Anyone Here A Victim Of Christian Counsling?

[LastKing]

Did anyone go through this? I was place in Christian themed counsling when I was little kid because my mom wanted some one who would be moral. So I grow up going to bathist styil counsling either thought I was not a Bathpist. It was good at frist I think it did save my life at one point however twoards the end I found myself taken advatage of and it nearly push me into a hate cult. So I have a love/hate realtionship with Christianty and my Foromer Counsler.

 

 

Now thinking back on a few things I relized I was told things that I really should not have been told. The worst was when I started to have Lucided dreams. Before I would go to sleep I thought I would see things (Faces, monsters, shodowy figurers ect) Hereing this my counlser jumped to the frist supernatural conclusion that could pull me into her brand of religion. She told they were demons who did not want me praying for a freind that I have seen in years. Why this freind, I am not sure anymore, It had some thing to do with the fact she born into islam or some BS like that. So I found myself in a "war" between good & evil over the soul of someone I barrely know now. As a reslut I become more angery, parronoid, and unstabled. I alos feel mosts shamful about this point in my Christian life becasue I treated a few people pretty badly over this. Till finaly I went online and started to ask qustions. I describe the things that I was seeing and it turn out it was a mental problem. Aperently somtimes as your falling asleep the mind can start dreaming why your still awake. Every time I saw one those things was when I was in my bed and about to go to sleep. It was really nothing to worry about. So I became a raving (possibly bigoted ) nut case and went through all this stress for nothing. Now thinking about this I gets me very angery, what if I was suffering from something much wores and was truly metaly ill? You dont tell people who are seeking mental help that there being attack by hell itself!

 

Theres alot more to what went due my Counlser being to religious but did anyone els try Christian Counsling and did it back fire on you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, Just in case your wondering: To top it all off the freind in qustion dose not like me anymore becasue I not of her religion.

[gypsy79]

Yes, I went to Christian marriage counseling once (many moons ago, first husband). Even though vast majority of the problem was obviously my husband since he cheated on me and was physically, verbally, and mentally abusive, the counselor tried to pull me into taking the blame 50/50. When I mentioned that I thought my husband was doing meth, he dismissed it by saying, "Well, don't try to act innocent. He already told me that both of you have smoked pot before, so you're both druggies and therefore both of you caused the problems in this marriage."

 

WTF. How does smoking an occasional joint even begin to compare with doing meth, making your wife bleed, punching holes in all the walls, sleeping with other women, and pulling knives on your family and threatening to kill them. WTFEVER.

 

Xianity is such misogynistic bullshit. Arggggghhhh.

[Mriana]

When I mentioned that I thought my husband was doing meth, he dismissed it by saying, "Well, don't try to act innocent. He already told me that both of you have smoked pot before, so you're both druggies and therefore both of you caused the problems in this marriage."

 

That was just wrong on so many levels. That sounds almost like saying, "Because you smoked tobacco and he smoked cocaine, you're both guilty". While I don't agree with smoking pot, it is a vast difference from Meth. I have yet to hear of people blowing up their homes or beat up their wives with pot. Seems to me this dude did not have a clue as to what he was talking about and his license as a counselor needs to be revoked.

[Vomit Comet]

I remember trying to get it, but it just wasn't in the budget.

 

Good thing I didn't!

[MaggieMae]

My parents made me go to Christian counseling when I was in high school. Around my sophomore year, I was severely depressed, mostly stemming from angst about my parents telling me what to do. Basically I had a boyfriend that they didn't like, and they kept trying to control and eventually ban my contact with him. My (extremely) strong-willed nature turned that into a year long mess of depression and anger between me and my parents.

 

About 7 or 8 months into this mess, my parents made me go to counseling. However, it was a christian counselor and every time I expressed anger or hurt about my relationship with my parents, she'd pretty much just tell me about how God said I was supposed to honor them. Not. Helpful. Plus, I later found out that the counselor also held private meetings with my parents where they would talk about everything I said! Isn't that against the rules??

