Religion & Mental Ilness

[Guest LoveAll]

Greetings,

Reading the posts in the forum for testimonies from ex-christian, I was moved by the young man whom at 18 has yet to move out of his home of Christian family members. His comment about those with mental illness being involved in fundamentalist religion is like throwing gasoline on a fire, really hit home. I remember once, many years ago when I was struggling with drug addiction & was doing an eight-month sentence in the local county jail. They had a "God Pod" in it, euphemistically labelled "Biblical Life Principles Unit." (to keep it legal)

What it was, was a large pod or "tank" (large cell for many prisoners) run by a Fundamentalist Christian involved with the local Mission. He was a Hellfire & Brimstone preacher, if ever there were. He used to be a guard in the same jail & he was instrumental in getting nudie magazines, Playboy, Penthouse, whatever, banned from the jail, along with the prisoners last vice, chewing tobacco.

Anyway, the only appealing element about the "God Pod", to me, was the lack of violence & general mayhem. To be in there, you had to not get in any fights and treat people with a basic courtesy & respect. The rest of the jail was pretty much a jungle, so that drew some people in purely for safetys sake. They did not care about the religion, they just wanted to do their Time peacefully & go home alive & unhurt. And to be fair, there were a few who were looking to change their life in a positive way & were trying to keep an open mind about religion.

Well, the "Chaplain" did everything he could to alienate them, he put down their beliefs if they were Catholic or Muslim, or Jehovah's Witness or Mormom or whatever. Anything other than hard-core Literal Bible-believing "Jesus rules, others drool", born-again saved, holy-ghost feeling, speaking in tongues Christians, you get the picture.

One thing I noticed during my almost eight-month stay, was that the mentally ill prisoners of the jail were drawn there like flys to cowpies, they just loved it. In the Annex, you could watch the five other Pods & you could see them line-up for medication when the nurse came around. The "Pill-line" for the God Pod, was 2-3 times as long and do you know why? Because 95% of them were getting psyche meds, "Ding-Biscuits" in jail slang.

These poor people had a hard enough time holding on to a thin thread of reality, without the Chaplain encouraging them to believe that the voices they heard were real, (if they claimed to be hearing God or Jesus) These people were sick, they needed real help, real therapy, instead they got sermons that fed their delusions. The chaplain despised Mental Health, especially when they would complain about mentally ill patients with "The God-Syndrome." Those were the poor fools who refused medication or therapy for their genuine mental illness such a Bi-Polar or Schizophrenia, because they claimed the meds stopped "God" from speaking to them in their head. There were having audible & some visual hallucinations, but as long as they were claiming they were hearing "God" speak to them (in an actual voice!) the Chaplain would tell them they were doing the right thing refusing the ungodly interference of the secular mental health professionals!

I witnessed this chaplain hurt many other people in many other ways, yet this was his most despicable activity, in my view. Occasionally, I saw these same people later in life, many could not deal with reality & were in & out of jails, mental institutions, etc.

Just one more sad story about Theistic religion, I suppose. Any similar out there?

[Guest Clueless]

Greetings,

Reading the posts in the forum for testimonies from ex-christian, I was moved by the young man whom at 18 has yet to move out of his home of Christian family members. His comment about those with mental illness being involved in fundamentalist religion is like throwing gasoline on a fire, really hit home. I remember once, many years ago when I was struggling with drug addiction & was doing an eight-month sentence in the local county jail. They had a "God Pod" in it, euphemistically labelled "Biblical Life Principles Unit." (to keep it legal)

What it was, was a large pod or "tank" (large cell for many prisoners) run by a Fundamentalist Christian involved with the local Mission. He was a Hellfire & Brimstone preacher, if ever there were. He used to be a guard in the same jail & he was instrumental in getting nudie magazines, Playboy, Penthouse, whatever, banned from the jail, along with the prisoners last vice, chewing tobacco.

Anyway, the only appealing element about the "God Pod", to me, was the lack of violence & general mayhem. To be in there, you had to not get in any fights and treat people with a basic courtesy & respect. The rest of the jail was pretty much a jungle, so that drew some people in purely for safetys sake. They did not care about the religion, they just wanted to do their Time peacefully & go home alive & unhurt. And to be fair, there were a few who were looking to change their life in a positive way & were trying to keep an open mind about religion.

Well, the "Chaplain" did everything he could to alienate them, he put down their beliefs if they were Catholic or Muslim, or Jehovah's Witness or Mormom or whatever. Anything other than hard-core Literal Bible-believing "Jesus rules, others drool", born-again saved, holy-ghost feeling, speaking in tongues Christians, you get the picture.

One thing I noticed during my almost eight-month stay, was that the mentally ill prisoners of the jail were drawn there like flys to cowpies, they just loved it. In the Annex, you could watch the five other Pods & you could see them line-up for medication when the nurse came around. The "Pill-line" for the God Pod, was 2-3 times as long and do you know why? Because 95% of them were getting psyche meds, "Ding-Biscuits" in jail slang.

