“Why would I eat? I’m dead.” Such people exist
Cotard’s syndrome makes people believe that they do not exist or they have lost organs. Scientists have no definite answer to what caused this condition: it can cause injuries, serious illness and excessive digging in yourself.
“It was absolute, impenetrable darkness. I thought I was dead.” After recovering from a serious motor accident, 36-year-old Warren MacKinley decided that it does not exist.
He stopped eating — didn’t see the point.
The doctors tried to stir me, but I don’t understand why they do it – I’m dead.Warren MacKinley
What he has experienced, first described by French scientist Jules Kotar in 1880. Since then, there are about hundreds of similar cases in different countries — in China, India, Mexico, the USA, Denmark and Sweden.
For Cotard’s syndrome is characteristic of some standard symptoms: the confidence of the patient in that he died, his organs went missing, or are in the process of decomposition. At the same disease can take different forms.
For example, a 55-year-old restaurateur from Mexico tried to convince his family that his penis is constantly decreasing, and then disappeared altogether. Already being in the hospital, he proved that someone from emergency physicians removed his eyes and heart, and his left arm withered.
Another case: after the sudden death of her husband, a pensioner from Portugal first began to have confidence in his refrigerator, and then stopped eating and claimed that her esophagus and stomach were stuck together. Lost 19 kg, it fell into the hands of doctors.
28-year-old housewife from Kashmir complained to the doctors that her liver rots and the heart “just missing”. Also “lost” the stomach, and the woman didn’t feel his own body.
A 59-year-old British woman was in the hospital due to the fact that insisted that she is a decaying corpse and the feet fell off it.