There are theories about cluster b disorders that describe it all as personality defense mechanisms that developed out of trauma.

Young people lose contact with their self and ”enmesh” with culture and start to identify with ideals instead of their own selves.

Did you see the religious -ism create these kind of pathologies?

Are saying we could have almost all suffered traumatic stress from the freefall mormo-ism ultimately created? Oh Yeah, yes definitely.
Stay cheery though, whether someone killed someone accidentally (think auto accident) or suffered in the allied "Other Losses" WWII camps after total loss and destruction of their own fatherland, we're found everywhere and anywhere.
Big guy literally BIG and named Guy lost three brothers in wartime, went back to Tennessee and couldn't move. Doc recommended that kid eat nothing but raw farm eggs in buttermilk.
Guy says always, that smart doctor fixed me.
Cliff made it through Vietnam, stll limps from full metal jacket tearing through hus hip and then knee.
Folks really like you, they like your hidden scars and yes they relate. Mental anguish is real and if you're like me even a little bit you'll remember Genesis warns about friends either unwisely becoming god on their own little stairway to heaven. Thanks Led Zepplin..

I think there's some truth to that. TBM mom is an enabler and a "Stepford Smiler." For those who don't waste a large portion of their lives browsing the website TV Tropes (you poor things), a Stepford Smiler is someone who projects an image of being happy all the time to be accepted by people. The main difference between this and an optimist is that the Smiler's happy appearance is a mask hiding their true nature, although cynics could argue that a "Pollyanna" is a Stepford Smiler who fools themself with the happy act.

Come to think of it, most Mormons I know are Stepford Smilers.

I was just reading about that with regard to something else, maybe MLMs? -- that your identity can combine with that of the group. We've seen that relate to Mormonism when TBMs reject those who disagree with them about religion. They take the disagreement as a personal attack.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They take
> the disagreement as a personal attack.

It is a self protection reaction for the love and safety they feel in their group. It is a hard hurdle to get over in the over zealous.

It's all theoretical (but perhaps useful as an intellectual scaffolding)

Psychological development is (grossly):
-First there is a me (infant)
-Then there is the other (mommy)
-Then the idea of good-bad (mommy-giving-good, mommy-withholding-bad)
-Then being split (I'm all good; the bad is always out-there-other) characterized by judgment and intolerance
-Then being integrated (the bad is also in ME; but so also is the good) which requires the development of some sophistication to work out the "how can I be good AND bad and still be okay" of it, which when worked out is characterized by acceptance and tolerance
-Which is the beginning of humanity -- being able to see the "me" in the "other," the "good" and "bad" in us all. That there are no scapegoats.

Mormonism is very hard-edged (good/bad right/wrong) needs an us (good) versus a them (bad) so needs an enemy in which to place the bad so we can be good. It's very "split" and thrives on an "us vs. them" world. It is very sensitive to and rejecting of any different-"others" (for example different skin colors) vs. accepting and even curious of that difference. This is why it is so selfish and intolerant.

So the kind of people Mormonism attracts will be at the good-bad, split-level-of-development-sort who need a strong group to identify as a "good-me" - and also a strong enemy to identify as an "other-bad." Otherwise what do I do with all this evil? With all the problems of the world?

People pass to their kids their own worldview, and it makes a difference whether the parents are split or integrated, what their worldview is, and so what their kids get.

Folks at that split stage of development are going to find some outfit that strengthens their worldview and sense of self.
Some found Mormonism; could as easily have found the KKK.

So I don't think it is TSCC directly, but rather the crowd it attracts.

'k, back to the grindstone