Mental illness like depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder are known to most people, as they are more common and due their portrayal in popular media. But there are some lesser known mental disorders which are incredibly rare and so horrifying, it feels like they can only exist in horror movies but are, in fact, very much real.
1. Apotemnophilia
This illness is characterized by an overwhelming desire to deliberatley harm or cut off healthy body parts. Some sufferers do end up cutting up some part of their body since no sane doctor will amputate a perfectly healthy body part.
2. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
It is also known as Todd Syndrome. In the story, which the illness is named after, Alice grows too big for the house. In the same way people suffering from Todd Syndrome perceive their surroundings differently. It is a disorienting condition where loud sounds appear quieter and large spaces appear smaller. It can also distort one’s body image.
3. Boanthropy
This is a truly bizarre yet very terrifying disorder where the people suffering think they are cows. They go out in fields, walk on all fours and even chew grass without even realizing that they are doing something odd or out of the ordinary.
4. Clinical Lycanthropy
It is very similar to boanthropy except here the sufferer think they can turn into wolves or werewolves or sometimes other animals as well. They can be found living like animals in forests and other wooded areas.
5. Cotard Delusion
Also called Walking Corpse Syndrome, this illness leads the sufferer to believe they are zombies or ghosts. They think they are the walking dead, literally.
6. Dissociative Identity Disorder
This one is quite popular in movies and books, where one person can develop different personalities and none of them know about each other. The sufferer can have as many as 50 personalities. The person cycle through these different personalities without even being aware of doing so.
7. Kluver-Bucy Syndrome
Symptoms of this mental disorder include memory loss, a desire to eat indelible objects like dirt or wood and a desire to have sex with inanimate objects.
8. Capgras Delusion
The Sufferer believes that everyone around them has been swapped with impostors and these impostors are out to get them or harm them in some way. Capgras delusion can also be a symptom of other mental disorder like dementia or schizophrenia.
9. Wendigo Psychosis
This is a creepy one where the sufferer gets the urge to eat human flesh. The wendigo, after which this disorder is named, is a mythical cannibal creature in Algonquian folklore.
10 Trichotillomania
The person suffering from this mental illness gets the impulsive need to pull out hair from their body, be it the scalp, eyebrows or eyelashes.
11. Alien Hand Syndrome
A rare disorder characterized by loss of control of the hand or any limb. Moreover the ‘alien’ limb develops a mind of its own and can even attempt to choke the patient or other people.
12. Factitious Disorder
Do you like being sick or getting hurt? No, nobody does. Except people suffering from this mental disorder. They intentionally make themselves sick or hurt themselves, springing from hospital to hospital. They also sometimes pretend to be ill, making up symptoms that they don’t have.