I wonder if it’s some kind of mutant ingrown hairs? *shrug* imagine the commercial uses for fireproof naturally fibre ;)
One of my siblings has slowly gone down the FB/YT conspiracy rabbit hole over the last few years - I’ve been sending him links from your piece on how to talk to people but I struggle to show empathy for someone who has done every imaginable recreational drug, yet won’t get a covid vaccine!
Thanks for the awesome work David, you give me some sliver of hope and humour during these dark days <3
I'm feel terrible for anyone who has this experience, genuinely horrific and terrifying. I can hold it in a space which requires no conclusion, clearly lots of people believe this is their reality. I hope Andy is OK. To be homeless with a strange illness, whatever the cause, is heartbreaking.
I struggle to accept it has a physical origin but what the hell do I know. If it is psychological in origin it produces significant physical and mental suffering and needs to be understood properly so people can get some help.
I can believe shared psychological experiences can shape perception of reality. I have a family member who thinks Donald Trump is amazing, despite, politics aside, it is pretty obvious he is a shitty human being. This week said family member told me he hates me because I'm such a socialist and I think DT is an arsehole. He was raging like a mad person, no-one should ever be that invested in a political leader, so something else is going on, something insidious, psychological, emotional and shared with the only bit of the world he connects too, (right wing, conspiracy echo chamber section of) the internet. When a person has already laid some serious psyche foundations on the sand of internet bollocks, the final build can be really weird and is maintained by conversations with people who share that delusion.
Morgellon’s has been around for a long time so the ‘matchbox sign’ for dermatologists speak iof is more often the ‘ziplock bag’ sign or the ‘USB stick’ sign.
One of the more common causes of delusional parasitosis is cocaine, amphetamine, and alcohol withdrawal after heavy usage which is likely what inspired Phillip K. Dick writing about his student days in the counterculture of the 1960s.
The pets forum is interesting. It makes me think of how Qanon folk might come for the conspiracy, but stay for the community. I suppose there must be an "at last, people who understand me" vibe at the heart of all special communities.
I am actually on the fence about this one. Think about Lyme disease compared to long covid (one basically a joke for a very long time, in spite of being a very real thing; one affecting men too, and immediately accepted and studied). What could make a person more paranoid than being told they're insane when they clearly have *something* going on.
Also being itchy is hell, if you have a chronic disease that makes you itchy, yeesh, me too but I really sympathize if you get a little bit nuts over it! I don't even think it's safe to say it's "mental" .. historically this is how medicine has treated anything it can't explain, including basic bacterial infections.
I looked this up on the Mayo Clinic page - one of few publicly available sources of medical info that I trust, but that's a lesson for another day - and basically there's nothing. They almost literally say, "yeah, we've no fucking clue." That's disconcerting. The "treatment" section focuses on stuff like forming a trusting and supportive bond with the patient. Not super reassuring for anyone yanking alien fibers out of their skin. This could easily have been an X Files ep, incorporated into the mythology in some way (thinking of Scully's neck implant).
Anyway on a personal level, I'm cursed with madly sensitive skin, and just last night, I was itchy all over to the point where I just actually slathered my entire body in hydrocortisone cream. I also get these itchy little bumps for no apparent reason - yes, they're probably just something like hives, but damn it, David, now you've got me wanting to dissect them and search for mysterious, alien, possibly inorganic little strings. I'll need to get some more hydrocortisone, I think. *shudders*
Omfg what did I just read!? 😳 I seriously thought this was your foray into fiction writing & was musing how you got these photos doctored… but it’s (un)real!? Holy hell you stumble across some exceptionally weird sh*t. Otoh I’m glad that sufferers of the disease get some interest, it must absolutely suck - especially seeing there’s little scientific explanation so far.
If it’s tick-based, I swear those little suckers have it out for us! I grew up in mortal fear from tick bites in Austria - ours don’t just give you Lyme’s disease but encephalitis. My cousin caught it at 3, ended up in a coma for half a year, and has been a life-long epileptic! I blame ticks.
Very much enjoyed listening to this - thanks. Rather enjoy the new format, which is similar to Bernard Hickey's The Kaka which is a short pod cast as well as the text. Nice, thanks David.
Heard about Morgellans a long time ago - early 2000's? - but always thought it was total conspiracy nonsense. Friend thought he had it, tho he was also rather into his meth and other drugs (_all_ the other drugs, even before meth was a thing in NZ). Always wondered why he couldn't just go into a hospital or GP/specialist, have some pulled and then get a GC/MS on it. I guess someone has, but obviously it'll never find anything useful.... like the lack of UFO photos now we all have phones.
Holy crap, this is such a sad story. Bizarrely my Mom kinda has something similar. In her case it is painful thin cuts on her skin. She started scratching at them and telling us she needed to remove a granule/white ball that was in the cut before it would heal. None of us could see any physical material or the "cuts" so this probably lies more under delusion than anything else. She would send me photos every day of her arms claiming they had thin cuts all over them 😞
It arrived out of nowhere, possibly after a bad psychological shock (fight with my Dad/covid stress), and she had signs of paranoia as well.
