Stigmata

[Kyriakos]

I just finished writing a short story, and i am wondering if its premise is utterly unrealistic or not.
It is about some red stigmata (not associated with anything religious), red dots all over the skin of the narrator who is a 10-year old child. He appears to be suffering from high fever as well and have delirious thoughts (the story is his diary entry). In the thoughts he associates the stigmata with his shock of collecting some beautiful object, which inside it harbored a hideous being.
In the end of the story his delirium concludes with the parallelism between the hideous being in the prized object, and his father, who obviously granted him the house he lives in.

So the question is: anyone know if medically it can be argued that such red spots (i am talking about hundreds of them all over the body) can be attributed to psychological sickness?
For in the story it pretty much is alluded to that the boy thinks this is what caused them (or rather he is unclear as to what caused them, but he thinks the creature did).

I plan to send the story to some magazine soon

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

So the question is: anyone know if medically it can be argued that such red spots (i am talking about hundreds of them all over the body) can be attributed to psychological sickness?

They are always found to be due to fakery, either willful or not. That would make at least 50% of them due to psychiatric illness.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Great song though


Link to video.

 

[Berzerker]

Do people who are not religious suffer from "possession" or is that just another disastrous side effect? Cut off little kiddies' weenies and convince them evil spirits might possess them. Wonderful "religion"...

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Great song though


Link to video.

I cant open the link . Ministry ? Then

 

[Bootstoots]

I bear stigmata on my hands in the form of scrapes, mostly because I tripped over a tree stump this evening and threw out my hands to arrest my fall. At least I don't suffer from an addiction to humanistic literature. I hear that can be rough.

 

[Disgustipated]

I was thinking of the movie stigmata. It was a decent movie. I'm not familiar with this Ministry song. I used to be a pretty good fan of them too. Ministry

I can't think of any medical explanation for such spots attributed to psychological sickness. But the mind can cause medical symptoms of sorts. See my thread about what's happening to those girls in New York state. They have tourrette's syndrome like signs. But as far as I know, it can't actually cause spots on the skin. But if mass hysteria can cause laughing fits and such, is it so much a stretch it can cause spots?

 

[mayor]

The only explanation I could find that, with some liberty, can be seen as a medical explanation is the explanation of Ivan Illich, an Austrian philosopher and Roman Catholic Priest.

He states that Stigamate, judged by him real, arise due to an extremely high compassion with Christ. The person his faith is so deep and strong that he experiences the crucifixion himself. Stigmata occure by people who have an stong urge to indentify theirself with the suffering of Christ.

I know the stigmata in your story aren't religious of nature but following this reasoning you could argue that stigmata can arise due to a psychological sickness*. What sort of psychological sickness will result in several hundred stigmata is beyond my fantasy/knowledge


*I'm in no way implying that Faith is a psychological sickness.

 

[Kyriakos]

The only explanation I could find that, with some liberty, can be seen as a medical explanation is the explanation of Ivan Illich, an Austrian philosopher and Roman Catholic Priest.

He states that Stigamate, judged by him real, arise due to an extremely high compassion with Christ. The person his faith is so deep and strong that he experiences the crucifixion himself. Stigmata occure by people who have an stong urge to indentify theirself with the suffering of Christ.

I know the stigmata in your story aren't religious of nature but following this reasoning you could argue that stigmata can arise due to a psychological sickness*. What sort of psychological sickness will result in several hundred stigmata is beyond my fantasy/knowledge


*I'm in no way implying that Faith is a psychological sickness.

Thank you for the reply

I asked a psychiatrist about this, and he replied that while the dots seem to be some of the known childhood passing illnesses, it can be argued that the story is worthy due to presenting the doomed attempt of the child to self-explain his state. So at least the story survives due to this vagueness and ambiguity. He claimed it was one of my best he has read

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch

A better version of stigmata. I believe the Greek would be "Τὰ Τρία Στίγματα Palmer Eldritch".