Top 10 ‘Craziest’ Mental Disorders
Throughout history, mental disorders have been regarded with fear, bias, and ignorance. Though medicine has drastically improved for the mentally ill in the last century, mainstream society still has a relatively uninformed and biased view against individuals with mental disorders. This is particularly harmful because every year up to ¼ of Americans fit the criteria for being mentally ill.
Media has done its best to show us the crazy sides of the mentally ill, but how crazy is crazy? If ¼ of the population is “crazy”, how dangerous is society? This list counts down the most life-interfering disorders, and explores how the individuals fit into our life.
Note: There are many other disorders, some similar to the disorders mentioned. All information is received from the American Psychiatric Association’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision”.
For more information about Mental Health please visit MentalHealthAmerica.org. Formerly known as the National Mental Health Association, they also have a crisis line 1-800-273-TALK that you can call if you, a friend, or a love one is going through a tough time.
10. Type One Bipolar Disorder
What It Is
Bipolar disorder has been talked about a lot. It has received vast media coverage and most individuals have at least a general idea of what it is. Bipolar disorder makes an individual switch between two main moods: mania (emotions like happiness and anger) and depression (emotions like sadness and guilt). Unlike the media interpretation, Bipolar disorder’s mood swings actually take a long time. Each swing lasts about a week on average, with a few days’ transition in between. Bipolar has been known to cause psychosis in some patients, but for the most part it manifests in irrational actions, heightened emotions, and lack of sleep during mania; and tiredness, aches, and lethargy during depression. Patients often have very little self control and are at the mercy of their moods.
How It Fits
2.6% of the adult population is bipolar. The disorder is genetic, and is generally easy to treat with medications. In some cases therapy isn’t needed. The biggest risk is unmedicated patients, who are often a harm to themselves (unmedicated bipolar disorder has a 25% suicide rate) and sometimes to those around them.
9. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
What It Is
OCD is another widely known disorder, but few understand it. Firstly, OCD isn’t an obsession with cleanliness. It can manifest in being clean, but that’s only one aspect. Obsessive-Compulsive patients are often plagued with recurring thoughts, worries, and fears that can only be relieved by repeating tasks (cleaning, touching surfaces, making noises, etc.) Obsessive-Compulsive individuals can realize their fears are unreasonable, but the anxiety will keep mounting unless they relieve them by their repetitive tasks.
How It Fits
1% of adults have OCD. Psychiatrists haven’t figured out the cause of OCD yet, some think it may be caused by environments, others by chemicals in the brain. The treatment varies per patient, but is generally manageable through psychotherapy and certain medications. OCD patients are not really dangerous to others, but their lives can be difficult and their behaviors may seem odd.
8. Factitious Disorder
What It Is
Factitious Disorder is an obsession with being sick. Unlike hypochondria, in which patients actually think they are ill, individuals with Factitious Disorder intentionally make themselves sick or play sick for attention. They often tell elaborate stories about medical complications, visit hospitals, tamper with their medications, and inflict harm upon themselves for attention.
How It Fits
Factitious Disorder is rare in adults, and occurs in less than .5% of the population. The disorder stems from past trauma. There is no cure or treatment for the disorder, though psychotherapy can be effective in limiting the behavior. Most individuals with the disorder are not receptive to treatment.
7. Schizoaffective Disorder
What It Is
Schizoaffective Disorder is a bizarre combination of severe Bipolar Disorder and mild Schizophrenia. Patients will have manic and depressive mood swings, and, as a third swing, will lose touch with reality. Most often, Schizoaffective patients will experience low emotional responses in the third, psychotic phase. They can become delusional, and sometimes may hallucinate. The psychotic swing is mild in comparison to most psychotic disorders, however, and can often go unnoticed, leading to a misdiagnosis of severe Type One Bipolar.
How It Fits
.5% of Americans have Schizoaffective Disorder. Psychiatrists believe the disorder is genetic and chemical. The disorder is relatively easy to treat with combinations of medicines. Most people with the disorder can function normally in society as long as they are medicated. Like Bipolar Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder has a very high suicide rate when untreated.
