There's a strange trend going around in this community, for many years now, dating back to 2012. People list symptoms or signs you're supposed to experience when They are close, or "stalking" you, or when you are supposedly in danger? There's many variations, too many to list, but let's discuss why this does more harm than good, and why it can't be true.
You've heard people mention the placebo effect before, right? Well, what does it ACTUALLY mean, and what does it have to do with this trend that's been going around?
The placebo effect is a phenomenon where someone convinces themselves of a physical symptom either being relieved, or worsening, or sometimes even appearing. But, you might say, how can someone just think up a symptom and experience it? The brain, when convinced it can heal or when convinced it's ill, will release certain chemicals into the body to either battle that perceived illness, or to celebrate healing, releases dopamine and endorphins. When you're so convinced that you have to be experiencing a symptom, then you will. When someone experiences negative side effects because they expected to, that's called the "Nocebo effect."
What does this mean for the experiencer community? Well, let's connect the dots. When young, impressionable people post the symptom lists they've found online, hoping it might help someone, they're spreading a virtual virus to fragile minds. These young people, hoping that They will come for them, think themselves into sickness. It's actually proven that the Nocebo effect can include nausea, drowsiness, pain, rashes, and many more. Most of which are included in the symptom lists. This is where the problem arises, and where people can genuinely hurt themselves believing in something that simply, can't be true. This is not to say that the symptoms being experienced aren't real. But the believed cause for them isn't. And this makes it even harder to determine if a symptom being experienced is real, or just the Nocebo effect. So I encourage you, my young audience, to stop spreading these symptom lists. In reality, we have no way of knowing if these creatures even cause symptoms when they're close by, as there's rarely any data. And you spreading this information makes it even more difficult to GATHER data.
Once this trend dies down, which I doubt it will unless people come together to prevent it, then we can truly gather real, uninterrupted data. Stop posting information with no real credibility online, especially something that can actually make people sick. You're part of the problem. It's time to stop. Let people experience the world without being told how they should be experiencing it. Nobody, and I mean nobody, will experience symptoms or these creatures the same way. And that's another reason why these symptom lists can do more harm than good. People that are actually becoming sick because of Them now don't and can't come forward because they think what they're experiencing isn't accepted or real. Please stop. You aren't helping. I encourage anyone that has posted symptom lists, to take them down now. YOU ARE NOT HELPING ANYONE. By all means, share what YOU experience, but don't post guidelines as to what other people should experience. This is VERY harmful. Thank you.
Sources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect
https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/is-the-nocebo-effect-hurting-your-health
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A journal I guess
Non-FictionA journal of my experiences, findings, and overall hell that I've created for myself.
