A case study reported in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics on Feb. 7, 2013, is one of the few documented cases of vampirism.
The paper reports a case of a 23-year-old married male (3rd of 6 siblings) presented with a two year history of ‘addiction’ to drinking blood. He used to cut his arms, chest, and abdomen with razor blades to collect the blood in a cup and to drink it.
“The initial interest in drinking his own blood had subsequently turned to that of others. These ‘crises’ were characterized by a strong urge to drink blood immediately, ‘as urgent as breathing.' He enjoyed the smell and taste of blood despite finding this ‘foolish.' He also enjoyed biting wounds of others to taste flesh. He was arrested several times after attacking people by stabbing and biting them with the intention of collecting and drinking their blood. He forced his father to obtain blood from blood banks.”
The man was diagnosed as suffering from dissociative identity disorder (DID) and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The origins of the trauma appeared to have been from childhood but the patient had no conscious memory of is childhood between 5 and 11 years of age.
Vampirism has been reported extremely infrequently but had never been truly defined as a mental disorder until now.
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