fundies blogs and mental health

[fundies_like_zombies]

Reading one of the newer blogs i got to thinking about fundies with mental health issues - like depression and stuff. (not sure what the PC phrase is for mental health issues :oops: )

Does religion really help them? Or are they attracted to religion because of their issues / get in deeper because of the issues?

like this one -

She posted on FB about a study she wanted to do and not everyone agreed with her -

"Needless to say I was mortified. And my tender hope of starting a new group was broken. But more than that I was crushed, into the tiniest of pieces. My hopes of really getting into the Word and having that accountability of a group was ridiculed. My idea shot down, and made to feel as though it was impossible. Effectively drenching the candles flicker that being in the Word lately had given me. I felt washed out, washed up, and totally like giving up and not trying to pursue the Word." thepuresacrifice.blogspot.co.uk/

That seems like kinda a overreaction. Also like someone who relies on other people to believe in themselves - just seems like this sort of person would be vulnerable to getting caught up in religion.

*might be over thinking this.*

[Arete]

You can definitely start swimming deeper in religious fundementalism if you have untreated mental health issues. That can also be said of left wing political crazy as well. It's not just God believers with depression that want a book with all the answers.

[SomewhatFundy]

I don't know about her mental health, but it sounds like she was talking about starting a small group/bible study of some kind and it didn't work out.

I can say from personal experience, that in the early years of my marriage (back when I was a good deal more "fundy" and a lot less "somewhat") I had pretty much no self esteem. I relied way too much on the approval of my peers at church, so when any ideas I had for fellowship stuff got shot down or didn't pan out....I took it REALLY hard.

I remember I had an idea for a specific study that got shot down by the ladies I used to go to church with. They weren't mean about it or anything.....but it just wasn't going to work out. I cried for like three hours after I got home from church that day. So ridiculous of me, but I really wanted the opportunity to lead something at church, and women's studies were the only chance I had. So I was very disappointed.

If something like that happened now, I wouldn't think twice about it. But back then, I would have reacted very much like the woman in that blog. I was very oversensitive and childish. But then, it seems like most of my peers were too.

I was also on a lot of anxiety meds. Most of my peers were too, but everyone pretended like they weren't. Because you know, it made you look like you didn't rely on God enough to fix your problems.

[AddieBelle]

I know a fundie who won't admit her son is autistic when numerous doctors have told her he is. She looks at it like god doesn't make mistakes and anything other than a physical illness is completely denied. I think they look at mental illness the same way.

[Black Aliss]

Not necessarily mental illness, but perhaps "neurologically atypical?" I have a hunch that the fundie population has a higher percentage of members who are on the autism spectrum than in the general population as a whole. Many high-functioning people on the spectrum are drawn to careers or lifestyles that are governed by a set of rules. Sometimes that's engineering, sometimes it's a rigid system for keeping house and shopping, sometimes it's religious fanaticism. Sometimes, as with the Maxwells, it's all three.

I think even Candy mused about this once on her blog, although her conclusion was that there was no such thing as Asperger's syndrome, even though she met most of the diagnostic criteria.

[Kaylee]

Personally, the times I was most deeply involved in fundamentalism were when I had severe and untreated depression and anxiety, and usually other bad shit going on in life that I had trouble with or didn't want to cope with at the time. Like AreteJo said, some people do this with religion, others with politics. She mentioned the left but I've known a lot of people on the far right with mental illnesses, and not necessarily the type that come to mind when people think "crazy right wingers".

I knew a lot of other people with mental health issues, but I don't know how many of those started before they were fundie and how many were triggered or made worse by the whole fundie lifestyle. One of the things a lot of fundies do is teach that mental illness is not real or is solely spiritual, so many people go untreated or try to hide it and always put on a happy face.

