#sociogenic illness

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: John D. Haltigan, Tamara M. Pringsheim, Gayathiri Rajkumar

Published: Feb 2023

Abstract

There has been an increasing recognition among both medical and psychological professionals, as well as the public media, of a concerning trend for child and adolescent users of audiovisual-based, algorithmic social media platforms (e.g., TikTok) to present with or claim functional psychiatric impairment that is inconsistent with or distinct from classic psychiatric nosology. In this short communication, we provide a detailed historical overview of this transdiagnostic phenomenon and suggest a conceptual model to organize thinking and research examining it. We then discuss the implications of our suggested model for accurate assessment, diagnosis, and medical-psychiatric treatment. We believe there is an urgent need for focused empirical research investigation into this concerning phenomenon that is related to the broader research and discourse examining social media influences on mental health.

Abbreviations

ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder; FTLB, Functional tic-like behaviors; MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder; NSSI, Non-suicidal self-Injury; OCD, Obessive-Compulsive Disorder; TS, Tourette's Syndrome.

--

The global burden of mental illness in children and youth is a leading cause of disability globally, accounting for ∼13% of the total burden of disease in this age group [1,2]. Notably, this estimate excluded personality disorders given limited epidemiological data at the time, suggesting that the global burden of mental illness and children and youth is likely underestimated. There are robust sex differences in the expression of common clinical, personality, and behavioral traits and disorders, especially during adolescence (e.g., females:neuroticism and depressive/internalizing disorders and symptomatology; males:aggression and antisocial/externalizing disorders and symptomatology [[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]]). However, greater understanding of the overlap among their symptom expression and sex-linked prevalences, as well as their social and biological correlates is needed. Recent quantitative work examining their symptom overlap has enhanced insight into the transdiagnostic dimensional structure of common clinical and personality psychopathology [[13], [14], [15]].

At the same time that our understanding of transdiagnostic relations among common clinical and personality disorders and symptomatology has progressed, there has emerged an increasingly urgent need to understand the magnitude and developmental significance of social media use on mental health [[16], [17], [18]], especially during adolescence given it is a critical developmental window during which emotion regulation capacities are unfolding [12,16,17,[19], [20], [21], [22]]. The urgency of this need has been magnified by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic which has been associated with increased social media use and perceived individual social isolation and psychological/psychiatric distress [[23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]], including suicide-related mortality [29].

One social media site that has received increasing media and research scrutiny as a potential conduit or ‘spread vector’ for mental illness symptoms and disorders is TikTok [[30], [31], [32]]. There has been a well-documented uprise in popular content creators with self-described tics or Tourette's Syndrome (TS) and other self-diagnosed mental health symptomatology on the TikTok platform [[37], [71]] leading some to characterize the phenomenon as “TikTok's sick-role subculture” [30]. This uptick has coincided with increasing numbers of youth who have presented to clinical providers or psychiatric services during the COVID-19 pandemic with what have been termed functional tic-like behaviors (FTLBs) [31,33,34]. Similar phenomenon has also been recently chronicled with respect to dissociative identity disorder (DID) [35].

These more recent examples of mental health-related issues appearing with notable penetrance in the social media ecosystem have emerged within the context of a broader fusion and coalescence of individual self-diagnosis, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, autism, and gender identity-related conditions on social media platforms, perhaps most notably on the social media site Tumblr during the first decade of the 2000s [36], but also Instagram and most recently on TikTok as well [[37], [38], [39]]. The continued evolution of this trend underscores an urgent need for increased understanding of the influence of social media on mental health, including its phenotypic clinical presentations and the possibility that increasingly algorithmic social media platforms may serve as a vehicle of transmission for social contagion of self-diagnosed mental illness conditions. Moreover, a greater understanding of the contributions of both personality and common clinical psychopathology to the ways in which social media platforms impact, facilitate, and ultimately inform the emerging debate about the definitions and contours of what is and is not considered mental ill-health is needed.

