The Dissolving Self

There is an unspoken rule that the one who can pull his weight contributes nothing, while one who can pull their weight and that of other has something to offer society.
While within the Shaperate, subjects with mental illness are treated with great care, but the same cannot be said for those who suffer from such outside. They are often forced to cloister themselves off if they cannot behave similarly to a "normal person" or pull their own weight "like a normal person". While some of these illnesses might grant one a station is society--the equivalent of a shaman, or a ruler--others doom a person to hermetic lifestyles, having to fend for themselves or living behind closed doors.
One of these such mental disorders is characterized by the feeling being possessed or being out of control of ones own actions, regardless of the truth of that statement. This can go so far as to have blackout episodes, and the like, and usually results from having contact with the charagma and an un-amputated, infected limb. This can also be seen in people who are the children of those with a charagmic infection. These symptoms are understood under the phrase "The Dissolving Self" or by its scientific classification, Demens Charybdis.

Transmission & Vectors

The condition appears transmitted through prolonged infection and can go away with the amputation of the limb. It is also passed along genetically with those with untreated infections who bear and birth a child. Children born this way have little hope for treatment.

Causes

The cause is related to the charagma. As it is itself a series of plasmids-like microorganisms, charagmids, it is akin to a sentient cancer. It infect cells to replicate ceaselessly, drawing from the mind, memories and binding to the fabric of the being entirely. Slowly the body is assimilated into the charagma and unifies into a single being whose purpose is to spread, or so hypothesize the Shapers.

Symptoms

Aside from the symptoms related to charagmic infection, otherwise called a faustian burn, symptoms will always correlate to the prolonged infection and never its severity. Among the first, one can expect a slow loss of self. Depersonalization is a major and early symptom, though culture sometimes will treat this as a kind of ascension above mortal concerns. Another early symptom is convulsion. The body will begin to spasm, not seize, for short periods of time. Some limbs will move entirely on their own, or a person will claim to not be thinking. These are warning signs.
Later, symptoms will gradually worsen to feelings of flattened affect, depressive like symptoms, but these work specifically in tandem will feeling one seeing an action to completion, but not be the one doing the action. The lack of joy results from feeling distanced from the action itself. This will later culminate into a state of "dreaming through life". A person might lose the ability to speak or move unless commanded. Removing an infected limb is easiest at this stage, though complete removal is considered near impossible. Patients will be forever in a state of not-remission.
At its worse stages, The person will feel euphoric and completely free from personal burden and responsibility. Typically correlating with feeling a lack of pain due to the infection's symptoms, a person will behave recklessly, do physical activities that their body can't preform but will because the body cannot feel their limiters any longer. This results in some feeling like Gods, and most are content to watch behind their eyes. Any attempt to remove an amputated arm at this stage is met with violent aggression.
Now, most of these symptoms are imagined and an effect of the faustian burn altogether, but people have become abominations due to the charagma, so it is hypothesized that there is a particular chemical that the charagma releases that eases the assimilation of a sentient being.

Treatment

The infected limb must be amputated to begin to correct the damage done. Once the limb is amputated the person can slowly regain a self of self, though it is, on the majority, a quieter and more skittish person that emerges from that abyss, especially if the limb is removed in the euphoric state.

Prognosis

This mental illness develops over the course of a few months and takes longer or shorter depending on the mental and physical fortitude of the infected individual.

Prevention

Avoiding the charagma altogether or amputated an infected limb before it has incubated a month in the body is the best method of prevention.

Cultural Reception

Most cultures treat those with this mental illness with a mixture of both fear and distain. The only safe place for a person to go who has this condition is a Shaperate. Otherwise, people have been stoned and then burned in the streets for exhibiting this behavior. In fact, there were several trials to eradicate this illness within cities done by several different inquisition groups.
The Shaperate has done much to give hope to these people's lives as it is entirely curable for the majority. A few will still persist in whatever stage they left off on before the limb was amputated, which is what has earned the condition such a bad reputation.

Type

Mental