Cotard's Syndrome and the Swirling Black Void

K. and I had a wonderful evening at a reception for a new exhibit at the Museum of Jurassic Technology last night. In case anyone is wondering, I think this relationship is definitely serious. It has erased all memories of previous relationships.

By the way, since some of you have asked, I’d like to post some pertinent scientific information about Cotard’s Syndrome. It is a condition – a mental illness – in which a person believes she has died and become a walking corpse. The delusion is often so persistent, she believes she can smell her own flesh rotting, that she can feel worms crawling through her skin, that she is putrefying, and that she has lost her blood and organs and is merely a shadow in this earthly existence.

I feel it would be remiss at this point to not share some details about a certain participant in my study (for the sake of the blog we will call her Mathilde). When I asked her about sensations relating to the “swirling black void,” she responded:

I’m drawn to it, even though it wants to destroy me. But I feel invincible. My flesh is rotting, I know it. I have no organs. I am obsessed with my own skeleton and the knowledge that it is stepping out of my skin, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. This is the part of me that is eternal, and I feel an invincibility knowing that it is going to be released. Life is the shroud and Death the unveiling. I find myself drawn to decay, and rot. What is it that keeps me moving, even though I am dead? It is the void.

As you will note, this mental delusion is quite serious, not only for the victim, but for anyone who crosses the victim’s path and becomes emotionally entangled with the victim.

Lives have been ruined by far simpler things.