
The Diseases You Only Get If You Believe in Them - submeta
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-diseases-you-only-get-if-you-believe-in-them/479367/?single_page=true
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21
In Romania "the draft" (ie: air current when you have two open windows) is a
powerful enemy which can cause many symptoms or diseases: back pain, neck
paralysis, ...

The "draft" can only happen inside, outside wind can't cause such symptoms.

If you feel such an air current inside you must immediately close something to
stop it. Damage is cumulative. A bit of draft today, a bit tomorrow, and 10
years later you are paralyzed.

~~~
submeta
Same in Turkey. Actually I think even in Germany ("im Zug gestanden haben."
Where "Zug" = "Zugluft")

~~~
mercer
On the other hand, one peculiar thing I noticed about all Germans that I've
lived with is their obsession with opening all their windows to 'air out the
apartment'. They do this regularly (almost daily it seems) and regardless of
season (freezing icy winter-wind? No matter, we need fresh air!).

I've also lived with many other nationalities and none of them do this.
Fascinating.

~~~
Isn0gud
One reason might be that air conditioning/flow systems are not very common in
Germany an thus you feel the need to create your own air exchange.

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daveguy
> “hikikomori,” in Japan, when people socially withdraw to the point where
> they never leave home.

That's not a "made up disease you only get if you believe in it" it is a well
established mental illness. Also known as agoraphobia commonly linked to
severe depression.

I was hoping there wouldn't be mental illnesses listed here. I was
disappointed. This is the worst kind of click bait. Quackery that encourages
the harmful notion that people suffering from mental illness should "just get
over it".

~~~
plorkyeran
> Quackery that encourages the harmful notion that people suffering from
> mental illness should "just get over it".

That is the exact opposite of the author's position. Perhaps you should
actually read the article.

~~~
daveguy
I did read it. Did you? It is full of this garbage:

> The more powerful those stories are, the more you believe in the root forces
> in them and the causal forces that are holding those stories together. In
> our culture it would be biochemistry, in traditional Chinese medicine it
> would be balancing between yin and yang, balancing the forces in the
> universe, in Nigerian traditional beliefs it would be the power of magic and
> the ability of people to manipulate that.

And another:

> You think when you take an aspirin that your pain relief is coming purely
> from the aspirin doing something biochemical in your body, but part of
> that's also coming from your belief in aspirin, and the knowledge that you
> took the aspirin.

The whole article is about "placebo" disease. This is a crappy way to think
about mental illness.

~~~
sillysaurus3
There's an interesting CGP video related to placebo disease:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4)

I'd be curious to know if you think the video is also bad.

~~~
daveguy
That video does a good job of explaining the difference between negative
placebo effects and illness. The article conflates actual mental illness with
placebo effect. They are not the same, and telling someone who is suffering
depression that it's all in their head is harmful, not helpful.

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CobrastanJorji
Okay, one thing the article didn't make clear to me that maybe somebody else
knows: what is penis theft? The Internet seems to think it's when people
believe their penises have been shrunken or have entirely disappeared. Do
sufferers believe that they don't have genitalia anymore? If you point to it,
would they not see anything?

~~~
mtempm
You never played American Football, did you?

Basically, if you have a small penis and gain weight (especially for already
heavyset guys) everything around it grows while it doesn't get any bigger.
This is otherwise known in the west via the not-unheard-of insult to
overweight men: "You can't even see your own penis " In other words, they
might imagine it shrinking into their body when their body is really just
growing around it.

~~~
jazoom
You didn't say what this has to do with American Football.

~~~
mtempm
Locker rooms and showers full of men who are both overweight and are trying to
prove their manliness.

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kens
I was expecting a mention of Morgellons, a disease in the U.S. where the skin
is invaded by fibers. It was discussed a couple years ago on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925)

------
glangdale
I like this book/article/interview for its willingness to explore (at times
controversially) what Western cultural syndromes might be. So much of the
coverage of 'cultural syndromes' seems to be in the Entertaining Stories of
Benighted Cultures genre - snickering about penis thieves and latah.

------
booleandilemma
There's Fan Death in Korea.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death)

~~~
robterrell
That's a great example!

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ghughu
They're diseases of the superego, not social or cultural diseases.

It makes no sense to say that a culture or society can directly bring about
mental illness, but it makes sense to say that a person's superego is
influenced by society and culture, and it makes sense that the superego can
make a person mentally ill.

Otherwise, people will (correctly) argue that society and culture doesn't have
that much power over a person's psyche.

Just use the correct term: superego.

~~~
ggggtez
I think you'll find Freud is largely not taken seriously. You can't use
whatever model you want, but I wouldn't call it correct.

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freyir
The best disease prevention in this case is to not read the article. You can't
believe in these diseases if you don't know about them.

~~~
SilasX
So, Roko's basilisk should be on the list then?

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chrismealy
I caught RSI from a coworker. 20 pages of the Sarno book cured it. Never would
have believed could happen if it hadn't happened to me.

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WillyOnWheels
My roommate blames everything on invisible mold that I can't see and is
impossible to detect.

~~~
32h8
Thats funny, but also freakin scary and possible if u think about it.

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jameskegel
I am curious if these types of beliefs are similar to western "fad disorders"

~~~
dewyatt
Perhaps of interest:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/chronic-w...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/chronic-
whiplash-is-a-medical-mystery/476052/)

~~~
jameskegel
This was an interesting read, thanks. My assumption, as someone who worked
with cervicospinal injuries professionally, some whiplash doesn't go away
quickly because it damages areas that are largely avascular, like cartilage
and bone and connective tissue which take much much more time to heal than
soft tissue like the rotatores and multifidi of the neck

------
matz1
At one point I thought I had some kind of gender identity disorder until I
realise of how much culturally bound it is.

------
mtempm
>Hikikomori

I believe this is pretty much agoraphobia

~~~
bostonvaulter2
No it's much more cultural and social than pure agoraphobia.

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aadri
Well, ADHD is one of them. We don't have ADHD in Europe (and no where else in
the world).

~~~
Qwertystop
If I were to point fingers at ADHD at all, I'd be more likely to mark it as an
example of overzealous diagnosis of normal human variance than as a
culturally-created disorder. At least in the relatively high-functioning
cases.

(Are those stories of people with ADHD who are completely distracted by any
arbitrary stimulus true? I've never heard of them closer than two or three
degrees of separation from where I heard the story, and never a trustworthy
source. Regardless, I don't mean those, hence "high-functioning")

~~~
sp332
Here's how a friend of mine described it:

 _Think about how well you 'd behave if you lived your life trying to sort out
the information you needed with three radio stations and five televisions all
playing different things blaring at you all at once 24/7\. That's kinda what
it's like.

If you struggle, see about medication. I resisted for years. I was afraid it
would take away the sparkle. Now, medication probably isn't for everyone, and
some medications will not be for certain people, but let me tell you
something: life works now. My apartment is clean; I know where my stuff is; I
do better with relationships; I show up to meetings early; life doesn't feel
like I'm constantly on the edge of imploding. And the sparkle is far from
gone. I'm still the same person. I just feel like I can actually be that
person without a wall of fog and noise to constantly battle through._

[https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1015517761698970...](https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155177616989700&id=557909699&ref=content_filter)

