Is it possible for a "mental illness" to be "contagious"?

Can a mental illness be contagious?

Yes it's rare, but worrisome I feel for you & those around you. This is why they lock up the crazies.	17.4%	[ 12 ]
No, you're just screwed up from love hormones & mental abuse from your mom who was probably a ticking time-bomb	72.5%	[ 50 ]
I don't know, but your all crazy & I don't wanna be around any of you!	10.1%	[ 7 ]
Total Votes:			[ 69 ]

[MistressOfTheShadows]

You will probably dismiss me as too crazy to believe for even asking this... but is it possible for there to be an infectious disease that attacks the "mind" & spreads from person to person like a virus?

I ask this because my fiance whom I met a year ago is very emotionally/mentally unstable & has multiple personality disorder, ADHD, OCD, and psychotic tendencies that began when his father cheated on his mother and abandoned his family.

Just a few short months after meeting him, my mother who had showed no previous signs of mental illness went from being a kind sweet-natured person who liked him, to developing a multiple personality disorder of her own that causes her to switch back & forth from kindhearted, trusting & understanding to mean-spirited, selfish & paranoid with no memory of her words & actions from 1 side to the other.

Since then I've been noticing changes in own mind.. I'm becoming increasingly unstable mentally & emotionally, I'm starting to have more scattered & fragmented thoughts, increased trouble focusing, concentrating, and organizing my thoughts, (this isn't exactly easy for my to type as a result & is taking me a while) my short term memory isn't as what it used to be, & I've developed tendencies to act out violently in fits of rage when angry that can only be calmed by fantasizing about doing violent things I know I can't physically allow myself do to the person that angers me or imagining myself chained up inside my own head.

My fiance's issues shouldn't have effected my mom like they did because he acted normal round her to keep them hidden & only I saw them, but at some point unprovoked (for no reason at all) she just randomly snapped blaming my neglect of her & my dad to spend more time with my fiance on the day of my graduation for the cause of her suddenly becoming mean to him at 1st & then to me.

I started out a little bit ADHD & OCD, but not as bad as I am now & much more controlled & non-violent & my issues began when I started getting defensive of my fiance & she began to turn on me for sticking up on him... my mom had just become such a relentless merciless tormentor day after day arguing about every little nit-picking thing she could rehash while on her bad-side (which she comes out of less & less and for short & veritable times) that it began to wear me down and break down my sanity making my mind weaker & more vulnerable until I began to feel my own mind start to grow corrupted like a tree being consumed by blight.

If my theory is correct I think that this is something that jumps from head to head contagiously infecting people with weakened mental/emotional health & that the reason it hasn't driven EVERYONE around my fiance including his family & the members of the church insane, but effected us is because it gets in threw emotional scars/wounds that can only stem from a great deal of pain brought on by betrayal & hate or intense emotional abuse... So that it 1st hits someone like my mom who has been threw 2 divorces and still resents her exes & tries to compare and judge other men by them, and then infects someone like me who's been weakened by having every friend or guy I dated leave me, but was resilient enough to forgive them... once it is able to break down my resistance far enough by torturing me using it's host as a means to create enough weakness.

What do you think thoughts?

Do you think such a thing is possible?

Also, do you think there's any way to cure such a thing?

My fiance believe that the "cure" for him is to get the point where he can forgive his dad & I believe that forgiveness may be the cure for my mom & I as well in a way... Mom needs to forgive and put aside everything that she falsely believes was done wrong onto her & I, while I need to get her back to normal so I can forgive her... if this doesn't happen it can be a problem because I'm starting to react to his mom as I do to mine when conflicts arise & I worry I won't be able to handle ordinary day today life & interactions with other people if my mind gets any worse... & also fear that if not contained this may infect other people.

[worldcrafter]

♛ Generally mental illness seems to have qualities of both nature and nurture, so it seems she is externally influencing you in some way, be it genuinely or in a placebo-like manner. You're reacting to her moods, which flip-flop, and so your responses flip-flop to compensate.

I am guessing that suggesting therapy for her is out of the question? ♛

[sinful whisper]

I'm sitting here kinda of staring at the screen wondering if you're being serious.

But to entertain that you are indeed being serious; here it goes.

Mental Illness is NOT contagious.

However it can be developed at any point and time in ones life, and is triggered by an event.
ex;; DID, PTSD

While other disorders can just be something you're born with.
ex;; Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder

And others it can be the combination of the two, where environmental things may trigger it but their mind already has a predisposition for it.
ex;; BPD

It is quiet possible that your mother had something happen to her that you're unaware of and it caused these behaviors or they've always been there and you didn't notice them until recently.

As for your own issues, you said yourself that you already had symptoms. Well like any illness those symptoms can get worse. A cold can easily turn into the flue and the flue can easily become something worse. Same with mental illnesses. If they go untreated they can get worse. Like with someone with BPD they can go from showing signs of it to full blown, have to be hospitalized because it's so bad.

But I say again, mental illness is not contagious.

[CH1YO]

Syphilis is contagious but psychological disorders are not.

[K i n g X u m o t - XVI]

CH1YO

Syphilis is contagious but psychological disorders are not.

[Bootiful Lia]

Mental illness isn't contagious.

There is a phenomenon, however, where people can develop symptoms of paranoia when having a lot of exposure to a person with paranoid mental health issues (normally family). It is mostly due to the paranoid person being so serious and convincing about their paranoia that the people around them start to become paranoid of the same things. However, their symptoms cease as soon as the paranoid person is no longer around.

Therefore, no.

You also seem to not understand what MPD (now known as DID) is.

