Weird Psychological Disorders..

This article was published on Topyaps

When you met Norman Bates in the horror movie Psycho, who developed a split personality to erase the crime of murdering his mother and her lover from his memory, you thought how weird it was! Believe me, there are more weird and bizarre psychotic disorders affecting people in the world which are quite unbelievable. Psychotic disorder affect the mind and thought process of a person, causing confusion, interfering with judgments and changing their behavior, as a result of which they lose touch with reality.

Here I am compiling a list of 10 weirdest psychological disorders beginning with a mild and less shocking one so as to not scare you.

 Kleptomania

The term kleptomania does not sound unusual or weird anymore, what with news flashing about famous personalities caught on CC footage lifting petty things from shop. This psychotic disorder urges people to steal things of little value which they don’t have any need for. The act of theft is followed by a sense of release in pressure which was building up in them. Not many kleptomaniacs are even aware that they are stealing.

 Bibliomania

Next time you visit a friend who has stacks of books; just make sure they do not suffer from an obsessive compulsive disorder called Bibliomania. People suffering from this weird psychotic disorder is so obsessed with book collection, including several copies of the same edition, that their own lives and those of their loved ones are destroyed. Stephen Blumberg is known to have stolen books worth $ 5.3 million, whereas Sir Thomas Phillipps collected 160,000 books. Apart from bibliomania, people are identified with bibliophilia – extreme love of books, Bibliophagy- compulsion to eat books, bibliotaphy- urge to bury books and bibliokleptomania – stealing books.

 Bigorexia

You are familiar with the term anorexia, but did you know that there exists an exactly opposite of this disorder known as bigorexia? People identified with bigorexia, also known as muscle dysmorphia, are obsessed with their muscles. No matter how well they are built, they feel they are not muscular enough. They keep looking at their body in the mirror, stick to their gym and workout sessions and at times take steroids. Often their obsession with body leads to failure in job and personal relationships.

 Stendhal Syndrome

The person with Stendhal Syndrome may suffer physical and emotional anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, dissociative experience and hallucinations when they are exposed to something beautiful or artistic, especially a place like art gallery or beauty in natural world.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a genetic trait that causes confusion in perception of senses which is described as pleasant by synesthetes. In simple words we can say the people with synesthesia can taste shapes and see music where the stimulation of one sense leading to another is involuntary and automatic.  For them banana and tastes blue, letter A as red, letter  O as white or black and the city skyline tastes like blueberry. The perception may differ from one synesthete to other though there could be underlying similarities between them.

Trichotillomania

Everyone goes through the passing phase where they feel like pulling out their hair. Imagine having an urge to pull hairs out from scalp, face, eyelashes, ear, nose or even pubic area all the time, which is what the condition Trichotillomania does to a person. Some people are not just satisfied with pulling hair; they go ahead and consume it, leading to Rapunzel syndrome. 

 Apotemnophilia

In rare conditions, doctors have to remove a diseased body part of a person to save their lives, which is emotionally traumatic experience for a person. For people diagnosed with apotemnophilia, there is an irresistible desire to amputate their healthy limbs or other parts of their body. In extreme cases people are known to amputate their own limbs to satisfy their urge and are happy with their decision. 

 Alien Hand Syndrome

Those with Alien hand syndrome believe that their hand has its own independent life. Creepy, huh? Though they have normal sensations in their hands, they state that one of their hands has a will of its own and it is often errant, disobedient and defiant while the other hand is under their control.

 Capgras Syndrome

Capgras syndrome causes a delusion that one of their loved one or acquaintance, usually a spouse has been replaced by an identical looking imposter, or several people in some cases. This is not just the case where a woman complains “You are not the person I married anymore”, but a serious neurological disorder, in which the delusion primarily results from organic brain lesions or degeneration, identified more often in women than in men.

 Cotard’s Syndrome

Cotard’s syndrome also referred to as Walking Corpse Syndrome can be considered as the most weirdest and strange of all psychotic disorders. People who suffer nihilistic delusion from this psychotic disorder are convinced that they are dead, decomposing and they do not exist in the world. They often describe a loss of blood, organs and/or body parts. The syndrome is named after Jules Cotard who recorded the case of his patient who complained she had “no brain, no nerves, no chest, no stomach and no intestines.” So strong was her belief that she did not eat since she had no innards and finally died of starvation.