1. Audiovisually immersive social media: TikTok

TikTok was initially launched as a platform for users to post short clips of dancing, singing and comedy. The social media app launched in 2018 and had approximately one billion active monthly users worldwide by 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this number increased. TikTok has a distinct algorithm, which allows users to receive content tailored to them, based on their preferences, interests and current state of mind. Depending on the length and type of interaction on a post, TikTok algorithms curate an audiovisually entertaining, sensory-immersive stream of personalized videos to their "For You" page.

User content on TikTok has evolved from the app's launch, with more content creators advocating for awareness surrounding issues such as feminism, mental illness, body positivity, disabilities, and gender identity. Notably, there have been many accounts that have received millions of views for their journey with their disability and/or mental illness, especially TS. These accounts have grown in popularity and their content has appeared to gain widespread traction as viewers engage with the content and learn how content creators perform everyday activities, while having tics that can largely affect their functionality in day-to-day life.

2. Before TikTok: Tumblr and the origins of online identity fandoms

Tumblr is a social media network that was founded in 2007, reaching peak user popularity in early 2014 based on the number of daily blog posts [36,40]. The creation of ‘fandoms’ (fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc. regarded collectively as a community or subculture) provided users who typically were seen as outcasts, a sense of community and belonging, as demonstrated by its company's mission statement; “Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your people” [40]. Journalist and internet historian Katherine Dee has written “Tumblr became a place for people to fantasize and build upon ideas about real identities. There was an aesthetic dimension, a dimension of roleplay, a feeling of camaraderie with others—but it was often pure fiction [41].” This identity element was also noted as a feature of social media more broadly: as Moreno et al. [39] noted “Social media also allow users to create online identities that may reflect their real identity or a newly-developing identity.” Mental health content such as eating disorders and depression, along with numerous other common clinical mental disorders, were often disclosed on Tumblr [36]. Accounts promoting eating disorders, self-mutilation, and suicide became popular and with half of Tumblr's visitor base being under the age of 25, raising concern for the potentially deleterious effects of social media use on adolescent mental health. Tumblr implemented a policy against blogs of this nature in 2012. Similar issues also manifested on the social media platform Instagram where non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) content and corresponding NSSI-related identities became a concern [39].

3. Personality and common clinical psychopathology: mental illness as identity-selection?

3.1. Tics, Tic DO, and Tourette's syndrome (TS)

An increasing number of reports from the US, UK, Germany, Canada and Australia have noted an increase in functional tic-like behaviors (FTLB) both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with an increase in social media content related to Tourette syndrome and tics [[31], [32], [33], [34],[42], [43], [44]]. These FTLBs differ from classic Tourette syndrome (TS) both neurotypically and phenotypically. Neurotypically, FTLB age of onset (typically 12–25 years) is later in development relative to classic TS with onset in early childhood and improvement of tic behavior in late adolescence. Phenotypically, FTLBs are characterized by an abrupt and explosive presentation of symptoms over hours or days of mostly complex phonic and motor tic-like behaviors with high severity, with many patients able to provide the exact date of onset or inciting event. In contrast to the rostro-caudal evolution of motor tic symptoms which develops over years in TS, FTLBs often predominantly affect the upper limbs, with complex movements of the arms and hands, including clapping, sign language, throwing objects, banging oneself on the chest, head or thigh, or hitting other people.

In TS, motor tics usually precede verbal tics, with the most common vocal tic being throat clearing, and less than 15% of those diagnosed with TS ever developing any complex vocalizations. In contrast, complex vocalizations are a prominent feature of FTLBs, including a large repertoire of random words, phrases, or offensive statements. Tourette's Syndrome is a highly prevalent disorder in youth, affecting approximately 1% of school-age boys and 0.25% of school-age girls [45]. The mean age onset of tic symptoms is approximately 6 years of age for both males and females as is the peak clinical presentation (when received at a specialist clinic) at 10 years of age. Some studies suggest there is a small but significant difference in tic severity between boys and girls, with girls having slightly more severe and more persistent tic symptoms with a higher resolution of tic symptoms in late teens for boys [46,47].

