Léa-Anna B.: King George V’s Admirer

toward her via secret messages. The British royal family and Buckingham Palace itself both have had their fair share of stalkers. Before Leia Anna, there was a man who climbed the fence and wandered around inside the palace before anyone call him. This was nearer the same time as we'll be talking about, and another stalker was caught trying to break into the diplomat's entrance. Uh. He was caught, But there were many, many others, and although she wasn't the most famous royal stalker,

Leanna is for sure an interesting type of stalker. Her behavior made her a person of interest to the French psychiatrists Gayton Are, Alfred Leon Marie Declarau. I'm so glad you had to say that, and not me, as one of the two of us that speakuse no French potsoever, thankfully to help us both, he did go by the shorter names of Gat Clarenbau and just G declaren Beaux.

He featured lea On in a scientific paper he wrote about a disorder which came to be called a rodomania, in which he described the condition more in depth and more clearly than it had been described in previous years. And you might recognize that word if you listen to our Valentine's Special. But even if you didn't, don't worry. You won't be left out. We're going to get to

the specifics in a bit. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, so we're going to talk a little bit more about leah Anna and her behavior towards the King. So King George the five was actually not the first of her obsessions. Her delusions went way back before him. Actually, we don't know anything about her childhood, what it was like if she had the men, but we do know that at one time in her adult history leah Anna

worked in retail. She was a salesmoman in a dress shop, but she quit when she became the mistress of a wealthy upper classman. Their relationship lasted for about eighteen years until his death in nineteen o seven. Leanna didn't take very long to become entangled in a new affair, and this time it was with a man who owned a castle, so she was, you know, looking for gents who could

take care of her a little bit. In this followed suit because her new lover bought a house for her and actually asked her to come and live there in that new house with him, and she did. But leia Anna became lonely because this was out in the French countryside, and she just felt a little isolated, and after just

four years their relationship ended. Her delusions were probably already beginning to develop it this time, and we think that because in nineteen seventeen, during World War One, she became convinced that an American general in a nearby army camp was madly in love with her. He was not. This was entirely fabricated on her part, and a few years later she became convinced that it wasn't the general, but rather it was King George the fifth of England who

actually was romantically interested in her. She truly believed he was in love with her, but she also believed that she had, at least initially accidentally failed to notice any

of his interest. And she chided herself for failing to notice the knowing glances and the cryptic remarks, because and the secret signs that she believed had been intended for her, like a knock on her hotel room door that she had not answered, but now she understood that that must have been the King trying to come and see her.

She also believed that she had overlooked the people disguised as special officers, including an emissary of the King, tourists and sailors, who she thought Georgia must have sent to communicate with her. And because she hadn't noticed these advances, surely the King now must think she had rejected him. Because she felt she had missed all of these things, she was compelled to travel to London to explain to him in person that she did love him back, and

that compulsion turned into action. She did travel to London. She wandered around the gardens and the general vicinity of Buckingham Palace, trying to catch a glimpse of George and trying to figure out a way that she could get inside. Although there was never any sighting or any contact between the two, there was though, to her, an occasional sign. Of course that has air quotes. These were things that she thought were signs from the King, and that was

in the form of curtains. Leia Anna believed that when any curtain in the palace moved, it was George telling her that he saw her. The reality is that he actually probably was not home during this time when she was there, and if he was, it said that he generally tended to enjoy spending time on his hobbies, which were stamp collecting and game shooting, and wasn't really spending a great deal of time gazing out of windows, you know,

dusting the curtains, picking out um. Yeah. So she spent thousands of Frank's on this adventure and eventually returned to Paris having never actually seen the King in person, not even through a window. While traveling back home in December,

she was agitated. She stopped two police officers on the train platform to tell them that she was being followed, and other passengers have been laughing at her, so she asked for their protection, and she became even more frustrated and agitated when they seemed confused by her story, she grew increasingly frantic and she struck them at least one of them. I can't actually see how she would hit the second one without the first one, but anyway, um,

and then not surprisingly, she was taken into custody. We're gonna pause for just a moment, and when we come back, we're going to talk about the condition known as erotomania and the man who described that condition. Welcome back to Criminalia. So now let's talk about what happened to Leia Anna

