Is there a relationship between insanity and intelligence?
Of course, you must have a mind before you can lose it. However, to what extent
this is true, the topic is too good for me to pass up. Insanity is a legal term
and in court rooms it means the person not know the difference between
right and wrong. That may or may not be so. 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 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, in between
these bouts the person afflicted is relatively normal.
Again, education and a desire to help oneself play a good
part in how one so afflicted copes. Mental illness, it is true, can disable a
intelligent and able minds 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 of high or low
intelligence. Mental illness is no respecter of mental capacity. Those with
higher intelligence may worry over it, deny it, and in general compound its
problems, however.
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 physical health mental health will be on upswing, and the soul,
well, the whole body benefits when it is in good condition. Mental health is on
the upswing when all three work harmoniously together.
(This is a recycled article I published to Helium.com a few years ago. It has been edited for grammatical errors, only.)
(This is a recycled article I published to Helium.com a few years ago. It has been edited for grammatical errors, only.)