I don't think religion helps, at all. It might seem to at first, especially if you're good at suppressing things for a while or if you're bipolar and find religion during a manic phase, but ultimately it makes things worse. When you slide back into depression or can't keep up the act and false emotions, then religion usually adds a ton of guilt and external standards that can be hard or impossible to meet. If you're sucked in hard enough, then it creates a cycles where religion makes the issues worse but you just keep digging deeper into religion because that's what everyone says will fix things.

[Arete]

Raine, your right. I should have included right wing extremism minus religion, because that certainly exists as well. Spot on about how they view mental illness as a "spiritual" as opposed to physical problem. This is even more disasterous when some of them DO manage to get to a qualified mental health professional, and then will discountine their drugs or therapy in the name of trusting God.

[JesusFightClub]

For lefties, I've noticed that we on the left have high instances of autism. I know that's not precisely a mental illness, but I think people who can be very obsessive about things find a perfect home here.

For fundies, I think maybe bipolar could be the case with some of them. The ones who flipflop between extreme joy and extreme despair, and others like the Maxwells who carefully guard themselves from feeling anything. I suspect that they are frightened they might start to feel too much, and lose control.

[Funintended]

I don't think religion helps, at all. It might seem to at first, especially if you're good at suppressing things for a while or if you're bipolar and find religion during a manic phase, but ultimately it makes things worse. When you slide back into depression or can't keep up the act and false emotions, then religion usually adds a ton of guilt and external standards that can be hard or impossible to meet. If you're sucked in hard enough, then it creates a cycles where religion makes the issues worse but you just keep digging deeper into religion because that's what everyone says will fix things.

Exactly what I wanted to say. It stems from verses like, "take every thought captive under the obedience of Christ." And the idea that faith in God will calm all your storms.

When I was in the Fundy world, looking back I can clearly see I was very depressed... Like, severe depression. But the outward image is 100% all that matters although if you were to say that to them they would say its not. I made sure to keep myself pulled together long enough to attend church a few hours a week because I didn't want my problems added to -- I had enough to deal with let alone condemnation from an entire group of people who could really cause a lot of hell if they wanted to.

But I can tell you, if you were suffering severe mental illness and you:

Didn't smile because of it = Gothardism would condemn you

Didn't put your head covering on because of it = anabaptists would condemn you

Didn't praise The Lord = fundamental baptists and Pentecostals would condemn you

Didn't go to church = most denominations would condemn you

See my point? All of the above relates to externals. And if you suffered so badly that you couldn't pull yourself together, you are condemned.

And psychologists and other mental health "doctors" are of the devil. You just need prayer and a strong pastor. To admit you're "depressed" is to give a foothold to the devil.

After escaping the fundy world, I was so. So. so. glad when I got help from a licensed therapist. FINALLY, I had what I had needed all along to live a life in a functional, non-guilty, unthreatened way. I wish Fundementalism would help their women especially to see that it's ok to have depression and need help. It's ok!

Then again, fundyism comes with so much guilt and condemnation so the chance of living in that and not being depressed to some degree or another, is slim. :(

[fundies_like_zombies]

I don't know about her mental health, but it sounds like she was talking about starting a small group/bible study of some kind and it didn't work out.

I can say from personal experience, that in the early years of my marriage (back when I was a good deal more "fundy" and a lot less "somewhat") I had pretty much no self esteem. I relied way too much on the approval of my peers at church, so when any ideas I had for fellowship stuff got shot down or didn't pan out....I took it REALLY hard.

I remember I had an idea for a specific study that got shot down by the ladies I used to go to church with. They weren't mean about it or anything.....but it just wasn't going to work out. I cried for like three hours after I got home from church that day. So ridiculous of me, but I really wanted the opportunity to lead something at church, and women's studies were the only chance I had. So I was very disappointed.

If something like that happened now, I wouldn't think twice about it. But back then, I would have reacted very much like the woman in that blog. I was very oversensitive and childish. But then, it seems like most of my peers were too.

