{"id":388,"date":"2007-06-22T17:19:57","date_gmt":"2007-06-23T01:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godammit.com\/2007\/06\/22\/fun-with-mental-disorders\/"},"modified":"2007-06-22T17:19:57","modified_gmt":"2007-06-23T01:19:57","slug":"fun-with-mental-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/fun-with-mental-disorders\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun With Mental Disorders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I discovered a whole new category of mental disorders, known collectively as Delusional Misidentification<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Capgras Syndrome<\/strong>, the person\u2019s primary delusion is that a relative or loved one has been replaced by an imposter who is an exact double. In married \u00a0 people, it is always the spouse. Well, duh!<\/p>\n

Cotard\u2019s Delusion<\/strong> makes a person doubt his own existence; he often believes he is dead.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bunch of other variations. I like autoscopic phenomena<\/strong>, in which a person believes he is an imposter of himself. That one sounds like a really sticky situation, doesn\u2019t it? It seems like a paradox, or at least a conundrum. Larry King<\/a> would call it a \u2018Catch 22,\u2018 as I heard him refer to some mundane conflict last night. Then there\u2019s intermetamorphosis<\/strong>, reverse intermetamorphosis<\/strong>, temporal reduplication<\/strong>, and mirrored-self misidentification<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I once knew a woman who was hideous in every way, including aesthetically. But she would describe her impact at a party or somewhere, by saying \u201cI looked like a million dollars!\u201d She was absolutely sincere, even though her enormous snout moved up and down as she spoke. There should be a category for that sort of delusion! Or what about those creepy guys who are always talking about their screenplays in a really loud voice. I heard a guy last week in Ross For Less, explaining into his cellphone that if a producer said she \u201cgot\u201d his script, then it wasn\u2019t \u201csmart\u201d enough. That\u2019s probably Joe Eszterhas Syndrome<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I found Joe Eszterhas by googling \u2018worst screenwriter<\/a>.\u2019 I wonder if he\u2019s proud of coming up first. I\u2019m not sure what his particular disorder is, but I like that he\u2019s given us a yardstick for awful screenwriting.<\/p>\n

My own delusion is that I can still wear really tight jeans at my advanced age. But wait, maybe that\u2019s because I don\u2019t have a full-length mirror! Ignorance is bliss. Or a Catch 22.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"