And I Must Scream/Real Life: Difference between revisions
clarifying the wording in the medulla rupture case, I hope my examples haven't become too much of a wall of text
(some more examples that came to my mind (I hope this isn't too detailed, or somehow condescending towards affected people)) |
(clarifying the wording in the medulla rupture case, I hope my examples haven't become too much of a wall of text) |
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Warning: This page contains [[Nightmare Fuel]]. Preparation of [[Brain Bleach]] is recommended.
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* One of the most common forms of this is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Motor Neurone Disease or Lou Gehrig's Disease. If you have Lou Gehrig's Disease, your motor neurons, which are responsible for triggering actions, gradually decay away while the rest of your nervous system (including your brain) remains perfectly intact. You can still feel pain and boredom but cannot move to avoid it. [[Paranoia Fuel|Clumsiness is one of the first symptoms]]. Poor [[Stephen Hawking]]
** The fact that Hawking
* [[wikipedia:Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva|Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP)]]. A horrible, horrible genetic disease where, if your muscles are damaged in any way at all, your body decides to replace the damaged muscle- not with more muscle, but with ''bone''. By the time you're thirty, most, if not all of your joints have been locked into place by newly-grown bones and you die of starvation/suffocation because you can't move your jaw or ribs.
** Fortunately, it's extremely rare.
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* Severe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome chronic fatigue syndrome] can also lead to someone being nearly unable to move without actually being paralyzed. And unlike catatonic stupor and autism shutdowns, this is a ''chronic'' condition that usually lasts for ''years'' if not life-long.
** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetic_mutism Akinetic mutism] may qualify as well. Although sufferers are said to have no ambition to move, we don't know what ''really'' goes on in their head.
*** Akinetic mutism basically means loss of ''volition'' or will power. This is not the same as losing one's ''motivation'' to do anything (as can happen e.g. in severe depression). So sufferers can still have dreams about their future life but they are unable to actually get themselves up.
* High spinal cord injury can be this, depending on the level and completeness of the injury. And especially at the moment when you first realize it.
** A complete injury above the third cervical vertebra results in paralysis of all limbs as well as all essential breathing muscles (especially the diaphragm). In the absence of other injuries (like brainstem injury or obstruction of major cervical arteries), this means suffocating while essentially fully aware.
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*** Also consider that a fractured/dislocated vertebra does not ''automatically'' mean spinal cord injury, a spinal cord injury does not ''automatically'' mean it's a complete one, etc. And a broken neck can also result in injured cervical arteries leading to strokes, and compression of the airways by displaced bone fragments.
*** And don't forget that severed sensory nerves can still be a source of pain, even ''severe'' pain.
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus Generalized Tetanus] causes body-wide muscle cramping and sensory oversensitivity resulting in excruciating pain. Due to cramping of the muscles in the face, tongue, larynx and ribcage, it becomes impossible to make any
** Strychnine poisoning is similar.
* Many progressive neurological disorders - including common ones like Alzheimer's disease - often have features of this trope in the later disease stages.
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** Let's not even go to [[Kill It With Fire|cremation]]. (Although survival instincts will kick in here and hopefully demonstrate that they're still alive, at least if there's any muscle left that they can move.)
*** Unless they are being entombed before combustion.
* A girl with a genetic defect involving deletion of the "language gene" FOXP2 and several adjacent genes has been [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16470794/ described in the literature]. At the time she came to medical attention, she could neither speak, nor cough, sneeze or laugh spontaneously.
* This trope is what is expected to happen to anyone who crosses the event horizon of a black hole. Given that the black hole is massive enough, its gravity at the event horizon is not lethal, and a human could theoretically cross it while staying alive. (This is because of the special mass-radius relationship of black holes; as seen from the falling observer, tidal forces get ''weaker'' as the black hole's mass increases due to the linear expansion of the event horizon with mass.) So what are the consequences of passing through the event horizon alive? You are ''completely and irreversibly cut off'' from any communication with the world outside the black hole. And of course, you will keep falling towards the center and ultimately [[Cruel and Unusual Death|get "spaghettified"]] some time later.
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia Akathisia], a movement disorder characterized by restlessness and a painful urge to move. Jack Henry Abbott described it:
** "You ache with restlessness, so you feel you have to walk, to pace. And then as soon as you start pacing, the opposite occurs to you; you must sit and rest. Back and forth, up and down you go … you cannot get relief …" <ref>Jack Henry Abbot ''[[In the Belly of the Beast]]'' (1981/1991). Vintage Books, 35–36. Quoted in Robert Whitaker, ''Mad in America'' (2002, {{ISBN|0-7382-0799-3}}), 187.</ref>
* The case of [https://nypost.com/2023/06/27/parents-of-woman-found-melted-to-couch-re-indicted-on-murder-charges/ Lacey Fletcher] who was found [[I'm Melting|"fused"]] into a sofa in her parents' house. ([[Nightmare Fuel|WARNING]] [[Nausea Fuel|DISTUR]][[Paranoia Fuel|BING!]])