A large majority of those demonstrating FTLBs are adolescent females, which also forms a core user group of TikTok. Patients with FTLBs are also more commonly diagnosed with anxiety and depression, than those with TS which frequently co-occurs with neuropsychiatric conditions such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) [33,34]. FTLBs are in keeping with a Functional Neurological Disorder in the context of anxiety and depressive symptoms and diagnoses, and more broadly with affective dysregulation. Many presenting to psychiatric clinics have also noted they have seen popular videos on Tourette's syndrome and have since started sharing the same tics [32].

3.2. Dissociative identity & other mental disorders

A similar phenomenon has been observed in individuals with self-diagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or adjacent quasi-psychiatric terms such as “person with Dissociated Identities” and “plurals” [35,48]. Indeed, the evolution of the online culture associated with DID or multiple personality disorder (MPD) has been richly chronicled [49]. The pluralist's online culture is an umbrella moniker that includes five distinct languageidentifiers regarding the etiology of Plurality defined by Plurals themselves including: (1): Traumagenic-Adaptive; (2) Traumagenic; (3) Traumagenic-Cultural; (4) Endogenic; and (5) Exogenic [35]. Notably, the endogenic and exogenic identifiers were identifiers created ‘de-novo’ and have no relation to empirical nomenclature. Based on these identifiers, three groups of plurals have been described. While the first two groups are related to conventional psychiatric clinical interpretations of and empirical research into DID (e.g., as potentially trauma-based), the third group is a pseudo-psychiatric group that includes those who identify as plurals but as not disordered [35].

Hashtags such as #DID, as well as #borderlinepersonalitydisorder and #bipolardisorderhave received millions of views, and popular content creators post videos capturing them ‘switching alters’ (i.e., plurals). Impressions from both the lay public and clinical professionals have converged in the observation that a salient feature of this emerging DID and self-diagnosed mental illness social media posting and discourse is that it has a distinct appearance of being romanticized, glamourized, and sexualized (or possibly malingered) [[48], [49], [50], [51], [52]]. Accordingly, this may be one explanation for why many users claim to have ‘rare’ disorders like DID (with prevalence estimates ranging from 0.01% to 14% depending on sample characteristics and the methodology used to assess DID; especially among children the disorder is extremely rare [[53], [54], [55], [56]]), as well as the emergence of a ‘plurals community’ for DID. Such plurals communities include non-traditional peri-psychiatric non-disordered notions of DID that community members have created on their own and are liberated from conventional psychiatric nosology. It has been noted that non-diagnosed (or undiagnosed) claims of DID can negatively impact others in the DID plurals community who have clinically diagnosed DID and are seeking functional reintegration as a therapy endpoint [35].

4. Diathesis-stress: an integrative model of vulnerability towards understanding social media, personality-identity confusion, and psychopathology

Although many social media users and online community members will be exposed to both media and community content that reflects peri-psychiatric conditions or self-diagnosed conditions, most will not adopt peri-psychiatric behaviors or conditions and/or seek professional clinical assistance. Indeed, positive effects of online social communities for coping with stress, relationship-building, and for enhancing feelings of belonging and shared experience among people experiencing mental illness, as well as other minority and marginalized groups, have been described [35,36,38,57,58]. What is needed in our view is an integrative explanatory framework for what places a seemingly increasing subset of individuals at-risk for or more vulnerable to adopting peri-psychiatric behaviors or conditions. The diathesis-stress model of individual differences to environmental context [[59], [60], [61], [62]] provides an organizing heuristic to begin to develop such an explanatory framework. Classic diathesis-stress or vulnerability-stress models postulate that poor developmental experiences (e.g., stressful or resource-poorenvironments) are most likely to impact the development of individuals who carry vulnerability factors, which are latent diatheses that result in increased risk for psychopathology when “triggered” by exposure to negative or otherwise stressful developmental experiences. Latent diatheses reflect biological or social-cognitive predispositions to react and behave in specific ways; psychopathology reflects signs, symptoms, and behaviors associated with mental illness or inconsistent with mental health in the normative range. While not inherently stressful per se, the social media environment is a relatively novel environment in evolutionary history and the negotiation of social relationships through the scopic medium of increasingly algorithmic, audiovisual social media may pose a unique set of conditions that place individuals with latent diathesis to personality and behavioral psychopathology, particularly that defined by deficits in emotion regulation and negative emotionality (NE) [63], at increased risk for the development of psychopathology [19,36,64,65].

