When is it a head game?
As I said in my last column, the supernatural fascinates me. There is something about the overcast fall days that make me want to cuddle up on the couch with a good ghost story. Sometimes, when I am bored at work I will hang out on YouTube, forums, or whatever and read spooky stories and whatnot. One day, about a year or so ago, I somehow ended up on Wikipedia looking up “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” Of course, once you start clicking around on Wikipedia you end up a great deal further away from where you started, but the information is always interesting.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is hailed as being based on a true story. The Wikipedia entry about the movie itself was interesting, but the story behind the movie is even more so. Now, I am fully aware that Wikipedia is user information and stuff, but I like the way it reads, and generally if something interests me enough to read it on Wikipedia, I click on the source links as well.
So, back to Emily Rose. Turns out, Emily Rose is based on a German woman by the name of Anniliese Michel. The story goes that she believed she was possessed by a demon and therefore had to be exorcised of said demon. Doctors believed she suffered from severe psychiatric disturbances, and other mental disorders. When she died at the age of 23 of malnutrition, her parents and the priests who performed her exorcism were charged with negligent homicide.
The story, while a bit chilling, made me wonder. And, being in the medical field myself I couldn’t help but click around and do a little research, thus bringing us to today’s question:
How many people in history who were said to have been possessed by a demon were really suffering from mental illness? And how many people who are diagnosed with mental illness might actual be suffering from possession?
Now, this is kind of a hot button issue, because there are a great deal of people who don’t believe in demonic possession, and think that the whole idea is absurd. But there is still a good sect of people (read: Catholics, Christians, etc.) that believe that not only is it possible, but probable. However, if you look at the “symptoms,” possession and mental illness could present in the same way, particularly multiple personality disorder.
The symptoms of multiple personality disorder, also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder are: amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, and identity disturbances. The “symptoms” of possession or demonic oppression are: fear, anxiety, depression, lack of self-control, aimlessness, outbursts of hatred, and violent behavior, among others. The identity disturbances in those with DID (dissociative identity disorder) could well explain those who display any or all of the traits of possession. And given that both possession and Dissociative Identity Disorder are extremely rare, it would be logical to think that they might be confused.
The U.S. is the most advanced country in the world when it comes to healthcare and medical research, and scientists make leaps and bounds every day as far as discovering cures and medicines for problems that have plagued man-kind since the dawn of time (which, for the record, I believe was not that long ago. Just throwing that out there). However, up until recently-and by recently I mean the last twenty years or so-many illnesses were not spoken of. Especially mental illness. In the picture perfect suburban home of the fifties, it was taboo to even think of being depressed, or having anxiety issues. These days, mental health issues are not taboo, and they are talked about all of the time. How many people do you know that are on Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, or any other medication to help with depression or anxiety issues? There is nothing wrong with it; I, myself, require Ativan occasionally to help me cope with my irrational fear of silly things. If it helps you live your life to the fullest, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
However, back in the day, before modern medicine or modern anything, people would turn to religion to explain the unexplainable. There is nothing wrong with that either; a strong faith can often heal just as well as medicine can. But, if a particular girl or boy in a family were having issues: withdrawing from human interaction, sudden outbursts, or any atypical behavior that was not considered “good” then they would turn to their local minister or priest for help on “healing” their children. Without the aid of modern medicine or even a basic knowledge of how the body works, most people would come to a conclusion they had read about in the Bible so many times: demonic possession.
Now, I’m not putting down the idea that it exists. I’ve said before that I’m a Christian, and I am the type of person that believes the Bible is literal. Therefore, if it says someone was possessed by a demon, I believe it to be true. However, with the knowledge we have now about mental illnesses, chemical and hormonal imbalances, and things like multiple personality disorders, it would stand to reason that these things have been around just as long as Jesus and God. While it’s true that illnesses have evolved and adapted and mutated as the human race has done the same, the general make up of our bodies has always been the same. We have always had a heart, lungs, a central nervous system, and a brain (to name a few). Since mental illness has to do with the hardwiring of the brain, it makes sense that mental disturbances in some form have been around just as long as the human body. So, is it possible that people could have been suffering a mental illness, and because people didn’t have the knowledge that we do today, they treated it as a possession?
Now, on the flip side of things: Is it possible that someone with a mental illness could fall under possession? This is not intended to anger those who are undergoing treatment for depression, anxiety or other mental health issues-I take meds for it myself. I am talking about some of the extreme cases of multiple personality disorder.
In the case of Anniliese Michel, she had undergone treatment for what doctors perceived to be a mental illness, and they did not work and her condition didn’t show any improvement. She is the one who requested an exorcism and when she died shortly after, her doctors believed that her parents and the priests should have denied her the exorcism and returned her to the hospital for further treatments. She talked in abnormal voices, spoke in depth of the being she believed possessed her, and displayed unnatural strength for a woman who weight just 68 pounds.
I read reports about four different exorcisms, Anniliese Michel being one of them. The other was about the most famed exorcism in modern history, of which the movie The Exorcist was based, and two were about unidentified people. As a whole, these things go unpublished, and rightfully so. The boy that the Exorcist movie was based on was actually able to go on living a normal life, and had he been widely identified as one of the most famous cases of exorcism in history, I doubt that would have been the case. However, one of the constants in the different reports that I read were that they spoke in different voices and languages, some of them dead languages like Latin. People suffering from DID or MPD may speak in different voices, denoting their different personalities, but I couldn’t find anything about speaking in different languages. Just the idea gives me chills. Another constant in the reports that I read were superhuman strength, body contortions, the refusal to say Jesus’ name or walk into/near a church. It also bears mentioning that these people had been treated for severe mental illness for a time without any success. Of the four reports I read, three of them experienced healing, with only Anniliese Michel dying after the ordeal.
In conclusion: I think that it’s very possible that severe mental illness, such as multiple personality disorder, could have been mistaken for possession. But the other way around? I just don’t think one could confuse possession for mental illness. It’s a scary idea, and the fact that I have typed out the word “exorcism” so many times in the last hour kind of squicks me out. In my opinion (and you are free to disagree with me), demons and their ability to possess humans are a very real thing. Given how prominent the occult is these days, and the popularity of the ouija board, I wouldn’t totally discredit the possibility.
What do you think? Talk back in the The Lair!
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