** Unfortunately, there is a lot of low-quality information out there about this case. From what is known, Lacey was a friendly but shy and socially awkward girl who gradually started avoiding other people and going outside from puberty on. On a doctor visit at age 16 or 17, she got a diagnosis of [[Shrinking Violet|social anxiety disorder]] and a debatable diagnosis of [[Asperger Syndrome]]. After occassionally going out and meeting a neighbor boy until around age 21, she was no longer seen outside her house. Around 2010, when she was 24, her parents reported to a doctor that she would no longer leave the sofa in her living room and become incontinent. (Or at least so they said.) Apparently, [[There Are No Therapists|this didn't have any consequences]]. From then on, she was confined to that place (watching [[Otaku|Disney movies]] all day or what?), with all her body's waste accumulating on the sofa under her and gradually corroding both the furniture and her body. She ultimately died around new year of 2022, in such a state of [[Body Horror]] that even the pathologists were sick for several days following her autopsy ([[Schmuck Bait|Don't search the internet for pictures, please!]]). Later it was reported that Lacey would have suffered from Locked-in syndrome, but that theory fits poorly with the details of the crime scene, and it seems more likely that a mental disorder (or perhaps akinetic mutism) was responsible for her progressive seclusion and self-neglect. Anyways, she was obviously ill, and whether or not the initial cause was a physical one, she would have been immobilized by contractures after the first one or two years at maximum. Despite this, her parents stated that she [[You Fail Biology Forever|"always had a sound mind and made her own decisions"]], which probably kinda explains why they neglected her more and more. (If they weren't outright intentionally abusive; as of 2023 this case is still open.)
*** Disregarding the possibility that her parents somehow restrained her on purpose, this all sounds a lot like an extreme form of a [[Hikikomori]]. (Well, combined with caregivers who are either [[Jerkass]]es bordering on [[Complete Monster]] territory, or [[Too Dumb To Live|morbidly stupid]].)
** Whatever exactly happened (we may never know), this case is really an abomination. And it seems it's [[Fridge Horror|not even the first time]] such a thing happens. A couple of similar cases are known from the last decades, the dark figure is unknown (in case of Lacey nothing outside her house looked in any way suspicious), and it's probably [[You Fail Animal Care Forever|a lot more common to happen with animals]]...
** As this case is ongoing, the details [[It Got Worse|become darker and darker]]. Contrary to what Lacey's parents initially stated, they were apparently away over New Year while she was dying alone at home, and unable to find enough food in her reach, she ''ate parts of the faeces-soaked couch foam'' as her last meal. Meanwhile, for all the years she spend wasting away at home, most of her neighbors didn't even know that she ''existed'' in the first place, and the few ones who knew of her thought that she had moved away. The whole crime scene was grotesque, with fresh cloths, food, various sanitary items and video DVDs all present in the living room but [[Room 101|''juuust'' outside of her reach]], while she was literally fused to the cushioning, almost naked, and dirty and insect-infested all over her body. Not to forget, Lacey's parents still [[Villain with Good Publicity|enjoy an excellent reputation among many of their fellow villagers]]...
** [[Tear Jerker|And the worst thing of all]]? Lacey had lost so much of her soft tissues to ulcers that self-tempered in the couch cushioning that, if she had been found some time earlier and ''still alive'', it would have been impossible to get her off that couch alive, as tearing open those huge wounds would have caused ''immediate exsanguination''. It's unknown since when she was actually fused to it (in the earlier years her parents might have been patient enough to get her up regularly enough to prevent this), but from her post-mortem injuries it was concluded that the "fusion" started a few months ago at best, and several years ago at worst. After that, she was essentially doomed, irreversibly fused to her own waste, getting eaten alive by a myriad of microbes and insects, no matter what would happen.
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Byers Eben Byers] suffered such a fate after consuming the alleged [[Light Is Not Good|"medicine"]] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor Radithor] for chronic pain after a fall injury to his arm. After three years of regular consumption he stopped using it in October 1930, when he no longer felt positive effects and started developing headaches. Within the following 17 months, his health deteriorated dramatically: He lost weight, his teeth fell out, and his bones started disintegrating ''as he was still alive'', starting with his ''jaw bones''. As if this wasn't enough, he developed multiple cancers. Sometime in 1931, the Federal Trade Commission already suspected something being wrong with said "medicine", and sent a lawyer to Byers' home so that he could testify his experience. The lawyer found him in a devastating condition; Byers had [[Nightmare Face|most of his upper ''and'' lower jaw removed]] due to advanced necrosis and bone cancer, and he had multiple holes in his skull bones. He finally died of his multiple cancers on March 31, 1932, and his case became a testament to the dangers of radioactive quackery.
** There is an actual photo of Byers without his jaws circulating as creepypasta on the internet, known as the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Man with no jaws]].
** Not to mention, Byers' fate isn't even unique. Probably ''thousands'' of workers who painted the radioactive paint onto the radium dials in the 1920s, known as the "radium girls" (since most of them were female), suffered similar consequences, known as the "radium jaw". And even before the discovery of radioactivity, a condition known as the [[Fluffy the Terrible|"phossy jaw"]], caused by white phosphorus, was fairly common among workers in the matchstick industry.
* [https://www.nature.com/articles/3101975 This] article describes a case report of a young man surviving atlanto-occipital dislocation with complete transection of the medulla oblongata (the lowest part of the brainstem). Thanks to immediate resuscitation and subsequent mechanical ventilation, he made it alive to the ICU, where neurogenic shock, bleeding and secondary infections were treated. It was then determined that he was completely tetraplegic with loss of function of all nerves starting from CN IX, could not breathe by himself, but was ''aware'' without gross cognitive deficits. A special tube was implanted for feeding (he could not swallow), and after surviving about a dozen of life-threatening situations, the patient ultimately became stable. At the time the report was written, he was living in that state for ''16 months'', while remaining extremely debilitated and developing secondary depression. He no longer needed intubation because of a diaphragm pacemaker, and his situation was described as being similar to Locked-in syndrome, as he could move most of his facial muscles but nothing beyond. Finally, the article delves into the ethical dilemma of cases like him.
** It is not known for how much longer the patient survived, but as his brain was completely disconnected from his internal organs (which does not happen to that extent in Locked-in syndrome, or even in high spinal cord injury because at least the vagus nerve will be preserved), the potential for complications is certainly huge.
{{reflist}}
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