Your life isn't being filmed - Truman syndrome

[BridgeTheGap]

NEW YORK — One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life.

Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything (the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed) was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie The Truman Show.

Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show. Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.

"The question is really: Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.

In the last two years, Gold has encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV. Several of them specifically mentioned The Truman Show.

http://www.kentucky.com/148/story/604894.html