Mental disorders are very common. In fact, it is estimated that one in four people have a diagnosable mental disorder of some sort.
I will put down ten mental disorders I find fascinating and and what characterises them.
Quasimodo syndrome:
This is characterised by a highly exaggerated or imagined physical defect. The patients shy away from photographs, keep looking in the mirror to find the perfect angle where their illusory defect doesn't show up, they have love life problems due to their illusory defect, they also get ashamed in public when they suspect people are laughing at their defect.Erotomania:
This is characterised by illusory feelings of love. Patients strongly believe someone is in love with them, usually someone of a higher social status (a celebrity, for example). The patients believe their imaginary admirers show their attitude toward them through special signs, secret signals, telepathy, and coded messages in the media. It's difficult to fight the disorder to an extent that even if the supposed lover directly says "no," a patient with erotomania interprets this as part of a secret strategy that hides their relationship from society.Capgras delusion:
This is characterised by a patient believing someone close to them or they themselves have been replaced with a doppelganger. The patient can claim that bad deeds attributed to them were committed by their double, who looks exactly like them. This disorder is often accompanied by schizophrenia.Dissociative Identity Disorder:
This is characterised by division of a person's personality, and there's an impression of several different personalities in one body. These individuals can have different genders, ages, nationalities, temperaments, mental abilities, world views, and even illnesses. The causes of this disorder are severe emotional trauma in childhood: for the purpose of psychological protection, the child begins to perceive what's happening to them as if it were happening to someone else.Lycantrophy:
This is characterised by the strong conviction that a person is a werewolf or a werewolf transformation, though occasionally other types of animals are included. Along with the belief that they can become wolves, people with Clinical Lycanthropy also begin to act like an animal, and are often found living or hiding in forests and other wooded areas.
For more information, see: https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/terrifying-mental-disorders/
See ya next time. 😉