Hi, I'm Ali Wentworth in my new podcast, Ghost Gorley, I'm talking to experts on how to grow a teenager in a pandemic, we'll be tackling such subjects as the sexualisation of girls in the Internet, anxiety and covid. And what does higher education look like now? Listen, I was not around during the Spanish flu, but growing a teenager seems to have gotten a lot harder.

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Hello and welcome to Criminality. This season, we're exploring the lives and motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers throughout history. I'm Maria Tomoaki. And I'm Holly Frim. And today we're talking about a 53 year old French woman named Leya on a baby. We only know the initial of her last name, which if I were being strictly French, I would say bit. And she believed that King George, the fifth of England, had been making romantic gestures toward her via secret messages.

The British royal family and Buckingham Palace itself both have had their fair share of stalkers. Before Leeanna, there was a man who climbed the fence and wandered around inside the palace before anyone caught him. This was near the same time as what we'll be talking about. And another stalker was caught trying to break into the diplomat's entrance. He was caught, but there were many, many others.

And although she wasn't the most famous royal stalker, Layana is for sure an interesting type of stalker. Her behavior made her a person of interest to the French psychiatrist. Gattellari Ilford, Wiliam Navigation declarant.

I'm so glad you had to say that and not me as the one of the two of us that speaks no French whatsoever. Thankfully, to help us both, he did go by the shorter names of Gaitonde guests, the Cliff and Rambo and just declare bow. He featured Layana in a scientific paper. He wrote about a disorder which came to be called erotomania, in which he described the condition more in-depth and more clearly that it had been described in previous years.

And you might recognize that word if you listen to our Valentine's special. But even if you didn't, don't worry, you won't be left out. We're going to get to the specifics in a bit. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. So we're going to talk a little bit more about Leona and her behavior toward the king. So King George the fifth was actually not the first of her obsessions for delusions went way back before him. Actually, we don't know anything about her childhood, what it was like if she had the man.

But we do know that at one time in her adult history, Leanna worked in retail. She was a saleswoman in a dress shop, but she quit when she became the mistress of a wealthy upper class man. The relationship lasted for about eight years until his death in 1987. Layana didn't take very long to become entangled in a new affair. And this time it was with a man who owned a castle. So she was, you know, looking for gents who could take care of her a little bit.

And this followed suit because her new lover bought a house for her and actually asked her to come and live there in that new house with him. And she did. But I became lonely because this was out in the French countryside and she just felt a little isolated. And after just four years, their relationship ended. Her delusions were probably already beginning to develop at this time. And we think that because in 1917, during World War One, she became convinced that an American general in a nearby army camp was madly in love with her.

He was not. This was entirely fabricated on her part. And a few years later, she became convinced that it wasn't the general, but rather it was King George, the fifth of England, who actually was romantically interested in her. She truly believed he was in love with her, but she also believed that she had at least initially accidentally failed to notice any of his interest. And she chided herself for failing to notice the knowing glances and the cryptic remarks and the secret signs that she believed had been intended for her, like a knock on her hotel room door that she had not answered.

But now she understood that that must have been the king trying to come and see her. She also believed that she had overlooked the people disguised as special officers, including an emissary of the king, tourists and sailors who she thought George must have sent to communicate with her. And because she hadn't noticed these advances, surely the king now must think she had rejected him because she felt she'd missed all of these things. She was compelled to travel to London to explain to him in person that she did love him back.

And that compulsion turned into action. She did travel to London. She wandered around the gardens in the general vicinity of Buckingham Palace, trying to catch a glimpse of George and trying to figure out a way that she could get inside. Although there was never any sighting or any contact between the two. There was, though, to her an occasional sign, of course, that has air quotes. These were things that she thought were signs from the king, and that was in the form of curtains.

Leon, I believe that when any curtain in the palace moved, it was George telling her that he saw her. The reality is that he actually probably was not home during this time when she was there. And if he was, it said that he generally tended to enjoy spending time on his hobbies, which were stamp collecting and game shooting, and wasn't really spending a great deal of time gazing out of windows, dusting the curtains, peeking out. Yeah.

So she spent thousands of francs on this adventure and eventually returned to Paris, having never actually seen the king in person, not even through a window while traveling back home in December of 1920.

She was agitated. She stopped two police officers on the train platform to tell them that she was being followed and other passengers had been laughing at her. So she asked for their protection and she became even more frustrated and agitated when they seemed confused by her story. She grew increasingly frantic, and she struck them, at least one of them. I can't actually see how she would hit the second one without the first one anyway. And then, not surprisingly, she was taken into custody.

We're going to pause for just a moment. And when we come back, we are going to talk about the condition known as erotomania and the man who described that condition.

