The illness spreads from high schoolers to a 36-year-old nurse and mother. Meanwhile, a teen girl gets a diagnosis in front of a live studio audience… from a former contestant of the Bachelor. Listen to Hysterical on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting https://wondery.com/links/hysterical/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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At first it was whispers.
It was like, oh, it's this one.
Girl, like we don't know what's going.
On, like blah, blah, blah.
And the next thing I know, it's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.
So by then, everybody thought I was holding something back.
Well, you were holding something back intentionally.
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, like I think that's bullshit.
Like you're just gonna withhold all this information from us, like what is actually going on?
There's clearly something going on that you're covering up.
Let's start the day with a little role play.
You are a parent of a high school girl, and lately she and a bunch of her classmates have been exhibiting some very wild symptoms.
And they scare you and they make you scared for her.
And then at this big town meeting, youre told that what your kid has is this very rare, almost unbelievable illness, a phenomenon really that to you sounds a lot like its all in our head.
And then they ask you to just, you know, keep it all in the down low and to please, please stay away from the media.
All the attention would just make it worse.
What would you do?