6. Depersonalization Disorder
What It Is
Depersonalization Disorder gives individuals a sense that they are not in their body. Individuals will feel like they aren’t their physical self, or that their life is some sort of movie or dream. They struggle to form connections with people because they don’t feel as if anything is real. They have the ability to logically know they are ill, but cannot shake the feeling of detachment.
How It Fits
Depersonalization is also very rare, effecting less than .5% of the population. It is caused by traumatic events. The reason depersonalization is so “crazy” is because there are no treatments. No medications are effective on the disorder, and psychotherapy seems to only help some patients, but not all. Some people will feel detached from reality for the rest of their life after a traumatic event.
5. Trichotillomania
What It Is
Possibly one of the most physically disruptive disorders, Trichotillomania is an obsession with pulling out hair. Individuals with this disorder will constantly pull out body hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Patients get overwhelming urges to pull at their hair, only reaching relief when they’ve done it. Individuals will go to great lengths to hide their bald spots, but for some the disorder becomes too bad to cover up.
How It Fits
Trichotillomania is also very rare. No one knows what causes it, but it is possible to overcome through psychotherapy. Some cases benefit from medication. People who have the disorder may be feared because of their appearance, and it’s not uncommon for them to be featured on daytime talk shows.
4. Specific Phobia
What It Is
It seems strange that Phobias rank so high up on the list, but they are where they are because they can be so interfering with lives. Most people think a phobia is just an unease or mild fear of an object; actually, a phobia is an unmanageable terror of everyday things. There are many subcategories and specific names for different Phobias, but they all fall under the same disorder. Phobic individuals will go to extreme lengths to avoid their unreasonable fears. They can experience physical symptoms such as racing pulses and strained breathing if exposed to their fear.
How It Fits
Phobias are incredibly common, effecting 8.7% of people. They are caused by traumatic childhood events- most of the time patients can’t remember the event. The most common techniques for treating phobias are exposure therapy (in which the patient must confront their fear slowly and with the guidance of a psychiatric professional) and hypnotherapy (which helps patients to remember the cause of the fear). Patients are able to recover, and even untreated patients may blend in to normal society.
3. Antisocial Personality Disorder
What It Is
Amongst the most basic, common, but dangerous disorders, antisocial disorder is also known as sociopathy and psychopathy. Individuals with this disorder either have no empathy, leading to no morals, or no emotion at all. The ones who have emotion, but no empathy, are extremely dangerous. They make excellent liars, are often charismatic, and feel no remorse for any harm they cause anyone. Their brains simply can’t make the connections to evoke empathy. Because of this, they can do terrible things without a care. As you might imagine, most Antisocial patients become involved in crime. A majority of serial killers have been diagnosed with this disorder. Some individuals, especially the emotionless ones, are able to fit in to society without causing any harm, but can never relate to people on the same level normal individuals can.
How It Fits
1% of Americans have Antisocial Personality Disorder, but only 50% are treated. A majority of people with the disorder end up involved in crime. There is no cure for the disorder, and the only treatment for it is to teach the patients to act normal, although they’ll still never be able to grasp ethics or even emotion.
2. Dissociative Identity Disorder
What It Is
DID, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder, is a very severe disorder caused by severe trauma. An individual with this disorder will split his/her personality into two or three different identities and cycle between them. A 50 year old man may think he’s a 6 year old girl, and spend his time playing with dolls and wearing dresses. This disorder has also had a lot of media coverage but is very misunderstood. Individuals with this disorder rarely take on more than three identities, and it’s almost impossible to make them aware that they have it. They cannot live normal lives because they may switch identities at any point, sometimes staying an identity for years, sometimes for hours.
How It Fits
This disorder is also very rare. It can only be found in about .1% of Americans. There are no medications to fix the disorder, but hypnotherapy can be useful in merging the identities. Patients cannot live in normal society unless they have gone through extensive therapy and their identities have been merged. Otherwise, they live in psychiatric institutions or they are constantly cared for by family and friends.