I was also on a lot of anxiety meds. Most of my peers were too, but everyone pretended like they weren't. Because you know, it made you look like you didn't rely on God enough to fix your problems.

"Instead of encouragement, I was met with some likes, some people who just recognized that I did not belong on the leadership site, because I was honest in mentioning that fact, and some naysayers that proceeded to tell me that it simply wasn't possible to go through the bible using this method, that given the number of scriptures and the way that method works, to break it small as we did in the study I am in, that it would take over 25 years. But instead of leaving me a private message or letting me figure it out for myself, they posted the numbers for everyone to laugh at me."

It does sound like she took it personally :/

[countressrascal]

Interesting note- Utah has the highest per capita useage of anti depression medication. Mormon women have to be perfect in every way, it takes a toll on them.

[katecake]

From personal observance, I think the attraction to fundie-ism is all about feeling in control. When a person's life, emotions, childhood, etc is out of control, there is a peace that comes from the idea that someone is making your decisions, that there is an order, rules, boundaries. Until they find out it's not a cure, and the rules don't heal.

[ILoveJellybeans]

If fundies werent depressed before they started being fundie, most will be after a few years. Its a tough life, especially for a woman, and theyre encouraged to act happy all the time and never show negative emotions, they arent allowed to do anything fun, and from a young age they are forced into taking full responsibility for baby siblings and doing loads of chores. It is a lot of pressure and joylessness for someone, and that brings a lot of guilt as well as they think they must be doing something wrong by not being happy. I see so many fundies who have a fake smile on their face, but sad eyes, especially the ones born into fundie families.

Theres also how the fundie lifestyle makes abuse more likely to happen-the most common fundie parenting tactics, like the Pearl method, are abusive and advocate hitting small children very frequently. Young girls are also conditioned to grow up in a way that makes them very likely to end up to be abused by their husbands, as well as being hit by their parents, theyre taught that the man knows best and the woman has to do whatever he says without question.

Id guess that Steve Maxwell is probably some kind of sociopath, with the way he is controlling and the way he looks like a serial killer should.

[countressrascal]

This is a very sad but true story regarding a very good friend of mine who took the dive into the fundie pond not Christian but Jewish-

She was an OB/GYN married another Jewish physician and for five years they were cultural Jews, like my husband and I, then her husband got deeper and deeper in it. He decided that the best for the family was to move to Israel so they could practice their true religion. Sold everything and packed up the family, 2 children and moved. Once they got there he would not let her work, pressured her into having another child and emotional abused her. We went to visit her in Israel about 18 months after she moved; at that point she looked so beaten down that when we talked she could not look me in the eye. An educated women who had everything emotional taken away from her. About an year after than she took her own life, left a suicide note that was so telling about her treatment by her husband and the rest of the settlement due to her not conforming to the what the religious leader s what from her. She had no way of escaping because he hide her and the children passports.

Every time I read one of these fundie’s blog all I can think is about her and what she did to escape it. Happened over 15 years ago but it is always in my mind when I am treating someone that is being controlled by a headship, I give them the opportunity to talk about their issues. Mental health is the biggest no no in these extreme religious cults, the only way you get it is because you let Satan into your thoughts. So if you pray enough and serve the sky pilot more it will go away. It is so wrong.

[Arete]

countressrascal, I am so sorry for what happened to your friend. :( If I could ask, do you think her husband was mentally ill and spiraled into religion, or was he just a garden variety controlling jerk and religious fundementalism was merely a vehicle to express his true personality?

[Moonbeam]

countressrascal, I am also very sorry for the loss of your friend. That must have been heartbreaking, and so awful for her children.

This thread is REALLY interesting to me. As a therapist I use a lot of mindfulness techniques (teaching meditation, etc.) and I've had more than a few very right wing clients who are very frightened of any of those types of techniques. They're often more open to it if I put it in terms of contempletive prayer.

