Most of us believe that werewolves are only in fairy tales. Nevertheless, it is easiest to explain what is happening with 17-year-old Ukrainian Viktor, a pupil of the Belotserkovsky children's home for boys, from a mystical point of view. For some time now, the young man assures that he has something to do with … wolves. And behaves accordingly.
Victor and his two sisters were orphaned early and were given up to be raised in an orphanage. Later, Vitya and the youngest of the sisters were taken to a foster family. The new parents were Baptists, but the children were not offended.
Until adolescence, Vitya seemed like an ordinary boy, although he was diagnosed with moderate mental retardation.
“It happened when my brother was 14 or 15 years old,” recalls Viktor's older sister Irina. “One morning my brother woke up as a completely different person. He began to say that he needed to go to the forest, that they were waiting for him there, even grabbed a knife, began waving it, but, thank God, he did not injure anyone …"
The foster parents sent the teenager to the hospital. Vitya did not want to return to them anymore, he began to live in an orphanage. Visiting his older sister, who by that time had already graduated from college and got married, he talked about the fact that his brothers - wolves - lived in the forest, that he was drawn to them … True, he called his own sisters wolves. Apparently, he was sure that his loved ones were wolves …
Sometimes Victor had seizures: he would fall on all fours, bared his teeth, growled and tried to run away somewhere … When the seizure ended, the teenager did not remember what happened to him. The most interesting thing is that it always happened on the full moon. On the other days, Vitya behaved like an ordinary orphanage. Teachers claim that he was never aggressive, helped his comrades …
“When he has seizures, he gnaws at various objects, but does not bite people,” says sister Irina.
Several times Viktor was sent to the hospital, but the doctors just shrugged their shoulders - they could not make a diagnosis.
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Not so long ago, Viktor was transferred to the Belotserkovsky boarding school. According to the teacher Nina Medvid, he is higher in development than many of the local pupils - he draws, writes well, reads books with simple content …
“For 44 years I have been working with children diagnosed with mental retardation,” says Nina Medvid, “but this is the first time I have met such a case. When the boy came to our boarding school, he asked for a book about animals. Opened on the page, where photos of wolves, and shows. I said that I like the bunny better - he is kind, does not offend anyone. And the next day he showed me the cubs again. His favorite book is about Mowgli, he knows all the characters there …"
“Such cases were described in the last century and the century before last, in particular, by the famous psychiatrist Kraft-Ebing,” said Gennady Zilberblat, chief psychiatrist of the Kiev region. - But they have not been deeply studied, not analyzed. In this story, the starting point could be a book about Mowgli - the boy may have wanted to get used to the image of a child living among wolves. Impressions could fall on fertile soil - an unstable psyche. In any case, it needs to be corrected and treated."
“Such seizures can manifest themselves in the framework of epilepsy,” in turn, believes Zilberblat's colleague, child psychiatrist Tamara Sumtsova. - It cannot be ruled out that interest in animals, in particular, in wolves, is reflected in the boy's psyche.
If the child is carefully examined, one can probably find the reasons that give rise to such attacks."
However, the most likely diagnosis here is clinical lycanthropy. This is a mental illness in which a person begins to consider himself as some kind of animal: most often - a wolf, less often - for example, a cat, dog, horse … In the phase of illness, the patient can behave like an animal: howl, bark, crawl on all fours. In this state, patients lose control of themselves.
In 1963, Dr. Lee Illis of Hampshire wrote a study entitled "On Porphyria and the Etymology of Werewolves." It lists about 80 cases of lycanthropy. Illis writes that patients, of course, do not turn into wolves during seizures, but practically lose their human appearance. In a few hours, they return to normal.
It is not yet clear what is the connection between attacks of "wolf disease" and periods of full moon. And also why Victor considers himself "the brother of the wolves." By the way, lycanthropy is not fully recognized by official medicine, this mysterious ailment is not in the international list of diseases …
TRINITY MARGARITA