Callum Pluse.

[560] Special thanks to Elliot Adler, Pedro Alvira, Robert Bartholomew, Keona Barnwell, J. Ann Barry, Grace Coen Chen, Ryan Feldman, Barry Finkel, Ben Goldberg, Mark Hallett, Courtney Harrell, Jonathan Mink, Marina Pais, Jennifer Sanchez, Michaela Squire, Virginia Swenson, Charlie Tar, and to CNN.

[561] Hysterical is written and executive produced by me. I'm Dan Tiberski.

[562] Our executive producers for Pineapple Street are Max Linsky, Henry Malafsky, Asha Saluja, and Jenna Weiss Berman.

[563] Executive producers for Wondery are Morgan Jones, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent.

[564] Thanks for listening.

[565] We've all been there.

[566] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[567] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[568] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[569] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[570] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[571] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[572] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[573] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.