1. Moth madness
Moth Madness is a disease of the Navajo Indians of the Southwestern United States. The Navajos treat her in the same way that Europeans treat AIDS, that is, they are terribly afraid of her. Moth madness is expressed in the fact that a person has seizures similar to epileptic ones, which lead to rabies and hysterical, suicidal behavior.
Often, the patient believes that some part of his body has become much smaller - the head, body, genitals, or something else. On examination, the doctors found no physical signs of any disease. This condition is purely psychosomatic. It is called moth madness because of the fluttering movements of the moth's wings, its tiny size and short life span.
Anthropologists at the University of Arizona say that the Navajo associate moth madness with violation of the incest taboo: “Even if [moth madness] begins in the first years of a person's life, it is believed that the taboo was violated by one of the parents and the disease passed to the child when he was still in the womb."
2. Koro
Another disease associated with shrinkage is called koro. This little-known disease mainly affects the inhabitants of South and Southeast Asia and consists of vivid and often devastating panic attacks associated with the overwhelming fear that the person's genitals are shrinking, falling off or retracted.
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Usually the patient is convinced that when this happens to his genitals, he will die immediately. This mental disorder is significantly more common in men (penis and testicles) than in women (breasts and vulva). Doctors and psychologists do not know why the coro takes this form and occurs mainly in Asian countries.
Bark attacks can last for hours, days, or even weeks. Modern treatment consists of drug therapy and psychotherapy. However, alternative methods of treatment are much more interesting - for example, when "family and friends hold the patient's penis for fear that it will disappear into the abdominal cavity."
3. Psychosis of Windigo
Algonquin Indians living in northeastern Canada believe in a terrible monster named Windigo. It is a giant, stone-like creature five meters high, feeding on human flesh. He has a terrible mouth with huge, crooked and razor-sharp teeth.
It constantly hisses and makes other eerie sounds. His owl eyes are bloodshot, and his meter-high feet end with a single huge clawed toe. He lives in dark forests and is completely immune to the cold. It is almost impossible to kill him. When he begins to pursue his victim, she is doomed. If the hunter does not return from the hunt, it is believed that he was attacked by Windigo.
In this people, the psychosis of Windigo manifests itself in the belief that someone has been possessed by the spirit of a forest monster. The reason for the obsession is considered to be the inability to get food for the family - this is for the tribe members both a huge personal failure and a misdeed of social significance. Like the Windigo monster itself, psychotics have a strong obsessive desire to eat human meat. They usually satisfy their cannibalistic desire by attacking members of their own family.
The Indians are quite capable of killing and eating their loved ones if they are not stopped. They believe that they have lost control of their actions, and their only deliverance is death. According to Morton Teicher, who wrote the work on psychological anthropology "Psychosis of Windigo," patients often ask to be killed and do not oppose their own death.
4. Susto
In Central America, a mental illness is commonly called, in which the patient feels that he has lost his vitality. Sleep becomes restless, and the patient himself becomes apathetic, plunges into depression. The person loses appetite, does not pay attention to the condition of clothing and personal hygiene, and is unable to perform normal daily duties.
You can die from susto, which sometimes happens. Although people are slowly fading away, doctors do not find physical signs of illness or injury in them. Patients say that it often occurs after a sudden severe fright or other trauma. Susto is called espanto, perdida del alma or chibih.
Anthropologists at the University of California have analyzed this unusual disorder often seen in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. They examined 48 patients of different ages for seven years. Eight people from this group died. In the control group of 48 people who did not have a susto, none died. The researchers concluded that the causes of this disease are social, not biological. They suggested that people get sick susto, if for some reason they cannot meet the expectations of society. If they do not fulfill their role, to which they tried to adapt, then they find a way out in illness and, ultimately, in death.
5. Amok
This mental illness manifests itself in intense contemplation, followed by outbursts of aggression, violence, or even murder. It often arises from the experience of an insult and affects only men from Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, as well as the Navajo and Puerto Ricans.
6. Brain fatigue
Brain fatigue is a mental syndrome seen exclusively in West Africa. With it, the patient experiences a general feeling of fatigue, which makes it difficult for him to concentrate and remember anything. Interestingly, this condition occurs among university and school students when they are under extreme mental stress.
7. Phantom disease
Found among various Native American tribes, this disease causes nightmares, physical weakness, feelings of hopelessness, a sense of danger, loss of appetite, fainting, dizziness, and hallucinations. Phantom disease is associated with anxiety about death and the dead. It is characteristic of American Indian culture.
8. Taijin kiofusho
Found only in Japan, this mental illness is caused by an intense fear that a person's body is offending others with its appearance, movement or smell. Sometimes the patient is convinced that he can shrink under the gaze of other people.
9. Hwa-byun
In Koreans, suppressing intense anger can cause illness characterized by insomnia, anxiety attacks, fear of impending death, indigestion, palpitations, and body aches.
10. Sleeping blood
The Portuguese from the islands of Cape Verde call this disease sangue dormido - "sleeping blood". When a person violates important social laws, his blood can “fall asleep”. Illness can cause pain, numbness, paralysis, convulsions, stroke, blindness, heart attack, and miscarriage in women. Sometimes a person gets the feeling that their brain is shrinking.