Mental Illness Trivia, Fun Facts And Myths
Did you know that Socrates suffered from agoraphobia? Did you know that Kim Kardashian is credited with inventing narcissism? Did you know that Nostradamus committed suicide on Easter just so he could get credit for predicting the day of his own death?
If you said, “Yes” to any or all of these statements you might want to consider your sources because they are absolutely not true. (Paris Hilton invented narcissism.)
The world of mental illness is a quagmire of myths, misperceptions, and odd facts. So, instead of our regular cerebral deconstruction of themes relevant to the mental health community, let’s have a little fun and examine some of them.
If you rub the head of a bipolar person and then turn in three counter-clockwise circles your first wish will be granted. This stubborn myth has been around for decades. Insiders know it only works with schizophrenics.
All mentally ill people can trace their ancestry back to a small, nomadic tribe of gypsies, witches and goatherds living in a forest outside Prague. Another myth. Mentally ill people come from all over the world and are as diverse a group as you might imagine, although they are all left-handed.
Mentally ill people are so consumed by their problems that they never have pets other than bunnies, gold fish, and marmosets. It is hard to imagine how this ridiculous myth got started. Mentally ill people have a variety of pets including squid, drosophilae, anteaters, horseshoe crabs, and wildebeests.
Mentally ill people use secret handshakes so they can recognize each other, and converse in a specialized form of pig Latin so people around them can’t understand. Myth. However, we do have decoder rings so we can interpret messages from space aliens.
Trivia. Every person in Switzerland actively participates in the same clinical depression support group.
Trivia. In North Korea there is no word for “paranoia”.
Trivia. Xeno was xenophobic.
Trivia. Hannibal never wanted to cross the Alps; he wanted to cross the straights of Gibraltar. Unfortunately he had a pathological fear of turning left.
Trivia. In the Middle Ages, alcoholism was considered a hobby, not an illness.
Keep your eyes and ears open for mental illness fibs and fabrications; they’re everywhere!
APA Reference
McHarg, A.
(2013, June 11). Mental Illness Trivia, Fun Facts And Myths, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, November 18 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/funnyinthehead/2013/06/mental-illness-trivia-fun-facts-and-myths
Author: Alistair McHarg
That last comment was the funniest. It was the one that made me lol. As they say in Northern England, 'there's nothing as queer as folk'.
That has nothing to do with Mental illnesses or Mental Health this website was not helpful at all please improve this website, and get real facts that are proven.
When you're an orange, psychiatrists only want to talk to you because they want some juice.
Hi Hope: Thanks for reading, and writing. My experience has been that - when you're an orange, psychiatrists want to compare apples and oranges. A
I cannot receive messages from space aliens. However, my penguin can (he's also my chauffeur). Unfortunately, I cannot speak penguin. Fortunately, my chimpanzee does and interprets for me.
So the messages get through. Yet sometimes I fear that something is lost in the translation.
Am I paranoid? Or is everyone really out to get me?
I'd need to consult a Chimpanzee/Penguin dictionary to answer properly.
That was supposed to read "hang out with us on the couch, not hand out with us :)
Good Evening Alistair! I was the proud servant of two recently deceased bunnies who considered themselves my owner. They used to hand out with us on the couch and got along with the cats too. I've used a hole-filled tin foil hat for receiving messages from space aliens and the rabbits' ears to decode it. They're quite versatile those bunnies. I have run across a few myths about the mentally ill. One is that they dislike Brussels Sprouts. In fact they love them and use them to decorate their houses in Switzerland. Researchers have yet to find the correlation between Brussels Sprouts and depression. Another myth is the mentally ill despise Blue Chevy Silverados. They in fact find them quite useful for hauling Timothy Hay and carrots home to their bunnies who dance merrily in the the truck bed on the way home. Okay, enough about bunnies. Have a great week in the sunshine.