Now, I believe most elders KNOW they're unqualified in such areas....(hopefully).
How Many JWs or ExJWs Have Some Type of Mental Problems?
by minimus 27 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
garybuss
In my opinion, as well my experience, Witnessism creates a type of institutionalization which is a form of mental/emotional illness. It requires the patient to stay in the institution to minimize symptoms or leave the institution and seek treatment. If untreated, the symptoms can be severe and disturbing.
I think Witnessism as well as other high control rigid messianic groups attract their share of unstable people. People like my son who became sick as members were told not to go to psychiatrists by group members, thus reducing their chances of early treatment and reducing their chances of a better long term outcome. My son was taken out of a mental hospital against medical advise by Witness group members and advised not to see doctors.
I was a child of Witnesses and all my early years were filled with Armageddon warnings. I always believed I would not be among the chosen so the warnings were predictions of my own doom. I saw an anxiety disorder form and maintain. Now I know it was all make believe but it was contextually protected to the degree that as a child, I believed it and I lived with a constant feeling of impending doom.
As a result I was prepared to die during a time a child needs to be prepared for life. That is the primary job of parents, to prepare their child for life. My parents couldn't have failed any more miserably. I am thankful for public school and later to kindly employers and worldly co-workers. They gave me my only preparation for life.
I am also thankful to the Witnesses who delivered error at group meetings and I am grateful to those Witnesses who were mean to me any my family because they liberated me from the group confines at age 30. Sioux Falls and the Dakota's have an especially mean core of Witnesses and they made it easy for me to want to leave and not return. From age 30 on I worked hard to establish passive income streams, something I seriously doubt I would have done had I stayed a Witness.
I believe Witnesses attract the mentally ill, they create mental illness, and they discourage pragmatic treatment of mentally ill members. GaryB -
minimus
Garybuss---Thanks for that enlightening post!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
Terry
Would a well-adjusted and goal oriented person be attracted to a group that deals with doom, death, servitude, and insularity? I rather think not!
If a person is well educated they see the JW messege for what it is: crackpot.
If a person is ambitious they would not toss away the opportunity to make something of their life by throwing away opportunity and joining the Dubs.
If a person were talented they'd quickly see how mandatory it becomes to hide your light under a bushel in the "happy" Kingdom and run for the hills.
So, what do you have left if you eliminate all the:
1.Well-adjusted
2.Goal-oriented
3.Well educated
4.Ambitious
5.Talented
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
You get somebody ripe for mental problems because they are EMPTY inside and you can only pour so much sap without clogging a person up.
Terry
-
4JWY
Now I believe most elders KNOW they're unqualified in such areas...(hopefully).
Minimus ~ if only it were so huh? In my experience I've never seen any admit it.
Just one example: When a qualified instructor on educating people regarding mental illness presented an elder and CO with materials on dealing with the mentally ill, the elder after looking over the material stated, "Well, to present the info to JW's, we'd have to change some of it" ??
-
nb-dfed
I think the rate of mental illness is very high. I suffered from depression. My husband literally lost his mind for a while and had to take anti-psychotics. He was also depressed and suicidal for a very long tiime. It really messes with your head.
-
mamochan13
I agree that the rate of mental illness is likely very high, but I don't think JW's have cornered the market in that regard. Any religion that is highly controlling and cult-like will have repercussions on people who may already be prone to mental illness. From research I've done at university, there is a strong correlation between religion and mental illness, period.
that said, JW's DO create mental illness as GaryB & others have pointed out. Depression is a big one - DF'ing in particular causes incredible negative emotional stress, and negative emotional stress is a known trigger for depressive illness.