1. Schizophrenia
What It Is
Schizophrenia, in short, is a loss of reality. Symptoms include inappropriate (or few) emotions, paranoia, obsession with media, false beliefs about the body, beliefs of being famous or powerful, auditory and visual hallucinations, and catatonia (a completely unaware and unresponsive state). Unmedicated schizophrenics can’t tell what is in their head and what is real, leading them to act strangely. There are different levels in the loss of reality, some are able to function normally for short periods of time.
How It Fits
For such a severe disorder, a giant 1% of Americans have it. This means that for every 100 people, one is schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is very genetic, and is often treatable with medication. Most medicated Schizophrenics are able to function completely normally, as long as they take medication every day. The disorder will never go away and skipping just one day of medication can jeopardize the patient’s sanity. The crime rates of schizophrenics are actually not as high as other disorders, but the individuals are much more troubled and much farther from reality.
By Alexandria V. Resnica.
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My aunt has Schizophrenia, it’s really sad. She can be dangerous if left untreated.
Hah… Dangerous….
Antisocial Personality Disorder is not the same as psychopathy. It is a common mistake but Psychopathys are different in the complete lack of a conscience. People with ASPD may have deficits in empathy but typically still have some degree of a conscience.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual says, in the Diagnostic Features of Antisocial Personality Disorder, “This pattern has also been referred to as psychopathy, sociopathy, or dyssocial personality disorder” (702). It’s a direct quote from the DSM IV TR, if you’d like to validate it.
As a practicing forensic psychologist I am more than familiar with the DSM and the criteria for ASPD. I would refer you to the work of Robert Hare (the man who created the instrument used to evaluate psychopathy the PCL-R and agreed upon expert for a better explanation. There is a clear difference between psychopathy and regular old ASPD, although there are plenty of similaraties. DSM-5 appears to be moving towards combining them but then again DSM-5 will redo and radically change all the personality disorder.
here is a good link to an article by Hare in the Psychiatric Times (great resource by the way) that explains it much better than I do.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/dsm-iv/content/article/10168/54831
I really want to know who fact checks these? A simple Google search shows the average number of personalities (in DID patients) is in the double digits, and according to all of my psych professors the average number is 17. Also, people from this disease can live normal lives. Most of the videos I have seen (all of them shown by a psych professor) show people with their husbands, wives, children, etc. Hollywood is not a source that show be used here.
17 is the Hollywood number. It’s the most recorded in any patient. That patient would by Shirley Mason, who the movie Sybil was based off of. They can live normal lives with care, yes. But their identity switches complicate things like employment.
However, I’ve reread the Dissociative Identity Disorder section of the DSM IV TR. “Half of reported cases include individuals with 10 or fewer identities” (527). So the average wouldn’t be 17. It can be higher than 17. You are correct. But the average is under ten, if fifty percent are bellow it. I apologize.
To Alexandria. The movie “Sybil” starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward still sticks into my memory like super glue. It is a true story that shocked and scared me as to how parental abuse which caused “Sybil” to be that way is monstrous. Sally Field richly deserved the Emmy award for best actress in a dramatic role for that movie.
Also, I forgot to mention that for a bipolar diagnosis to be made there needs to be a 2 week period (versus your 1) of either manic or depressive mood. Type I bipolar only needs one manic that lasts for a 2 week period; no depression mood is needed for this diagnosis. Someone can just shift from manic to neutral and back over weeks for them to qualify for the Type I Bipolar diagnosis.
Here we are both wrong. If it is only mania, there is a two month period (388). The frequency I described, however, better fits Bipolar Disorder NOS, rather than type 1. Thank you.
This top 10 list is almost entirely inaccurate and where it’s not inaccurate, it’s vague and/or misleading.
The information about schizophrenia is really far off and it smacks of that hack E F Torrey’s theories.
