When you feel that you do not exist.
People with a rare mental disorder - Cotard's syndrome - are convinced that they have already died, or that there is some part of their body.These patients suffer from an extreme form of nihilistic delusions (le delire de negation).They may also assume that other people, too, no longer exists and the world - in short, all around the void.
Sometimes patients are sure that they do not have any vital organs such as the brain or heart.They may also be that their body takes huge size (le delire d'enormite) - for example, it was the size of the sky or even the universe.Although there is such insane suicidal, they are oddly enough, they may believe in their own immortality.
Quite often these patients check it out on their own experience, taking something very risky, or trying to commit suicide.Anyway, they are overly preoccupied with their own death, and often require to be killed.For example, one person day and night, I heard the voice reading the death sentence and describing torture, which is prepared for him.
Cotard syndrome is often associated with depressed mood, hallucinations and loss of memory.Sometimes it occurs in schizophrenia.
disease is named after the French psychiatrist Jules Cotard, who first described the syndrome in such patients at the Paris meeting of psychiatrists (Societe Medico-Psychologique) in 1880, and later, in 1891, released a book about them.He described the condition of varying severity from moderate to severe.Patients with moderate experience a sense of despair and self-loathing.But if the disorder takes a more sophisticated form, patients imagine the changes taking place both inside and outside.Kotar held that the denial of its existence occurs in the most serious cases.
Although people may suffer from Cotard syndrome at any age, the condition is usually seen in mid-life.More often it occurs in women than in men, although no satisfactory explanation for this has yet been found.Patients often quite normal childhood (as far as can be judged).Seizures occur suddenly, without prior psychiatric disorders.However, before the appearance of symptoms commonly observed during the initial anxiety, the duration of which can be from several weeks to several years.Outwardly, this anxiety often manifests itself only in the spleen.
denying the existence of the various parts of the body, one patient stated the following:
"Before, I had a heart. Now, something else beats instead ... I have no stomach, and I never want to eat. When I eat, I tastefood, but after it passed through the esophagus, I do not feel nothing. It seems that the food falls into the void. "
Cotard syndrome patients may not even use the personal pronoun "I".One patient called herself "Madame Zero", emphasizing his absence.... Another says of himself: "There's no sense.Wrap and discard it in the trash. "
The cause of the disease seen in many things.Among the suspected causes - structural problems of the brain, toxic and metabolic diseases.These include various scattered brain disease, atrophy of the basal ganglia [4] (located at the base) and the defeat of the parietal lobe (middle and upper portions of the rear part of the brain).
However, computed tomography showed that patients with Cotard's syndrome do not have problems with the parietal lobes, but is there a "multifocal atrophy of the brain and the middle frontal lobe disease," in which the grooves of the brain are expanded.
In the study by Cambridge University 100 cases it was found that almost all patients with this syndrome was diagnosed with psychotic depression.Interestingly, 86% of them had a nihilistic conception of his body, 69 - denied its own existence, and 55% considered themselves to be immortal.The status of all patients was accompanied by a heightened sense of anxiety and guilt.
However, one thing is for sure: Cotard's syndrome - this is an extreme form of denial itself.
26-year history of the Nile - a classic example of the manifestation of the syndrome Kotar.
Childhood Nile, the only child in the family, it was completely normal.When he was twenty years old, his parents died in a plane crash, crashing a small plane.Neil was deeply religious, and this tragedy has shocked and embittered him.Blaming himself for the death of their parents, Neal became a recluse, cut off all relations with people and with the outside world.He left the University, began to use hard drugs and practically did nothing, living off a legacy of rich parents.For some time the Nile interested spiritualism, and especially the theme of reincarnation.
As a result, the family doctor convinced Nile seek psi atric help.The young man was obsessed with delusions lack body.Neil refused to admit that he has a head, torso, legs and arms - all in any part of the body.He denied that eating, drinking, urinating, defecating, and could not explain why the dresses when going outside.At one stage therapy Nile offered a glass of water.Then he was asked to explain what happened to the water.The young man replied that it "evaporated".When a doctor is required to explain these and other inconsistencies, the Nile or did not answer, or simply say, "I do not know."Apparently, he did not notice inconsistencies or contradictions in their responses.
And here's a fresh case.
Briton, who calls himself Graham spoke about how spent his days in the cemetery, since there he was closest to death.
Nine years ago, he woke up, being sure that he no longer lives in spite of all signs of life.
Doctors diagnosed him with Cotard delusion, which appeared after his severe depression and suicide attempts.The man told doctors that his brain is dead, or perhaps not.He stopped smoking, talk, eat, because they do not see the point.
his condition deteriorated so much that the family had to take care of him, to be sure that he eats something.
"I did not want to see people. This did not make sense. I have nothing to give pleasure", - said Graham."I lost my sense of smell and taste. There was no point is, since I was dead."
He began to feel an irresistible desire to be among the dead in the cemetery, with whom he felt a special bond.
Neuroimaging men showed that the level of activity in certain parts of his brain was so low that more consistent vegetative state.The functions of the brain working in this mode, as if he was under anesthesia, or in a dream.
After the British took a course of psychotherapy and medication, he began to get better and feels better.
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