by toby888 39 Replies latest jw friends
A good thread to go with this would be....WHY are so many dubs on meds.
When you cannot independantly think for yourself regarding many of lifes questions and situations.....you have no identity, no choice, no thinking skills to exercise.
As a witness you are led to believe your fellow man and the rest of the things in the world belong to Satan.
With these two things drilled in your head.....it's tough to go through life without taking a pill to deal with such thinking.
Gumby
Thank the devil that he and his system provides the pills to give the dubs relief. In the name of satan, amen.
S
What the heck ever happened to "Pharmakia" anyways? I haven't heard that phrase from dubworld in a long time? Maybe the demunz aren't in pills and pot afterall
Gumby
As a poster sagely hinted at earlier, there are all sorts of ways that humans "medicate" themselves ("medicate" is just another word for "numbing" your emotions):
In my line of work, the commonest ways that people numb themselves include the following: Taking prescription pills and potions, using illicit drugs, alcohol, binging and purging, suicidal behaviour (e.g., stock-piling pills to over dose on at a later date) self-harm (e.g., cutting one's body with a knife to get relief from overwhelming emotions), sex, over-work - anything that takes the person's mind off their intolerable psychic pain.
JWs are not better - or worse - than any other humans in this regard. It seems more prominent among the JWs because, being a smaller, tight-knit group, everybody knows everybody else's business. But believe me when I say that the drive to medicate is widespread in modern western cultures and occurs across the spectrum of human society. As stated, we notice it more in smaller groups and in groups who claim to be "different from " (i.e., better than) worldly society.
The dismal realisation for the witnesses is they are not exempt from the ills and chills of being human. The dismal realisation for ex-witnesses is that witnesses are not worse than others in their "need" for psychotropic medication.
steve2
Registered Clinical Psychologist
true steve, but as jehovah's witnesses we're taught that if you have depression ,anxiety etc, its because your not doing enough , not praying enough, not studying enough, not reaching out enough, not going in service enough etc. it is directly tied in with your spiritual acceptance by Jehovah and thats what makes it more difficult to deal with as a witness . and why so many have anxiety, theres no way to ever DO enough. no assembly or year text has ever been titled " well done!" its always " DO MORE!"
Alcohol and anti-depressants. JW fuel/food.
Don't you people know a "provision" from the Faithful Slave, Holy Spirit Jojoba when you see it?
u/d(of the comfortably numb class)
In the lobby as you enter the KH:
One of the elder's wives in my old hall has a lot of health problems. Anxiety though tops her list. If she's about to run out of her pain meds (the real strong type btw) she starts to get severe panic attacks. Her elder husband must get to the pharmacy asap lest she go ballistic on his a$$! I would call that an addiction, wouldn't you?
tall penguin
true steve, but as jehovah's witnesses we're taught that if you have depression ,anxiety etc, its because your not doing enough , not praying enough, not studying enough, not reaching out enough, not going in service enough etc. it is directly tied in with your spiritual acceptance by Jehovah and thats what makes it more difficult to deal with as a witness .
Yes, candidlynuts, some pretty heartless and unhelpful things are said by the JWs about the "causes" of mental disorders. Again, as inexcusable as these sorts of statements are, victim-blaming is pretty endemic among humans in general when it comes to mental disorders. It's just that each group has its own peculiar beliefs about the "causes" of mental disorders, from parents who blame it on a child's choice of associates to another fundamentalist religion who blame it on "demonism" to work associates who blame it on the individual's "personality", to draw upon just 3 examples.
In general, though, the JWs appear possibly a little bit more "tolerant" of therapy and treatment for mental disorders than they were a few years ago - this is just a hunch on my part based on some recent observations.
And, sadly, there's no escaping the particular prejudice of some individuals; that is, some individuals, regardless of religious persuasion, are just so darn victim-blaming when it comes to trying to make sense of ,say, the cause of major depression, generalised anxiety disorder or schizophrenia.
Victim-blaming is inexcusable wherever it occurs - and if I saw it in the kingdom hall - and I did - I also saw it and continue to see it everywhere else as well.
In my hall, half the people were on something and the other half should have been!
Swalker
