Dromomania is a mental disorder. The manifestation of this disease is that a person experiences an irresistible desire to leave or escape from his native home. The patient has an obsessive craving to leave the familiar environment and go into the unknown. At the same time, the patient does not want to see beautiful new places, but simply wants to avoid the familiar world.
Main characteristics
Dromomania is a disease that must be taken seriously. A person suffering from this disease can leave his family or quit his job to go wherever his eyes look. The first case of escape can be triggered by various psychological injuries or stressful situations. But if the pathology continues to develop, then for the wanderings the patient finds various, sometimes completely insignificant reasons. Although dromomania is most commonly affected by children, adults may also be affected by this strange disease. Doctors recorded frequent cases in which the very first signs of a disease in a person appeared in childhood and lasted a lifetime.
The most striking example in history
Dromomania is not a new disease. Cases of this disease were reported hundreds of years ago. The Frenchman, whose name was Jean-Albert Dada, is the most striking example of a person with this mental disorder. He lived in the city of Bordeaux, which is located in France, and worked as an ordinary gas welder. In 1886, Jean-Albert was taken to the hospital. As it turned out, he wandered for several years. The patient arrived at the clinic in poor condition. He was very exhausted and could not remember what happened to him. During his wanderings, the Frenchman managed to visit even several countries of the world. After this incident, a real boom in dromomania began. Jean-Albert Dada himself acquired a large number of followers.
Impulsive behavior is the first sign of illness
Dromomania is a disorder that at first glance may seem like a common desire to breathe fresh air or go fishing. But there are several signs that indicate the presence of the disease. The first of these is impulsivity. The patient may have a sudden desire to "rest". For relatives and close friends, this behavior seems absurd. The patient can completely forget that he was planning something, and leave home without informing anyone. Cases of pathological impulsiveness are expressed in the fact that the patient is able to abruptly quit the business he has begun, or even take food, to pack up and leave the house.
Indifference is the second characteristic of the disease.
Dromomania is a serious mental disorder that is best recognized at an early stage. The patient is absolutely not prepared for his future "journey". However, a person does not think about the possible consequences of his departure. He can abandon his family and go nowhere without any finances for later life in wanderings. He does not worry about planning his trip. Such an irresponsible attitude to details can cause a patient a lot of trouble. There are many cases where people who left home were starving, freezing, and lost their way. Dromomania sufferers will never take with them the necessary warm clothes, food, a card, money, and other things important in travel.
Irresponsibility is the last symptom
A person suffering from the disease described does not worry about an abandoned workplace, an unfinished task or unfeeding children. He does not realize that his departure can cause irreparable damage to anyone. The patient does not tell anyone about his intentions to escape from the familiar world, since he himself did not know about his plans a few seconds ago. Cases were recorded when a patient with dromomania woke up in the middle of the night, dressed and left home without informing any of his relatives about his sudden decision.
How does the patient describe his feelings?
Dromomania is a disorder of attraction, manifested in an obsessive desire to leave your home and change the annoying atmosphere. From Greek, the term translates as "running mania." A person has an urgent need to leave the environment, which for some reason exerts strong emotional pressure on him. Often the patient describes their experiences as disturbing. He experiences mental discomfort and cannot find a place in his house. These feelings subside only during a trip or wandering. When the anxiety completely disappears, the person begins to realize the absurdity of his rash act and returns home. A more severe form of this disease is prolonged wandering, in which the patient simply moves forward while he has strength and health. In this case, the escape process itself is important to a person, and not the destination.
Causes of the disorder in children
Most often, dromomania is diagnosed in children and adolescents. The constant shoots of a child can be triggered by various reasons, both expected and completely unexpected. The reason for the next departure from home may be the poor attitude of parents, exorbitant educational load, emotional instability of the child, as well as obsessions, which most often evoke books and films about wanderings.
Sources of the disease in adults
Dromomania in adults does not necessarily have a previous predisposition in childhood. Women and men in adulthood, who are keen to quit, may have good reasons to leave home. Most often, impulsive and reckless behavior of patients is provoked by severe stress, nervous breakdown or overwork. The cause of the development of dromomania can also be a strong emotional pressure from relatives or friends. If the situation that influenced the patient’s behavior is not corrected, then subsequently, in the event of a life problem, a person will run away from home constantly. Sometimes this disorder can be the result of diseases such as psychopathy or obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD and dromomania are closely related, since people with these diseases have pathological activity in the temporal regions of the brain.
Stages of development of dromomania
The first case of home escape is often the result of some severe stress or conflict situations with family or friends. At this stage, it is not difficult for a person to quickly recover and return home. At the second stage of the development of the disease, the patient finds the only, as it seems to him, the surest way to avoid family problems or work conflicts. For him, vagrancy becomes a familiar response to all unpleasant situations. At this stage, a person’s wanderings can be very time-consuming and lead to deep depression. Dromomania syndrome in the third stage already has a clinical character. The patient is practically unable to control his actions and overcome the pathological craving for impulsive shoots from the familiar environment.
How to deal with the disease?
Dromomania is a mental disorder in which a person has an obsession to leave his home. The patient may have an irresistible desire to get away from the usual, so it is very important to recognize the symptoms of the disease at an early stage. Basically, people resort to the help of qualified specialist psychologists, since it is extremely difficult to cope alone with this problem. Often, antidepressants are prescribed to the patient, which help to quickly overcome the anxiety state. For the prevention of dromomania, doctors are advised not to keep negative emotions in themselves, but to discuss with loved ones everything that can cause internal discomfort. To strengthen the nervous system, it is important to exercise every day. A good antidepressant is morning or evening jogging.