My strange addiction (TLC)

At least some are real. My friend is an er nurse and has seen people come in from eating strange things like batteries and such. These people will show up repeatedly. She also told me about one girl who could not control her urge to eat toilet paper!

Developing a habit of eating unusual items is known as pica. When I was in nursing school they always used the example of pregnant women who developed the habit of eatingp powdered Argo laundry starch. We actually saw a few in our OB clinic (this was in the late 70s). Fortunately that product is no longer readily available, so I guess toilet paper fills the bill now. %0D %0D When I was a young child I used to run my finger around the top of a can of Ajax and eat it. Never in large quantities, but still...%0D I also liked to eat crayola crayons, but just the red ones. I would unwrap them, let them sit on the sidewalk in the sun for awhile until they softened up, and then eat them. %0D My smile was a dead giveaway to my mom. %0D %0D Sleeping with a hair dryer is just nuts.

I have a lesbian friend who likes to eat aspirin. She'll pop a couple in her mouth, chew them up, and swallow them.

Fortunately, it's not an addiction. She only does it when she actually needs them.

[quote]Sleeping with a hair dryer is just nuts.

Riiiiiiiight, R2.

how did the lady that ate ajax DAILY not be physically ill from it? She was going to lose most of her teeth but wouldn't she get ulcers or something too?

I saw a clip of this at a local restaurant last weekend. It was about a woman addicted to ventriloquism. While there are strange addictions, the show looked extremely fake, like it wasn't even trying to be realistic.

I know the ventriloquist girl. She is indeed a fake and graduate of NYU. And a really bad actress. And alleged comedienne. But really, she's just an ugly girl with no talent who thinks that this show will catapult her to stardom, which is absurd.

I think she actually attended the Reality School in NYC, which makes it all the more amusing since they didn't train her well enough to be convincing. If I had a real strange addiction and saw this fakery, I would be sort of pissed to be lumped in there with her.

Ugh, I can't even believe I know her.

Oddly enough, r7, I watched the ventriloquist one last night and said "There is no way this is real...and this chick is a terrible actress as his her sister." There was just something about her little breakdown with her mother that was just so false. Thanks for proving me correct.

That doesn't surprise me. My partner and I were saying "Gee, I'm sure this show is totally real and not full of bad actors pretending to have an addiction just to get on the show AT ALL" when we saw the ventriloquist lady. Wonder if the producers are complicit or just turn a blind eye or, perhaps, really stupid.

Ventriloquist debunked.

I think when you cast people through a Reality School, then you're complicit in it. Plus, how could any actual therapist believe anything coming out of her mouth? I've sadly seen her act and it's really, really bad. And she doesn't always use the damn puppets either.

I didn't watch, but isn't the hair dryer just an inexpensive white noise machine? I can't sleep without the TV on.

I was thinking she might have approached them pretending to be legit. Of course if they cast her, that's a whole different story. Hell, they may have cast her just to get publicity when it was "leaked" that she was a fake.

Didn't that kid from the Real World New Orleans sleep with a hair dryer?

That ventriloquist girl makes me question whether any of them are for real.

Our Lisa Whelchel is a ventriloquist

The ventriloquist's name is april brucker she also has a facebook posting her acting gigs on reality shows,shes a total fake.The networks are aware she is a actress.

FAKE. They show these people *chewing* couch cushions, dryer sheets, rocks, etc. but never *swallowing* these items.

There's no way the one about the guy addicted to pulling hair out of drains was real.

About 2-3 years ago I saw a woman eating Argo laundry starch while I was riding on the El in Chicago. She just sat there with the whole box, top ripped off and eating it with a spoon. It was horrifying. I had never heard of pica, but someone else on the El (we were all looking at each other like WTF) sort of whispered to me about it and then I Googled it.%0D %0D

Argo corn starch is still available, many people use it in place of talcum because it's safer.

Wouldn't eating detergent such as Ajax, and all these other chemicals, cause a person's insides to rot or basically make them die?

Didn't fashion maven Isablla Blow die from drinking weed killer?! So, how the hell can these insane people continue to ingest chemicals without any serious consequences?

I wish all these so called reality shows would just go away!

That tanning addict is a youtube "celebrity," of course they didn't mention that during the show.

when I was younger I liked to eat paper.

I pick my nose.

Newest episode of a woman who was "addicted" to eating her dead husbands ashes is, in my opinion completely fake. I never noticed or even sensed that fake scripted feeling before this episode, but I have it now. The time line was way off on her husband dieing two months ago and her only having finished 1 Lb. of her hubby's ashes. Also what television program other than the news can find out a problem and send out a crew to produce a show in that time line (two months). Addiction is embarrassing and even if it came out that she was eating her husbands ashes (no matter how much of a crazy attention whore she is) it wouldn't be the first week she was doing it. Also they went into how unhealthy is was to eat ashes, which are sterile, but have no nutritional value. In any event she would be way less fat if she was in fact only consuming very small amounts of her dead husbands ashes for over two months.

