‘Walking Corpse Syndrome’ known by its scientific name of Cotard delusion is a very rare mental illness in which the person who has it has in their mind the delusional belief that they are already dead...hence ‘a walking corpse’...some patients have asked to be taken to a morgue...or else they may think that they do not exist at all...or even that their body is decaying and rotting away...they may think that all their blood has left their body, or even that their internal organs have vanished...the patient that has this particular type of this mental illness often times denies their own existence...saying that they really aren’t ‘there’...or that a portion of their body is gone...this occasionally strikes those with mood disorders or psychiatric issues...on occasion, this condition has resulted from a brain injury...this delusion exists in three stages...the first being what is referred to as the germination stage...in this beginning stage of the syndrome, the symptoms of psychotic depression and of severe hypochondria manifest...then there is the blooming stage which means that the full development of the syndrome and the delusions are in full force...and finally there is the chronic stage...in this stage, the delusions continue and is accompanied by chronic depression...this condition often results in the afflicted withdrawing from others...this condition of course results in a distorted sense of reality, thus resulting in a distorted view of the outside world... hallucinations are not required for a person with Cotard delusion...oddly enough, sometimes people with this illness sometimes feel as though they are immortal.
