Insanity and intelligence having a possible connection is too good a topic for me to pass up. Insanity is a legal term and in court rooms it means the person does not know the difference between right and wrong. He may or he may not. It will be up to the judge and the jury to decide that. While it is true there is a fine line between the two, the line is not one necessarily tht is flimsy and easily crossed by the other. A truly intelligent person will have the necessary mental equipment to deal with the aberrations that a person bordering on insanity will not have.
But mental illness can be a chronic condition and an intelligent person who can learn about his disease and how to cope so that his life is less threatened by this disease. Or Mental illness can be a disease that strikes periodically and inbetween these bouts the person afflicted is relatively normal.
Again education and a desire to help oneself plays a good part in how one so afflicted copes. Mental illness, it is true, can disable a intelligent and able mind as well as it can one with a lower mentality, but of the two, it stands to reason that the more intelligence a person has the more able he will be able to straighten out his mental kinks.
On the other hand if this argument is about whether those afflicted with mental illness are more intelligent; or intelligent people are more prone to mental illness. I say hogwash. Mental illness takes its toll on the productivity of the individual whether its victims are intelligent or of lower intelligence. Mental illness is no respecter of mental capacity, that is for sure.
It is debilitating to say the least. But there is one misconception that should be cleared up, that of the people dealing with minds and what makes them work is somewhat warped and is not quite normal. That’s not so. It is their peculiar inheritances and their special abilities and their daring in bringing these ‘strange’ thoughts out in the open,that leave them open for criticism.
It is true that high achievers often are diagnosed with bi-polar illness where the pendulum swings from euphoria to depression. But these individual achieved in spite of their illness, not because of it. Just think how much more they could have achieved had they not have had to contend with this affliction? When they go through the ill cycles of their lives their work suffers is inferior to that produced when they are lucid and are relatively free of illness.
What people don’t understand about mental illness is that is not a thing apart. The mind goes along with the rest the body, and the soul. All influence the other. With better mental health physical health with benefit, and with better physcial health mental health will be on upswing, and the soul, well, the whole body benefits when it is in good condition.
