I knew a guy that thought celebrities were stalking him. He went through years of therapy, was on a myriad of illegal and prescribed drugs, and eventually shot himself in the head at age 36.
There are people that look under every moveable object they encounter because they are worried their daughter may be under it. It doesn't matter if it's the size of a pea or a house. They just think their daughter might be under it.
This guy may not have been as nuts as the two cases I described, but when your brain is broken, it's like any other part of you being broken. If you try to use it, you will fail. It's like trying to walk when you are paralyzed.
You can tell such people "you're imagining things. You just need to snap out of it. You're crazy. Seek help." It won't change that their brains don't work right.
As to people in Africa dying of disease..
There are a ton of failed social conventions in tribal societies that lead to the deaths of millions there. Ebola spread much more easily because of the tradition of physically contacting dead relatives during burial rites. Ebola and AIDS are theorized to have originated from the practice of eating primates (ebola from gorillas, AIDS from a species of monkey). AIDS spread more easily because of the tradition of widows being taken in by male relatives of their dead husbands, who then used them as wives; and also because of the high prevalence of prostitution in many of the areas where it became epidemic.
While these traditions aren't mental illness, practicing them in the face of the results borders on it. If you have sympathy for them, and not the mentally ill, you're just being illogical.
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