Breaking sickness is an illness which effects the conscious mind of sentient beings.
Side effects come in three distinct stages.
The trial: The inflicted begins developing severe insomnia, rarely sleeping for more than half of the time they have in the past. The trial inflicts most of the expected difficulties of exhaustion, confusion, poor motor corditation, difficulty concentrating, and increased emotionality. The trial cannot be seperated from regular pathological insomnia as their is no known differentiating cause. In fact, many who recover from insomnia are said to have "completed the trial of consciousness" even though all research indicates they did not have Breaking Sickness in the first place. The trial phase typically lasts between 3 earth months and 2 earth years.
The Seperation: During the second stage the individuals conscious perspective begins to "shift from the body into nonliving objects". Often these shifts are later described as frightening even though the object is mundane. For example, one suddenly finds themselves viewing the world through the perspective of a cup in that they "feel the essence" of the cup and lack all external sensory experience. It is currently unclear if such a possession is even possible, indeed older writers have considered it "psychotic transference" brought upon by a fractured sense of self. When overwhelmed the tired and confused individual projects their weakness into the object and becomes it. Others are convinced of the sufferers experience through the detailed consistency which exists over many millions of cases.
The Toad: The third and final stage is also the most concerning. In it the individual loses all apparent higher functioning and proceeds to live a life concerned with only simple tasks such as eating, sleep, and deficating. Simple repetitive tasks are teachable, but all advanced tasks, including language cease. Neural analysis shows that the brain is intact and functional but not capable of higher, emergent thought translations. Many studies have been done on
toads but no treatment or recovery has ever been established.
Exhibiting signs of the trail is always concerning, but those who feel the seperation are aware that there is no treatment or cure. Many, but not all, die by suicide at some point after progression has become clear. In Shenta-Har-Ek society the condition is so frightening that death by suicide is promoted and "breaking homes" have been built specifically to house those who are in the act of processing their decision.
Those who do become toads act as living ghosts to their loved ones, living an empty life and merely being.
The Simple order species, who have more contact with each jointed consciousness, consider toads to be already dead and immediately destroy them.
No individual has ever recovered from Breaking Sickness.
All conscious populations are effected to some degree, with the Shenta-Har-Ek having the worst epidemic at around 2.5% of their population. Other populations vary between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000 individuals with the exception of the Jia r’uk, who experience it very rarely.
The lack of biological markers is concerning, as is the apparent randomness of who it infects. No reliable correlations have been discovered after centuries of study, intelligence, age, gender, culture, and food all seem to have no bearing. The closest to a connection is the randomness itself, as those it infects are so random some theorized it is a controlled chaos as natural chaos would have left more false modifiers.
It is not known how the condition spreads. While no records of it exist prior to the Orphelian Wars (first case described in 268), many consider this a false flag as Orphelian proximity does not appear to increase or decrease rates of the disease.
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