The statistics on the likelihood of someone with schizophrenia committing a crime is too hard to pin down because of the other factors like alcohol and drug abuse that are common in those with unmediated schizophrenia. It seems that a very large number of the schizophrenics who commit crimes were also abusing alcohol or drugs at the time of the crime. If this is taken into account, they are extremely slightly more likely to commit a crime than the average drug abuser or alcoholic. Statistics do say that crimes against schizophrenics are higher than the ones that have them committing a crime.
Also, not all schizophrenics need to be medicated. Dr. Carl Jung’s research and experience in this area support this fact, though the AMA will not acknowledge this.
Carl Jung? You mean the man who studied under Freud, who died in 1961? Strange. Chlorpromazine wasn’t discovered to be effective in psychotic patients until 1952, so I’m not sure that Jung really had a frame of reference to be used as an authority on psychiatry. Surely you acknowledge that a man from that era can’t be used as a credible source on modern psychiatry. Naturally I admire him greatly for his contributions to psychology, but that’s from a historical standpoint. I’m just not sure that living for the first nine years of effective antipsychotics would make anyone credible, even Jung.
I think it’s really funny that people get on these lists and pretend to be experts in the comment section…especially when it’s quite obvious that they just googled their information. Darn trolls with nothing better to do.
I enjoyed the list!
Top 10 ‘Craziest’ Mental Disorders
Where is “Cotard Syndrome” – disorder in which a person believes, 100 %, that they are dead?
I would really like a valid, fact-based answer to this question. I am 34, and hav always known I am a sociopath, I exhibit all traits of one. Except when it comes to my children or thinking about someone as a
child. Then I feel empathy that is overwhealming.in any other situation, I hav to fake emotions. Is it possible for someone to hav learned sociopathic traits
and be able to suppress emotion wen desired? Or can someone hav two personalities but one identity?
Ask your doctor.
Hah… I don’t have disorder ._.
Antisocial Personality Disorder is characterized by (according to the DSM,) “shallow” affect, not NO affect. Emotionless? Try again.
Were u attempting to answer my question? Because u missed the mark completely. I never said I was emotionless. If u would re-read the question, you will understand that I am asking about the range. On one side I don’t feel empathy for people, only if the situation is presented to me with them as children. In that case, or in dealing woth my own children, I feel overwhelming emotion.
You should ask your doctor June, not a blog.
Interesting enough, my mother was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic so it does seem very vague at the end. She’s definitely considered to be on the extreme end of the spectrum so medication has never been able to help her. I also noticed she has never ever been the same since her symptoms “triggered” even with medication. Like, there’s always that doubt in her mind that the world around her is wrong and she makes poor decisions like “I’m going to stop taking my medication because I feel the world around me is not really trying to help me” and it’s a pretty vicious cycle. Usually the government can’t help her either, legally allowed to be psychotic until she’s either suicidal or homicidal, no one can force her to a hospital otherwise. And yes, give her enough time off her meds and she will try to kill a person or severely hurt herself. I wouldn’t doubt a lot of people not being properly diagnosed, it’s sooner likely they’ll end up homeless on the streets because of how difficult it is for a person to live with someone of this disorder, and it also becomes damn near impossible to even function in society.
Your mother is exactly like my brother. He just recently passed from being killed by a friend. He had been off his meds for a while and was extremely agitated. Still, the individual had an opportunity to walk away the way my brother was able to, even in his state, but opted to kill him anyway.
He’s been dealing with the symptoms for almost 15 years and he’s had a roller coaster of a life. I couldn’t imagine the noise and the confusion and fears he had to deal with internally everyday of his life. Even on meds the noise never really went away.
I want to hate his murderer but the illness ravaged him and he was so shackled by it that the only thing that lets me sleep at night is knowing that he’s finally free of the noise. He was so funny. If he could come back for just a moment, he’d say Finally! Some friggin’ peace and quiet!