Relative to males, adolescent females are at higher risk for depressive and anxiety-related disorders [6], along with higher levels of negative emotionality and personality trait neuroticism [7,9]. Accordingly, one possibility in the case of ‘TikTok tics’ is that the functional purpose of FTLBs—which are disproportionately prevalent in females based on empirical data to date – is to seek affirmation and/or draw attention to oneself to acquire social capital in online communities [36,66] while simultaneously maintaining an unconventional peri-psychiatric identity that may mask feelings of anxiety, depression, and possibly lower self-esteem [19,30,67]. It is also plausible that the social stress and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic operated in a dual-risk capacity in addition to unique personality and behavioral factors associated with social media use and participation in online communities themselves [19,64,65,68]. In any event, what seems to be clearly indicated by the preliminary clinical, empirical, and journalistic information is that for a subset of predominately adolescent-aged female youth, use of audiovisual-based social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, especially at moderate and high levels, is associated with the manifestation and course of FTLBs, less self-reported levels of psychological well-being [69], increased internalizing symptomatology [70], and self-diagnosis of various mental illnesses [71]. With appropriate diagnosis and intervention, particularly identification and cognitive behavioral treatment of emotional distress, social and/or generalized anxiety and affective dysregulation, youth with FTLBs have demonstrated a decrease in severity or remission of symptoms in the short-term [72]. This pattern of successful intervention in youth with FTLBs underscores the importance of widespread awareness of the possibility of social contagion influences on mental illness and identity confusion among young people, their parents, and mental health care practitioners [30,73,74].

5. Social awareness and implications for mental health assessment

Concerning the broader question of whether social media is causally related to the rise in rates of adolescent mood disorders, self-harm, and suicide since 2010 in the USA and UK, it has been pointed out that the rise paralleled the years “when American teens were obtaining smart phones and becoming daily users of social media platforms such as Instagram” [17]. The same is true of the unique clinical presentation of FTLBs which first emerged into clinical awareness in 2019 in Germany [32], as well as with the increasing recognition of the DID-plurality community and emergent discourse [35]. More broadly, there has been a recognition of vast online ‘neurodivergence’ ecosystem in which classical mental illness symptoms and diagnoses are viewed less as mental health concerns that require professional attention, but rather as consumer identities or character traits that make individuals sharper and more interesting than others around them [49,[75], [76], [77]].

The above recognition of this ostensibly heterogeneous sociogenic illness behavior, loosely bounded by classical notions of mental health diagnoses, suggests the possibility that the increasingly algorithmic [78] and audiovisually immersive social media environment is a scopic medium [79] in which various ‘neurodivergent’ or sick role [30] identities or personas can be claimed at will, at any given moment—with no antecedent biological basis or tether to empirical reality—with positive social and emotional reinforcement and resonance from the associated online community (e.g., via the use of hashtags; user-to-user sharing and amplification of content) [36]. This social and emotional resonance may amplify and reinforce identification with the persona and may even predict later behaviors in line with it [80]. Sharing emotions, feelings, and thoughts around one's self-diagnosed mental illness identity within a solely techno-mediated scopic performative milieu in which such feelings, emotions, and beliefs are amplified may increase the likelihood that the ‘self-diagnosed’ identity is reified and incorporated into one's self-concept, regardless of its correspondence to external reality and conventional taxonomies of mental illness [36,80]. Said differently, the capacity for emotion regulation around the nature of one's self -identity is increasingly being techno-mediated externally, rather than internally within the self.

Recognizing and responding to this possibility by researchers and mental health practitioners is an urgent public health priority in our view, given extant evidence suggesting that the social media environment is a mental health risk factor for adolescents and youth struggling with elevated personality psychopathology and inchoate personal identities during the transition to young adulthood [17,19,20,22]. In addition, whether and how social media technology is a contributing force in both potentially inducing sociogenic illness while simultaneously influencing how professional mental health organizations evolve with respect to understanding and defining mental illness—thus potentially immunizing current sociogenic illness from classical diagnoses of mental illness—is crucial to take stock of in order to rigorously inform public health discourse and policy [81].