The Soup did a bit on the woman who eats rocks. She had a special place that she had to drive to to get her favorite rocks.

When I saw this show I was shocked from the very first moment, because... I'm addicted to the hairdryer. And it's exactly how that lady said: I'm 32 years old, I have this habit since I was a child, I like especially the sound (I use it even in July ), but in the winter I like the warm as well. I have a 4 years old son which starts to like it too. The only difference is that this habit of mine did not affect my marriage although my husband is not thrilled.I'm joking saying that the hairdryer is my lover. SO I KNOW FOR SURE THAT THAT ADDICTION IS FOR REAL, AND THAT'S WHY I BELIEVE ALL ARE FOR REAL NO MATTER HOW STRANGE THEY SOUND.

I think I have this.

I ate a clean pumice stone the other day. Just crunched it into a soft powder with my teeth.

And I have this urge to sniff Cascade dishwashing powder. I love the powdery scent. I almost want to eat it...

And I adore the scent of a musty basement - that bleachy concrete scent.

The one about the guy who ate butterfly wings is TRUE.

I eat ajax everyday once maybe twice a day it calms me down when I'm stressed and i love the texture.I started when i was around 8 I'm now 22 and i still have this addiction i wanna get help but i don't want anyone to know i do this.It scares me because i watched a show where this lady's teeth were rotten and mostly gone from the same addiction i have.I've tried to stop many times I just can't

I work in the mental Heath field. I do not question the ability to have these strange addictions. But I question the validity of theses addictions from the low key reactions family and friends Have. Not believable at that point. Shame on u TLC

They have some addictions which are relatively safe but there are others which are health threatening such as drinking gasoline. I find it difficult to believe that the woman's primary physician or any other doctor isn't aware of the addiction of the physical harm which it's doing. If they are, then they are in gross violation of their oath in not trying to get the woman mental health care in addition to any physical care.

The woman drinking and perfuming herself with her urine was too much for me. I barely got through the guy rubbing himself on his car and french kissing the bumper.

The girl that had to kick mail boxes was the strangest one I've seen. ...she carried a step stool in her car and on the way to work she would randomly jump out of her can with the step stool, climb up the stool and kick any mail box that seemed to call her name.

Okay I really don't get how this guy is like seriously in love with his car and is in a "sexual relationship with his car". Like wtf?? Are freaking serious? This is a joke right, like for real. And the girl that drinks gasoline every single day. I just really think a lot of them are fake to be honest.

Did anyone see tonight's episode? A woman is addicted to stinging herself with bees. She was wacky. There was a scene where she is crying next to a bee hive in her back yard. Funniest thing I've seen this week.

addicted to eating pumice stone. like the kind you buy in your local Walgreens... it doesn't kill us... even if it does have bad effects.

My strange addictions:

I have a substantial collection of crocheted toilet paper cozies.

Every item in my home that sits on a surface also sits on a doily.

I have a closet full of 60s era caftans embellished with rhinestones.

Turbans to match.

I chew my false fingernails, delicately biting off the fire engine red polish first.

I absolutely must have three pomegranate martinis, then stand up and twirl three times before sitting down to my meatloaf, instant potatoes and canned string beans.

Everyone in the complex loves me and stops by for tea and crones every afternoon.

Some are obviously fake but some are real, too. I've heard SO many baby boomers, unrelated, say they used to eat the plaster from their bedrooms walls growing up. SEVERAL. I believe them 100%, none are attention whores or have other weird stories.

this human horse sleeps with a running blow dryer in her bed.

My strange addiction: I have recently become addicted to the smell of my car air conditioner, smell of the printer at work when it prints - I guess the toner? Also, the smell of the vacuum canister when it's being emptied is strangely pleasant to me.

I wonder if this is some sort of hormonal thing... I'm a 39 year old woman and kind of feel like my hormones are changing or something...

I have a little ceramic penguin on my coffee table that just HAS to be pointing due south, at all times.

STOP IT!

I just saw the one where the woman is supposedly eating her husbands ashes.

She claims she lost 42 lbs. That’s a lie right there. Bitch is a whale.

Well, when I was a young lad, very young, my grandmother had two elephant figurines. I have no idea what they were made of, but I would lick the bottoms of their feet, because it was very salty. I would never let anyone see me do it, though. I thought I was a real badass, at the time.

They’ve got a woman on now who claims she has an addiction to chewing in dirty diapers, but it’s plain that the diapers she’s holding are packaged diapers that haven’t been used.

I remember reading a memoir a while back about a girl who was addicted to eating plaster from the walls.