It is my opinion that many Mormons suffer from a cognitive development disorder. A human's cognitive ability is increasing until about their mid twenties, however factors such as stress, trauma, depression, and drug use at a young age will arrest the cognitive development. While there is no real cure, removal of the factors that caused the disorder, and distance from those factors will result in a decrease in their symptoms.

If anyone needs any other reason not to subject their children to Mormonism please let me know.

Funny I was diagnosed with a developmental disorder.

I also think a lot of religions are inherently abusive -- Mormonism being just one of them. It does seem as though a majority of Mormons I've interacted with were the emotional age of a 12/13 year old.

Mr. ambivalentmo and I have been discussing this....

I agree.
We have
"You must be as little children"
pounded into our heads from birth.
If one hears this enough, one starts to believe...
We figure we tapped out about age 14, emotionally.

Right at the crucial ages where
critical and analytical thinking skills
begin to be flexed and honed.
Then were drilled with seminary, Sunday school,
ym, yw, then the mtc or relief society and so on.

No wonder we were emotionally, intellectually, and sexually stunted.

Imagine a system that took parents out of the home, taught them to act high and mighty when interacting with their children, had those parents demand an impossible moral standard from their boys and girls, condemned their failures in righteous indignation, and made affection dependent on performance. Add the insecurity, say, of mothers and children having to compete for status in the eyes of polygamous patriarchs.

The people arising from such a system would all be psychologically damaged. And if they sought to fill the void in their hearts with the religion that created the problem in the first place, and especially if they wanted to please their own demanding parents, they would pass much of the harm on to their children. The result would be an unusually cohesive and committed community of people, most of whom lacked the internal resources necessary objectively to evaluate their own lives. You could remove the polygamy and still have most of the system still work, since the key to the obedience cult is the emotional void created in people when they were young. This mechanism could continue to function for generations--as long as the basic doctrine, childrearing techniques, and deprevation of affection were employed.

When someone did break out of the community, he or she would likely be subjected to anger and shunning because his actions impliictly invalidated the thing that people were using to fill the void in their souls. To the believer, defection would feel a lot like an emotional betrayal.

I think the theory of arrested development explains a lot.

Your first paragraph pretty much sums up some of the things that Keith Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist, says creates the perfect storm for a sociopath to develop.

I just started reading Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson, and tho he doesn't mention religion specifically, the experiences he does spell out seem to correlate pretty much with how I was treated in Mormonism. Forced to conform to beliefs and ideas that I didn't start out believing. Feeling like I had to agree with the party line or else I'm bad. Harshly criticized and corrected if I dared have a thought of my own. Knowing my mother wouldn't hesitate to toss me to the curb if I did, said, or as much as thought anything contrary to her church's position. Knowing that the church would excommunicate or disfellowship me for the same.

- - - - -

"There are myriad and subtle ways a mother can tell her son that he must cease to exist as a person, that his true self must essentially disapear.

"When she demands that he eat foods he dislikes, he learns that his tastes are beside the point. He will swallow what he is fed, period. He will pretend not to mind. And, once he turns himself completely inside out psychologically, he will actually enjoy it.

"When she forces him to nap when he would prefer to play or read, he learns his internal clock is broken, and that he must look to others to know when he is tired.

"When she lets him cry himself to sleep rather than comforting him, he learns that his loneliness and protests and sadness and tears are to no avail--ignored, useless, as thought not even real. And he will soon stop feeling those feelings ane be silent at bedtime, already an expert at putting his desperation and anger to sleep.

"When she stops talking to him for hours or days when he disappoints her, he cannot miss the terrifying symbol that she has the capacity to cut him out of her life, and to effectively end his. And he will strive--swear a blood oath, if necessary--to never let her down.

"If he ever shows her how angry he is becoming, she might tell him he has no right to feel that way and should "leave her house" if he isn't happy with the way she runs it. And, terrified at being cast out to fend forhimself, he will disguise his curling lip or swallow his harsh words or learn to ignore the clenching of his jaw and bury his rage deep inside him.

"When he laughs at something, she can shake her head quizzically, as though there is nothing funny at all, and he will learn to not trust his sense of humor, to resist smiling or laughing at things that amuse him. He will instead check the faces of others to know precisely when they are beginning to smile, so he can mimic their expressions, and laugh when they laugh.

"When she tells him enough times that he "makes no sense," he will start to believe her and will be loath to express any opinions, instead soliciting the ideas of others, and restating them as his own.

"He will slowly kill himself off, and become a person imitating a person, a hunter-gatherer of ideas that will receive the best reception, that will get him some of what he needs from a world that he has learned is unfeeling and unpredictable and cruel and potentially lethal.

"He will start down the road to sociopathy."

(Skipped a few paragraphs)

"Another way a mother can alter reality and drain the life force from her child is to objectify him. Jackie Peterson called Scott Golden Boy, a clear sign that she expected him to be perfect for her, with no rough edges. Shiny.

"A child's response to parents who respond so negatively to his individuality and humanity will be to withdraw, to playact at being perfect, to hide his own instincts and fears and desires and dreams and likes and dislikes behind fortresslike walls. In order to gain their "love," avoid rejection, and stay safe from their potential rage, he will literally kill himself emotionally."

- - - - - -

So sad. One positive is that children of Narcissism like that have a decent prognosis for not developing the same pathology. The child certainly might, but mood disorders rather than personality disorders are more likely later in life, at least according to my understanding.

I thought this was going to be about the importance of having someone who was trained both as an analyst, and a therapist.

Is "The Man Inside Me" just another title of the Holy Ghost? I was thinking we'd hear about Tobias as well.

Due to advancements in brain imaging, recent findings show that the brain is much better at remolding itself to work around deficits than had previously been thought. It’s very fluid in its ability to work around deficits. Things aren’t as set in stone as they were long believed with regard to brain deficits.

But Mormonism tends to keep people in the same dysfunctional environments for most or all of their lives. It wasn’t until I left Mormonism just a few years ago that it became so clear to me how small minded it often makes people.

Being around even the people in my extended family that I really liked the most, became difficult. Most conversations are about Mormonism. And even if it isn’t a Mormon topic, it gets filtered through a Mormon lens. For example, a conversation about a movie becomes a conversation about modesty etc.

The inability to see the world in as broad and rich of colors as it really is, rather than just the colors that Mormonism paints it all, leaves people in a very narrow world. A world that doesn’t encourage full development of the mind.

The part of my family that seemed the most normal (least Mormony) prior to leaving now seems so Mormony. They didn’t change, I did.

Hahahaha. It's pronounced anall-rapist. I wasn't worried about the pronunciation

Awe man, and I thought this was going to be a thread about how the morg is like the tv show... :D

I started a "what TV show is the church like" thread just for you dragwit. I even included Arrested Development.

ambition and be treated as a child. My reward was that like a child, some man would take care of me.

Look at the FLDS women for this taken to an extreme. They live like older daughters in a big family home. They have no power, and they have no responsibility or accountability.