What is also problematic is that JW's do not support going outside the religion for counselling or psychotherapy. After I was DF'd and reinstated I went into a severe depression and sought help from a psychiatrist, then later a psychologist. My JW family told me that I had greived the holy spirit and blasphemed against Jehovah because I had told my therapist all the things the JW's had done to me and thus brought "reproach upon the organization." My psychiatrist was so angry with JW's that when my brother called him to try and get him to reveal confidential information about our sessions, that he told my brother off.
anyway, sorry for going off on a personal tangent...I get REALLY worked up and irate when I think about all this stuff. Bottom line, I do not believe JW"s accept mental illness as real - I think they are part of the "snap out of it" mentality. Everything can be fixed by going to the elders, or by attending meetings regularly, or by going out in service. That attitude just makes things so much worse.
I read in a WT or Awake recently (they persist in leaving these things at my door) something about suicide and whether this merits a KH funeral. I threw the article away, and now I wish I had it, because it said something that really minimized mental illness. What I got out of it was that most people who are in deep despair and take their own lives cannot have a witness funeral, since only a few are "really" mentally ill.
-
NewSense
In regard to the issue of Jehovah's Witnesses and mental health, I recall reading on some site - I think it was on *this* very site - about a study done in Australia (it may have been conducted in New South Wales, Australia, but I am not sure) on schizophrenia among Jehovah's Witnesses. As I remember, the researcher in question used the approach of analysing admissions for schizophrenia to psychiatric wards in New South Wales. The study was quite rigorous and clinical. Basically, the results showed that Witnesses constitute a quite disproportionately higher percentage of these admissions than would be expected. In other words, in statisitcal terms, there was a deviation from the norm regarding the percentage of Jehovah's Witnesses in this group of admissions cases.
I also recall othe studies that showed that instances of schizophrenia, depression and other psychiatric ailments was statistically higher among the population of Jehovah's Witnesses than the population in general.
I'm sure that if you go to Google, or some other search engine, and type in "jehovah's witnesses and mental health (problems)," or "mental illness and jehovah's witnesses," or "jehovah's witnesses - a psychological profile," you will get a lot of websites for researching. Although I read it a long while ago and don't remember much, I know that the study done in Australia that I spoke of earlier is considered to be a very important one.
-
Sweetp0985
My grandmother used to work at a local Mental Health Hospital and she told me there were alot of JW's that came through there for their weekly "treatments". She still refuses to tell me some of the names due to their privacy.
I love my mom. But I know for a fact she has problems mentally but the thing is everyone else around her can see it except her. I remember when I was still living with my JW dad and stepmom they always labeled my mom as crazy. I even had a friend that was never baptized but went to alot of meetings tell me that alot of the friends feel sorry for my mom and they know she has a problem thats why they let her get away with some of the "crazy" things she does. I didn't say anything at the time because this was a good friend of mine telling me this. But if I ever hear of another JW saying something about my mom, I swear they are gonna hear some words from me because my dub mom can't curse them out. I CAN!!!! But on the real I wish my mom would seek some kind of treatment but she doesn't see the problem she has. Hell I need treatment myself. No medicine, but just a good counselor or something. I live day to day by the skin of my teeth, most days waking up only to wish I had never woke up.
-
seattleniceguy
This is truly a sad subject.
When I think about my last congregation - and I swear, when I was in, I thought this was the best-adjusted congregation I had ever seen - it is jolting to realize how unstable people were. I think we've all seen these JW archetypes:
- The single pioneer sister with that incredibly nervous laugh. Ask her how she's doing and she busts up like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard.
- The gay guy trying his damnedest to believe that he is sick and that Jehovah will straighten him in due time.
- The overworked young elder who has acquired a nervous twitch while delivering his otherwise empassioned talks.
- The young bubbly pioneer wife with the Honda Accord and the awesome presentation, who has never been seen not smiling.
- The older elder who has completely lost touch with reality and is now just totally nuts. Everybody loves his unpredictable antics but are secretly disturbed deeply by them.
- Sister elderly, whose every sentence contains the phrase "this old world" and a deep sigh.
My heart aches for them. I honestly wonder if there are any mentally well-adjusted people in a typical congregation.
SNG