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Michael DesChenes
03-25-2012
11:10 AM ET (US)
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Recently after she had an old shunt replaced, my wife of 32 years has recently been diagnosed with Capgras Syndrome. Which is connected in a way to the Radiation she received because of a brain tumor, and numerous surgery's over the past 35 years. The sad part is she only knows she's talking to me as her husband when she calls me on the phone. It sometimes includes her not recognizing her house but stating how amazing it is that it looks exactly like her real house. Not easy, but I try to let her think of me as a friend that her husband asked to take care of her. She keeps asking me where he is and if he has a girlfriend. It breaks my heart but she id the love of my life.
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Sintra
02-07-2012
05:32 PM ET (US)
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I am doing this for extra credit for a science class, it seems quite interesting.
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Joel
10-29-2011
07:00 AM ET (US)
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I believe I experienced a capgras like event once in my life. It occurred when I was in my early teens. I feel asleep over top a glass coffee table that I had a light directed upwards underneath a piece of paper. I was tracing a map diagram for homework. I'm not sure how long I was asleep over the table for, maybe only 20-30 minutes. I woke up feeling sick. I went down stairs to see my mother and get some medicine. When I got there I felt as if my mother and also my brother were not who they were. It was a very odd feeling. I thought that they were some how creatures in the form of my family. I perceived them to actually be large eyeball like creatures that acted exactly like my family would. I was very nervous and felt the need to act in a normal way so they didn't find out I was on to them. I still had my tracing pencil in my hand and I think I thought I was suppose to poke them with my pencil as a defence if they found out I was on to them.
I later that night I developed a fever and was sick from school the next day. I accepted my family as the giant eyeballs that I thought they were since I learned they acted exactly like my family would and I did not have the energy to do anything about it. The feeling of them not being who they were suppose to be slowly went away the next day. It eventually went away when I felt better. Maybe I just accepted them as good enough duplicates or the mental problem slowly disappeared. I don't rememberer.
I have not had an episode like that since and it has been over 15 years. I may have taken a Tylenol 3 with codeine prior to the episode so I avoid that stuff like the plague ever since telling people I am allergic.
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S. Jordan-Kidd
09-17-2011
03:20 PM ET (US)
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Hmm, reality means different things to different folks.
I have an anxiety problem, I can't say that I suffer from it, although it can be a pain in the a***; especially when all my senses are so heightened that I can hear a pin drop at 100yrds & a sudden noise or movement sends me into a tailspin. That's bye the bye anyway: how do people with this disorder know that the people, items, situations aren't real? Is there any particular trigger or do you just know? Your respondent Daniel shouldn't feel guilty & I believe that if he had the access to the proper care he would, in time, be able to overcome this blight on his life, or at least learn to live with it. I think only therapy (cognitive behavioural therapy tends to be the best in my opinion) would be the best recourse, especially if this is something that has come to pass in recent years. Whichever path you choose to follow (believe me, drugs are all well & good, but you tend to become dependent on them without addressing the underlying cause & before you know it, you're stuck in no-man's land with a foggy brain & no will to tackle your problem any other way)you have to want it. If you can find some other folks where you live who are experiencing the same problems as you are, attend meetings if there are any. Also use the internet to get as much information as you can, ignoring the idiots who put it down to something spiritually lacking. It is more than likely an imbalance of amines such as serotonin & the like, or the result of a head injury from years back or, quite possibly a genetic flaw. There are many things that might contribute.
I doubt very much that this syndrome would lead to schizophrenia, although paranoia & schizothymia are a possibility if the underlying cause is left to fester'
Having had no direct experience of this obviously distressing & disabling condition I can only put forward my thoughts, but as with any psychological affliction, each individual needs evaluation, personal treatment & you should make it clear just what your problem is & ask your physician what is available.
If this is has been of any help, let me know.
stephen.straughan2@ntlworld.com
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daniel
06-20-2011
11:25 AM ET (US)
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i would like to know how people can stop it from spreading to other areas in life.. (like house, pets..etc)...
