One of the things that had a profound influence on me being receptive to seeing the truth about the church was dealing with my first experience with a person who had begun to display severe mental health issues. When this person had episodes which sometimes led to hospitalization some saw this condition as being possessed by the devil. Others expressed that the person was having spiritual experiences from God. Those with such opinions needed to be reminded that the behavior was a chemical malfunction in the person's brain. However, it was an amazing experience seeing how psychotic episodes produced sometimes remarkable speech and behavior. I could see how some seeing such episodes, especially before the understanding of advanced medicine, could be fooled into believing the supernatural was involved. This experience caused me to question others' and my own perception as it related to things that were thought to be spiritual manifestations. It also caused me to recognize how the church and other religions can get a person so worked up and mess with their senses enough to resemble in some ways psychotic episodes; or, cause someone to mistaken psychotic behavior for spiritual behavior. Certain faith can distort truth and reality. The church and religion can be a possible feeding ground for those with minor or difficult mental conditions.

What are some of your experiences and thoughts on this subject?

Can certain fanatical levels of religiousness be a mental condition? Can a mental condition cause someone to be more religious? Has there been a mistaken trust in religious leaders who seemed very spiritual but actually had a severe mental condition? Is this religious power so great that you can see that the emperor is wearing new cloths even though he is actually naked? There are countless questions here because this subject is so mysterious and generally very much misunderstood.

There are so many claims that have been made as to so-called demonic possessions and other alleged paranormal manifestations--even by non-religious people--yet never any convincing evidence that supernatural forces are required to account for them. And with *billions* of video recording devices available for documenting these supposed occurrences, and yet nothing forthcoming of any credibility, I remain skeptical. Hoaxes, sincere misinterpretations of the facts, hallucinations and, yes, mental health issues are about all that's needed in the way of explanation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2017 04:08AM by lurking in.

I have a few thoughts on the subject. For me religion is permanently entangled with mental illness, and not in a good way. My very first post was about the experience we had with a calling that the bishopric gave my wife. http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1865698,1865698#msg-1865698


She has bi-polar. Sometimes it is controlled (the last couple months have been generally ok), sometimes it is not. She's had three major psychotic breaks. And in each case, the main symptom was bizarre and frightening religious delusions. She has felt inspired to write books on love and repentance, go up to random strangers and "share the gospel". She has believed that she is Eve, or even that she was the Savior and needed to atone for the earth. Needless to say such episodes have resulted in hospitalizations and intensive treatment to get her to come back to reality

At the same time, her parents have been religious extremists in the whole situation. They discourage her from taking meds (thankfully she hasn't listened to them). They believe that through more faithful living (she is very TBM already), faith and priesthood blessings she can get by. Their whole approach disgusts me.

Finally the last episode was kicked off by her being called as the YW president. I should have spoken up and said no, but the whole bishopric was "united in revelation." When she was starting to crack, a counselor came over and gave her a blessing that "satan" would stop discouraging her.

So I still attend because we are still recovering from the latest upheaval. I'm afraid to make any major sudden change. But I keep a very close eye on things. When the pressure and guilt start to be too much for her, I make sure to speak up and tell her to back off the religion. It's received to varying degrees depending on her state of mind.

So yeah, religion is irreparably enmeshed with mental health in my life. I went on being sort of a TBM for several years after her problems started to surface. But the last episode, being so directly caused by her calling, has really opened my eyes.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2017 11:57AM by paulk.

My Mom was a bi-polar alcoholic. And although one might be tempted to say her behaviors were demon-possessed, in reality, she had chemical imbalances in her brain.