The anthropological literature has whole books on how different cultures view mental illness. A bipolar makes a perfect shaman, because unmedicated we tend to have periods of remission between any episodes of talking to Dog.
How we perceive our own level of functioning is an important part of the diagnostic criteria. I quote from pendulum.org:
The symptoms are a cause of great distress or difficulty in functioning at home, work, or other important areas.
It seems fairly obvious that if your job function is to have psychotic episodes, then the symptoms aren’t going to create difficulties at work.
I completely agree that many of the prophets and Christian Mystics were mentally ill. I believe that they were putting forth Truths that were only available to a shattered mind, a mind that has no stake in the status quo. This is the meaning of “thinking outside of the box&”.
We are stigmatizing mental illness in ways that go far beyond any distress or difficulty in functioning that we experience.
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