Haley Smith, 17, spent three years of her life thinking that she was dead due to a rare medical condition called Cotard's Syndrome or Walking Corpse Syndrome. People who have this condition believe that they are dead or parts of their body no longer exist.
Cotard's Syndrome, also known as Walking Corpse Syndrome is a type of psychotic disorder similar to Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder. Individuals who suffer from this disease may die from starvation because they do not believe that they need to eat.
According to reports, Cotard's Syndrome can be traced back to 1788 when Charles Bonnet reported one of the earliest recorded cases of Cotard's Delusion. An old woman felt she was paralyzed and demanded to be placed in a coffin. However, it was not until 1880 when the condition was identified by a French neurologist, Jules Cotard. After 100 years from the first case, another one emerged. Now, a woman dubbed as Mademoiselle X as Cotard listed her thought she had no brain, nerves, chest and intestines. According to Mental Floss, there are only 10 cases of this rare disease reported excluding Haley's.
According to neurologists, the cause of this disease is a malfunction in an area in the brain called fusiform gyrus which can recognize faces and amygdala, the one processing emotions.
However, according to Daily Mail, Haley recovered after three years with the help of a therapist and Disney films. Haley recalled how she had this mental health disease. Her parents divorced and as a teen, she did not cope with the situation well. When she was seated in her English class, she felt weird and she thought she was already dead. It happened over and over.
One day, she got used to that feeling and decided to live with it. She ate everything she wants thinking she can never gain weight when she is dead, stopped talking to her friends and her family. One time, she told her feelings to her friend and eventually to her dad.
On her road to recovery, she visited the psychiatrist and watched Disney films which helped her a lot in realizing that she is alive. "Watching Disney films gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling," Hayley said. Eventually, she became better and with the help of Jeremy, her boyfriend, she has recovered from her rare disease.