after she got back to Paris. So, after she was taken into custody, Lea Anna was taken to the Infirmary Specio that was a psychia crisis center that was also the headquarters of the emerging French forensic psychiatry field in Paris, and it was there that she was interviewed by the psychiatrist we mentioned earlier, Gaet and Gussian, Declaringbeau, we should take a little side straight, little man or here to

talk a little bit about who he was. He was born outside of Paris in seventy two, and initially pursued law, which was the field that much of his family worked in. So it doesn't it makes sense. He had initially wanted to be an artist, and he showed promise in clothing design, so law was not at all a choice he made for himself. When law didn't really interest him, which right, no surprise there, he moved not back to art, but instead medicine, which he began to study after he had

finished his law education. Yeah, I I have read accounts that kind of hint that his father was very much like, well, if you're not going to do law, the only other option is to be a doctor. You know. I said, I read the same things, and I was like, no pressure. No, he didn't actually start out in psychology though either. So he first started out spending his time studying the ways in which aircraft accidents impacted pilots through their recovery and beyond,

which I thought was fascinating. It is, and that was specifically like physically, he was not. It was not from a psychological angle, and that was where his doctor at work actually focused. But then in nineteen nine he shifted focus at last two psychological matters and he kind of hit the ground running with this. He did a lot of work in the examination of the causes of hallucinations. This was actually a pretty natural flow from his medical

career into this. It was like something that came up and the things he studied, and he started to just shift over to that, and that actually led to a syndrome eventually being named at least in part for him, which is Kandinskyo syndrome that involves hallucinations and delusions and often the belief that a force or a person external

to the patient is somehow controlling them. So now you can sort of start to see that bridge from that study of hallucinations into delusions of external control and how that would have led to his work in cases such as that of lea On and b As an interesting aside, Declarembeau, by the way, actually did continue his work in the arts throughout his life, just not as his career. He also integrated them into his work. He used photography and

his work studying psychology. Sometimes he also painted. You can find his work hanging in a number of museums in France today if you go looking for it. He was really intrigued with these linen cloths stuff. Have you seen these pictures that? Yeah, he did a big photography series when he was in Morocco. I was trying to remember if it was Morocco. Yeah, an examination of how like draped garments functioned in that culture. And they're really really striking.

They look a little ghostly do because you can't see the faces in any of them, but the actual cloth drapes so beautifully. He was a great photographer with what I've seen. But we're not talking here talking about his photography or do you're not goo his writings which described erotomania, he did a really good description of it, and he referenced a patient he had met and counseled who was

obsessed with British monarch George the fifth. Leah oughta bey and the paper that he wrote, called Les Siko's Passionnel used case studies that were mainly women, women who all

had a few things in common. They were often unhappy, unemployed, lonely, unmarried, or divorced, and they had delusions that a person unattainable in some way such as a high profile position, being famous, or part of a higher social status, was in love with or at least admired them, and the object of these obsessions could have been imaginary, could have been someone who was already deceased, or even someone the obsessed women

had never met. And of course, having heard what you have already, you can see that leah Ana fits this profile exactly and so for what it's worth. Although one study has found that sevent of reported cases of a rotomania are women, men can also have this condition to

though it's thought to be really underdiagnosed among them. Um Males tend to be more prevalent in forensic samples because men with a rotomania tend to be more violent than women are, and these statistics are why you hear us referring throughout the episode to women, not men, as the ones who believe that they have an admirer. Throughout its history, the definition of what we know as arotomania has also changed pretty considerably. Early references to the condition can be

found in the writings of both Hippocrates and Freud. Of course, they were not calling it that. Freud, for what it's worth less, his heart explain the condition as the body's defense mechanism to ward off homosexual impulses. Some more cocaine again, I'm just blessing his heart. Others have suggested that the condition might be a person's psychological defense. Again, it's the disappointment of unrequited love or rejection or the reality of a non existent love life. We have come a long

way since then. Until it became known as erotomania, it was also called things like erotic paranoia, phantom lover syndrome, and psychotic erotic transference reaction and delusional loving. That last one, but I love phantom lover syndrome. I do too. I think that would be a really good emo bian right. I know, not for the name of a disease, but right.