She would obsess about these sores on her arms and legs, spending hours in front of a mirror checking her skin for more of these "cuts". She was convinced that they didnt get better unless she removed the granules. She had hundreds of sores all over her limbs :(
How is it now? Well she got anti-psychotic meds from her Dr which gave her auditory hallucinations but stopped the skin obsession. She's feeling a bit better now (she stopped the meds as the hallucinations were far worse). She still thinks she has these cuts, but blames it on "scleroderma'. she has seen several dermatologists and every one said there's nothing wrong with her skin and the sores are self-inflicted. She believes she has scleroderma, and I kind of go along and give her love and sympathy. Nothing else I can do...
Plus she's overseas and I'm stuck in New Zealand unable to visit unless I want to be locked out of my country for months/years 😭
I’ve recently learned about Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours (BFRBs) and so I can’t help but see a link to Morgellons. Also, I’m deeply troubled that my habit of picking at my finger nails and skin is considered a disorder. It’s also classed as dermatophagia - compulsive chewing and gnawing at one’s own skin. Now I’m just venting. Dark times!
That stuff about perception is cool. It makes me think of software development. Like maybe a web app that has components, like templates, that are populated by dynamic data. The raw data and the component don’t have much meaning on their own, but together they render a meaningful web page like a social media page or something. But then what if either the API or the front end has a bug… you can get some weird visuals 🤔
I mean I’m not an expert in either web development or neuroscience so what do I know, but the concerta’s kicking in and I love an elaborate metaphor 😆
Ahhhhh I consider myself fairly empathetic and as I read this I found myself becoming mildly paranoid I’d get it 🤦🏻♀️ Simply just from imagining too well what it would feel like 🧐
I wonder if it’s some kind of mutant ingrown hairs? *shrug* imagine the commercial uses for fireproof naturally fibre ;)
One of my siblings has slowly gone down the FB/YT conspiracy rabbit hole over the last few years - I’ve been sending him links from your piece on how to talk to people but I struggle to show empathy for someone who has done every imaginable recreational drug, yet won’t get a covid vaccine!
Thanks for the awesome work David, you give me some sliver of hope and humour during these dark days <3
I'm feel terrible for anyone who has this experience, genuinely horrific and terrifying. I can hold it in a space which requires no conclusion, clearly lots of people believe this is their reality. I hope Andy is OK. To be homeless with a strange illness, whatever the cause, is heartbreaking.
I struggle to accept it has a physical origin but what the hell do I know. If it is psychological in origin it produces significant physical and mental suffering and needs to be understood properly so people can get some help.
I can believe shared psychological experiences can shape perception of reality. I have a family member who thinks Donald Trump is amazing, despite, politics aside, it is pretty obvious he is a shitty human being. This week said family member told me he hates me because I'm such a socialist and I think DT is an arsehole. He was raging like a mad person, no-one should ever be that invested in a political leader, so something else is going on, something insidious, psychological, emotional and shared with the only bit of the world he connects too, (right wing, conspiracy echo chamber section of) the internet. When a person has already laid some serious psyche foundations on the sand of internet bollocks, the final build can be really weird and is maintained by conversations with people who share that delusion.
While it’s no Tickled, the 2019 documentary “Skin Deep” is about Morgellon’s and quite interesting. https://www.documentary.org/project/skin-deep-battle-over-morgellons
Morgellon’s has been around for a long time so the ‘matchbox sign’ for dermatologists speak iof is more often the ‘ziplock bag’ sign or the ‘USB stick’ sign.
As an aside, Delusional parasitosis and paranoia features deeply in Phillip K. Dick’s SF story ‘A Scanner Darkly’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly which was made into an awesome rotoscoped animated film by Richard Linklater starring Keane Reeves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film)
One of the more common causes of delusional parasitosis is cocaine, amphetamine, and alcohol withdrawal after heavy usage which is likely what inspired Phillip K. Dick writing about his student days in the counterculture of the 1960s.
https://mindhacks.com/2006/08/14/neuropsychology-and-psychosis-in-a-scanner-darkly/
"a woman scratched through her scalp and her skull using household implements until she was scratching at her own brain" 🤮🤮🤮🤮
I felt quite ill throughout that whole newsletter and enjoyed it immensely. I'm now on a Morgellens Google marathon. Fascinating!
The pets forum is interesting. It makes me think of how Qanon folk might come for the conspiracy, but stay for the community. I suppose there must be an "at last, people who understand me" vibe at the heart of all special communities.
I am actually on the fence about this one. Think about Lyme disease compared to long covid (one basically a joke for a very long time, in spite of being a very real thing; one affecting men too, and immediately accepted and studied). What could make a person more paranoid than being told they're insane when they clearly have *something* going on.