--

Also:

Abstract

Currently, we are facing a new manifestation of functional neurological disorder presenting with functional Tourette-like behavior (FTB). This study aimed to show characteristics of this phenotype presenting as an outbreak of “mass social media-induced illness” (MSMI) and to explore predisposing factors. Between 5–9/2021, we prospectively investigated 32 patients (mean/median age: 20.1/18 years, range: 11–53 years, n = 16 females) with MSMI-FTB using a neuro-psychiatric examination, a comprehensive semi-structured interview and aspects of the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostic System. In contrast to tics, numbers of complex movements and vocalizations were nine times greater than of “simple” symptoms, and of vocalizations one and a half times greater than of movements. In line with our hypothesis of MSMI, symptoms largely overlapped with those presented by German YouTuber Jan Zimmermann justifying his role as “virtual” index case in current outbreak. Typically, symptoms started abruptly at a mean age of 19 years and deteriorated gradually with no differences between males and females. In all patients, we identified timely-related psychological stressors, unconscious intrapsychic conflicts, and/or structural deficits. Nearly all patients (94%) suffered from further psychiatric symptoms including abnormalities in social behavior (81%), obsessive-compulsive behavior (OCB) (47%), Tourette syndrome (TS) (47%), anxiety (41%), and depression (31%), about half (47%) had experienced bullying, and 75% suffered from coexisting somatic diseases. Our data suggest that pre-existing abnormalities in social behavior and psychiatric symptoms (OCB, anxiety, and depression), but also TS in combination with timely-related psychological stressors, unconscious intrapsychic conflicts, and structural deficits predispose to contagion with MSMI-FTB.

[your-dearly-demented]

did isn’t because of one whole splitting its because of an inability to form correctly between the ages of 6 to 9. ur mom refusing to get you fucking starbucks did not cause you to have did.

+ there are so many other dissociative disorders out there that AREN’T did. spacing out + forgetting sometimes + adjusting yourself for different people subconsciously isn’t did. 

did this post make you question yourself? that’s good. for your own safety, please continue questioning yourself. don’t post about this to a discord server this time. figure it out yourself. take a break from the internet for a bit. 

free yourself, please, there’s a creative person down there underneath all this that you’ve been manipulated into believing, someone that would have so much more free time if you would just stop believing all these lies you’ve been told. 

[coulsonlives]

I just had to share this video because holy shit, it hits the nail right on the head! So well spoken. This stuff needs to be circulated more, esp with the growing number of people thinking they have this because of misinformation, or just outright faking it.

[angelgrian]

i wish people were more open to critically evaluating their identity

[ben-marco]

This might be controversial, and that's fine with me, but if you are new to discovering your DID/OSDD, please be mindful of how much time you are spending in online DID/OSDD forums and groups. It is very easy for these spaces to become echo chambers, and sociogenic illness does exist.

Talking to other people with DID/OSDD can be helpful for figuring things out, but be careful not to blindly absorb whatever people tell you.

Ultimately, figuring out your condition and the way your system works is between you and a licensed professional, not between you and people in a Discord server.

Some of us learned this lesson the hard way, and I imagine many young systems are still going to be learning it the hard way when they have to untangle real information about their symptoms from what strangers online have told them about their symptoms.

[aronarchy]

lots of talk about how i.e. autism/adhd a lot of ppl measure their effects wrt what society does to us bc ableism & trauma, so often sociogenic effects are attributed to inherent features of the neurotype itself, but actually this is wrong and these particular experiences of suffering are not inherent to autism/adhd & they’re not just things u have to accept bc you can’t do anything about them (without going for parts of the autism/adhd itself); trauma intervention helps, for example, tho it’s been so normalized to see autistic/adhd ppl suffering in preventable ways that are actually the fault of trauma, but blaming it on us/our neurotypes

i was thinking a bit more of other ways-of-being-which-are-not-inherently-distressing-to-u-but-which-they-still-blame-u-for-suffering-from-when-they-oppress-u & i had a flashback to some of the (numerous) times in the past where ageists gaslit me & tried to argue that i was Just Making Things Up / Just Exaggerating / Reading Too Much Into Things when i reported experiencing certain types/levels of distress bc All Teenagers Are Just Like That (and the especially popular cultural refrain “teenage moodiness bc puberty,” “hormones”)

