I was hiking with two friends a few years ago as I talked about some of my stranger experiences with Bipolar Disorder.

“You probably would have been a Shaman” was the response of one. I agreed that that was true to a limited extent, but that he also would have had some special voodoo capabilities as a result of his bad eye-sight. (The idea being that now he has corrected his vision with contacts but in the days of Native Americans might have been developed  an extra or hidden sight into deeper realms.) We laughed a little while about our “hidden talents” and continued our hike.

A few years ago, another friend and I started to have some strange, parallel experiences. I’ll be honest- we both got a little weird and both of us struggled with our personal relationships. We chose different routes to handle our difficulties- I continued with my medication for the treatment of Bipolar Disorder (I think it was Risperdal, which did not treat me kindly) and he chose instead to become a modern-day Shaman. At the time, I was a little concerned and told him so, but he seems to have turned out ok in the end.

The NYT just had a piece regarding cultural relativism and mental illness, suggesting that the criteria for many  “mental illnesses” in the west have been transferred into eastern and other cultures, and therefore creating “mental illnesses” where there weren’t any before. In one study cited in the article, researchers studied why Schizophrenics in developing nations were actually happier than those in the “developed world”, which seems counterintuitive because of the difference in the amount of resources available. The researchers found that people in some countries face less stigma when associated with mental illness as a result of their connection to the the “spirit world” and the different way of perceiving it.

The article continues on to suggest that the western pharmaceutical companies should think twice before “inflicting” their Psychiatric medications on cultures who have not previously used them.


In my experiences with Bipolar Disorder, there has often been a spiritual component that has been difficult for me to convey to others. Because I am pretty firmly entrenched into Western culture, I have taken route of pills, but am also curious about how different cultures would respond to my symptoms or how they would diagnose me.