If you’re anything like me, you love a good mystery. And this podcast is MYSTERIOUS. At first, I wanted to write this mysterious illness as a silly trend that high school girls were using to get a bit of attention. Maybe it was even a cry for help.
Trust me, I know how bad that sounds, but if you know me, I used ANY excuse to get out of school for the day. I hated high school.
What happens when parents and medical professionals disagree on the idea that this is a “silly little trend”?
How seriously do you take a town that can’t even agree on how it’s pronounced? Yes, as weird as that sounds, it’s a topic of discussion. Personally, I pronounce it LEE-roy.
Is this simply a psychogenic thing? Or is caused by some kind of contagion? I mean there are some pretty sketchy things happening in this small town that could be the cause of the symptoms.
You’ll have to listen to get to the nitty-gritty.
What is the Hysterical Podcast About?
A mysterious illness that has symptoms similar to Tourette syndrome seems to spread in a small town in New York. The problem is, that Tourette syndrome isn’t contagious.
Medical professionals try to figure out whether the cause of these symptoms is caused by disease, something environmental or psychogenic.
You’ll listen to Dan Taberski interview parents, doctors, and patients to try to find out exactly what is going on in this small town.
Who Got the Mysterious Illness From the Hysterical Podcast?
This mysterious illness seems to only target a small group in one particular town. Most of those affected went to the same high school.
- 16 teenage girls
- 1 36-year-old woman
- 1 teenage boy
The case of the LeRoy girls (and 1 boy) started in the fall of 2011. However, you’ll learn as you follow along in Hysterical that many cases similar to this case date back to the Middle Ages.
Where Does the Hysterical Podcast Take Place?
Hysterical takes place in LeRoy, New York. According to the United States Census Bureau, LeRoy had a total population of 7,629 people back in 2011 when the outbreak took place.
LeRoy is in Genesee County New York and is known as the birthplace of Jell-O. As you follow along with Dan Taberski, you’ll learn that the small town also has a few secrets that get exposed during the hunt for what is taking over the LeRoy high school.
What is the Mysterious Illness in the Hysterical Podcast?
Most experts seem to agree that the diagnosis of the girls of LeRoy is conversion disorder. Some medical experts and those affected by the illness strongly disagree.
Conversion disorder is when a person experiences neurological symptoms (like tics that are associated with Tourette syndrome) but no neurological or medical diagnosis to back those symptoms up.
In the case of the girls of LeRoy, doctors suspect that high amounts of stress presented physically in the teenage girls as tics. The problem is that conversion disorder isn’t contagious.
So, in the end, it all boils down to mass psychogenic illness or mass hysteria.
Some of the people affected by this felt so strongly that it was not mass hysteria that they had me second-guessing my own thoughts. Is it possible that there was some kind of contagion or illness that was causing these issues?
Is it possible that the medical professionals that came to this conclusion missed something? Let me know what you think in the comments!