& also thinking abt how so much discourses have naturalized children’s & teenager’s suffering from things in general, dismissing or downright mocking common caricatures like “kid is upset bc homework which is completely normal so just brush that aside” and i was thinking--the above framework would apply rly well for rigorous analysis of all pathologization of childhood/adolescence/youth; this area is almost the no. 1 where sociogenic effects are brushed aside as Obviously Just Inevitable Results Of That [biological state], and I think I might be willing to argue that most or all of what’s popularly reported as ~just teenageness things~ (i.e. “depression,” “moodiness,” “angst”) are actually the effects of trauma and/or ongoing oppression. (and when they are not, if the effects are what u would consider biologically originated mental illness in an adult then that should apply here too.) (also counting things like “neglect → was deprived of chance to learn about things like how to cope with encountering x y z or how to do [important skill] → starts struggling even tho not experiencing abuse” under “wrongs done by society which cause this”)

additionally: it shouldn’t matter anyway whether or not it’s “just puberty” biochemically causing sad feels in all teenagers regardless of social situation across the board, because suffering is bad, and just because it’s your Biology causing your suffering doesn’t mean you’re obligated to sit thru it either. if it was truly biological changes inevitably significantly causing the problem then that should prompt scientists to work on physical accommodations/solutions, treating it like a medical issue.

[queerautism]

that person talking about sociogenic illnesses in relation to endogenic ppl is making me literally insane. haven't sysmeds complained about using carrds for sources before?? haven't they been like "you can't prove endogenics exist because of a fucking carrd" then you can't prove they don't exist w/ a fucking carrd either!! the ToSD is a 40 year old theory!!!! from the fucking 80s! and endos were in plural spaces back then too!!! fucking hell

Right lmao guess psychiatry peaked on the 80s lads /s

[maaarine]

Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas? (BBC News, March 03 2023)

“The first known case was reported at a school in the city of Qom, when 18 schoolgirls fell ill and were taken to hospital on 30 November.

Since then, at least 58 schools in eight provinces have been affected, according to local media.

Most cases have involved girls - at both primary and high schools - although there have been some reports of boys and teachers affected.

The BBC has analysed dozens of videos posted to social media and has verified many of the school locations filmed.

Many of these show young people in distress in school settings, with some being loaded into ambulances and others lying in hospital beds. Others show ambulances arriving and crowds gathered outside school gates.

One pupil at a school in Shahryar, near Tehran, said she and her classmates smelled "something very strange". It was "so unpleasant, like rotten fruit but much more pungent," she told BBC Persian.

The following day "many of the students fell ill and didn't come to school, our English literature teacher also fell ill," she said.

"When I went home, I was feeling dizzy and sick, my mum was worried cause I was so pale and out of breath.""Fortunately I recovered soon," she said. "Most of the kids in our school recovered in 24 hours."

She said the school's headmistress and principals were "scared", adding that after reports of cases at other schools surfaced they "came and told us students to not talk about what had happened".

Government officials have given conflicting reasons for the pupils' illness and Iran's President, Ebrahim Raisi, has ordered an inquiry to get to the "root cause".

Many in Iran believe students are being deliberately poisoned in an attempt to close girls' schools, which have been one of the centres of anti-government protests since September.

In Iran, almost all schools are single sex.

Some pupils and parents suggested that schoolgirls may have been targeted for taking part in recent anti-government protests.

But the cause of illness remains unclear. (…)

While not ruling out a possible toxic substance, both Prof Hay and Mr Kaszeta suggested psychological factors could play a part.

Prof Simon Wessely, a psychiatrist and epidemiologist at King's College London, said several "key epidemiological factors" led him to believe these were not a chain of poisonings, but were instead a case of "mass sociogenic illness" - in which symptoms spread among a group with no obvious biomedical cause.

