22/05/2026
On Madness
If you have seen the four walls of a tertiary institution, you should be able to reason at a slightly higher level.
The term “madness” is a vague street expression used to describe different kinds of mental instability or mental illness. In modern medicine, there is no diagnosis called “madness.” No psychiatrist writes in a medical report that a patient is suffering from “madness.”
This is why whenever someone claims that a person is mad and was taken to a psychiatric hospital, one important question an educated person should ask is: What exactly is the illness?
The answer matters. The answer matters so much.
Is it schizophrenia? Bipolar disorder? Severe depression with psychosis? Drug-induced psychosis? Dementia? Post-traumatic mental disorder? Epilepsy-related psychosis?
The answer gives you a clue whether the condition is treatable, manageable, temporary, chronic, or curable.
But because many people do not understand these conditions, they quickly conclude that the person is under a spiritual attack or has been supernaturally afflicted.
This is also why, if such people are treated and they recover, instead of the society praising the doctors or scientists that worked and researched the production of medications that made such recovery possible, people divert the praise and “worship” to a spiritual leader as the healer.
Many things people call spiritual are simply medical conditions they do not understand.
The brain is an organ just like the eyes, ears, liver, kidneys, or heart. When the eyes have problems, we go to the hospital to see an ophthalmologist. When the kidneys fail, we seek treatment from nephrologist. But once the brain is affected, many suddenly abandon medicine and begin to think only in terms of demons, witches, curses, and mystical forces.
Why?
Partly because most mentally ill people on our streets are never properly diagnosed. Society simply gives one general name to everything as: “madness.”
And once there is no diagnosis
