The History of Witches, Demons and Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is classed as a serious mental disorder and shows itself in the patient by anxiety, panic and personality attacks. Most all these states are caused by the patient carrying an overpowering weight on their shoulders. This weight has been gathered over a long time. But in fact, the weight isn't even there except in the patient's mind. Add to this some stress and they are ripe for anxiety, panic and other personality disorders, or worse suicide. They feel helpless and are losing control of their life and don't know what to do. Today, all this can be held in check with medication.

But this was not so in the past, as information on what bipolar was did not exist back then. Consider the Salem Witch Trials. If you read between the lines, perhaps several of the people, including the victims, played out in this horrible scenario had bipolar. But this illness was then known as witchcraft or demons. The poor people were burned alive at the stake for a mental illness their captors possessed.

Exorcisms were popular in the Church rites. They would see the patient and decide whether they had a benign or demonic spirit. Most people today believe that the spirit world does exist, but we can't see into that dimension. Thank science for the medications we now have that puts chemicals into our bodies to do all the work. But the patient has to take their medication without stopping or they could bring down disaster. Today, patients with BD are not treated as criminals, subjected to electro-shock therapy, or burned alive at the stake.