It doesn't help someone who is mentally ill get better. It adds to their malaise.

It causes people to become uncompromising, perfectionist, and unyielding to the point of obsession.

It produces many a religious zealot based on Americana folklore.

Those are the ones who are truly deceived by it. Then there are the deceptors. Those who know its a hoodwink, and run with it.

Like narcissistic con artists who see a field of opportunity in the people they can ply like suckers.

The cognitive dissonance being huge in such a cult, is it any wonder people are disconnected from reality?

I think the leaders actually believe it. There will always be a small segment of the population willing to believe anything and unwilling to change their beliefs. Those are the people who rise within the church. Ambition and narcissism help that along, but the “blind faith” filter selects for a certain personality type that rejects all evidence that the church is bogus.

Rising to the top of that organization isn’t exactly a virtue. It’s not just the blind leading the blind. Only the most willfully blind will do.

My wife was good friends with the bishop's wife and at church the bishop put on a good show of being the guy who had things under control and was spiritually in tune. The reality was much different. The poor guy was suffering from severe depression where he would stay in bed all day. His work gave him some time off to get better because he was a good employee. He was lucky to not have lost his job. Anyways what it all ended up being was the guy did have a depressive personality but the load of being bishop gave him a severe mental breakdown. He just cracked.

The church is a pressure cooker where people are made to feel they are never measuring up. Add in the other stresses of life and it can cause a person to just breakdown. Especially if they have depression or anxiety to begin with.

Imagine that man as a husband and father. . .

100 years ago, when I was in nursing school, I had a clinical rotation on the psych ward at St. Marks. Students didn't care for patients in the "rubber rooms"--thankfully.

The word was that one of those rooms held a previous Utah Mother of the Year. A poor woman with eight kids who was hollering her lesbian wishes and being a little violent.

My heart goes out to all my fellow sufferers in and out of the church.

I hear about people who fix their depression by leaving and I'm only a little bitter--just a bit.

I agree that Mormonism makes any mental illness or mental disorder even worse. You're told that you're lower than the dust, and that you need the church but the church doesn't need you. "Lengthen your stride", "raise the bar". The best way to lengthen your stride is to walk as far and fast away from TSCC as you possibly can!

valkyriequeen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree that Mormonism makes any mental illness or
> mental disorder even worse. You're told that
> you're lower than the dust, and that you need the
> church but the church doesn't need you. "Lengthen
> your stride", "raise the bar". The best way to
> lengthen your stride is to walk as far and fast
> away from TSCC as you possibly can!


This is brilliant.

It really is like the old joke:

A fellow who doesn't attend very often is walking in to his Mormon Ward one Sunday. He sees an obviously distraught man sitting in a car in the parking lot crying. So the man walks over to car to see if he can help.
The man sitting in the car says, " I just can't stand it. They have an opening song and hardly anyone sings. Then someone gets up to pray and just goes on and on. Today is Fast Sunday and you never know what those people are going to say."
So the man trying to help says, "If it bothers you so much maybe you should just go on home."
The crying man says, "But I'm the Bishop!"

Not only exacerbates it, but makes it worse.

Hahahaha! Nicely done!

I thought the church fights against exacerbation.

Nah, that was mastication.

That's why there's so much ice cream abuse in the mormon church.

I still abuse ice cream.

Especially in July.

I agree.

Correct.

This. Without a doubt. Worse than schizophrenia.

You think you're progressive, but you're shaming people for being ill. I really hope it happens to you one day so that you'll change your tune.

Mormonism makes people care more about Mormonism than their families or themselves or anything else.. The cult comes first.

That's making people sick.

Zombie Fungus Takes Over Selected Ants
https://www.livescience.com/47751-zombie-fungus-picky-about-ant-brains.html


"A parasitic fungus known to manipulate the brains of ants doesn't make slavelike "zombies" out of any old host.

Instead, the microorganism is somehow able to recognize the brains of different ant species, and releases its mind-controlling chemical cocktail only when in its preferred host, new research shows.

"Behavioral manipulation is such a complex [characteristic] that it only occurs when there's a very close coevolution between pathogen and host," said Charissa de Bekker, a molecular biologist at Pennsylvania State University and lead author of the new study, published in August in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2018 01:37PM by anybody.

I am mentally ill. Religious PTSD. Idiot.

AGREE people may not know what they're talking about outside their own personal experience. it is obvious and reasonable that a person only knows their own life and difficulties, isn't it?

however, a family professional who worked in CA state run early childhood homes for preschool and early elementary school schizophrenics.

this professional elected , in great awe and fear, to never procreate because it was so random, so aimless, so meaningless was no ryhme or reason or explaination for these beautiful toddlers and preschoolers and tiny young children- nothing that made sense they met professional parents, educated parents, reasonably wealthy folks none of the blaming techniques made sense. There was no pattern of systemic abuse or anything to blame- these were babies and toddlers which never joined the human tribe they were diagnosable schizophrenic from the start.
Scary stuff. not unreal- actualamente factual.

try that on- blaming religion for depth flaws like that does not fit. blaming religious culture for one's own difficulties- absolutely. but for an incredible diagnosis- such as early childhood schizophrenia nah. because its just unfair. its unfair & knocks the wind out of even professionals that meet it, and are dealing with it.

She turned me into a newt! I got better.

Love that movie.

Religion made us mentally ill maybe. We are shaming ourselves.

"We are shaming ourselves"

You're putting off people who have these issues.

"Religion made us sick"

Plenty of non-religious people get mentally ill. Some of it is genetic, some triggered by drugs, lack of sunlight in winter, military service etc. At least a quarter of people will get it and that happens even in non-religious or anti-religious societies.

