Podcast Review: Stuttering in Girls

In 2011, students at Leroy's developed mysterious tics. The “Hysterical” podcast sensitively asks what's going on in American schools.

Diagnosis: Conversion disorder. Physical breakdowns can be caused by emotional trauma. Image: Imago

It was the fall of 2011 when a student developed tics: Her face twitched, she stuttered, and she made loud, uncontrollable sounds. What started as Tourette’s quickly became a mystery. Because one student became two, then three, then a dozen. And they all went to the same high school in the small town of Leroy. The tics seemed to be contagious.

In the seven-part audio series “Hysterical,” Dan Taberski, who some may know from his podcast “12/9,” explores the question of what was behind the outbreak. Everyone in Leroy seemed to have a different theory at the time: It was all contamination. Others accused the girls of playing on their tics to get attention.

After weeks of testing, doctors, authorities and the media agreed on a diagnosis: conversion disorder. A psychological disorder in which physical failure occurs as a result of emotional trauma or extreme stress. Mass hysteria is often colloquially referred to as mass hysteria. But many people don’t want to settle for a diagnosis that carries sexual connotations.

The story is exciting, but it is really great thanks to Tabersky, who always addresses his conversation partners sympathetically but critically and also looks objectively left and right. His self-deprecating style and little tricks break the gravity of the subject.

At the beginning of each conversation, he asks his interviewees how to pronounce the small town: LeRoy, with a long “e” or a short “e.” The variety of answers is in itself a good example of the fact that everyone has their own truth with reasonable justifications. The question of truth and how to live a life in uncertainty becomes the central question of the podcast.