 

Point: Christian counseling = joke.

[sharkindeepwater]

Mine wasn't so bad; although my counselor did screw me up further about homosexuality for a while, basically encouraging me in repression.

 

Fortunately I hadn't been around him for a few years by the time I met a guy I fell in love with--I might have married him and screwed us both up, but I had the sense to realize even before my deconversion that it just wasn't going to work.

[godlessgrrl]

I started seeing a Christian counselor during my first marriage. I went for a number of reasons - I was extremely depressed, for one thing, and all sorts of emotional baggage and issues were rearing their ugly heads. A lot of it was that my marriage was failing, and I was the only one who knew it and the only one willing to work on it. It was easiest for my ex to blame all our problems on his emotionally sick wife; he outright refused to go to counseling with me because he believed he was "within normal parameters" (yes, he did say exactly that) and would just be sent home - it was me that was fucked up, not him, and me that was causing all our problems with my emotional needs and demands and depression and anxiety.

 

So I went, and I went alone. On some counts it was useful, and I ended up exploring lots of old issues that needed to be brought to light. That was good and helpful. In some ways the counselor was an emotional advocate. And I don't ever recall her telling me that everything was my fault or any misogynist bullshit about how it was my duty to submit, or what have you.

 

But there were things I was afraid to tell her because I was afraid she'd judge me anyway, so a lot of things didn't get aired. And there were things that were forbidden, in a sense: I can recall being curious about a number of things that weren't consider OK to delve into - things like paganism, other religions, etc. And a rather uncomfortable couple of sessions where I was pressured to confess to my interest in such things, and repent of it, and renounce them.

 

So I can't say that it was a major mindfuck the way some folks have had it here. It wasn't. It was helpful in some ways, and unhelpful in other ways.

 

It didn't fix my first marriage, either. But that's okay.

 

I found out later that my ex went to the same counselor for help after I left him. I don't know how long he attended, but he probably got some good out of it too.

[hereticzero]

When I was a fundy minister, I hate to admit it but I was a Christian counselor too. I sucked at it because I always referred those who came to me to mental health professionals downtown. I must have fallen in the liberal Christian line because I was not too conservative as a fundy. I was not comfortable with telling someone their depression, which was due to an abusive spouse, was due to an unresolved sin in their own personal life. Christians have a way of making people guilty about how they were abused as children or spouses--because of their own personal sin. I never used that approach. Depression is not always our own fault.

[Guest nonreligiousbelieverinGod]

Yes, I have dealt with a couple of Christian counselors that would like to argue about petty things and were very judgmental and would "snap" easily. They had more mental problems than I did and more emotional problems and they were also socially abusive.

[Deva]

My one experience with Christian counseling: I was having a problem dealing with a breakup with my boyfriend in 1999. I went to the Episcopal priest and told him about it. I can't even remember what was said, but I just remember thinking he didn't have a clue, just some BS about how difficult relationships were. The fact that one of his parishioners (my boyfriend) would lie and cheat wasn't material. Actually what I most remember about it was his leaving the door open to his office so I suppose the secretary could witness that there was no hanky panky going on.

 

Now I understand that my nephew is having some mental problems but my parents are really hush-hush about it. He lives far away from me and I knew something was wrong when my parents would never mention him. I finally brought it up one day. No one should be allowed to know it -- evidently they consider it to have brought shame upon the family. They want him to see a Christian counselor. Like that would do any good for someone who may well have schizophrenia. My nephew refuses counselling and doesn't want to leave his room. He is 21 and should be in a job or in college. This situation is not good.

[ClaraOlive]

My parents told me they would help with lawyer costs while I was getting a divorce if I would see a Christian counselor.

 

The counselor was very nice, although I don't think he helped much.

 

However, my mother uses it as as an excuse to say that God helped me recover. She doesn't attribute the positive ways I dealt with my problems to me- it was all the Christian counselor and God.