Does anyone know what Steve's response was to Teri's depression regarding getting actual help? I don't recall seeing anything that specifically addresses that issue, but my guess is that he would not have wanted her to get professional help from the mental health community because it would undermine his headshipness.

In response to the initial post about the PC way to refer to mental illness, mental illness is just fine. I wish more people would talk about it because it helps take away the stigma. I'm very open with my clients about having a history of depression and PTSD and going to therapy myself. Sometimes they're surprised and can't believe I've been in therapy before (as if it's a bad thing or only for crazy people). I explain that I would NEVER trust a therapist who hasn't been in therapy and done their own work, it's like seeing a dentist who doesn't get her teeth cleaned.

[countressrascal]

countressrascal, I am so sorry for what happened to your friend. :( If I could ask, do you think her husband was mentally ill and spiraled into religion, or was he just a garden variety controlling jerk and religious fundementalism was merely a vehicle to express his true personality?

It is very long story-His parents had lived in Israel, he was born there, and they came to US to do some research at a major university and stayed. One of the reasons they were pacifists and did not want their sons to service in army. While he was a resident, he met some US citizens that had gone to Israel to serve in the army to keep Israel safe. He felt that he had avoided his service to his country and got involved with them. It spiraled out of control from there. My personal feeling was it was out of guilt and anointment . We were very good friends until this happened, he could not believe that my husband would not join him, he was also born and raised in Israel, his parents also came to US due to their professional careers.

On a positive note they had three children when she took her life, all of them are doing well. Their daughter left the settlement to attend college and did not go back, one of the twins (boy) moved back to US when he turned 18 and could get his own passport lived with his grandparents and went to college and is happy. Other twin still lives in the settlement. He remarried and had 4 more children.

[Sola]

For lefties, I've noticed that we on the left have high instances of autism. I know that's not precisely a mental illness, but I think people who can be very obsessive about things find a perfect home here.

This is going to sound awful JFC, and I really don't mean it to at all because I highly respect you and what you stand for.

But, you will often find that high functioning autistics will end up following a regime or lifestyle that is out of the mainstream. There are several reasons for that; first is that many HFA's have spent their entire life trying to fit in to the mainstream and failing. Lifestyles outside the mainstream attract all and sundry and all quirks therein so HFA's and their foibles often wont stand out.

Second is that many alternative lifestyles are strictly prescribed when compared to the mainstream. Take communism; the basic ethos is levelling and that no man is better than the next. It's simple, it's easy and it's logical and takes little thinking about when exposed to it*, especially if you are a person who is 'seeking' something to fit in as many HFA's are. You don't have to make many initial decisions, it's all there, parcelled up ready.

*Disclaimer: I know communism is far more than that, I'm just on about the very surface of it.

On to fundamentalist religion; the really legalistic fundies we snark about have a series of rules which they follow which govern their entire day to day lives. Rules are great for many HFA'ers as with such extreme rules you don't have to think and have to make decisions, all of which can be very hard for a HFA'er to deal with. Fundamentalist religion is very concrete, very literal and very black and white all concepts which appeal to HFA'ers (and is also the reason why many HFA'ers are drawn to mathematics and physics too).

When you have someone who has never 'fitted in' with society and you offer them a friendly face, who seems to care and is offering a very rule bound way of life which seemingly 'guarantees' happiness, you'll find that many HFA'ers take it.

A really good example of this is that lady who left her husband to live in a church basement with her kids (can't remember her name). I would love to meet her and spend time with her from a professional point of view. She has an autistic son and from her writings when she came here, and online on her blog, she screams HFA/Aspergers to me. She has thrown herself into that extreme legalistic lifestyle and if she is autistic, the rules will appeal to her.

[JesusFightClub]

It doesn't sound awful at all, Sola. It was a very interesting insight and I totally see it ringing true with people I know (some have the official diagnosis, and some don't, but everyone's like "Well, you know Kev*...").

