Mental illness
Mental illnesses are status effects that are very hard to get rid of and can often effect you for odd reasons, either because you read/wore the wrong thing or because you have a particular mutation. Things that cause mental illnesses commonly are Buckethead's bucket, which will give you a random mental illness when worn, but not if you already have one. Aside from that, Hideous Freaks and Abominations reclone with one, and sometimes two. Players with the vampire mutation get mental illnesses when they get hungry enough. While mental illnesses are inconvenient, they rarely come without at least one upside, making them somewhat a mental form of rad mutations.
(incomplete)List Of Mental Illnesses
Christianity
Cause
Reading a bible
Effect
You may go to heaven rather then limbo when you die. You will also gain a descriptive line about looking like an asshole in an indeterminate way.
Republicanism
Cause
Unknown
Effect
-1 to brains.
Megalomania
Cause
Unknown
Effect
No documented effect.
Claustrophobia
Cause
Unknown
Effect
Constant stress gain while indoors. Status screen will say "you feel like the walls are closing in on you"
Nymphomania
Cause
The Goo Fountain in Hellfire
Effect
Randomly doses you with the Rapinex drug, causing you to take off your clothes and prematurely dissipating your endorphins. The benefit to this is it means you can whore more often, if that's your thing. A downside is that you end up getting stressed if you go too long without sexual contact.
Arachnophobia
Cause
Unknown
Effect
Stress and fear around arachnos, cave spiders, etc.
Agoraphobia
Cause
Unknown
Effect
Despite the name, this doesn't stress you when you're outside, rather, you get stressed from being around people, more people escalate the effect.
Bulimia Nervosa
Cause
Unknown
Effect
When you have any fullness, pleasantly full, full or uncomfortably full, you will immediately vomit. Adds the message 'You feel like a fat pig.' to your status line.
Blblbllubl
Cause
Admins use this to punish people.
Effect
Causes you to see various nets that aren't really there. Can be very annoying at times. No other documented effect.
Narcolepsy
Cause
Unknown
Effect
No documented effect.
How to deal with the screaming purple bears in your head
Depending on how severe your mental illness is, it could be simple to remove, or a giant nightmare to do so. At the higher intensities, psychoanalyzing a mental illness can be one of the hardest medic skill checks available. It helps if you are reclining on a comfortable piece of furniture when being psychoanalyzed. If you have enigma, you are so mysterious you can't even share your own inner mental workings, so you must rely on someone with Empath to help, they may or may not be willing to do so as their ability to cure mental illnesses has a chance to just take it from you and give it to themselves. If you need help, just politely ask on tradenet and someone would most likely be willing to assist, if not, maybe try to just enjoy the interesting perspective a mental illness gives you, sometimes they have some really neat effects.