Fact check: Meds do not always work. Part of the disease makes you think the very drugs that help are hurting you and also, they have not been able to find a ‘genetic’ trait for schizophrenia. They have only come to the conclusion that it may her a ‘combination’ of genetic and environmental causes.
Your information on Dissociative Identity Disorder is really wrong and does nothing to help remove the stigma attached to it! You said yourself that it has a lot of media coverage but is misunderstood. You’re not wrong there!
It is not rare for someone with DID to have more than three personalities. Also, you say they can’t live normal lives because they may switch identities at any point. Many people with DID live apparantly normal lives and since DID develops as a coping mechanism to ENABLE a person to live a normal life in the face of abnormal traumatic events, for many, switching is not something that is likely to happen ‘at any point’ as this would defeat the purpose of DID (ie, to continue to function despite the odds).
With regards the therapy, in the UK at least, hypnotherapy is not recommended to treat DID.
There is a lot that can be done to help people with DID however and it is curable, but takes a long time.
I don’t know where you read that patients ‘cannot live in normal society unless they have gone through extensive therapy and their identities have been merged’ and that ‘they live in psychiatric institutions or they are constantly cared for by family and friends.’
This is a huge assumption. Some people with DID do spend time in hospital, however many people with DID are able to live as normal a life as anyone else.
I have DID: I have over twenty personalities and I am undergoing therapy to help with this but I hold down a full time job as a health professional. Very few people know I have DID and I certainly don’t rely on constant care by family and friends.
Life is very hard for most people with DID. However, most people with DID are doing their very best as they have been their whole lives, to fit in and continue to live a normal life like other people. We do not need ignorant people adding to the stigma by writing articles like this.
How about “polydipsomania” or the extreme desire to drink fluids whether or not they are alcoholic of non-alcoholic
How about “Anemophobia” or the fear of air !!!!
I really like this list as an overview and I am surprised by the criticism! Of course there are very strange disorders out there, but the phobias mentioned would surely fall under ‘Specific Phobias’ while others are very rare indeed – and this list seems to be looking at disorders that affect the wider population. The DSM isnt perfect but then there is still a lot we dont know about mental disorders and their treatments.
Is there a disorder where a person ‘reads about, thinks and acts as if they have a mental disorder, leading to them finally developing that disorder’?
At least 1/3 of the Americans I’ve chatted with can claim this disorder. It seems to me they are obsessed with mental disorders. It somehow seems cool to them to say that they have a mental disorder, much like earning a trophy, or like when you see a thug on the street and say ‘hey! I know him. He’s my best friend or uncle or a neighbor’. And, almost instantly it makes you appear cool with others. I’m sure many of the mental disorders Americans claim are just imagined.
I have #6, it really sucks, almost destroyed my life.
So with this anti-social personalty disorder would it be possible that maybe the patient/person could have just been made fun of or teased in the past to make them pull away from other people. If that is true then it would not be a mental disorder more of a fear of being around people or a fear of judgement?
People with the disorder don’t pull away from people so much as they have no emotional attachment to people. they can be (and sometimes are) very socially active, but they lack morals.
I think this list is ok but not correct or lacking stigma in areas, I have Dissociativr identity disorder and have a life with my husband and child and also work in a professional job, I do not have to live in a psychiatric hospital all the time or be cared for continuously.
I think you’ll find that many with DID are fantastic at hiding emotions, low moods etc and are fantastic at being ‘normal’
DID is caused by severe childhood trauma and often this can mean a child would have pretended everything was ok due to abuse etc, a child being abused often must be kept silent and this is a breeding ground for DID as the child would split and dissociate to deal with having to be ‘normal’ when awful things happened often very recently.
DID also tends to be misdiagnosed
This is really not all that accurate everywhere but then again it is a blog. I have rapid cycling bipolar disorder and mood swings that last for as short as a week are considered rapid cycling. Normal cycles would last longer, weeks, months even. There are also normal states and mixed states and a condition where the person only experiences mania but not depression. Some people will have psychotic symptoms. As for schizophrenia, there are positive and negative symptoms which differ from one another. Positive symptoms can be treated with medication but negative symptoms usually persist. So treatability depends on your symptoms.
