This month I'm working in a mental hospital where patients can be committed against their will. Aside from the medico-legal aspects of this institution, the rotation has been very interesting because of the patients. I have mostly schizophrenic patients, but also a patient with a bipolar disorder.
One patient I'll call "Jack" is a African American male in his 50s with schizoaffective disorder. Today he told me that Jesus is coming back the 25 th of December. While this may be true, he also told me that Jesus had lost the Western and Eastern hemispheres and that Jack had helped him pull them back together. He asked a patient yesterday if he was an angel. Earlier Jack has said he wants to be a church elder. Another patient on our service also has hyper-religious delusions. He has said he's a Jesuit priest and that he believes in Jesus Christ. He also has completely tangential thoughts and was brought to the hospital for exposing himself in public.
So, here's my question. Why religion and religious ideas? People with mental illness often hear voices and think or act like they were controlled by external forces. How much of this could be spiritual. The Gadarene demoniac - would he be considered just mentally ill? Moses' vision of a burning bush - would it be labeled an illusion or hallucination? Paul's claim that Jesus spoke directly to him for three years in Arabia before his public ministry - would this be a delusion?
I don't have all of the answers to these questions, but I think there's a lot we don't understand. Clearly, some people have organic brain disease or chemical "imbalances" (to use lay terminology), but it's quite interesting and I think things may be more complex/spiritual than we think. Glad that my brain works as well as it does (from a disease standpoint, it's a miracle there's not more wrong with us) and glad that I am saved by the Lord Jesus. If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
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3 comments:
Hey Bro,
I've wondered the same thing myself. How many "mentally ill" people are being treated medically by our society, when what they really need is to be set free from demon possossion by Jesus Christ? In the new testament, you see plenty of examples of insane people who acted that way because of a spiritual force controlling their mind & body.
Nice blog ya got going on here. Hope your doing well.
I had the same thoughts during my mental health rotation in nursing school. It was so depressing to me, that my professors noticed a change in my enthusiasm and asked me about it. I hadn't even realized it until they said something, and then I figured out that I just didn't have any hope in the current system..these people don't get well... they just numb them up so that they aren't too much of a bother to anyone. It was just so sad...and I remember thinking, why the religious delusions? Surely there is a reason for that...
Interesting.
Bro,
You are in a field in which I would never excel. Sometimes I think we dismiss the influence spirits can have on this world. Ironically, we try to ignore their power or suppress it through medication. Interestingly, when the mind starts to weaken it still holds onto what is core, spiritual understanding.
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