Man writes terrifying account of rare illness that makes him think he is dead even though he is definitely still alive

A patient has written a disturbing account of life with condition which makes him think he is dead - and how he spends his days in graveyards as it is ‘the closest I could get to death.’



The man, identified only as Graham , woke up nine years ago utterly convinced that he was no longer alive even though he was still breathing.



Doctors diagnosed him with Cotard’s Syndrome, which is also known as ‘Walking Corpse Syndrome’ because it makes people think they have turned into zombies.

Graham's belief that he was dead caused him to stop smoking and eating

But Graham did not believe them and kept insisting that his brain was dead because he had bizarrely fried it in the bath.



He lost interest in smoking, he didn’t bother speaking and stopped eating as there was ‘no point because I was dead.’



Only through months of therapy and treatment was he able to overcome the condition and live anything approaching a normal life.



Cotard’s Syndrome is among the most rare diseases in the world and it is thought that it affects just a few hundred people at any one time.



It is linked to depression and comes in a variety of forms including some who feel that their limbs are no longer functioning.

Other patients with Cotard’s have died of starvation because they feel they don’t need to eat any more or burned themselves with acid as they want to be free from what they feel is dead flesh.



Writing in the New Scientist magazine, Graham, who is from Britain, tells how his doctors was baffled so referred him to neurologists Adam Zeman at the University of Exeter and Steven Laureys at the University of Liège in Belgium.

Mr Laureys said: ‘It's the first and only time my secretary has said to me: 'It's really important for you to come and speak to this patient because he's telling me he's dead.''



At the time Graham was being looked after by his family because his illness had gotten so bad.



He said: ‘I didn't want to face people. There was no point.'



‘I didn't feel pleasure in anything. I used to idolise my car, but I didn't go near it. All the things I was interested in went away.'

Cotard's Syndrome is one of the rarest diseases in the world

‘I lost my sense of smell and my sense of taste. There was no point in eating because I was dead. It was a waste of time speaking as I never had anything to say.'



‘I didn't even really have any thoughts. Everything was meaningless.’



The hair on his legs fell out and he stopped brushing his teeth so they turned black - making him look even more dead.



Graham said: ‘I just felt really damn low. I had no other option other than to accept the fact that I had no way to actually die. It was a nightmare.’



The nadir was when he felt compelled to go to his local cemetery as he thought he would fit in.



He said: ‘I just felt I might as well stay there. It was the closest I could get to death. The police would come and get me, though, and take me back home.'

Morbid: Graham Harrison said he started hanging around cemeteries because it was the only place he thought he fitted in after suffering from Cotard's Syndrome - also referred to as Walking Corpse Syndrome. (File photo)

Cases of Cotard’s Syndrome date back to 1788 but it was formally identified by French neurologist Jules Cotard in 1880.



Among the handful of cases over the years was a 53-year-old woman in New York who in 2008 claimed that she stank like rotting fish because she was dead.



She asked her family to take her to the morgue so she could be with the other dead, but they called her an ambulance and she recovered after a month of treatment.



Graham’s recovery started with scans which found that levels of activity in parts of his brain were so low they were more consistent with somebody in a vegetative state.



The affected parts of the frontal and parietal brain are important for consciousness and key to our sense of self.

Cases of Cotard's Syndrome date back to 1788 but it was not recognized until the nineteenth century

Mr Laureys said: ‘I've been analysing (brain) scans for 15 years and I've never seen anyone who was on his feet, who was interacting with people, with such an abnormal scan result.'



‘Graham's brain function resembles that of someone during anaesthesia or sleep. Seeing this pattern in someone who is awake is quite unique to my knowledge.’



After his own regime of therapy and drugs, Graham too is on the road to recovery.



He said that he is not really back to normal but can go out of the house on his own and ‘feels a lot better’ than he was.



He said: ‘I don't feel that brain-dead any more. Things just feel a bit bizarre sometimes.'

