Young women from across Australia are suffering from a rare, ‘mysterious’ neurological disease disease – with experts fearing that the addiction on social media and the stress of the COVID 19 pandemic is fueling the problem even more. This disorder, similar to Tourette’s syndrome, causes teenagers to have uncontrollable tics, including outbursts, convulsions, cursing, kicking and even hitting.
Doctors around the world claim that even healthy young women they reported that they suddenly came face to face with me violent physical and verbal impulses.
However, the reasons behind the rapid increase in the phenomenon have baffled both parents and scientists. According Dailymail article, one possible explanation is that anxiety and stress from extended periods of isolation, such as the one we experienced due to the pandemic with lockdowncombined with the obsession for apps like TikTok, may be the reasons.
“This independent young girl is “trapped” in her own body, in her own head. It’s really hard to see,” Melissa told the 60 Minutes for her daughter Metallyka – when she slapped her. For her part, the teenager claimed that “lockdowns and not seeing my friends as much” has worsened her tics.
During the pandemic, her older sister Charlie also developed the same condition. “When she has her tics, I’ll leave so she doesn’t piss me off and make it worse for her,” Charlie said.
Their family have chosen to see the two disorders in a positive light, saying some of their tics are so absurd that “you can’t help but laugh” – but the reality is much sadder.
Both Metallica and Charlie need constant care as they both suffer from extreme forms of it disease.
According to the publication, there is now a sharp increase in similar incidents due to the pandemic and “hitting” mainly teenage girls. According to experts, symptoms appear faster during the night.
The doctors however, they remain in the dark about the causes of this particular condition, but many believe it is directly linked to the social consequences of the lockdown and social media addiction.
Michaela began to suffer from extreme tics when she was 14 years old and her parents immediately took her to the hospital.
“I served dinner, I overheard some noises and a scream and I saw her lying on the floor. I thought she was having an anxiety attack, right after that she put her shoulder on her legs,” her mother said. “He said he didn’t want to do that. It was scaryreally scary,” said the mother of the teenager.
Michaela, now 16, was one of the first to suffer from the condition and doctors were “shocked” and “scared” by the disorder. The teenager made jerky movements with her hands, rolling on the ground while the school she attends keeps calling her parents to let them know about her tics.
Another case Nicole, one 15 year old British girlwho began suffering from her tics just before her 13th birthday – with small facial twitches escalating into violent physical and verbal outbreaks.
Her mother said that the most common of the tick her is that she shouts “I’m Madeleine McCann, I’ve been kidnapped” in public places. Like many other cases, Nicole’s tics appeared during it Covid-19 when she was admittedly “very lonely.”
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. You can’t see friends or family, it wasn’t very nice to be alone,’ she told 60 Minutes.
Professor Russell Dale – a pediatric neurologist at Westmead Hospital – said he was hearing of young girls “all over the world” suffering from similar conditions. He said the first case he saw of the disease was in Michaela two years ago and that it was “something different» than anything he had seen before.
“There were quite a few violent movements, hitting themselves, but the voices were different too. Instead of just noises, there were complex sentences – which was very strange, I’ve never seen it,” he said.
The professor ruled out Tourette’s as the cause of the epidemic, as it occurs four times more often in boys and is rare in those ages.
According to the scientist, the key factor seems to be the pandemic stress combined with its overt use TikTok and other applications.
“Girls all over the world use similar phrases – that’s what led us to believe that social media was the cause of the new condition,” he said.
The professor pointed out that imitating TikTok videos that show tiktok being broadcast around the world plays a key role in the behavior of young girls. In fact, 16-year-old Michaela admits that watching the videos had triggered her behavior.
He is now “fully recovered”, with Prof Dale saying the disorder is “definitely” something that can be overcome, but admitting that only 20 per cent of his patients have dealt with the condition.
He estimates that hundreds of thousands of girls around the world could suffer from the same disease as a result of the “perfect storm” of the global pandemic.
Source: News Beast
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