The Walking Corpse Syndrome, The Scariest Mental Disorder

What is Cotard Delusion?

Recently, I was asked what psychotic disorder is the scariest? Although, Cotard Delusion is an extremely rare mental disorder it seems to be one of the scariest mental disorders I have ever heard of. Below I have written a brief description of this mental disorder.

Cotard Delusion

This scary mental disorder causes the sufferer to believe that they are the walking dead (literally) or a ghost, and that their body is decaying and/or they’ve lost all blood and their internal organs. The feeling of having a rotting body is usually a part of the delusion, persons suffering from Cotard Delusion experience severe depression. In some cases, the delusion causes sufferers to starve themselves to death. The terrifying disorder was first described in 1880 by neurologist Jules Cotard, fortunately, Cotard’s Delusion has proven to be extremely rare.

The most well-known case of Cotard Delusion actually occurred in Haiti, where a man was convinced he had died of AIDS and was living in hell.