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daniel
06-20-2011
10:39 AM ET (US)
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Its hell on earth to have a life like this. i have it. I feel i have to lie and it hurts so much. Because the feelings change that were there.... its devastating (and not only for myself, and knowing that makes it also verry difficult and results in depression, feeling quilty) And i thank dave for saying that his mother was couragous, because at times i can only live minut by minut. And its a disorder that can spread out to all other areas. to people who have friends or relatives with this strange disorder. Sorry but you cannot do much about it. Try to understand that the patient is not doing this on purpose. Its also very bad because the love and care that was there before, is slipping away. You actually lose the person in a way. But the patient loses almost everything. Lives with sort of mourning feelings as a result of not being able to trust anymore. Because a patient does try there can be complete misunderstandings hurt, etc. Imagine that you love, care about the wrong person? If you look at it at times its even laughable for people i guess.. And i am quite sure that people who have this can go manic, paranoid and everything with it.. and end up full blown schizofrenic (if they werent that before)... Edited 06-20-2011 11:22 AM
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angel
06-03-2011
05:07 PM ET (US)
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just found out my mom had capgras she lost my 13 year old sister in the 2 years she been depressed hope she get my sister back she think she got a twin and lost both of them Edited 06-03-2011 05:09 PM
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BigSisTo3&Only1IsLeft:(
07-12-2010
06:52 AM ET (US)
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She has "recovered" is back on her meds and taking care of her one year old son (who I had for 9 months)...Also, I believe that her first "breakdown of reality" was in large part caused by the devastation of losing our brother (her older and my younger) to suicide.
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Deleted by author 07-12-2010 06:48 AM
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BigSisTo3&Only1IsLeft:(
07-12-2010
06:45 AM ET (US)
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My younger sister had her first schizophrenic episode when she was 21, during which she had this same problem. She felt her closest relatives were replaced with imposters and even attacked our mother while all the while screaming "I Want My MOM!"... She was placed on medication and was mostly recovered but stopped taking her meds when she found out that she was pregnant. By the end of the pregnancy she was again in full blown crazy mode (only much worse this time), trusted no one and felt that we were all fake and also the places around her were not real (my house was not my house, etc.). She was given a c-section against her will by court-order (she no longer beleived she was pregnant half the time and would not eat properly since everyone was trying to poison or kill her). When she met her baby she felt that her real baby was dead and that this baby was only another imposter that everyone was trying to pass off as hers.
My question is this: if this ever happens again WHAT are we supposed to do to help her when she doesn't think we are us? Or that she is sick? She was only commited the last time because certain people acted outside of the law.
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Dave
12-07-2008
08:06 PM ET (US)
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My mother - who died in 1992 - jad Capgrase syndrome for the last 25 years of her life. In watching a Science channel show aout the brain recently, I saw a woman with carpgas and her husband. And I realize - at age 60 - that I was seeing and hearing someone other than my mother with that illness for the first and only time in my life.
Seeing Dr. Morris - the Chicago doctor mentioned below - encounter this woman sure brought back memories of the complete helplessness I felt in trying to deal with my mother. (In the TV show, the capgras woman throws a glass at him and shouts him out of the house in minutes).
And yet... my mother's courage in fighting this illness - her love - changed my life for the good immesurably. But it's one hell of a condition.
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CH
11-04-2008
12:39 PM ET (US)
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I have a life-long yearly battle w/ seasonal depression in which the meaning drains from everything in my experience during the darkest winter months. Among other awful effects, objects lose their familiarity and 'mine-ness'. Everything is foreign and artificial looking and this is most pronounced with the people in my life. I know that I know a particular person intimately yet the experience is one where they are suddenly just skin and hair and noise. I can see how someone with the same or similar boichemical malady might subconsciously impose the narrative of 'imposters' familiar to Capgrass Syndrome in order to continue some semblance of purposeful functioning in a devasatingly meaning-drained world. It's odd ill-logic makes perfect sense to me.
My own method of coping has often included aping the forms and feelings of meaning that are no longer present in the winter-- just to get through it. In that sense, in those situations, I am the imposter, pretending to be the same engaged meaningful friend I am at other times in the year.
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Kelly W.
10-14-2008
10:37 PM ET (US)
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I think that this syndrome is very interesting and has a possibility in being correct. Maybe this does exsist and there are things around us that are much more than we could imagine. I don't know if pumping the amazing people full of medications to supress this mentality. This may be lots to learn from in discovering our what our large brains in which we only use a minute amount of are really about.
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kalison
07-07-2008
05:38 AM ET (US)
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Need new Rip DVD to AVI ?
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kalison
07-07-2008
04:37 AM ET (US)
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Need new Rip DVD to AVI ?
Rip DVD to AVI
Have a nice surfing！
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