Also being itchy is hell, if you have a chronic disease that makes you itchy, yeesh, me too but I really sympathize if you get a little bit nuts over it! I don't even think it's safe to say it's "mental" .. historically this is how medicine has treated anything it can't explain, including basic bacterial infections.
Morgellons definitely sounds like nightmare fuel to me, regardless of what it is. Now I'm going to be hyper aware of every itch I have today.
I looked this up on the Mayo Clinic page - one of few publicly available sources of medical info that I trust, but that's a lesson for another day - and basically there's nothing. They almost literally say, "yeah, we've no fucking clue." That's disconcerting. The "treatment" section focuses on stuff like forming a trusting and supportive bond with the patient. Not super reassuring for anyone yanking alien fibers out of their skin. This could easily have been an X Files ep, incorporated into the mythology in some way (thinking of Scully's neck implant).
Anyway on a personal level, I'm cursed with madly sensitive skin, and just last night, I was itchy all over to the point where I just actually slathered my entire body in hydrocortisone cream. I also get these itchy little bumps for no apparent reason - yes, they're probably just something like hives, but damn it, David, now you've got me wanting to dissect them and search for mysterious, alien, possibly inorganic little strings. I'll need to get some more hydrocortisone, I think. *shudders*
Thanks David, now I'm just really fucking itchy.
Omfg what did I just read!? 😳 I seriously thought this was your foray into fiction writing & was musing how you got these photos doctored… but it’s (un)real!? Holy hell you stumble across some exceptionally weird sh*t. Otoh I’m glad that sufferers of the disease get some interest, it must absolutely suck - especially seeing there’s little scientific explanation so far.
If it’s tick-based, I swear those little suckers have it out for us! I grew up in mortal fear from tick bites in Austria - ours don’t just give you Lyme’s disease but encephalitis. My cousin caught it at 3, ended up in a coma for half a year, and has been a life-long epileptic! I blame ticks.
scully: “Victim presents with Morgellons disease. Note the skin irritation and strange fibres around the mouth.
mulder: *throws her a file* “you ever heard of alien body string?”
Very much enjoyed listening to this - thanks. Rather enjoy the new format, which is similar to Bernard Hickey's The Kaka which is a short pod cast as well as the text. Nice, thanks David.
Heard about Morgellans a long time ago - early 2000's? - but always thought it was total conspiracy nonsense. Friend thought he had it, tho he was also rather into his meth and other drugs (_all_ the other drugs, even before meth was a thing in NZ). Always wondered why he couldn't just go into a hospital or GP/specialist, have some pulled and then get a GC/MS on it. I guess someone has, but obviously it'll never find anything useful.... like the lack of UFO photos now we all have phones.
Holy crap, this is such a sad story. Bizarrely my Mom kinda has something similar. In her case it is painful thin cuts on her skin. She started scratching at them and telling us she needed to remove a granule/white ball that was in the cut before it would heal. None of us could see any physical material or the "cuts" so this probably lies more under delusion than anything else. She would send me photos every day of her arms claiming they had thin cuts all over them 😞
It arrived out of nowhere, possibly after a bad psychological shock (fight with my Dad/covid stress), and she had signs of paranoia as well.
She would obsess about these sores on her arms and legs, spending hours in front of a mirror checking her skin for more of these "cuts". She was convinced that they didnt get better unless she removed the granules. She had hundreds of sores all over her limbs :(
How is it now? Well she got anti-psychotic meds from her Dr which gave her auditory hallucinations but stopped the skin obsession. She's feeling a bit better now (she stopped the meds as the hallucinations were far worse). She still thinks she has these cuts, but blames it on "scleroderma'. she has seen several dermatologists and every one said there's nothing wrong with her skin and the sores are self-inflicted. She believes she has scleroderma, and I kind of go along and give her love and sympathy. Nothing else I can do...
Plus she's overseas and I'm stuck in New Zealand unable to visit unless I want to be locked out of my country for months/years 😭
I’ve recently learned about Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours (BFRBs) and so I can’t help but see a link to Morgellons. Also, I’m deeply troubled that my habit of picking at my finger nails and skin is considered a disorder. It’s also classed as dermatophagia - compulsive chewing and gnawing at one’s own skin. Now I’m just venting. Dark times!
That stuff about perception is cool. It makes me think of software development. Like maybe a web app that has components, like templates, that are populated by dynamic data. The raw data and the component don’t have much meaning on their own, but together they render a meaningful web page like a social media page or something. But then what if either the API or the front end has a bug… you can get some weird visuals 🤔
I mean I’m not an expert in either web development or neuroscience so what do I know, but the concerta’s kicking in and I love an elaborate metaphor 😆
Ahhhhh I consider myself fairly empathetic and as I read this I found myself becoming mildly paranoid I’d get it 🤦🏻♀️ Simply just from imagining too well what it would feel like 🧐