Dromomania: description, causes and treatment

Most people enjoy traveling. This is a great opportunity to change the familiar environment for a while, refresh emotions, get impressions, and relax. And this is completely normal. People usually plan such trips in advance, think over, choose a direction, wait for a vacation, anticipate everything new that they have to see.

But there are people who hit the road on impulse, experience pathological cravings for changing places and vagrancy. A mental disorder that causes a person to act this way is called dromomania.

Dromomania is a manic, irresistible urge to change places. This disease has several names - poriomania, vagabondage. Dromomaniacs are able not only to spontaneously leave home and wander, but also to leave the country, fly to another continent. It all depends on the actual possibilities.

As a symptom, dromomania occurs in various mental illnesses. Most often it develops with psychopathic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia. But sometimes dromomania occurs as a localized mental disorder. At some point in life (in childhood and adolescence), mild dromomania is characteristic of almost everyone - who in his youth did not dream of going on a round-the-world voyage or flying around the world in a balloon?

And to a certain extent, dromomania, manifested in this form at this age, is considered a normal stage in the development of the human psyche. A pathological desire for vagrancy is formed when a person sets off on a journey already unconsciously, without preliminary planning, impulsively. Childhood mania can persist in adults as well.

The attraction is so strong that a person cannot control it. Neither the presence of small children, nor the obligation to employees at work, household members, nor any other life circumstances are able to stop a dromomaniac who is going on a journey. At the same time, he does not have a clear and convincing motivation. He himself does not know why and where he needs to go, but he goes, because he cannot do otherwise.

In the International Classification of Dromomania Diseases, the F-91 code is assigned (this is a conduct disorder), sometimes doctors classify the pathology according to the ICD code F-21.4 (psycho-like low-grade schizophrenia).

The disease has been well studied and known for a long time. Many famous people suffered from vagrancy cravings. The first official dromomaniac was a locksmith from Bordeaux, Jean-Albert Dada, who was hospitalized in 1886. The doctors managed to establish that the man has been traveling to different cities and countries for several years without a visible purpose. On the basis of the medical history of the locksmith, the first description of the craving for vagrancy was compiled.

As a child, he ran away from home more than once, and then it just became a habit. At the same time, Gorky himself found it difficult to explain where, why and why he suddenly left. It is known that his father also suffered from this mental pathology.

Most often, dromomania occurs in children and adults with mental disabilities. It is possible, of course, that the urge to change places may simply be a character trait, a feature of temperament, but experience shows that most often dromomaniacs are mentally ill. Doctors tend to believe that the disease is formed under the following circumstances:

• there are organic brain lesions after injuries, concussions, neuroinfections, hemorrhages and other vascular pathologies;
• a person develops schizophrenia, hysterical disorder, obsessive-compulsive syndrome.
• there is a diagnosed epilepsy.

Teenage cravings for running away from home and vagrancy are often false, that is, not directly related to these reasons, not supported by them. A child can collect a bundle and go on a long journey under the following factors:

• unbearable loads that are entrusted to him by parents, school, sections;
• a categorical unwillingness to fulfill the requirements of adults, to be responsible for cleaning the house, walking animals, caring for younger brothers and sisters;
• difficult psychological and emotional conditions at home, constant conflicts;
• the desire to establish itself in the eyes of peers, by leaving home, declaring its independence from parents, teachers, senior mentors;
• rich imagination, which paints beautiful pictures of distant countries after watching films, reading books.

It should be noted that all these reasons are not directly related to mental health, and usually dromomaniac children are mostly mentally healthy.

Dromomaniacs are, as a rule, quite infantile people, despite the fact that they may be 30, 40, or more years old. A true dromomaniac does not understand what exactly calls him on the road, he does not care where to go, go, fly or sail.

The disease has its own stages, they are sequential, and with careful observation it will be easy to understand what exactly the dromomaniac will do next. But let's start with the development of the disease.

Usually, the first leaving from home occurs precisely in adolescence and the reason can be any typical for a teenager. This is how the reactive stage of the disorder begins. It does not last long: after wandering for a couple of days, having sipped freedom and new impressions, a person returns home, and outwardly his life continues to go on as usual. But the main thing is happening inside: he is already beginning to understand that leaving is a universal way to solve all conflicts, incomprehensible situations, to avoid uncomfortable attacks from others. In general, he admits for himself that if something happened, he would calmly go "for a walk" for another couple of days.

The next stage is called fixative. A few short leaps from home and a habit of doing just that is formed. Whatever happens - a major problem or a minor (a button came off, you need to prepare for the exam, quarreled with a neighbor), a person sees only one way out - to run away from the problem, and this brings relief to him.

The final stage, after which the disease is fully formed, is characterized by frequent leaving home. A person ceases to adequately perceive his state, desire each time takes the upper hand over him, and gradually he stops fighting with it. Nothing else is important. A person cannot be stopped by the understanding that he leaves only little ones at home, weak elderly relatives who cannot take care of themselves.

It is not difficult to distinguish a real dromomaniac from a simple travel lover, you just need to carefully observe him. The signs of a mental disorder are fairly common:

• a person has no sense of responsibility for anyone or for anything;
• he never warns relatives, friends, relatives, colleagues at work about his sudden departure somewhere;
• seizures happen suddenly - a person does not disappear after some events, without being tied to conflicts, problems, he does it just like that, spontaneously;
• a person never takes important personal items with him on the road, for example, change of underwear, money, documents;
• the dromomaniac has no plan - he plunges into an attack and does not know where he will lead him, he does not plan anything, does not look for points on the map where he will go, does not buy tickets in advance, does not book hotels.

Obsessive thoughts are painful, they do not give rest, deprive sleep, appetite. Relief comes only when a person sets off on a journey. The journey will not be endless. As soon as the attack passes, dromomaniacs return home or contact their relatives with a request to help them return if it is impossible to do this on their own.

The patients themselves are almost unaware of the disease, they are not self-critical, they consider themselves perfectly healthy. Therefore, there is no point in waiting for a person to turn to a specialist. Relatives, friends and colleagues should help him. Otherwise, if there is no treatment, the consequences can be dire: all kinds of people can meet along the way.

Given some general infantilism of dromomaniacs, they can easily enter into friendship with alcoholics, drug addicts and, accordingly, share their interests and passions.

During an attack, a person does not need to wash, wash clothes, and therefore many dromomaniacs return after a long absence with scabies, head lice, reduced immunity, mental exhaustion on the verge of complete insanity.

It is important to know that in the midst of an attack, a dromoman is quite aggressive, and therefore the consequences can be unpleasant not only for him, but also for those around him... Not understanding what he is doing, a person can hit, rob, rape. In a state of attack, according to the general opinion of psychiatrists, patients are socially dangerous.

An aggressive form is especially dangerous for others, in which the patient does not wait for the voluntary consent of a stranger to sexual contact. He's just raping. Outside of travel, such people lead a rather modest lifestyle, they do not look for sexual partners for themselves, since when sedentary, erotic dromomaniacs do not have sexual desires.

If we are talking about a child or adolescent who ran away from home 1-2 times, treatment is not required, but you need to visit a psychologist and find out the true reasons why the child leaves. Adults with a painful urge to relocate without fail need treatment in a psychiatric hospital. If there are no accompanying schizophrenia, psychopathy, then you can get by with a course of psychotherapy using antidepressants and sometimes tranquilizers.

In the presence of major mental illnesses, treatment is carried out by a psychiatrist. It is a complex with medicinal and psychotherapeutic effects.

See below for five unusual mental disorders.