Good topic. Garybuss touched on many of the problems, yet there is even more than that. This cult causes tremendous emotional damge to the developing minds of children.
Can raising a child JW contribute to later psychiatric disorders?
by journey-on 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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carla
I mean no offense to anybody here, but how can anybody read this board for even a short length of time and not come to the conclusion that being a jw has been the direct cause of many disorders and phobias that some posters exhibit? I'm not talking about resident loonies who think they are Jesus or something. I'm speaking about some cases of extreme lack of confidence, relationship difficulties, heck, just figuring out the workplace and society as a whole. Functioning in the world is at times overwhelming for those trying to leave the cult. I think how difficult it is for the adults to deal with dissonance I can hardly imagine what goes on in the heads of kids and I see what the long term effects are here and other boards everyday. My heart goes out to all ex jw's and I get angry with the wt. People have no idea the courage it takes to walk away from this destructive cult. They think it is like leaving any 'church', they have no idea what kids are put through being a jw every day of their lives. Even if there was no physical abuse in the home the doctrines of the wt beat it's members everday mentally and spiritually.
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Junction-Guy
Thank you Carla, you have said it so well. You are an asset to this board.
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wednesday
JG
I was watching the WE channel last night. They had a program on "women who say they have had alien abductions." I was mostly watching for amusement, but a young woman named Kristina said something that caught my attention. She said she had episodes as a child where she would just wander off and "awaken" In a field. Her parents, she said ,were religious and told her it was demons attacking her. She later felt it was an alien abduction. I felt most likely it was dissociation from some very severe trauma. But when she mentioned demons i listened more carefully. It seemed odd that she never mentioned her parents again. She had a child but was a single mom, the father was still prvoding emotional support. .There was no family in the picture and not too many friends. It just sounded like a young woman who had been DF and abandoned by her family. anyway, now she runs some kind of online thing to help others with alien abductions. poor thing, god knows what really happened to her.
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blondie
Remember that many mental illnesses are physical illnesses caused by bodily internal imbalances not external causes. Bipolar for example and schizophrenia are body issues where the brain (organ) lacks or needs certain chemicals. It would be like saying that jws are more likely to be diabetics because of their religious background.
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dinah
What you say is true, Blondie.
But what about Post Traumatic Stress? Being forced to attend meetings that deal with death and destruction cannot be healthy for a child. The fact that we are taught from birth that God will kill you and everyone else who doesn't agree with the religion cannot be healthy.
Having the view that anyone outside the religion is dangerous to your spiritual well-being would have to leave scars. Also, being made an outcast at school while growing up can't help self-esteem.
Yes, Blondie, I agree depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. I just have to wonder how much the environment in which you are raised affects that.
Children who grow up in physically abusive homes have trouble adjusting to adult life also. IMHO, raising a child to be a Witness is emotionally abuse. Or maybe it only hurts when they "wake up"?
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blondie
I grew up in a jw household and I can say that it would take more than attending meetings and sitting through their drivel to create a PTSD situation. I work with people with such conditions and it is usually extreme abuse that creates such situations. I can grant there are some abusive parents that use their religion as a means of abuse. You might enjoy this book written by 2 Lutheran ministers about the effects of religious abuse in any religion.
http://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Power-Spiritual-Abuse/dp/1556611609
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R.Crusoe
This is a very interesting question and despite my being in a seemingly good position to comment, so many variables are at play that it is difficult to point a specific cause to a specific problem!
For example with each generation comes a change in society and so that is a bug bear creating difference and often conflict between parent and child. Furthermore, the religious indoctrination is bound to affact thinking processes differently for those born to the faith than those who went in later. I wonder whether some of my kids have more than a fair imprint on their minds of the shunning tactic and even use it whenever they feel insecure - and not because they don't like someone = because that was the instruction so many often had to live by!
So many odd questions unresolved and never will be from both ends of my family - never JWs and ex JWs! They seem to prefer to go on with their misconstrued notions rather than talk or discuss anything which in itself creates divisions on par with JW shunning psychology!
It is a load of crock and I can see how the WTBTS may incurr such psychology back onto itself since it has distributed it so widely for so long!
A sad cycle really!
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wednesday
Most certainly agree with chemical imbalance view on a lot of mental illness.This is in fact how the parity laws are able to be enforced. BC it's a medical condition it has to be treated the same as any other medical condition as far as payment. these laws are enforced in about 46 states to some degree or anther. Some states interpret the law more liberally than others..
I do think however that being raised in a severe demanding environment predisposes one to these illness. If a child is treated harshly and without a lot of love or Df at a early age it can certainly push one to a breakdown.
Being a social outcast at school does not help either. Many suffer from very low self esteem issues. many are emotionally behind their peers. not being able to go to college is huge problem.marrying too young, and we can just continue on with the problems jws kids face.
when religious people breakdown a lot of times they have religious delusions as opposed to the others who feel the FBI is following them or alien's have abducted them.
A JC meeting is not good for anyone's mental health.
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R.Crusoe
My view is that the chemical imbalance mularkey is a natural product of a brain that is suffering from repeated rejection and natural love and affection. To chemically treat this condition is simply exacerbating the problem IMHO. The only real way to get a loving caring speceis of animal back to its natural sense of being is to enable the care, respect and trust and affection and support that a loving family would have provided and may want to but are often prevented from doing because they themselves get imprinted with all this psychological mumbo jumbo which recycles the inertia of the original problem. It's like being shunned by society and knowing it and seeing everyone treat you differently no matter how you are. You have to become a dummy like puppet just to be reconsidered!
Being a disfellowshipped person is tantamount to being in some families after medics have branded a persons mental health in some way. They are similar situations. And some unfortunate souls have both scenarios to simultaneously resolve. Everyone treats them differently and reluctantly takes them seriously, or not at all, which is super magnified in the mind of the individual concerned. LOVE is completely absent and now replaced by an obstacle course. I think the WTBTS is religion modelled on psychology. Full of rules and regulation and everyone is caught up in its virtual tour. All that the answer often comes down to is love and caring and regular contact with people who talk and respect your views feelings and opinions and accept them and you as you are. The trouble is that society seems to have been steered away from doing that as with so many things that once reflected close knit family life. Some things have maybe moved on for the better but mush is also being discarded which is fundamental to human happiness. IMHO.
