Ive read that schizophrenics were venerated as shamans and oracles in the past, great kings like Alexander the great and lots of roman emperors paid for the services of these people. What if our illness its just a misunderstood advanced state of human evolution?
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I don’t know. I think they probably killed us because we weren’t normal.
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At other times we were burned as witches and had primitive lobotomies performed on us when the so-called doctors were searching for the “stone of folly.” Or exorcisms and such.
Then there was Freud’s belief that schizophrenia was caused by latent homosexuality.
Sometimes mental illness was viewed as just part of being overtly sensitive or intelligent . Or bring talented in an artistic sense and being willing to suffer for your art. Or merely a metaphor for outsiders facing oppression from mainstream society, like in the novel “One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest” by Ken Kesey and the movie that followed.
The loose associations and beliefs seem to not only change as our cultures change, but also as medical science and other related fields find new relevant data.
There are people who have romanticized substance abuse and those that continue to romanticize substance abuse too. Remember Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders. Writers like Burroughs and Bukowski. And model agencies searching for models with “that heroin chic”.
I think that most educated and young people can separate mental illness from cultural beliefs and keep them in proper context. As well as those who have an ilness and some of their friends, family, and loved ones. As well as those who work in the mental health field.
And I hope you can continue to seek treatment and recognize you have a medical illness @Alan96. There’s no danger with any personal beliefs about your illness, but if they become delusional or compromise your ability to take care of yourself or stay out of trouble, these ideas might become harmful to your well-being.
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Also some people, even today, say mental illness is not real. Or that it is a spiritual issue.
They are wrong.
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If we were. I kind of wish I could have been around for it.
But we were also tortured in the past. Labotomies and other horrors
But now every ounce of respect is a battle. In this day and age I feel less than human. Horrible things still happen but it’s much less common and accepted thankfully.
Perhaps the future will be better though.
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That was long ago when the Romans were holding fight-to-the-death shows in the Colosseum with gladiator slaves and wild lions and bears. Back when they invented democracy but knifed Cesear on the senate floor. Things were a little different back then and you don’t hear much about schizophrenics as shamans anymore in modern times. Alexander the great was a murderous, psychopathic, megalomaniac (albeit a charismatic one) who primitively made a name for himself and consulted seers or schizophrenics back when they were still sacrificing virgins on the altar and worshiping the sun god. Different times, different practices.
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Times have changed, we understand a bit more about mental health. I’m glad that delusions carry less weight these days, although they still seem to do guide economic processes. The source of these delusions are simply not from people with psychotic disorders typically anymore
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I know in other societies all except western schizophrenic are seen as shaman and nurtured but to be honest I have found no intrinsic value in anything I experienced. It was all just one big energy drain. I have a saying When I start to loose it. I say to myself it’s all â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â–
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I don’t think every schizophrenic was a shaman in the past, only a small part of high-functioning ones.
Madness was well known even in those years.
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It’s probably easy to think that if you have predominantly positive symptoms. Loose associations get conflated with heightened creativity and a sense of transcending the normal human senses. Lack of insight tends to block the fact that most of it is unstructured gibberish.
If your symptoms are predominantly negative you’ll get to feeling that way far less often. Schizophrenia isn’t an other wordly gift . It’s a debilitating and serious illness.
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Ah you hit the nail on its head old chum. Lemme hug you. 
There.
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If they were really special people in the past than why aren’t we special people in the present except in our own heads? I don’t really see articles and stories about schizophrenics in the present really doing great spiritual feats for mankind.
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You got a good point there, @77nick77.
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No. Sorry, you’re not special, you’re delusional. Just like the rest of us.
Meds. CBT. Therapy. Attitude reset. Diet. Exercise.
Move on with your life.
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Good to hear from you. Hope you’ve been doing well.
Whether one thinks they are special or not doesn’t change that idea that someone thinks they are the ideal. Whatever that ideal is. God, normal human being, whatever.
Also telling someone they are delusional doesn’t change their mind. If someone truly wants to believe something, they aren’t going to take your opinion into consideration. They will just walk away thinking you’re crazy.
Much better ways to handle a person.
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