It did also have the Clarin Bo's name. Some people called it Clarembo syndrome, but that got confused with Kandinski Claronbow syndrome, so thus it evolved into a rotomania in addition to Hollywood just talking about. In the early eighteenth century, it was considered a disease triggered by and requited love. Then in the beginning of the nineteenth century it was considered to be related to nymphomania or satiriazis getting a

little bit more modern day. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the definition had swung back to the same as the eighteenth century, but this time in the form of mental illness UM and from the early one century up through today, aratamania is considered part of a delusional disorder. It's considered to be a delusional belief of being loved by someone else, which seems really simple, but as we've been talking about, not quite so simple. It has three

phases to it. Hope, resentment, and grudge. Doesn't sound fun at all. While we consider these very unfun possibilities, we are going to pause for a minute, and when we return, we're going to talk about those three stages and what they really mean and entail. Welcome back to criminalia. We're gonna talk now about how many cases of obsession or stalking can be linked to arotomania, although the two don't

necessarily go hand in hand. So the onset of arotomania is typically sudden, but the course of the actual delusions that they take in arotomania is chronic, So in mild cases this disorder can exist undetected by others for years until that is those problematic behaviors like calling or sending gifts or making unannounced house visits and other persistent stalking behaviors. Once those become apparent, then obviously this condition is detected,

then we need some professional help. Um. So, according to the research that's out there, When this is happening, the stalker also known UM as the subject starts out really optimistic about her chances. She's certain that the object of her affection in leah Anna's case, King George the Fifth, of course UM initiated contact with her by means of signals and signs left only for her to understand, remember

the curtains in the palace, of course. And in these cases, the subject has rationalized why the object of their affections cannot possibly openly declare their reciprocal love. And that's usually because they're in a high profile position of being the King of England or something else like someone being famous, so they can't possibly say that they love you, right. And with these delusions, the object of the subjects infatuation is believed by the subject to be communicating their love

with subtle methods. This can be something as simple as a body posture changing or the arrangement of household objects such as curtains, license plates on cars from specific states, which would take a lot of maneuvering to use that as a communication device. Hey, it could happen, I'm sure. And also just other innocuous acts that the subject becomes certain are meant to be interpreted by them as amorous overtures.

And if the object is a public figure, the clues can even come through different means such as like through the media. To be clear, this delusion is actually about feeling intensely loved, not about loving, and someone who is experiencing erotomania like leah Anna, desires and seeks out contact with the victim, also known as the object. So we have the subject in the object in these instances through

unwanted behaviors like we talked about earlier. And denial, of course, is a pretty big factor with this disorder, and this comes into play when the stalker cannot accept the fact that the object might not be interested in them. It also doesn't seem to make a difference if the object of their affection is married or otherwise committed, because after all, in the case of a woman's stalker using that as the example, she will believe that they are in love

with her and only her. But when her advances are continually rebuffed or ignored. After all, too the love object, because we have been calling it, she is a stranger. At this point, her demeanor can turn spiteful. Now we're in the grudge or the revenge phase, the final act, and it's an important turn in the safety of the victim when they don't declare their love for the stalker,

regardless of how insistent the stalker is. The stalker in turn starts to feel humiliated, and they may at this point begin to hate their now former object of affection, and they may bad mouth them or even become abusive toward them. Remember Lady Caroline Lamb and her smear campaign against Lord Byron. Who can forget? And they may even take revenge on them or on their loved ones. And

the delusions of love can turn into persecutory delusions. So persecutory delusions happen when someone in this case our stalker believes others in this case the victim, are out to harm them. But there's no evidence that this is the case. This is all as we said, it's a delusion. So erotomania actually is a condition that it could persist for a few weeks, but it could persist for a few months.