I wondered also if HFA folk have a difficult time with concepts of "who's on my side" as it were. I am going to have to be a bit circumspect about this, for obvious reasons :oops: but as you know the far left in the UK, if we're expert at anything, are experts at splitting. I was on one side of a particularly painful split.

The guy I'm going to talk about was on the other side. I knew him vaguely as a particularly enthusiastic comrade. He followed his faction's line to a tee. I didn't, however, rate his political understanding highly. It was like he picked people as The Best Thing Ever In The World or The Pits Of Cataclysmic Devilry. Once you fell into one of those two categories that was you - he treated you with either embarrassing reverence or complete disdain. He did not have any concept of grey areas or working with people you didn't agree with on every jot and tittle.

The last time I saw him I was in a pub with members from both sides of the split. We were tentatively trying to forge a very uneasy alliance indeed over a particular issue we all agreed on, and doing a fair bit of "Don't mention the war". It was clumsy, but it was working. The comrade (I'll call him Mike, it's not his real name either) was becoming visibly more agitated. He didn't drink, so it wasn't the drink talking. He was twitching about in his seat.

Finally he burst out "I can't understand why you [indicating his faction] are talking to THEM [indicating my faction]. They're wrong. They're so wrong. Wrong and what they have done is wicked. Wicked and evil. How can you sit and talk to them like they're normal?" He went on in this way for some minutes until one of my lot burst into tears and ran out of the pub. I went out with some of the other side to comfort her and she was very visibly distressed.

Mike, however, did.not.get what he'd done wrong. When I came back I took him aside and asked him to watch himself. He was really confused. "But you must know that you've done wrong. Why's she so upset when I'm just telling her the truth?" He seemed to believe that we knew we were bad and were actually glorifying in it, and he couldn't grasp that just because his side believed it didn't make it so. There wasn't any comprehension that the split was over an issue of conscience and there were bad and good people on both sides.

This black and white thinking seems like something many people who are fundies or leftists have. Do you think this is a particular thing that autistic people might struggle with? Stepping out of any routine making them nervous [group X are always and irrevocably Y, and group A are always and irrevocably B, and it's quite distressing when anyone challenges that]?

Be interested in your take on this!

*All names changed!

[fundies_like_zombies]

Interesting stuff! black and white thinking seems common in fundies.

[synchroswimr]

From personal observance, I think the attraction to fundie-ism is all about feeling in control. When a person's life, emotions, childhood, etc is out of control, there is a peace that comes from the idea that someone is making your decisions, that there is an order, rules, boundaries. Until they find out it's not a cure, and the rules don't heal.

I've observed this as well.

I started to notice it when talking with some Creationists, and one point that almost always came up is that science doesn't know everything and sometimes we think we know but then change. That seemed to be a huge problem for some people; they needed to know The Answer and uncertainty was just too much. Not that uncertainty is easy, of course...

[synchroswimr]

Personally, the times I was most deeply involved in fundamentalism were when I had severe and untreated depression and anxiety, and usually other bad shit going on in life that I had trouble with or didn't want to cope with at the time. Like AreteJo said, some people do this with religion, others with politics. She mentioned the left but I've known a lot of people on the far right with mental illnesses, and not necessarily the type that come to mind when people think "crazy right wingers".

I knew a lot of other people with mental health issues, but I don't know how many of those started before they were fundie and how many were triggered or made worse by the whole fundie lifestyle. One of the things a lot of fundies do is teach that mental illness is not real or is solely spiritual, so many people go untreated or try to hide it and always put on a happy face.

I don't think religion helps, at all. It might seem to at first, especially if you're good at suppressing things for a while or if you're bipolar and find religion during a manic phase, but ultimately it makes things worse. When you slide back into depression or can't keep up the act and false emotions, then religion usually adds a ton of guilt and external standards that can be hard or impossible to meet. If you're sucked in hard enough, then it creates a cycles where religion makes the issues worse but you just keep digging deeper into religion because that's what everyone says will fix things.

