S04 Episode 16 Extra: Sanity and Other Irrationalities

hundred eight four seven one zero seven seven. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith were for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In our last episode, Folly Adieu, we followed the extraordinary story of forty year old twins Suboena and

Ursula Ericson. In two thousand and eight, the pair embarked on a bizarre and chaotic journey from Ireland bound for London, England, which resulted in a serious injury for Ursula and the murder of a seemingly innocent man, Glenn Hollind's head, which Sabina was later convicted of psychiatrists argued that Sabina had suffered from a very rare form of momentary insanity known

as folly adur a madness of two. The condition they believed had been brought on due to Sabina's apparent intense connection to Ursula, who was thought to have been suffering from a fevered state of paranoia and delusion at the time,

which was effectively contracted by Sabina. However, since cases such as these are extremely rare, with some medical professionals even questioning their existence, and with neither sister going on record to explain exactly what occurred, some have questioned the official narrative of this story, or at least what little there

is of it. One of the more contentious theories about what actually happened is the suggestion that Sabina and Ursula were acting under some kind of jiress or had been instructed to complete a task of some kind with links to a large drug operation. It has also been speculated that the pair were already under police observation when they

were initially spotted walking along the motorway. One argument claims that cut footage from a two thousand and eight BBC documentary detailing the unusual events reveals that the two women were initially arrested under section one three six of the

Mental Health Act. Had this been the case, Sabina would not ordinarily have been released only a few days later, and as such would not have gone on to kill Glenn Hollins's head, the inference being that perhaps an order had come from higher up to let Sabina go regardless of her health, because the police wanted to secretly track the rest of her journey to find out what she was up to. However, this supposedly cut footage was included in an earlier TV show screened by the BBC, which

suggests there was no such cover up. Furthermore, the clip in question doesn't actually show that they were arrested under section one three six, but rather that there was the possibility that they might be. I have to admit I was a little unsure about whether I should tell this story Unexplained, partly because it occurred so recently, but also because it feels in some ways exploitative in ways that

other unexplained stories haven't. Certainly, if you read up anything about the events online, it isn't long before you come across all sorts of prurient theories about why things unfolded the way they did, and I was a little wary that this show might be contributing to all that. In the end, I hoped that, by sticking only to what is known and has already been detailed numerous times, that a lion wasn't crossed by way of an explanation of sorts.

Notwithstanding the tragic death of Glen Hollind's head, what has always haunted me about this story, if the folly Adeur diagnosis is correct, is the notion of perpetrating something so horrific without even knowing, only for it to suddenly become apparent to you later, Like so much of Western's storytelling traditions, for want of a better phrase, we find this tragic experience detailed in ancient Greek mythology. In what is considered

one of the greatest tragedies ever written. Euripides's fifth century b c. E play The Back Eye, tells the story of Dionysis's revenge on King Pentheus and the people of Thebes for not believing that he was the son of

the god Zeus. In it, Dionysus disguised as a mysterious stranger exacts his revenge by driving all of the women in the city mad, including King Pentheus's mother a Gave, and leading them into the mountains to observe the Dionysian rites, intoxicating animalistic rituals designed to return individuals to a naturally

chaotic state. When King Pentheus learns that the stranger has been encouraging others to engage in Dionysian worship, not realizing it is the god themselves, he orders the figure arrested. Sometime later, a herdsman arrives from the mountains, explaining how he saw the female followers of Dionysus, known as menads, behaving strangely, wandering the local forests, suckling other animals, and

performing miraculous feats. They'd even attacked the herdsman when he tried to intervene, falling upon his animals and ripping them to shreds with their bare hands before going on to attack a nearby village. Eager to put an end to the apparent outbreak of Dionysian madness, Pentheus assembles an army in preparation for massacring the women, only for the mysterious stranger to convince him that he should spy on them

instead to see what they get up to. Now. Under the stranger's spell, Pentheus travels to the forest, and, having got close to the Meanads, is helped into a tree to get a better look at them. At that moment, the stranger is revealed to be none other than Dionysus themselves, and exposes Pentheus to all their followers In an instant. The Meanads, led by Pentheus's own mother, Agave, in a fevered state of madness, rip up the tree by the roots, knocking Pentheus down and into the arms of his mother.

Taking one look at her son, whom she mistakes for a lion, Agave puts her foot on his shoulder and rips off his arm by the socket, then proceeds to violently twist his head until it is wrenched clean from his body, and then the rest of the Meanads fall onto it, ripping off his legs and the other arm, before clawing the flesh from his bones, until the forest floor has been drenched in blood and littered with the

pieces of Pentheus. With the Meanads sated, a Garve takes the head of what she still believes to be a lion back to thebes to display to her father, Cadmus, revealing it with pride. A Garve can only react with utter confusion at the look of horror on Cadmus's face.

As a father demands to know what she has done, Agave calls out for her son Pentheus, to marvel at her trophy and help her nail it above the door, but Pentheus is nowhere to be found, and soon as the madness begins to wear off, that lion's head she'd been carrying in her bloody hands begins to change shape, until finally the decapitated head of her son is revealed to her. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself?

Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven a m. To nine p m. Local time. If you feel overwhelmed. Sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal

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That's teladoc dot com Slash Unexplained podcast. Of course, euripides is the back eye is an extreme example, but the remains something uniquely troubling about the idea that it's possible to exist for a time in one state of awareness perpetrating all sorts of terrible acts without ever having the sense that there's anything irrational or terrible about them, only to then effectively awake from this state later with the

full realization of what you've done. If your awareness remained the same, such as might be the case with someone determined to have psychopathic tendencies, for example, from your own perspective, at least this realization would never come. The true horror only arrives in the moment of emergence from the previous

state of awareness. With that said, what is equally challenging is understanding that from the perspective of the person behaving in ways that we might not consider sane or rational, for them, there is not an awareness of behaving insanely or abnormally. For them, their behavior is sanity. Imagine yourself, for example, the child of an extermination camp guard or a slave driving plantation owner, perhaps brought into a world

that appears to you the natural order of things. Every One around you that you love and respect never questions this world. On the contrary, they actively embrace it, getting upset or defensive if any one dares to query it. And as you get older, slowly you become the active participant, And before long it is you who now holds the whip and the branding iron. It is you who marches the line of camp prisoners at gunpoint, leading them into

the gas chamber. But not once do you question the legitimacy of your actions, because this is the world you've grown up in. It is the world your parents and all your friends participate in. Two and all those you are hurting barely even register as human. Then imagine, in the midst of committing a monstrous act, the blindfold is suddenly ripped from your eyes, and for the first time in your life, you see everything in a completely different light.

Everything that you thought was the correct and natural way of the world was nothing but one perspective of it. And you look at the human being in front of you leading to death on the floor, and down at your hands that are covered in blood, and you realize what you've done. Except it isn't madness you've awoken from, but just a different life, a different time, a different place.

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To make time for you. Tell a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e ladoc dot com. Slash Unexplained Podcast