These poor people had a hard enough time holding on to a thin thread of reality, without the Chaplain encouraging them to believe that the voices they heard were real, (if they claimed to be hearing God or Jesus) These people were sick, they needed real help, real therapy, instead they got sermons that fed their delusions. The chaplain despised Mental Health, especially when they would complain about mentally ill patients with "The God-Syndrome." Those were the poor fools who refused medication or therapy for their genuine mental illness such a Bi-Polar or Schizophrenia, because they claimed the meds stopped "God" from speaking to them in their head. There were having audible & some visual hallucinations, but as long as they were claiming they were hearing "God" speak to them (in an actual voice!) the Chaplain would tell them they were doing the right thing refusing the ungodly interference of the secular mental health professionals!

I witnessed this chaplain hurt many other people in many other ways, yet this was his most despicable activity, in my view. Occasionally, I saw these same people later in life, many could not deal with reality & were in & out of jails, mental institutions, etc.

Just one more sad story about Theistic religion, I suppose. Any similar out there?

I think that it is a huge trap for people who for whatever reason have issues with self esteem, who easily accept authority over them. The whole concept of original sin is tough on everyone but for those with self esteem problems is an absolute trap. They already don´t like themselves and then the idea that they are totally vile, unacceptable to god, have no worth outside of Jesus, are only worthy of hell; well this feeds their existing neurosis. I imagine many in jail would already have self esteem issues. Then when these issues boil over, as they will, they wont even allow for professional help. Any secular counselor is seen as evil, of "the world".

 

I saw my wife struggle with these issues for years and when it boiled over it was ugly (details are still too painful). Luckily she is healthier now than she has ever been and we are walking out of that whole trap together. We often joke to each other that we are recovering fundementalists. Its not a joke, its true. Fundamentalism, especially when you are born in it, all your family and friends are in it, take years and years of therapy to recover from.

 

It feeds the neurosis of others in different ways. Some I think, inevitably males like Chaplain you mentioned, have a God complex. They get hooked on speaking for god. They suddenly have gods wisdom and god speaks through them and everything they say is Truth. They can then manipulate, intimidate others using the tools of the trade, guilt and fear of hell. In my vast experience in fundementalism many preachers fall into this catagory. These are the wide eyed true believers who see the world in black and white. Fundamentalism breaks the world down for them into easy catagories. Those going to heaven & those going to hell; those for us and those against us etc.

 

We all have our neuroses to deal with and hopefully are learning more about ourselves and working through our issues with lots of forgiveness for ourselves and others. Fundamentalism is a particulary insidious trap that catches many before they can get healthy. Once in, its hard to get out. Even the ones who have fallen in and escaped bear the scars.

[Brother Jeff]

Fundamentalist religion and mental illness is an extremely dangerous mix! I am bipolar, and I have to say that my involvement in fundamentalist Christianity long before I was properly diagnosed made my suffering MUCH worse than it had to have been. Fundamentalist religion represents serious disconnects with actual reality to begin with. Mix that with mental illness, and the shit can really hit the fan. I alternated for years between periods of devout religious belief and unbelief, and what I didn't understand at the time was that it was just my then undiagnosed bipolar illness playing itself out. When I was high on god, I was in a manic phase. When I was in a period of unbelief and using drugs and alcohol, I was usually in a depressed phase of the illness. Even after my deconversion in early 2000, I struggled with brief but intense bipolar-induced "reconversions" to devout Christian belief. It's just amazing how intertwined religion and mental illness can be. In fact, I personally view fundamentalists as clinically mentally ill since they meet many of the criteria and they do hold delusional beliefs. Here are some relevant links:

 

Ending Biblical Brainwash

http://archives.betterhumans.com/Columns/C...13/Default.aspx

 

Recovery from Religious Abuse

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2004/08...gious-abuse.php

 

Psychological Issues of Ex-Believers

http://christianityisbullshit.com/2008/01/...f-ex-believers/

[Guest LoveAll]

Thanks to both of you for your honest words about this very real area of human suffering. When I occasionally see that Chaplain at a grocery store or post office or something, I turn around and leave, not trusting my still sore anger with him not to spill over. And it has been several years! My spiritual work with Buddhist teachings have been a huge help, meditation especially helps to sort these things out. I don't wish to let these people such as this Chaplain, "off the hook", so to speak. I just want to be able to do something actually constructive, help to bring people around to seeing that these Fundamentalist Religons are not good, wholesome Teachings. They are more about ignorance, anger & selfishness than anything else. A wolf in sheeps clothing, me thinks!

Thanks again, would enjoy hearing from anyone else.

[hereticzero]

Take a mentally ill person and put him in a room full of delusional people following the teachings of an invisible person, with whom they can communicate telepathically because they can 'hear' his voice as the Holy Spirit, and that mentally ill person is convinced by the cult members his voices are his god talking to him, and you got one big problem waiting to happen. The mentally ill person has no hope of sorting out reality from fantasy that is reinforced by the screwballs he goes to church with. Delusional religious people will always hear voices and see visions. Then they want to imprison some shmuck who takes medicine so he doesn't!

[Deva]

In fact, I personally view fundamentalists as clinically mentally ill since they meet many of the criteria and they do hold delusional beliefs.

 

I agree with you Jeff, even without reviewing the links. I think someone who decade after decade still holds onto these ignorant beliefs (and it is willful ignorance) must meet the criterion of mentally ill.