angola

One patient persists in my mind, even days after her discharge. I will call her ‘Angola’, for all HIPAA satisfaction, and briefly fill out her picture in order to outline my fixation. I heard she came in yelling and thrashing, all 110 pounds of her, with a wild look in her eye but a genuine fear as well. As I spoke with her the next morning, I could tell the medication had already begun taking effect, as she was far calmer and composed, able to relate to me her story. She grew up in Africa then came to America just a few years back as a foreign exchange student. Around this time, she started hearing “spiritual warfare” in clearly audible way, as if caught in between the banter of angels and demons. She was still able to attend classes and carry on with life as usual. As the years progressed, this warfare grew more tangible in nature and ‘Angola’ felt paranoid like she was being followed and fought over…until finally she saw the Devil and Jesus in her very own home, talking directly to her.  

I must admit, sitting in front of her telling this story prompted a conviction in me for immediately wanting to label her crazy. Yes, my sparse psychiatric knowledge would suggest the beginnings of schizophrenia in this poor girl, but I left wanting to explore the context of her Christianity that may have taught a more tangible picture of spiritual warfare than I grew up with. My mind also jumped back to the saints I read about in college with very vivid visions of Christ who were lauded for their mystic spirituality and wrote books still popular today. Julian of Norwich, for example, was not medicated/commited for her hallucinations in the late 1300s.

I followed up with Ms. ‘Angola’ over the next couple days before her discharge and her clinical picture improved, which on the ward means that she stopped seeing hallucinations. She still reported hearing Jesus speak to her internally, but my own faith makes me want to attribute that to her idea of prayer (we probably all hold varying perceptions of what that communal activity with God looks like exactly). I still wonder exactly what of her illness we fixed and what portion of her faith we silenced as a side effect.

What do you think...