My doctor said to me once that "psychosomatic" illness does not mean it is not a real illness and it is made up in your head. The illness can still be very real. It is just that it is triggered or made worse by stress and psychological/emotional factors.
I have a very "real" autoimmune disorder. Lupus. It can be life-threatening at times. The medication I take for it is not a placebo. I have to have liver and kidney function tests regularly. It developed after a period of severe emotional and physical stress. It often still flares up when I'm under emotional stress. There are definite psychosomatic factors to this illness. My nervous system is shot and is very sensitive to the tiniest stressors. The field of psychoneuroimmunology is still in its infancy but is instrumental in many new discoveries of how the mind/body connection is a contributive factor in almost every type of illness, minor or major, including heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. Any type of trauma can upset the body and lead to major illness in those who are susceptible. Susceptibility can be genetic (autoimmune disorders run on both sides of my family) but it can also be caused by previous stressors that have weakened the body in some way. This includes physical truama such as a car accidents, environmental traumas such as infections, extreme changes in environment, or psychological traumas such as abuse, physical, emotional, or sexual.
There are many JW's who do have emotional and mental health issus that also affect their physical health. This does not mean they are not real health problems. Did they have these problems before becoming JW's? I suspect that JW's attract a lot of people with emotional problems that want a magic cure in the form of the "new system". This type of magical thinking does not bode well for taking care of one's health in a responsible manner either. So we see many "sick" JW's who don't take care of themselves properly or succumb to quack cures and quick fixes. Or they refuse to take responsibility for their own well-being and spend a lot of time complaining or being professional patients while they wait for Jehovah to come and cure all their problems. Believe me, when I was a nurse we would see many patients who were like that who were not JW's too. Although, I agree witnesses do seem to have more than their fair share. I believe that the negative, critical, pessimistic, guilt-ridden, passive, mindset propagated by the society's teachings just feeds this type of personality and makes sick people even sicker. There have been many studies that support the value of a positive attitude in healing from illnesses. That type of attitude is rarely found in a KH in my experience. So, can being a witness actually make you sick, or does it just attract sick people? Probably a little of both. It certainly doesn't help IMHO.
Cog
