Carnimania

No one really knows what leads to Carnimania developing, but it is speculated that the syndrome has a genetic component. In any case, it is understood that the disease is often an extreme, specific response to mental or emotional trauma.

Early Development

Carnimania is not obvious in the early stages of development. Following some kind of traumatic or life-changing incident, the afflicted will experience a state of melancholic depression. This period can last from about two weeks to two months.

Over time, the depression will abate, giving way to anxiety and paranoia. At this stage, Carnimania is often mistaken for run-of-the-mill depression, anxiety disorder, or post-traumatic stress. Whether these symptoms are caused directly by Carnimania or simply co-occuring conditions in most cases is not clear. However, most healers speculate that the reality is a mix of both scenarios.

Sufferers will often experience trouble eating and sleeping due to fear, which speeds along the progression of the disease.

First Bite

After some time, fear and paranoia will completely take over for the depression. It is at this point when the most characteristic symptom of Carnimania manifests. The patient will feel an overwhelming compulsion to bite and/or consume the flesh of other living beings.

In mild cases, this just manifests as a tendency to bite and lick up blood. In severe cases, though, patients may compulsively rip off and swallow whole any meat they can find, whether it is alive, dead, or even rotting. Contrary to many horror stories, even the most afflicted patients will not go after the flesh of other beings first; autocannibalism, the compulsion to consume one's own flesh, is the most common route this disorder takes.

Often, a patient will be able to pass off as normal most of the time, but experience "Carnimanic episodes" where the compulsion becomes too extreme to resist. These episodes are often a response to stress. Hunger and thirst in particular tend to trigger episodes.

Unfortunately, Carnimania cannot be cured, but the Post-Separation Era has brought about ways to control the symptoms. Anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medicines are very helpful in this regard. With pharmaceutical and psychological treatment, most folks with Carnimania can go on to live happy, healthy lives.

In the Golden and Silver Eras, though, Carnimania patients often got the short end of the stick. With little understanding to the cause or treatment of the disease, many communities relied on violent, even lethal methods of treatment. This has mostly stopped, though heavy stigma surrounding the condition still exists.

It is speculated by some scholars that the fallen Queen of the Butterflies, Titania, was afflicted with Carnimania. In the time she spent ruling the now-defunct Butterfly Kingdom, she became increasingly paranoid, believing that the royal court was conspiring to overthrow her. When a human visitor emerged through an Earth portal and went down for a nap in her private garden, she saw this as a threat. She killed and cooked the human, feeding the flesh to the nobles that she thought were plotting against her.

There are some holes in this story that cast doubts on this belief, though. Carnimanic episodes are usually impulsive, not planned out, so the fact that Titania cooked the human first raises some eyebrows. Her stated motivation clashes with this theory, too. It seems as if Titania's actions were moreso a statement to her court than anything else. To this day, the jury is still out on whether or not Titania is actually Carnimanic; she is imprisoned in the deepest level of Mt. Inferno, a prison far too dangerous for most psychologists to traverse. In addition, the imprisonment has rotted her mind to the point where she cannot even form a coherent thought anymore. Due to these reasons, it is impossible to study her brain adequately.