What happens when we die, what waits for us on the other side, those are things we've wondered since the beginning of time. I'm Sandra Champlain and each week on my new podcast, Shades of the Afterlife, I'll make it easier to understand what we can expect when we are finally called to leave this planet. Join me every Friday for a new episode of Shades of the Afterlife, available on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows.

Hi, guys, I'm Katie Lowes, actress, mom and host of the parenting podcast Katie's Crib, a show that helps women navigate the big shifts which motherhood can bring. This season. You'll hear from resilient moms like actress Gabrielle Union, thought leaders like author of the New York Times best seller Untamed Glen and Doyle, and experts like prenatal and postpartum clinical psychologist Dr. Alyssa Berlind. We get candid about our experiences and share resources for everything parenting, endometriosis and surrogacy, divorce and blended families emotionally preparing for postpartum.

Katie's crib is covering it all for a dose of comfort and community with those who understand the struggles and the joys of raising tiny humans. Subscribe now for brand new episodes every other Thursday, listen to Katie's crib on the radio app or an Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to criminality. So now let's talk about what happened to Leanna after she got back to Paris.

So after she was taken into custody, Leanna was taken to the infirmary special. That was a psychiatric crisis center. That was also the headquarters of the emerging French forensic psychiatry field in Paris. And it was there that she was interviewed by the psychiatrist we mentioned earlier, Gatta Garcia, declaring, bu we should take a little side street, a little meander here to talk a little bit about who he was. He was born outside of Paris in 1872 and initially pursued law, which was the field that much of his family worked in.

So it doesn't it makes sense. He had initially wanted to be an artist and he showed promise in clothing design. So law was not at all a choice he made for himself when law didn't really interest him, which right. No surprise there. He moved not back to art, but instead medicine, which he began to study after he had finished his law education. Yeah, I, I have read accounts that kind of hint that his father was very much like, well, if you're not going to do law, the only other option is to be a doctor.

You know, I read the same things and I was like, no pressure, no pressure. He didn't actually start out in psychology, though, either. So he first started out spending his time studying the ways in which aircraft accidents impacted pilots through their recovery and beyond, which I thought was fascinating. It is. And that was specifically like physically he was not it was not from a psychological angle. And that was where his doctorate work actually focused.

But then in 1999, he shifted focus at last to psychological matters and he kind of hit the ground running with this. He did a lot of work in the examination of the causes of hallucinations. This was actually a pretty natural flow from his medical career into this. It was like something that came up and the things he studied and he started to just shift over to that. And that actually led to a syndrome eventually being named, at least in part for him, which is Kandinski Clear syndrome that involves hallucinations and delusions and often the belief that a force or a person external to the patient is somehow controlling them.

So now you can sort of start to see that bridge from that study of hallucinations into delusions of external control and how that would have led to his work in cases such as that of Leah Arnab. As an interesting aside, the bow, by the way, actually did continue his work in the arts throughout his life, just not as his career. He also integrated them into his work. He used photography in his work, studying psychology. Sometimes he also painted you can find his work hanging in a number of museums in France today if you go looking for it.

He was really intrigued with these linen cloth. So have you seen these pictures there? Yeah, you did a big photography series when he was in Morocco. I was trying to remember if it was Morocco. Yeah. An examination of how like draped garments function in that culture. And they're really, really striking. They look a little ghostly do because you can't see the faces in any of them, but the actual cloth drapes so beautifully. He was a great photographer with what I've seen, but we're not here to talk about his photography or to hear none of his writings which described erotomania.

He did a really good description of it in nineteen twenty one and he referenced a patient he had met and counseled who was obsessed with British monarch George the Fifth. There ought to be at the paper that he wrote called Les Seko's personell used case studies that were mainly women, women who all had a few things in common. They were often unhappy, unemployed, lonely, unmarried or divorced. And they had delusions that a person unattainable in some way, such as a high profile position being famous or part of a higher social status, was in love with or at least admired them.

And the object of these obsessions could have been imaginary, could have been someone who was already deceased or even someone the obsessed women had never met. And of course, having heard what you have already, you can see that A fits this profile. Exactly. And so for what it's worth, although one study has found that 70 percent of reported cases of erotomania are women, men can also have this condition, too, though it's thought to be really underdiagnosed among them.

Males tend to be more prevalent in forensic samples because men with erotomania tend to be more violent than women are. And these statistics are why you hear this referring throughout the episode to women, not men, as the ones who believe that they have an admirer throughout its history. The definition of what we know as erotomania has also changed pretty considerably. Early references to the condition can be found in the writings of both Hypocritic and Freud. Of course, they were not calling it that Freud.

For what it's worth. Bless his heart, explained the condition as the body's defense mechanism to ward off homosexual impulses. How does that work? Again, I'm just blessing his heart. Yes, I know others have suggested that the condition might be a person's psychological defense against the disappointment of unrequited love or rejection or the reality of a non-existent love life. We have come a long way since then until it became known as erotomania. It was also called things like erotic paranoia, phantom lover syndrome and psychotic erotic transference reaction and delusional love in that last one.

But I love Phantom Lover syndrome. I do too.

I think that would be a really good IMO, but I know not for the name of a disease, right? It did also have declared Rambo's name. Some people called it clear Grambow syndrome, but that got confused with Kandinski Clairvaux syndrome. So thus it evolved into erotomania.

In addition to Holly was just talking about in the early 18th century, it was considered a disease triggered by an unrequited love. Then in the beginning of the 19th century, it was considered to be related to nymphomania or satirises, getting a little bit more modern day. By the beginning of the 20th century, the definition had swung back to the same as the 18th century, but this time in the form of mental illness and from the early 21st century up through today, erotomania is considered part of a delusional disorder.

It's considered to be a delusional belief of being loved by someone else, which seems really simple.

But as we've been talking about, not quite so simple, it has three phases to it. Hope, resentment and grudge doesn't sound fun at all. No, no, no. Well, we consider these very unfun possibilities. We are going to pause for a minute. And when we return, we're going to talk about those three stages and what they really mean and entail.

What are the shadow people in hat? I've received thousands of reports of these beings from around the globe. I'm Heidi Collins and I'm the author who first named and defined both of these beings. I'm also an experienced therapist. And now I welcome you to send me your stories on anything from the demonic to the divine for help or insight at Heidi Collins dot com. So together each week we'll discover how many experiences are connected as we journey on my new podcast, The Darker Side of Life to help open up your life into the life.

Welcome back to Criminalist. We're going to talk now about how many cases of obsession or stalking can be linked to erotomania, although the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. So the onset of erotomania is typically sudden, but the course of the actual delusions that they take in erotomania is chronic. So in mild cases, this disorder can exist undetected by others for years until that is those problematic behaviors like calling or sending gifts or making unannounced house visits and other persistent stalking behaviors.

Once those become apparent, then obviously this condition is detected, then we need some professional help. So according to the research that's out there, when this is happening, the stalker, also known as the subject, starts out really optimistic about her chances. She's certain that the object of her affection in Liana's case, King George, the fifth, of course, initiated contact with her by means of signals and signs left only for her to understand. Remember the curtains in the palace, of course.

And in these cases, the subject has rationalized why the object of their affections cannot possibly openly declare their reciprocal love. And that's usually because they're in a high profile position of being the King of England or something else, like someone being famous. So they can't possibly say that they love you. Right. And with these delusions, the object of the subject's infatuation is believed by the subject to be communicating their love with subtle methods. This can be something as simple as a body posture changing or the arrangement of household objects such as curtains, license plates on cars from specific states, which would take a lot of maneuvering to use that as a communication device.

Hey, it could happen, I'm sure. But and also just other innocuous acts that the subject becomes certain are meant to be interpreted by them as amorous overtures. And if the object is a public figure, the clues can even come through different means, such as like through the media. To be clear, this delusion is actually about feeling intensely loved, not about loving. And someone who is experiencing erotomania like Lliana desires and seeks out contact with the victim, also known as the object.

So we have the subject in the object in these instances through unwanted behaviours like we talked about earlier. And denial, of course, is a pretty big factor with this disorder. And this comes into play when the stalker cannot accept the fact that the object might not be interested in them. It also doesn't seem to make a difference if the object of their affection is married or otherwise committed, because after all, in the case of a woman stalker using that as the example, she will believe that they are in love with her and only her.

But when her advances are continually rebuffed or ignored, after all, to the love object, as we've been calling it, she is a stranger. At this point, her demeanor can turn spiteful. Now, we were in the grudge or the revenge phase, the final act, and it's an important turn in the safety of the victim when they don't declare their love for the stalker. Regardless how insistent the stalker is, the stalker in turn starts to feel humiliated and they may at this point begin to hate their now former object of affection and they may badmouth them or even become abusive toward them.

Remember Lady Caroline Lamb and her smear campaign against Lord Byron? Who can forget?

No one can forget, and they may even take revenge on them or on their loved ones. And the delusions of love can turn into persecutory delusions. So persecutory delusions happen when someone in this case, our stalker, believes others in this case the victim, are out to harm them. But there's no evidence that this is the case. This is all as we said, it's a delusion. So erotomania actually is a condition that it could persist for a few weeks, but it could persist for a few months.

In fact, there are cases that have lasted for years. It can be recurrent. And the person having these delusions may move on to a similar delusion about another object once they've gotten over their previous one. It's a fairly rare condition. And while we don't actually have numbers on the exact incidence of erotomania itself, delusional disorders in general have been reported as approximately 15 cases per 100000 per year, and that's with a female to male ratio of an estimated three to one.

There are actually two types of erotomania. The first, the primary form is not related to psychiatric illness. The second form is seen what a person has a psychiatric illness or has suffered from head trauma, has dementia, might have convulsions, HIV or Cushing's disease. Or they may have abused drugs or alcohol, and it's even been seen during pregnancy, perimenopause and in women taking oral birth control. So there are a lot of factors that might trigger this a lot and a lot of really very bad.

So for those with erotomania, the prognosis, you might be wondering, like many other health conditions, it just differs from person to person. Still today, even though we've talking about this since, you know, centuries, the right treatment is not completely understood. But it does often include a variety of these things. It will include antipsychotics, along with electroconvulsive therapy, as well as supportive psychotherapy, family therapy, social and environmental interventions and risk management strategies.

So treating any underlying mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia with paranoia, which is a common condition, is also beneficial. Now, all of this discussion of becoming obsessed with a person out of one's reach may have you thinking about your celebrity crush and wondering like, do do I have a right to maybe. I think everybody's wondering right now. Right. Rest easy. Probably not. We mentioned the statistics. It is totally normal to find people in the public eye appealing and perhaps even fantasize about them.

The line, of course, gets crossed when those thoughts manifest in behaviors that impact your daily life and cross obvious boundaries of privacy and security. Go ahead and keep thinking about whatever actor or actress tickles your fancy. Exactly. Maybe just don't leave little gifts on their doorstep and don't do anything. So that is our story about Leeanna and we're going to move on to Holly now, our drink to honor her.

Right.

So The Chaser today, you may have gotten the inkling that really what this is about, I love when you make yourself laugh before you say, because I'm so completely, you know, transparent, really. This is about me being fascinated with the story of Gates and guess who? I specifically did not introduce the end of his life, because that's a very sad story. Yes. But I thought I would do a drink more in honor of him. And it is called Seko's personnel.

So I wanted to do something that is yummy and almost teeters on the verge of being a little overbearing to match up with the disorder. I also in an effort to kind of include this idea that someone believes that it is love to also make it a little sweet. It's actually quite sweet because it starts with two ounces of red vermouth. So you're starting to you're starting in phase one of Obama mania and then you're going to add an ounce of cherry liquor.

You could say this is already kind of intense. Yes. Toss on top of that, a dash of cherry bitters revenge phase. Right. If you were to sip this, you would go, wow, that's a lot. And so at this point, you're going to top it off with soda, four to five ounces of soda. You can use soda water. If you want to keep it sweet, you can go with the ginger ale option or any kind of clear sparkling soda, whether it's sweetened or not.

I love to put ginger ale and everything to just love ginger ale for this one. That was my favorite variation of them. I will tell you, I also toyed with adding in a little bit of a berry colored syrup here. I'm just going to say, don't be like me, kids.

It is too much, but it definitely crosses the line into cough syrup, which while it's kind of a good representative of how this behavior crosses the line, it's not something you really want to drink. It's the curtains. Where is right also toy with the amount of soda or ginger ale that you put in there. I mentioned like four to five ounces. You can go lower than that if you like. More punch to the flavor of the drink or you can go more than that if you want it to be a little bit of a softer, more subtle thing.

It's kind of one of those things that you can tell we're in winter because it feels like a springtime drink. Clearly, I'm yearning for warmer days, even though it's not that cold here. But yeah, so that is Seko's personal because who doesn't want to drink with the French name. I know, right. I won't be able to say it properly. All anglicised, the whole thing. But you can just call it erotomania, OK? Yes, but it is a tasty little treat.

And like I said once I figured out that even out and I stopped trying to force a berry flavored syrup into the mix, it immediately got better. Play with your drinks. It's fun. I'm trying to also just like find more ways that I enjoy vermouth because it's something that I've always had in my head that I don't like. But then I will make drinks with and be like, oh, this is lovely. That was kind of a driver in the midst of this.

Figure out how to love vermouth and how to bring out the parts of it that appeal to my palate. Thank you so much for spending this time with us, talking about Zikos, Bastiano and other things in the ways that our desires can manifest in unhealthy ways. Yeah, and we will see right back here next week for more unhealthy desires. Manifesting in ways that are not delightful always will help you go week after week. Criminality is a production of QandA Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio for more podcasts from Shandley and Audio.

Please visit the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.