The spread of cases across the country and the fact it has been predominantly affecting schoolgirls, but not boys or adults, were central to his conclusion, he said.

The nature of the symptoms and the fact patients quickly recovered were also key, he said.

In cases of mass sociogenic illness - which used to be described as "mass hysteria" - the symptoms experienced are real, but they are caused by anxiety, not toxic poisoning, Prof Wessely said.

"The early stages of poisoning by most things are pretty similar, your pulse starts to race, you feel faint, you go pale, you get butterflies in your stomach, you feel shaky."

These symptoms could be from an infection, poisoning or a mass anxiety, he said.

Against a backdrop of harsh government repression of protest, Prof Wessely said it was "not at all surprising that you would get this happening now in Iranian schools".

The Iranian cases appeared to be "very reminiscent" of outbreaks of undiagnosed illness in Kosovo in 1990 and the occupied West Bank in 1986, he said.

No biomedical cause was found in either and experts believe they were the result of mass sociogenic illness, Prof Wessely said.

RUSI's Mr Kaszeta, said: "We have to accept the distinct possibility that we will not know what happened or that, actually, multiple different things happened and we're muddling them up together."”

[hairbrush9]

Listened to the trueanon ep about fent and how the DEA basically sent out internal memos to every law enforcement agency they are connected to that said (obvious lie) fentanyl would be lethal upon skin contact. And this was so effective that you can find many videos of cops having panic attacks because they genuinely believe the information. It's a mass sociogenic illness, only instead of teenage girls believing they have TikTok induced Tourette's syndrome , its cops having panic attacks from touching a dime bag and it's being broadcasted via YouTube videos of body cams

[circular-bircular]

[in response to this post (link)]

I think it's important to recognize that not all systems with a CDD have their plurality originate from said trauma, and also the fact that people will be diagnosed with CDDs when they are simply experiencing non-traumagenic plurality AND a trauma disorder in tandem, which is interpreted as being a CDD

CDDs are caused by trauma, yes, but a system can have originated from something besides trauma, later experienced trauma, and later developed a CDD from that while still not having their plurality originate from having a CDD

(this is what happened to me, leading to a very distinct divide between my 2 sidesystems given that one is the result of a CDD and the other is distinctly not)

Okay. Yes. That’s important to acknowledge. But I’m reminded of a conversation I’ve had often with people about minority issues.

An example is the trees. I say, “we need to save the rainforest. Rainforest trees are in a lot of danger right now.”

Then, a bunch of people come out of the woodwork and start talking about the animals in the forest. “They’re important too!” They say. “We shouldn’t ignore the animals.”

And I nod. “Yes - you’re right, it’s ALL important. But right now, I want to focus on the trees, because the trees are what I know about the most and that’s what this post was about.”

“But the animals are important too! And all of those animals need the trees!”

“Which is why I think it’s important to focus on the trees, individually. We can talk about animals another time.”

“But that’s ignoring-“

Etc etc.

I do think it’s very important to remember that Endogenics can:

Be misdiagnosed with a CDD despite not having one

Can develop a CDD from childhood trauma that is separate from their endogenic pluraliry

But when my posts are simply “CDDs are caused my trauma,” I don’t really care about the endogenic side of things in a post like that. The post is arguing about the trees - not the entire ecosystem. I make plenty of posts about the ecosystem! I just want some to also focus on the trees (and some posts to focus on monkeys, etc etc). And when my posts are “CDDs form from trauma,” I will always, always get Endogenics commenting saying “don’t forget about Endogenics!”

I didn’t. It’s just that the post wasn’t about endogenic systems. It was about any system with a CDD (in addition to being endogenic, or not).

In a time when Sociogenic illness theories are on the rise, the FMF’s ideals are alive and well, and intragenic (not sure on spelling but it’s 2am, forgive me) theory are rearing their ugly heads, now more than ever is an important time to be reiterating that CDDs are caused my trauma. Yes, there are many situations in which someone could develop a CDD, but no matter what, it is due to trauma.

