"The inseparable identical twin sisters from Broomfield, Colo., would go through five bottles of rubbing alcohol every day, disinfecting their skin until it burned. They hardly ever left the house. When they did, they would stop eating and drinking hours in advance to the point of dehydration to avoid using public restrooms, they told local television station 9 News in 2016.... The deep brain stimulation surgery was the twins’ last resort.... 'Amanda and Sara Eldritch appeared on "The Doctors" two years after their surgery to share their story of hope and newly-discovered happiness,' a spokesperson for the syndicated talk show told The Washington Post early Wednesday morning. ]We are shocked and saddened to learn of their tragic passing.'"
From "Twin sisters known for battle with debilitating OCD die in possible ‘suicide pact'" (WaPo).
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I can't get to WaPo, so how did they get this far and who was paying their bills? Other relatives with similar problems?
I was going to bring up their water bill, but that would be crass.
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
I'm gonna use you and abuse you
I'm gonna know what's inside
Gonna use you and abuse you
I'm gonna know what's inside you
I'm so old that I remember when using the electromagnetic spectrum to modify behavior was considered barbaric!!
I don't think I've seen many people with the last name 'Eldritch'.
They sure look unhappy.
And what's with the dimples on the one? I've never seen anything like that. They are really bizarre.
John Henry
So sad. An excellent recent novel about a teen-aged girl with OCD, written by an author with OCD, gives a powerful sense of what this cruel illness is about. John Green, Turtles All the Way Down.
One of the most vulnerable parts of the human body is the fetus.
Consider that a fetus has no real protection from microwaves and normal radiation from nature and electrical storms.
Cell phones destroy brain cells. In 1985 (when these girls were born) cell phones became popular. In fact, these were UHF radios and fairly powerful by today's standards. The second harmonic would be microwaves, and they were about the level of today's microwave cell phones.
It could be the women's brains were cooked while still in the womb.
They did not have much to live for, or look forward to. Their parents mortality and age, probably pushing them, as there would be no one to take care of them, in a country that has no support systems for the insane.
I'm just blogging a response, the article can't give you the utter despair that the insane have.
I can't stop reading about people with OCD.
There was a case like this on the show 'Intervention'.
I can't stop reading about people with OCD.
rimshot!
John said...I've never seen anything like that.
Don't travel below 35 degrees north latitude in the US. You'd be surprised what the peasant women punch into their bodies.
Brrrr...
And what's with the dimples on the one?
Ain't you never played William Tell?
I'm just blogging a response, the article can't give you the utter despair that the insane have.
4/4/18, 2:21 PM
Etienne, we believe you!
How did the hot water last 10 hours?
What a smothering thing to endure!
Just watched the video Althouse liked to; apparently extreme OCD didn't stop them from getting tattooed and pierced.
Beware! OCD is strong a mental illness. It can make other wise smart people try to appear as a responsible super employee. But you will later discover they are compelled to cover up for their failures and not doing work. Think: The Postal Carrier that dumps mail into the trash so they look like the best UPS Mail Carrier there is. But on the surface they appear perfect.
WTF is wrong with the doctors?
You have identical twins with the same medical condition, and you perform the same cutting edge surgery on both? How stupid is that? How about a little control?
You do the deep brain stimulation surgery on one, and you do placebo surgery on the other.
The fixed Randal McMurphy's problems with a lobotomy and electric shock therapy.
Too bad the fucking Indian killed him.
Public Image Ltd., "Rise"
I could be right, I could be wrong
I could be black, I could be white
They put a hot wire to my head
'Cause of the things I did and said
They made these feelings go away
Model citizen in every way
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
Pink Floyd, "If"
If I were afraid, I could hide
If I go insane, please don't put
Your wires in my brain
Eldritch is as eldritch does.
"I don't think I've seen many people with the last name 'Eldritch'."
I liked that book, "The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."
