Weird People of History: Catherine of Siena

Mentally ill people have always existed!

By anonymous, Public Domain

[content note: eating disordered behavior]

I know you shouldn’t diagnose historical figures with specific mental illnesses. The historical record is sparse and doesn’t have the details we’d need to make a firm, accurate diagnosis. Often, you can say “this person was clearly not fully neurotypical,” but exactly what was going on is a mystery.

That said, Catherine of Siena was an anorexic, and while she may not have had borderline personality disorder, when I read about her life I sure say “mood” a lot.

Catherine of Siena was a fourteenth-century Catholic mystic.¹ She’s not only a saint but a Doctor of the Church—a special status that the Catholic Church gives to theologians whose writings were particularly influential. She’s one of only 37 Doctors of the Church, and one of only four female Doctors.² Her intellectual achievements were remarkable, particularly given the disrespect shown to female thinkers at the time.