It’s mid-November and Halloween is long gone, the world (for the majority) has moved on to Thanksgiving and Christmas. But, if you are missing the chills and goosebumps, I have the article for you. As I was searching for something to write about, I came across an article headlined Top 5 cases of zombies from the real world. This immediately intrigued me because zombies and real-life don’t usually go together. But, after reading more and more about these topics, I learned that mental health takes a huge part in this creepy, crazy, and fantasy belief. 

In 2008, a 53-year-old woman complained that she was dead, smelt like rotting flesh, and wanted to be taken to the morgue so she could join her fellow corpses. This sounds pretty confusing, right? Is she a zombie? Well, not quite this woman has Cotard’s Syndrome, a mental disorder. It’s a syndrome in which a person believes that they are dead or decomposing. In 2009, a case was reported of an 88-year-old man coming to a hospital who had depressive symptoms and expressing that he was killed and anxious that no one had buried him yet. Thankfully these bizarre delusions settled down with proper treatment. 

Treatments for Cotard’s Delusion can vary; however, ECT electroconvulsive therapy is the most commonly used treatment. It is also used to treat severe depression. Now, what is ECT exactly? ECT is when tiny electric currents pass through your brain to create small seizures while under necessary anesthesia. With using ECT to help the absurd delusions, there are, of course, some severe side effects, which are why there are other options to help stabilize. 

This topic is still really unknown, and there is a lot of mystery behind it. And I want to dig deeper, learn more, and connect more dots so that way I can share more information with the readers of Canyon Echoes.