You walk out of your house reviewing a mental checklist; "did the dishes, shut off all the lights, turned the gas off, unplugged the straightener...wait did I unplug the straightener? I swear I did...but did I?
*frantically over analyzes situation until you find yourself running back into the house to double check on the straightener that you did, indeed, unplug the first time.*
Everyone you tell your tale to May jokingly refer to your behavior as "OCD" and you may brush it off and laugh over your 'insanity,' but how far are you really off the spectrum?
A popular idea brewing in the neuroscience community claims that all mental experiences may be placed, and ranked on a spectrum. While some experiences may be on the lighter end of the spectrum, those on the more intense end seem to lead to what we coin a "mental disorder."
Ever realize how patients with mental disorders seem to undergo normal mental experiences, but at an abnormal rank in terms of intensity? For example, most of us have a colorful imagination that enables us to day dream, hear things that have not necessarily been said, or see things that are not actually real. While on the lighter end of the mental scale this experience is almost beautiful, in more intense situations this experience can be labeled Schizophrenia.
That being said in order to truly understand a mental disorder, we should stop asking what makes "them" different and begin questioning what makes "us" different.
What faulty neurobiological reaction lead to our "lighter" experience and not a more intense, psychotic episode?
Our biochemistry is the same, our rank on the spectrum however may be skewed.
Most of us understand that patients with genetically linked disorders are the byproduct of mutated genes, and after many years of shaming such patients for their "differences" are only now learning to accept genetic flaws which we have no control over (for the most part).
Till this day all around the world, patients with mental disorders are shamed, bullied, tortured, and misbehaved with. The mind of the mentally ill is feeble, and it is easy to persuade the mentally sick that they are possessed, or evil, etc.
This may seem like an irrelevant point but all around the world the mentally ill are brutally beaten, or spiritually "cleansed" to rid them of the alleged evil spirits, or demonic entities that have plagued their minds; Welcome to the 21st century.
It introduces an interesting, semi related question; how can people who are "possessed" only be cured by the rituals and customs of their own faith, and not the traditions of any other?
Though religious ceremonies and customs differ all around the globe, almost all cultures speak of "possessions." During these episodes, the victim often twitches and stretches abnormally, eyes seem to dilate, and alternative languages, never before spoken, are spat out.
When someone has a fever, whether they're Hindu or Christian, they may pop a Motrin to allow the fever to subside. Despite "possessions" being so universally notorious, there is no universal cure, and that is alarming.
Remember when babies born with Down syndrome would be killed soon after birth, they're abnormal features being linked to the work of the devil? Yeah...I guess we haven't tread a long way after all.
If psychotic episodes like possessions occur worldwide, isn't it more likely that the cause be hidden in our shared neurobiology than our differing religious assumptions?
What's even more interesting is that people who become "possessed" are only positively affected by cures hailing from their own faith. For example, a Christian who has been possessed is "unaffected" by a Hindu mantra, just as Christian prayers have little affect on a Hindu suffering the same dilemma.
Does this mean it can all be in our head?
An interesting related disorder is called "foreign language syndrome." This disorder is often caused by damage to the Wernickes region of the brain (center for interpreting language before it is spoken). Patients suffering from this disorder often awake from a coma to find themselves speaking fluently in a foreign language.
While its direct cause is still unknown, research has revealed that the new languages adopted by these patients are not as foreign as the patients think. We are all constantly exposed to different languages; we hear them, and we see them on a daily basis. This information seems to be stored in our unconscious mind, where are completely unaware of its existence. On a conscious operating level we know the languages we "speak" not the ones we are unconsciously aware of. The human brain is able to pick up and interpret various languages, but after a certain age we grow accustomed to only one, or a few. Our Wernickes area learns to interpret these languages and as a result we speak them fluently, as opposed to only "knowing" a few words here and there from differing languages. It is believed that those with foreign language syndrome have somehow unlocked their unconscious understanding of other languages after damage to their Wernickes region causes them to "forget" the syntax of the language they were previously accustomed to; its kind of like your brain kicking into communicative survival mode.
Patients with schizophrenia sometimes claim the "devil is talking to them, and telling them to do things." Foreign language syndrome often enables people to speak foreign languages. Muscle spasms can be linked to various causes. All these factors that make up the average "possession" are already relative factors in other mental disorders.
How then should a "possession" be ranked on the overall spectrum?