Also, your symptoms sound like symptoms of being stressed out. Common response. Not mental illness.

[uralxium]

No, just no.
Mental illness doesn't jump from person to person,
or pray on them like some parasite.
You can develop a mental illness at any point in your life,
your moms disorder is just coincidence.

I suggest you look up some info on psychology.

[GaIvatron]

Contagious via media, yes.
Some people run themselves into pseudo-mental-illness spurts of "omg do I sound like this I think I do omggg"
Same thing happens with physiology-based illnesses and medical students. The more they read up on certain diseases their mind begins to lose sight between fact and fiction and therefore becomes delusional. I personally call this phenomena Hysteria-Media-Syndrome. Self Diagnosis causes this. My word of advice to people who are looking to find out about some issues they're having psychologically is to not read about them before getting a professional opinion, or they will become susceptible to this dementia-like state of believing you have something you do not.

[Beyond Resplendent]

Well im currently studying psychology and i've learned that mental illnesses are not contagious, but having family history of it causes some people to be more at "risk" for it.
example, patients who have schizophrenia have enlarged ventricles in the brain compared to the norm, and clsoe related family members who do NOT have schizophrenia ALSO have these enlarged ventricles. It may not develop into schizo but it CAN .
sorry if my response is not as long at others, but i think its a valid example.

[adosohcohc]

That's called Hysteria. How none of you never heard of this before? It's like oldest mental illness in the world.
There is also suicide contagion, which is a form of hysteria, which is why News need to stop covering every suicide story, cuz it makes other people go do it. it's the same with copycat killers.

[Indigo Night-Sky]

MistressOfTheShadows

Okay, I'm going to be upfront. This was a wall of text and I didn't read it.

Human beings are totally viruses. Do you have the voice of your parents in your head? I know I do. The people we spend time with slowly get implanted into our minds. I have positive, happy, supportive people in my life, and I find myself slowly becoming more positive, happy, and supportive of others. When I had my old, abusive, numbed friends in my life, I slowly became more and more like that.

If you got crazy in your life, you're going to slowly become crazy. If you got sane in your life, you'll become more sane and stable.

[Incubust]

Technically mental disorders can not, "literally" be contagious.
But the closest relatable thing I can think of is something known as hysteria, which Captain Halcee Reckitt IV, referred to.

Have you ever read or learned about the Salem Witch Trials? It's a great example of hysteria.
Basically it was about Puritans, a group of very religious people who lived in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600's. They believed in witches, and one day some girls got sick and there was nothing physically wrong with them, so the people of Salem cried out witchcraft as the culprit. Paranoia, as well as revenge, caused everyone to go hysterical and accuse each other of being witches. The only evidence they used was spectral evidence, which was evidence only the accuser could see. Once accused, you had two choices; either be hanged if you do not confess to being a witch, or saved if you do. As a result, the majority of the accused confessed being witches to save themselves, so people thought witches were really among them.

But I do believe that being around someone who has mental disorder can somewhat have an affect on you.
For example, study shows that there is a greater chance of you becoming an abusive parent if you were abused as a child yourself.

A more relatable scenario would be being around a negative or depressed person.
If they talk about depressing things, you start thinking about it yourself causing you to have a different outlook on life.

But overall, it depends on the individual if their mentality can overcome traumatic experiences rather than let it affect them personally.

[Viewer_Discretion]

Incubust

Technically mental disorders can not, "literally" be contagious.
But the closest relatable thing I can think of is something known as hysteria, which Captain Halcee Reckitt IV, referred to.

Have you ever read or learned about the Salem Witch Trials? It's a great example of hysteria.
Basically it was about Puritans, a group of very religious people who lived in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600's. They believed in witches, and one day some girls got sick and there was nothing physically wrong with them, so the people of Salem cried out witchcraft as the culprit. Paranoia, as well as revenge, caused everyone to go hysterical and accuse each other of being witches. The only evidence they used was spectral evidence, which was evidence only the accuser could see. Once accused, you had two choices; either be hanged if you do not confess to being a witch, or saved if you do. As a result, the majority of the accused confessed being witches to save themselves, so people thought witches were really among them.

But I do believe that being around someone who has mental disorder can somewhat have an affect on you.
For example, study shows that there is a greater chance of you becoming an abusive parent if you were abused as a child yourself.

A more relatable scenario would be being around a negative or depressed person.
If they talk about depressing things, you start thinking about it yourself causing you to have a different outlook on life.

But overall, it depends on the individual if their mentality can overcome traumatic experiences rather than let it affect them personally.

I really have to agree with many of the later posts.
It's something that runs in your family often times. And if your sick it's does not make you crazy or any less of a person. If your really worried talk to your doctor if you want you can even get another doctor to give you a second oppinion. My mother and father fuction normally in everyday life. I do not. There are sectrums to these sicknesses as well. You can have lived a normal childhood and end up showing major symptoms of something in your late teens early twenties ectect.

Some helpful sites
I would recommend some reading from these
this one is canadian

http://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/

understanding mental illness - http://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/


http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/index.shtml From hear you can pick through a few topics.

[Teseron 34527]

It's called Hysteria.
They are contagious.

[SebastiansLittleDoll]

I suppose what happened in your case was weird, but I'd say that mental illness is not 'contagious', the way a cold is contagious. Why? I've been through depression for 2/3 years (along with suicidal urges, and the depression had been chronic at one point, but things are looking up) and I've had anxiety disorder. During this time, I came into contact with a lot of people--none of them started going through depression or developed anxiety disorder after meeting me.

However, from what I've heard and experienced it can be genetical, and what mental illness you go through can affect your family.