Why These Children Fell into Endless Sleep
nautil.us
nautil.us
> The Times report, citing Swedish psychologist, says the children “usually woke up” after their families were granted residency, although not overnight.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/31/mystery-of-sleeping-refugee-ch...
From wikipedia:
> More recently, this phenomenon has been called into question, with two children witnessing that they were forced by their parents to act apathetic in order to increase chances of being granted residence permits.[3][4] As evidenced by medical records, healthcare professionals were aware of this scam, and witnessed parents who actively refused aid for their children but remained silent at the time. Later Sveriges Television, Sweden's national public television broadcaster, were severely critiqued by investigative journalist Janne Josefsson for failing to uncover the truth.[5] In March 2020, a report citing the Swedish Agency for Medical and Social Evaluation, SBU, said "There are no scientific studies that answer how to diagnose abandonment syndrome, nor what treatment works."
"At the hospital, Lucille mentioned that she hoped Buster would coincidentally stay in a coma throughout the trial. Michael asked Lucille if she was responsible for this, but in fact, Buster got into G.O.B.'s forget-me-now pills."
What is most interesting is that it only seems to happen in Sweden, and to specific cultural groups.
I don't want to diminish the very significant hardships many of these immigrant/refugees are under. If telling my child to just lie still in bed, when the social worker comes by, allows my family to stay in Sweden instead of being sent back to Syria, I would probably do it too. If it was a requirement for a NG feeding tube to be placed in the child, even that might be an unpleasant but ultimately worthwhile sacrifice.
Resignation Syndrome seems to reliably and rapidly abate once the threat of deportation is removed. Is that because a massive stressor is removed and mental health can be regained? Or is it because a pretense can be lifted once the threat of deportation is removed?
I wonder why people think that there is must be a hard cutoff between these 2. You can create a very temporary OCD with "trauma" in video games. That's entirely fictional and voluntarily (literally done for fun) and yet you can clearly see the effects for a few hours after the video game session stops. It lasts longer when repeated.
So here's a theory: there's a long, very slow sloping grey zone between definite OCD and entirely faked and a million gradations between the two. The longer the faking lasts the more real it becomes.
Surely, playing with the child, rubbing feet, tickling, rough-and-tumble play, throughout their childhood would all help against such a thing. Tried and true methods from ages ago.
It even says in the article that the child is awake, so I don't see why you couldn't spook or tickle them into action. Is this just "new age diagnosis" that I have to wade through? (Not being facetious)
I was expecting the neurologist to perform a drop test [1], but the closest to this in the article is:
> [Dr. Olssen] lifted Nola’s arm to show me how limp it was. The arm dropped unceremoniously onto the bed when let go.
Could this be a failed drop test?
Also see: Asylum seekers with apathetic refugee children [2]
[1] https://www.aafp.org/afp/1998/0515/p2485.html A few bedside tests are often helpful in patients with suspected pseudoneurologic syndrome. The first is a drop test: the clinician drops the “paralyzed” arm over the patient's face. In pseudoneurologic syndrome, the “paralyzed” arm will not strike the patient's face when dropped (i.e., a near miss). Second, the clinician can test weakness with painful stimulation. Unexpected painful stimuli to the affected extremity may cause a purposeful withdrawal response.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_seekers_with_apathetic_...