Meds for bipolar and schizophrenia both involve antipsychotic medication at different doses. Neither illness is truly curable.
I consider myself lucky to be a bipolar for it has sparked my creativity and artistic career but as my depressive phases got serious I would never go back to being unmedicated. Sometimes I still get symptoms despite the meds working really well but they last only for a few days but are incredibly disabling still.
as a mental health support worker(i am one of the men in white coats) i find this list great ! For me the worst type of patient is some one with a personality disorder(PD) whilst at work i’ve been headbutted 3 times pulled to the ground by my hair twice rugby tackled to the floor, punched countless times breaking a few ribs had shit and sperm thrown at me spat on by PD’s. all the other illnesses i can have sympathy with and cant imagine what it must be like to live with the thoughts and voices in thier heads. i have a friend with bi-polar who is mostly ” normal ” but then he decides he doesn’t need to take his meds and then hey ho he crashes his car gets into fights in shops spends thousands of pounds on crap he don’t need until he gets sectioned again and is forced to take the meds after a few weeks he is back to ” normal ” and back to being the caring great friend he has always been. But PD’s are just horrible people if there is something that can be used as a weapon they will use it on you and will not give it a second thought. i would rather work with a peadophile than some one with PD. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder my favorite the window lickers of the world. oh could some one explain what normal is to me ?
Biased article full of misinformation- what’s to be expected of a blog.
Sidvee… I’m almost positive you’re trolling, but I’ve fallen for your trap regardless.
I was institutionalized last year for homicidal compulsions, heavily sedated, and horribly mistreated by the hospital staff that was there. Despite asking for help, I had care denied to me, was misdiagnosed with ASPD, pumped full of enough opiates to make me severely addicted and tolerated to them, and dumped onto the streets when I was too catatonic and suicidal to harm anyone other than myself.
I got myself off of all of that medication, into therapy, and fought to get well. I’ve learned how to care for other people, and the value of being a productive, safe member of society. The hospitals that I stayed at refuse to release my medical records, and with no documentation of the abuse that I endured from the sadistic and inhumane staff there, I can’t press any charges for the further harm that they caused me.
I ask you, who’s the one who’s really sick here?
Agreed. With axis I disorders, the client feels bad. With axis II disorders, the mental health worker feels bad.
So, DID is incredbily scary to see in others. And although it seems logical that the brain will “disassociate” in order to relief trauma. Is it impossible for the person with DID and taking on a new identity to tell they are ‘changing’? as in, while in a state of altered identity, would it be impossible to tell them that they are not really who they think they are. because if someone told a ‘neuro-typical’ person they are not who they really are, the response would be along the lines of ‘what the f*** of course this is who i am’. so, would this be the same thinking for a person with DID. Very good article, btw, thank you very much.
on another note, i had a stint of Depersonalisation disorder. I dont know what ‘hell’ is like, but that came pretty close to my image of ‘hell’. It happened as a result of prolonged stress-i would worry constantly about radiation to the extent that my brain somehow switched itself off to all emotion basically, as a last resort to the stress over such a long time. It was a blessing and a curse, but mostly a curse. I got over the problem though-the radiation ‘threat’ that i percieved, and im completely fine now, life is pretty good. but there was a time when i didnt think id get over it and life was not life. it was like i was existing but not living with emotions and wants etc. so to anyone reading this with the same problem i had, it will get better and the DP will go away if you get over the source of your anxiety. Getting out in social situations no matter how daunting that feels now can seriously!!! help.
Chris Costner Sizemore famous for having DID, had 20 identities, I’m amazed she managed to conquer/sort out her DID to live a normal life!
Why on earth isn’t Borderline Personality Disorder on this?
It really should be..
i have OCD!
Who ever wrote this should do more research and correct some things.
What about borderline PD? That’s one of the craziest in my opinion.