• The Lady Who Grew Backward

  Contributed by Rodelio Mallari on Nov 10, 2010 (message contributor)

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THE LADY WHO GREW BACKWARD

The lady who grew backward was a woman who lived in Virginia some years ago. In the Virginia Medical Monthly her doctor told the story:

She had grown normally, married, and had three children. Life was normal until the husband and father died when the children were in high school. The mother doubled her devotion to the children. She changed her clothes to those of a girl of twenty, joined in her children's parties and fun. In a few years the children noticed that as they grew older their mother was growing younger.

Psychiatrists call it "personality regression," which means "a person walking backward." Usually such people stop going backward at a certain age. But not this woman. She slipped backward at the rate of one year for every three or four months of time that went forward. Finally, although she was 61 years old she acted and talked like a 6-year-old. She was sent to a sanitarium, where she insisted on wearing short dresses, playing with toys, and babbling like a child.

Then she became like a three-year-old; she spilled her food, crawled on the floor, and cried "Mama." Backward still farther to the age of one, she drank milk curled up like a tiny baby. Finally, she went back over the line and died.

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