What I don't understand is that if they were so intolerant of even the idea of germs on their body, to the point where they'd shower for 10 hours, why were they able to accept the surgeon cutting into them and putting foreign materials inside them? Why wouldn't that seem horribly intrusive on their purity? My only idea is that they were in a mental realm where it didn't make sense and they couldn't get out of it even to assess the relative sense of various elements of what they were doing. But they do seem to be able to know that what they were doing was irrational, just not to do anything about it.
I don't know, Ann. But now they shit in the woods!
where they'd shower for 10 hours, why were they able to accept the surgeon cutting into them and putting foreign materials inside them?
It's a mental illness. It doesn't make sense. It's the older part of the brain that controls hygiene and grooming instincts going crazy and firing in all directions. These women had an extreme version.
People with OCD aren't psychotic. They know it's irrational, but their brain is firing over-active messages at them telling them to groom and wash. People with extreme versions will wash until their hands are bleeding.
I wonder to what extent the twin aspect reinforced the OCD behavior. If one twin exhibits the behavior, and the other twin then mimics it, and there's a positive reinforcement in a learned behavior that also warps brain development/amplifies brain structure issues.
This will count as two more additional gun deaths. If we would only get rid the 2nd amendment, they might still be alive.
"But they do seem to be able to know that what they were doing was irrational, just not to do anything about it."
This is correct. What I don't understand is how they went from believing that the surgery worked to committing suicide. Was the surgery truly effective or was there some sort of placebo effect that gradually wore off? How did they measure the success? Was it just based on the resultant behavior or was there and actual measured brain activity that the surgery changed and could therefore be measured? Have others had the surgery?
Whatever else it shows that OCD has organic roots and is not engendered by some kind of traumatic experience.
Another medical success story.
William said...
Whatever else it shows that OCD has organic roots and is not engendered by some kind of traumatic experience.
I don't know. I see that, at a very young age, their behavior was earning them 30 minutes to an hour of a parent's attention just getting their shoes on them. Add in the reinforcement of seeing their twin's behavior and who knows what the brain will do.
I'm not saying it does not have organic roots, just saying that if you want a real test the twins would have had to grow up in different environments.
I wonder to what extent the twin aspect reinforced the OCD behavior
Even more so that they apparently continued to live together and act together.
Perhaps they should have been separated a long time ago.
"..why were they able to accept the surgeon cutting into them and putting foreign materials inside them? Why wouldn't that seem horribly intrusive on their purity?
Because the operation was the lesser of two evils.
Same reason they committed suicide. Fear of death was overcome by misery of living.
And what's with the dimples on the one?
Looks like an old gunshot wound. In one cheek and out the other.
"But they do seem to be able to know that what they were doing was irrational, just not to do anything about it."
Stop blogging for a few days and see how it feels.
Just be sure Meade locks up the guns and the medicine cabinet and takes away the car keys.
Blogger Ann Althouse said... I liked that book, "The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."
I always thought this was the best Dick. Really surprised it never made into movie. Maybe depicting the horror of reality uncertainty is hard to do cinematically.
How sad.
“It’s like listening to someone who’s holding you at gunpoint,” Amanda told 9 News. “You absolutely have to do what they say.”
Those "voices" originate in the subconscious mind. They inform the conscious mind of a need or urge that must be satiated by repetitive physical action. This is why those who suffer from advanced OCD cannot control their compulsive behaviors.
The effect of the deep brain stimulation procedure was to impede the channels of communication from the subconscious to the conscious.
But, the procedure did not silence the voices. It did not eliminate the urge. It only prevented the conscious minds of the poor twins from hearing the voices and acting on the urge.
This put them in a state of severe internal mental conflict that they could not understand or evaluate rationally. Their doctors could not admit or accept that the procedure itself was causing this conflict as it would repudiate their work.
The girls found a solution. There were better options but they would have needed the help of those same conflicted doctors. They didn't get that help.
That's one way of looking at it.
Get down with OCD,
Minutia's buggin' me.
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