In fact, there are cases that have lasted for years. Um. It can be recurrent, and the person having these delusions may move on to a similar delusion about another object once they've gotten over their previous one. It's a fairly rare condition, and while we don't actually have numbers on the exact incidence of erotomania itself, delusional disorders in general have been reported as approximately fifteen cases per a hundred thousand per year, and that's with a female to male

ratio of an estimated three to one. There are actually two types of arotomania. The first, the primary form, is not related to psychiatric illness. The second form is seeing what a person has a psychiatric illness or suffered from head trauma, has dementia, might have convulsions, HIV or Cushing's disease, or they may have abused drugs or alcohol. And it's even been seen during pregnancy, pyramenopause, and in women taking

oral birth control. So there are a lot of factors that might trigger this, a lot, I mean, and a lot of really varying um. So for those with erotomania, the prognosis you might be wondering. Like many other health conditions, it just differs from person to person um still today, even though we're talking about this since you know centuries, the right treatment is not completely understood, but it does

often include a variety of these things. It will include antipsychotics along with electro convulsive therapy, as well as supportive psychotherapy, family therapy, social and environmental interventions, and risk management strategies. So treating any underlying men mental health conditions such as schizophrenia with paranoia, which is a common co condition, is

also beneficial. Now, all of this discussion of becoming obsessed with a person out of one's reach may have you thinking about your celebrity crush and wondering like, do do I have arotomania? I think everybody's wondering now, right now, right rest easy. Probably not we mentioned the statistics. It is totally normal to find people in the public eye

appealing and perhaps even fantasize about them. The line, of course, gets crossed when those thoughts manifest in behaviors that impact your daily life and cross obvious boundaries of privacy and security. Go ahead and keep thinking about whatever actor actress tickles your fancy exactly maybe just don't leave little gifts on

their doorstep, don't do anything. So that is our story about lie Anna, and we're gonna move on to Holly now our drink to honor her right, So the chaser today you may have gotten the inkling that Really what this is about. I love when you make yourself laugh before, because I'm so completely um, you know, transparent. Really this is about me being fascinated with the story of gas. I specifically did not introduce the end of his life

because that's a very sad story. Yes, but I thought I would do a drink more in honor of him, and it is called Ciccos passionel. So I wanted to do something that is yummy and almost teeters on the verge of being a little overbearing to match up with the disorder. I also, in an effort to kind of include this idea that someone believes that it is love,

to also make it a little sweet. It's actually quite sweet because it starts with two ounces of red vermouse, so you're staying its own darting in phase one of man, and then you're gonna add an ounce of cherry liqueur. You could see this is already kind of intense toss on top of that a dash of cherry bitters. Right, if you were to sip this, you would go, wow, that's a lot. And so at this point you're gonna top it off with soda. Four to five ounces of soda.

You can use soda water if you want to keep it sweet, you can go with the ginger ale option, or any kind of clear sparkling soda, whether it's sweetened or not. I love to put ginger ale in everything. I just love ginger ale. For this one, that was my favorite variation of them. I will tell you I also toyed with adding in a little bit of a berry colored syrup here. I'm just gonna say, don't be like me, kids, it is too much. It definitely crosses

the line into cough syrup. Which, while it's kind of a good representative of how this behavior crosses the line, it's not something you really want to drink. It's the curtains where is right. Also toy with the amount of soda or ginger aal that you put in there. I mentioned like four to five ounces. You can go lower than that if you like more punched to the flavor of the drink, or you can go more than that if you want it to be a little bit of

a softer, more subtle thing. It's kind of one of those things that you can tell we're in winter because it feels like a springtime drink. Clearly, I'm I'm yearning for warmer days even though it's not that cold. But yeah, so that is SCO's passionnel because who doesn't want to drink with a French name. I know, right, I won't be able to say it properly all anglicize the whole thing, but you can just call it erotomania. But it is

a tasty little treat. And like I said, once I figured out that even out and I stopped trying to force a berry flavored syrup into the mix, it immediately got better. Play with your drinks. It's fun. I'm trying to also just like find more ways that I enjoy vermouth, because it's something that I've always had in my head that I don't like. But then I will make drinks

with it and be like, oh, this is lovely. That was kind of a driver in the midst of this figure out how to love vermouth and how to bring out the parts of it that appealed to my palette. Uh, thank you so much for spending this time with us talking about siccos Paso and other things and the ways that our desires can manifest in unhealthy ways. Yeah, and we will see you right back here next week for more unhealthy desires manifesting in ways that are not delightful, always,

week after week. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or We're really listen to your favorite shows