A lot of you need to get these idea out of your heads that mental illness makes a person bad (not necessarily) or is something to be ashamed of.

I'm comparing Mormonism to a disease that infects people.

It's the disease that's bad, not the person.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2018 06:54AM by anybody.

Mormons don’t see psychology as a valid science. The church has all of the answers and psychology is of the devil.

Mormon psychology = the art of denial and obfuscation.

Neuroses is in other people's heads. How do you shrink a Mormon?

You don't. In Mormon "think" mental illness is a spiritual sin, not a treatable illness.

The more members "pray, pay, and obey," all is well in Zion. Mental illness is brushed under the carpet; overlooked, and all too often ignored until it can no longer be.

There's a real dichotomy between active TBM's and mental illness that is left untreated because it's still considered a taboo subject among TSCC.

Discussing mental health in conjunction with the role of Mormonism isn't shaming.

It's cause and effect.

The implication is that people who get mental illness are bad or inferior.

That the bad aspects of Mormonism come from mental illness, that Mormonism is evil and makes you ill... that's linking mental illness with stigma and shame, and victim blaming. It's a backward attitude.

There's even a group of people on here who think you have to be mentally ill if you don't agree with them. That's getting into Soviet territory - they used to blame political dissidents on "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia".

I agree that no one was implying that here.

But to ignore Mormonism as a root cause of mental disturbance that leads to illness or exacerbates it in those with a proclivity to it anyway ... I've seen too many good people suffer from the effects of Mormonism that they wouldn't have otherwise.

It is the elephant in the middle of the room. To be willing to discuss mental illness in conjunction with the religious cult that does it more harm than good can be beneficial to those with a need to understand the ramifications, or who have lived it or seen it up close watching others affected by it.

What is shameful about discussing it? Or stigmatizing for that matter?

Non Mouse Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The implication is that people who get mental
> illness are bad or inferior.

No, the implication is that people who have mental illness need help to be cured.

Pretty much by definition, any illness is "bad." Anyone with an illness is better off without the illness. Whatever illness it is. Recognizing that you're ill is the first step to being cured -- or at least mitigating the illness.

That's not blaming the person who's ill -- it's recognizing that they're ill.

mormons think they have to do better keeping commandments to be ok, mormons do not believe in 'unconditional positive regard' or 'unconditional love; unconditional acceptance of others'

mormons have a history of blaming attacking even executing others physically (see Danites, See mountain Meadow MAsacre) or primatively direclty attacking others' culturally that are different who are nearby ( see Danites, see Mountain meadow masacre, see pioneer heritage before moving to Salt Lake city. What did they do original setlers in Navou? What did they do to native Americans living in Utah? What did LDS do to Native American children even through the mid twentieth century they destroyed their culture, removed them into adoptions foster care and boarding schools to execute cultures surrounding them> it goes beyond resistance to others cultures or difference.

This resistance to difference may be a deep set part of mormon enculturation. It might be. We see it regarding genetic phenotype judgements (that, that would be skin color or hair types) but come to think of it, this may be being applied to people who are mentally different.

This is possible. That that inherent mormon ideal: that glory of god is intelligence, or lenghten your stride, try harder-
may be applied in judgement, (of self or others or family members of anyone) against mental illness as a human experience, judging the human for existing in a flawed /lds would say possible sinful existance, which could be changed if the individual did something right, better, (They would suggest commandment list.)

it is possible, that even post mormons, may, sometimes, carry this stigmatizing errant flaw of judging others existance, in a mormon way of needing to change (or be judged for being themself.) rather than is a (name some different philosphy ) where individuals are promoted as having value or being valued for (name no list of comandments) rather have some inherent worth (name no list of commandments in bishops temple interview warranting identified 'worth' for stamping on a certificate or printing on a label laminating in plastic with an expiration date on it).... but regardless of their experience somehow see others as somehow valid, human beings, warranting worth despite their accomplishments or lack of it, uh, some non conditionally accepting status where life is, valued.

where would that be/ not in mormondom, they don't even value themselves except sticker to sticker, interview to interview in links of chain of bondage wondering when they will be worth something somehow to god or anyone anywhere, according to the word of their bishop if not to themself.

so anyways, is it a series of diagnoses which are beneath which ones warrant blame for being/ Was it jonathon livingston Seagull and the now discredited apostle who wrote open poetry in the 70s now discredited stories, who contempted acceptance or self or others, and who taught always fix yourself, lengthen your stride, get to the next level. That apostles thinking and mormon dogma, promotes blaming shaming and never accepting others.

you can disagree with me in any way you want and that's your business. I want to be less primative than that critical conditional based regard& more accepting of myself and others.

Yes, when I left I actually told the bishop and missionaries that I couldnt attend because the church made me sick.

I know that feeling.

I know what a NYC therapist shared with me while I was still practicing TBM.

She was the first person to call TSCC a dysfunctional church to me. It took a while to process that, but eventually it did as I began looking at the church with more objectivity than before.

As it started to sink in that the problems I was experiencing with TSCC were not because of my doing other than being in a cult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2018 09:12PM by Amyjo.

It has taken a long time for my therapists to get my mind to compute that its a horrible cult that they see many people for.

My therapist is a lifelong Catholic, who nearly went to BYU graduate school for his doctorate in psychology. But decided against it and went elsewhere (somewhere in NYS I believe.)

He's been practicing for well over 40 years. While he doesn't say anything expressly bad about Mormonism (I do that so he doesn't have to. He just provides me with feedback,) he himself isn't overly religious much. Just a happy-go-lucky Sicilian who discovered he's 19% Ashkenazi Jewish last year when he and his wife did their DNA together.

That was quite a surprise for him, because of his Catholic/Italian heritage. He had NO idea.