More on the brother in my hall who attacked children Halloween night with a knife. (page 2)

Mary

OK, I think Outlaw needs to reveal where he gets all his pictures from!! LOL!!

miseryloveselders

OK, I think Outlaw needs to reveal where he gets all his pictures from!! LOL!!

That is a crazy picture!!!

clarity

Lits,

You sound like a very concerned, empathetic person, but first of all, plse protect yourself.

Your story is not unusual, sad to say. In my neck of the woods a 'bible study' who was mentally unstable, killed most of his family, in the 80's if I remember correctly. Seems to me he was just released a few years ago and remaining family members were a bit reluctant to associate with him.

c

sabastious

OK, I think Outlaw needs to reveal where he gets all his pictures from!! LOL!!

My guess is http://images.google.com

-Sab

flipper

LITS- Very interesting thread. I'm going to propose another outlook which I feel influences the elders outlook on mental illness in JW members. Let's go back to the start when we all first learned the pretend or " alleged " truth. Witnesses are taught that all illness , including physical AND mental illness comes from inherited sin that we got from Adam & Eve. They are also taught that is the reason we all die- due to inherited sin & sickness. So to a normal JW - the reason we have illnesses , whether physical or mental & death - is all because we are sinners ! Wrap your mind around THAT thought for a minute.

So instead of treating JW members with compassion who have mental illness , elders actually treat them as if they are sinners by disfellowshipping them if they cross over the line with sins - because THAT IS HOW ELDERS ARE TRAINED to handle anything tied in to the "inherited sin syndrome " - as a sin against God with no questions asked. Or no room for compassion towards people with serious mental health issues.

As an example : There was a schizophrenic guy in his late 20's I knew years ago attending a congregation I was in. This guy would go off his medication and wander around at night, one time he got hit by a vehicle- victim of a hit & run accident. Broken bones, etc. He healed up, but would go off his medication constantly beating up his JW mom he lived with at times. He would intimidate sisters at the kingdom hall wanting to shake their hands always telling them " pardon my sweaty palms " due to his medication & nervousness. Finally in a bank line he went too far and fantasized what would happen if he tried tapping a policeman's gun who stood in line ahead of him. The cop cold cocked him and arrested him .

Finally the elders just wanted to get rid of this guy and found him a halfway house to live in in a seedy downtown area . The guy got involved with drugs as he was just studying and fell back into depression . The elders DFed him and he committed suicide or died of a drug overdose a month later. Instead of finding this guy mental health professionals to monitor and assist him 24/7 the elders essentially didn't want to be bothered with him anymore. So tragically a life was lost. Thus the WT society's way of addressing mental health issues.

LITS- In our state of California in the early 1980's the politicians did NO favors to the mentally ill by closing many mental health hospitals due to our bad budget problems. So it either left mentally ill people on the streets with nowhere to go , or they could live with family members who had no idea in hell how to handle them . So how is it in your state ? Are there mental health clinics which will take in those with permanent mental health issues ? Or is it like California where they just get shuffled out to the streets or to relatives with no idea how to deal with them ? Just curious.

The problem is that too many people look at the symptoms of mental health problems instead of the root causes - then we get somebody like this JW you knew who theatens violence and crosses over the line and it becomes a criminal offense. If these people got help early enough with counseling 24/7 and medication and consytant monioring- perhaps we'd have a hell of a lot less loose cannons running around like psychologically loaded guns in our society. Just my 2 cents. Hang in there, you can't change everything in this life , like others said take care of yourself - THAT you can control - not other people's mishaps. Take care, Mr. Flipper

ziddina

DAMM!!!

And I thought the JWs were nuts when I was "in"!!!

Like Mary said.... "Recipe for disaster..." She's right on the money, as usual...

Life Is Too Short, I'm so sorry that you're in such an INSANE Kingdom Hall, but look at it this way...

You've got SO MUCH potential material for A BOOK!!! Or maybe MORE THAN ONE book!!!

I sure hope you're taking extensive notes.... Keeping a journal - secret from hubby, of course...

I am SERIOUS, girl!!! You SERIOUSLY have MORE MATERIAL that would keep readers on the edge of their seats, than MOST of the "JW exposes" that I've read!!!

Zid

life is to short

Thanks everyone especially Mary for your great take on it I loved how you worded it.

Thanks also Flipper yes in my state the mentally ill were put on the streets also in the 80's, now things have kind of changed but they need someone to walk them through how to get help and convince them to stay on their meds the state does not help go out of their way to help them. So when someone studies with a mentally ill person it is a life time commitment. You cannot just say OK now your baptized go produce. The lady I talked to yesterday said what I know to be true that stress makes the mentally ill worse and the GB pushing us to do more and more and more adds hugely to their stress level The GB never says OK this applies to everyone but our dear schizophrenic brothers and sisters we do not want to add to your stress level that would be too kind. Thanks so much Flipper for sharing your story as it helps me to realize that I am not alone and I am not making this all up. Sometimes I do not understand why I seem to be the only one in the congregation that see the problem everyone else is trying to pioneer and get their time in and I am like HELLO we have a huge elephant in the room, and I am the only one who sees it?

LongHairGal You are spot on what you said. I could not have said it better.

Outlaw I love your posts and yes where do you get your pictures. They always make me laugh.

Zid I have thought of writing a book someday but I do not think anyone would believe me. My life in this religion is too strange to believe.

Again thanks everyone

LITS

hirotaka

WOW!

It never ceases to amaze me the lov bombing of these menatally disturbed ones who 'join' the congs.

And Mr. Flipper's experience.................... really sad how they afterwards just threw this poor guy out into a halfway house in the end and DF'd him....leading to suicide.

Thanks again for posting this story........still shaking my head.

H

Cagefighter

Reading this made me start thinking of all the crazy people I met courtsey of the KH as a kid. There really were more than the fair share there. There were some seriously ill people in and hanging around every congo I remember as a kid.

life is to short

Thanks hirotaka and Cagefighter

I thought hard about it before I did this thread wondering if the ones on this board would think I was making this up. I am not making this up and I think it is important for everyone to know what is going on in the KH's.

There are so many mentally ill in this religion and no one knows what to do about it, so many just try to look the other way or blame the mentally ill. Like someone mentally ill wants to live that way. It breaks my heart to see some suffer. No one chooses to be mentally ill and once they are sick they do not understand what they are doing. It is easy for us who are somewhat sane (is anyone truly normal?) to point a finger at the mentally ill and say you should be doing this or that, just stay on your meds what is your problem. But we do not know the pain that someone who hears voices goes through. Then to have this stupid religion knock at their door and recruit them only to drop them once they cannot count time with them is sick and curl.

My heart breaks for that brother when the police came and there was a stand off. What was going through his mind. The police could have shot him and it would not have been wrong he was charging the police with his knife. It was just a sad, sad, thing to happen and I blame the "truth" for putting things in his mind then expecting him to handle stress. You cannot do that.

LITS

More on the brother in my hall who attacked children Halloween night with a knife.

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