What is Erotomania?
Erotomania is a very rare mental health disorder. This is when an individual believes that they are in a relationship with someone of higher power. Such someone with wealth or a popular celebrity.
Examples of Erotomania
Somebody with this disorder believes that the person they’re obsessed over is sending them secret messages through things like their music and social media. Assuming that certain things they have said are about them. Common examples of things Erotomania victims engage in are excessive forms of: stalking, sending letters and threatening said person’s family and friends.
How Does Someone Develop Erotomania?
Erotomania is often developed by early abuse or just bad life decisions in general. The chances of Erotomania occurring can also be high if you yourself. If you are already suffering with conditions or mental health problems like Bipolar, Schizophrenia, low self-esteem, or major depression.
Several cases of Erotomania
The Murder of Christina Grimmie
In 2016, Chrsitina Grimme, a participant of The Voice was killed at a meet and greet with her fans. The gunman, Kevin James that killed himself on the scene had Erotomania. Despite both parties never interacting nor meeting with each other not once. When he had seen that Grimme was in a relationship, he took it upon himself to kill her. Believing that if he couldn’t have her, then nobody else could.
Riccardo Lopez: The Stalker of Bjork
Riccardo Lopez was a man who not only obsessed with, Bjork but he attempted to try and kill her.
For a long time, Lopez had been a huge super fan of the singer Bjork. He brought all of her CDs and sent her countless fan mail letters in the post. Lopez had even documented in a diary in which he kept and spoke about how much he had loved Bjork. Despite how it seemed, he did not hold any sexual feelings towards the singer. He just wanted to be her friend. In 1996, Lopez had caught wind of Bjork’s relationship with the musician Goldie.
This had set Lopez off completely, he felt anger and didn’t want to believe she was actually with somebody else. He resented Bjork and that’s when he resorted to documenting by camera instead of writing it down in his diary. He revealed his plans of sending a bomb to Bjork’s home in London, England. His plans of murdering Bjork never worked, but he did end up killing himself in his apartment that same day. Björk was distressed and wasn’t able to sleep after a week the incident had happened. She had also hired security for her son, Sandi whenever he had to go to school in case of danger.
How To Be More Aware About Erotomania?
If you have a family member or friend who is a fan of or look up to people, but it may seem at time they love with somebody too much, the best things to do is to not only draw their attention away from said person they are invested and infatuated, but to also check the obvious red flags and symptoms of Erotomania. There are many people who are probably suffering with this disorder without even knowing, and it’s best if people are more aware of both this illness and the symptoms.
