The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius (2012) | Hacker News Reader

The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius (2012)

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95 pointswallflower18 comments

Aha--this story triggered her coming back to her family: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/missing-biologist-surfa...

So strange that it had a happy ending, of sorts. I read this sort of thing and assume the worst.

If anything, I'm more curious about her life now: what's it like to come back after something like that, what was she doing in the meantime, does she retain her flair for research, or even hold those sorts of pursuits in any kind of regard?

Maybe this is what it's like to enjoy biographies shrug

I wouldn't so much say a happy ending. The article about her returning speaks about her desire to not burden anyone in her life with her physical pain and instead suffered through poverty.

"Unable to work because of it and subsequent injuries, she had long lived in poverty, sustained largely by the religion she had come to early in the decade."

I wonder what religion this is. One is quick to think Scientology, but to make such an assumption is too quick and heavy-handed I fear. It seems to be the best outcome, but not one that is pleasant at all.

That would be the last religion I would expect to financially support an individual absent any work. Especially considering the widespread critiques by past members pointing to the fact it's a pay-to-play type of arrangement. Unless of course she reached some high ranking hierarchy before becoming dependent.

Otherwise there are countless religions which fit this category in the US. Many with a strong history in running almshouses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almshouse

Oh dear! I've just realized that she was sustained by her religion, I thought her religion was creating the poverty!

What I find very interesting is that it seems like she suffered from rather severe mental illness, but (IMHO) because of how society has responded to mental illnesses over the past few hundred years, even the people she worked with and her family were very reluctant to talk about it. "Karen [her mother] declined to discuss Profet’s behavior or psychological state." It seems the shame of mental illness itself may have lead to some of her problems, and maybe have dissuaded her from getting help earlier. At the same time, she did seem to reach out for some help, but I guess it just wasn't enough.

Even more so, it seems like her own family may feel this shame or be in denial if you look at the Nature link [0] provided by wglb. Her mother claims it was "physical" pain that drove her away, and caused her poverty, and that religion "sustained" her. Physical pain does not typically mean you stop talking to your family and friends for decades. And never mind the fact that she claims that her daughter didn't know people were looking for her. This quote from the original article I also found interesting about her disappearance and the family's response. "“I’ve found their reaction to her disappearance odd,” Eubanks says." It doesn't give any actual details, but just an odd comment for someone to make, and even odder to add it in the article.

It's good that she's back with her family, and hopefully receiving the care she needs, but the family's response opens up more questions to me than answers.

[edited to add: This seems a bit conspiratorially in retrospect, unintended. The only real point I was trying to make is how our view of mental illness plays a large role in how the mentally ill deal with their illnesses.]

[0] provided by wlgb http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/missing-biologist-surfa...

They could simply be retelling the story as told by their child. A respectful thing to do.

There's some irony in that her best biological scientific work was developing theories that internally generated pain (menstruation, allergies, etc) is an adaptive feature, and then some kind of internally generated pain drove her into hiding and suffering.

are you saying her pain could have been psychosomatic?

I don't know if I'd call allergies internally generated pain. More like your body's response to an irritant (i.e allergen).

It's not just a response, it's an over response. When we say people have "an allergy" we do not mean that they are uniquely vulnerable to an irritant and their body must compensate for it, we mean their body unnecessarily responds to a benign marker.

It may not be an over-response at all. It may be the exact right response.

There are plenty of diseases which our body over-responds to. Colitis is one great example of the body basically attacking its own colon via it's immune system for no known scientific reason. And there are plenty of others.

Typically the bodies default response to everything, real of not, is inflammation. Which is the primary symptom of allergies. Which also happens to be the symptom most responsible for the popular diseases for which there is no rational/clear response for such a potentially dangerous over-reaction - other than unlucky genetics.

Anecdotal, but in support:

I was diagnosed with chronic heavy metal poisoning [0][1]. I had developed almst asthma-like pollen allergy after an event that very likely contributed quite a bit all at once. Over the years I also got allergic to cats. Everything is completely gone now after years of chelation. The creation of additional "outflow" surely must have helped get the stuff out from the system overwhelmed by amounts it could not handle using its normal methods.

A tiny bit of my story, pieces of it posted on several occasions:

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17310648 (in this thread, all my responses)

[1] http://onibasu.com/archives/fdc/137355.html and http://onibasu.com/archives/fdc/137356.html (list of things that improved/disappeared through chelation treatment) -- Psoriasis is missing from that list, that completely disappeared too, had it on both elbows since "forever"

How is dying from anaphylaxis the exact right response?

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