[hackernewsrobot]

Stop that It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/145/2/476/6356504 Comments

[edgelordnito]

Okay but even if you’re assuming endogenic systems are derived from social influence, it still wouldn’t come under the phenomenon of a “sociogenic illness” - that’s an incredibly specific term only used under specific circumstances not met by the current endo movement. (Mainly to do with the lack of physical symptoms and hypochondria needed, but that’s an incredible oversimplification) Technically it would be closer to a somatoform disorder, if you were going to take that viewpoint. (But even then, still barely fits the category)

[salamanderinspace]

Guys I read the original study (the one, unreplicated study) that the WSJ cites as evidence that TikTok is causing tourette's syndrome and I want to make a few things clear:

- the scientists in the study did not talk to any movement disorder patients

- the scientists in the study did not talk to any movement disorder doctors

-the scientists in the study did not collect or verify any data related to the overall prevalence in cases, either globally or in english-speaking countries

-what they actually did was WATCH the Tiktoks of 36 influencers with tourette's

-no, they themselves did not develop symptoms! only weak-minded little girls get social contagion! that's not for adult men!

-they determined that yes, the 36 influencers did meet diagnostic criteria for tourette's

-HOWEVER, their tics were much more severe than is usually reported. Additionally. they were all young women, and tourette's is generally known to be diagnosed more in men (!!!!)

- this last fact is their only evidence for the theory that Tiktok is causing widespread sociogenic tourette's among young girls who consume content made by disabled creators

- this entire issue is sourced back to a WSJ article. Do you know who owns the WSJ? Do you know the general quality and accuracy of the articles they post? Check out this one about how transgender ideology is a dangerous terror! https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dangerous-denial-of-sex-11581638089

- the entire idea of sociogenic illness or "social contagion" is a) very sus and b) frequently used as a dog whistle for controlling and punishing marginalized groups. See: the Salem Witch Trials. Or the trans community, more recently.

- Unfortunately I can't link you the WSJ article about Tiktok causing illness, because it's behind a paywall, but you can read a summary of the article on Nylon.

- From the Nylon article: "While there is certainly a chance that TikTok has nothing to do with this recent phenomenon, it’s always best to know that it still might. As Dr. Joseph McGuire, a medical professional from John Hopkins, notes, “There are some kids who watch social media and develop tics and some who don’t have any access to social media and develop tics.”"

- please please reblog this for science and truth or whatever. If you need additional motivation, here is a cute lizard from the gecko side of tiktok. (disclaimer: if you watch too many gecko videos you might, idk, turn into a gecko)

[your-dearly-demented]

so i’ve been cruising around in endogenic servers under a false identity i created as a ‘endogenic system’ and im conducting experiments

the first experiment is a ‘headmate’ who has supposedly ‘gotten stuck in front’ and ‘hasnt been briefed on systems’ and keeps asking questions 

in short, a fake new headmate is the exact opposite of what endos expect in a new headmate- to know how to use the computer and internet, to know system terminology, all right off the bat.

results: he was ignored as expected and the “newbies” who were suspiciously knowledgeable from the supposed start of their existence were prioritized, therefore proving that endos have created a specific brand of sociogenic illness in which there are brief episodes of dizziness combined with a mix of understanding and a lack thereof (aka new headmates). in the event that there was a ‘new headmate’ who didnt fit this criteria, they were ignored in favor of those who fit their internal expectations. 

during my time with the endo sociogenic illness, i also noticed it leaned off of pre-existing dissociative disorders (such as my dpdr, so episodes of “new headmate” triggered my dpdr in a unique way and the ‘fellow endogenics’ simply reassured me that my dissociation was due to the new headmate forming. nice)

[ben-marco]

I understand how they might be useful in some select situations, but I really hate how Simply Plural has social features. I can't imagine "friending" anyone on an app like that and giving them access to that kind of information about me. It also reminds me of the echo chamber dynamic I've seen in a lot of OSDD/DID spaces and seems like something that would encourage weird parasocial relationships and sociogenic mental illness.

[officialspec]

the 2nd link doesn't seem to be working for me :o do you have the title of the article so i can look it up?

OOPS ok i tried linking directly to the pdf instead of using a referral link so i changed that in the op but here it is again for u <3 if the link still doesnt work the paper is called 'stop that! it’s not tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness'