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Jazz Ison Sinkfield/facebook1 of 10
The human brain is a remarkably plastic thing, able to create some truly odd connections. The mechanics of addiction are a great example - unlikely stimuli can be repeated until the brain simply can't live without them. In this article, we'll share the stories of ten people with seriously bizarre addictions, and the price they've had to pay for them.
Growing Fingernails
Many addictions prevent the addict from leading a normal life in one way or another. But Jazz Ison Sinkfield's bizarre obsession is something different. The Atlanta, Georgia woman is addicted to growing her fingernails, and she hasn't cut them in 22 years. When you add up the lengths of all her fingernails, they measure 19 feet long. Sinkfield's fingernails make it virtually impossible to do normal tasks, and she can't hold down a job. She believes that her long nails will eventually bring her fame and fortune, but we don't think that's too likely.
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Bathing in Bleach
Cleanliness is an addiction in some cases, but in the case of Gloria, a young woman from Birmingham, Alabama, it goes to a whole new and scary level. It's bleach that is Gloria's addiction - not only does she use it to clean surfaces in her house, she also pours it over her head, takes baths in the toxic substance and even breaks open bottles at the store and huffs it to get her jollies. Needless to say, this is a pretty horrific thing to do to your body, but even the advice of a dermatologist won't make her stop.
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Funerals
We don't like going to funerals - they're kind of a downer. But Brazilian man Luis Squarisi feels the opposite way. The 49-year-old resident of the town of Batatais has gone to every single funeral in his small town for 30 years. In 1983, the death of his father flipped a switch in Squarisi's brain, and after he saw his dad put into the ground he was seized by an obsessive compulsion to attend every funeral he could. Every morning, he turns on the radio to see if anybody died last night, then calls hospitals and funeral homes. His addiction has caused him to quit his job so he has more free time to crash funerals.
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Mayonnaise
Most of us have a pretty neutral relationship to mayonnaise; it's a decent condiment, good on sandwiches. But for London woman Philippa Garfield, it's an addiction. She's so obsessed with mayo that not only does she spread it on her bread, but she has to use it for just about everything. She slathers fruits with it, uses it instead of cream in her coffee, and extols its virtue as a skin moisturizer and shampoo. She even uses it as cream to shave her legs! Hopefully she doesn't eat it afterwards.
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Eating Sofa Cushions
People put all kinds of weird things in their mouths, but the foam inside sofa cushions? We would never even consider eating that. But Adele Edwards, a 34-year-old woman from Bradenton, Florida, has been chowing down on the stuff for the last 24 years non-stop. When she was 10 years old, her cousin ate a piece of a couch on a dare and Edwards decided to get in on the action. She started by chewing and spitting out the foam, but eventually started swallowing it. In 2008, she was rushed to the hospital with a massive foam blockage in her lower intestines, but she managed to pass it with the help of heavy laxatives.
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Heavy Metal
Swedish dishwasher Roger Tullgren has one of the strangest addictions we've ever heard of. He's dependent on ear-splitting heavy metal to survive. It sounds absurd, but the Swedish government has classified his hard rocking lifestyle as an official legal disability, and three psychologists agree. Since his teens, Tullgren has listened to metal albums all day, every day, and goes to almost 300 shows a year. His employer has even been ordered to let him listen to music at the sink when he's washing dishes.
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Ear Digging
Sometimes addiction can manifest as a behavior and not a physical item. For Jamie, a woman from Jacksonville, Florida, the bizarre addiction is putting objects in her ears. For as much as 12 hours a day, she gouges out the inside of her ear canal with whatever sharp object is handy. No simple Q-tip will do for this woman's imaginary earwax - she uses bobby pins, scalpels and even scissors. When she was a kid, a flower got lodged in her ear. Even though it was removed safely, the psychological trauma caused her to develop this bizarre addiction.
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Clowns
Collecting can become an addiction if it's not controlled, and one of the creepiest obsessed collectors we've ever heard of is Ortrud Kastaun, a woman from German who has a terrifying accumulation of over 2,000 clown-related items in her house. When she sees something with a clown on it, she's seized by an uncontrollable urge to purchase it, and her tiny house is overwhelmed with clown stuff. Her collection actually started as she was recovering from another addiction; while in therapy for extreme alcoholism, she seized on clowns as a substitute.
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Eating Deodorant
There are many people in this world who have food-related addictions, but few are as weird as Nicole Jones, a young woman from New York City who has a compulsion to eat sticks of deodorant. She first started snacking on the substance when she was just four years old, but in her late teens it became a full-grown addiction. She sometimes eats a half a stick a day. Considering that roll-on deodorants are primarily composed of aluminum-infused wax, there are some serious health hazards involved. She also enjoys blasting deodorant spray right in her mouth.
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Drinking Water
This is probably the least harmful addiction in this list, but it's still quite weird. Sasha Kennedy, a woman from Essex, England, has an obsessive desire to drink absurdly large amounts of water every day. She guzzles at least 880 fluid ounces of water every day, ten times as much as the average person. She can't go a single hour without drinking, not even when she's asleep, and she has to use the bathroom dozens of times a day. Excessive water consumption isn't going to kill you, but it certainly doesn't make you healthy.
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