Living Dead: Kotar Syndrome

Sometimes the human brain behaves in a strange way: it suddenly begins to deny its own existence.

Doctors call this symptom radicalnegation and diagnose "Kotar's syndrome." This was the name of the psychiatrist who first described the disease. Sick people suddenly "understand" that they do not have some organs, that the internal organs of the body have decayed, and the person himself has become huge, "like the sky." "Pursuing" Kotar's syndrome, and, more precisely, studying hundreds of patients in different clinics around the world, experts have determined that the disease, depending on its severity, can have different causes. So, a patient was found whose Cotard syndrome was the result of the transferred typhoid fever. Japanese psychiatrists consider the violation as a cause of the disease in the beta-endorphin background. Although very often it develops against a background of psychotic depression. Sometimes it happens that an exacerbation occurs for no apparent reason. Just for several weeks people feel irritable, they have anxiety, and then what doctors call "Kotar's syndrome" begins. Scientists from Cambridge after theStudies of 100 patients have established that this ailment is an extreme form of denying oneself. 86% of patients nihilistically (negatively) belonged to parts of their body, almost half of them claimed that they can not die, and therefore immortal, and about 70% were sure that they do not exist at all.

Cotard syndrome. Symptoms

It is known that the disease manifests itself mainly tomiddle of life, and women are much more likely than men. There is no explanation for this, there is simply statistics. There is no connection with the health of patients, nor with their heredity or the growing environment. However, the symptoms of the disease, and very diverse, are established. Here they are:

• At the beginning of the disease, anxiety and irritability increase. Since these symptoms accompany various ailments, only very experienced psychiatrists can establish a diagnosis at this stage.
• Patients begin to deny the existencesome internal organs. It is known that one of the sick people assured him that "instead of his heart, something different". Some are sure that some organs have rotted or disappeared.
• Gradually, if Kotar's syndrome is not treated,patients cease to use the pronoun "I", so they have a greater degree of denial of themselves. "It", "it", "Madame Zero" - the patients find any impersonal form of designation of their personality and organism. Sometimes patients feel that they have already died.
• Gradually, the sick are assured of theirimmensity and impossibility to die, which further strengthens the depressive state. They crave death, but are confident of their immortality, so they can sometimes commit suicide attempts.
• At different stages of the disease, patients may be subject to auditory, visual or olfactory hallucinations, which confirm their nihilistic mood.

To treat this mental illness, doctorsusually use a complex of psychotropic drugs. The main goal of the treatment is to stop the underlying problem (eg, depressive psychosis, schizophrenia, etc.).