Thanks for sharing this. As someone with mental health problems, I can totally see how going to the extreme (either right/left, or religious/anti-religion) would seem a temptation.

When I was 14, I was suffering from depression and anxiety, and my Baptist friend got me saved; part of the reason was that it seemed like God could make my troubles go away. Fortunately, I was 14, and no Internet, or I could totally see myself getting sucked in deeper and deeper.

[Sola]

This black and white thinking seems like something many people who are fundies or leftists have. Do you think this is a particular thing that autistic people might struggle with? Stepping out of any routine making them nervous [group X are always and irrevocably Y, and group A are always and irrevocably B, and it's quite distressing when anyone challenges that]?

Be interested in your take on this!

*All names changed!

It's not just fundies and lefties. It's any fringe of society which requires rules and concrete black and white thinking.

Black and white thinking is well documented amongst autistic people. It's ties in with the lack of imaginative play (people with autism do have imaginations though) which is actually part of the diagnostic criteria. In a child it would manifest as lack of imaginative play (autistic kids have real problems with 'make believe' type of play and often choose to re-enact a scene they have already seen on TV or in a play etc. This can confuse parents who think their child is not auti because they pretend to be batman or buzz lightyear when in reality the child is acting out an exact scene from the movie with little or no variation). In an adult it manifests as an inability to project thought so the example you gave is not surprising, that comrade really couldn't foresee or project that his opinions would offend. And even if he could, as far as he was concerned he was 'right' and everyone else was 'wrong' and people should be able to see what was 'obvious' to him.

There's no grey area in black and white thinking either. We can all see circumstances which require an exception to the rule. To an autistic person there is no exception. The rule is a rule and something is either permitted or not. Exceptions require rule changes and additional thought. Rule changes are difficult for autistic people because of the 'unknown' associated with it. Something that isn't black or white has an element of 'unknown' to it and due to the lack of imaginative skills, an autistic person cannot project what 'might' happen unless they have previously experienced it (and often experienced it multiple times). That is stressful and causes anxiety so an autistic person will try to avoid change.

[Sola]

Interesting stuff! black and white thinking seems common in fundies.

It's very interesting. It's what I've considered doing a PhD on but after discussing it with some work colleagues, formulating a way to get the participation of fundies would be extremely difficult. Nobody likes being told they are a fundie, OK I wouldn't word it like that though!

My premise is that the rates of high functioning autism is very under diagnosed in fundamentalist communities and that people with high functioning autism would either seek out or be liable to be sucked into, such a community as part of the desire to fit in and adopt that rigid routine and thought process.

To do it I would have to approach these communities who often eschew science based theory, associate autism with vaccinations and have a general distrust of professionals in my field and say, "Oh hai! I can dx u with ASD, undermine ur faith, plz helpz me. KTHXBYE". I doubt I would get much participation! Plus most of the people I would want to include in the study do not live in the UK.

[jaynie]

It's very interesting. It's what I've considered doing a PhD on but after discussing it with some work colleagues, formulating a way to get the participation of fundies would be extremely difficult. Nobody likes being told they are a fundie, OK I wouldn't word it like that though!

My premise is that the rates of high functioning autism is very under diagnosed in fundamentalist communities and that people with high functioning autism would either seek out or be liable to be sucked into, such a community as part of the desire to fit in and adopt that rigid routine and thought process.

To do it I would have to approach these communities who often eschew science based theory, associate autism with vaccinations and have a general distrust of professionals in my field and say, "Oh hai! I can dx u with ASD, undermine ur faith, plz helpz me. KTHXBYE". I doubt I would get much participation! Plus most of the people I would want to include in the study do not live in the UK.

There are so many studies it would be interesting to do on fundies. I often think some of these big families would be good for looking at inheritance of traits and things like that. But you're right, they're not exactly prone to signing up when your pitch is basically "Hi, I'm an evil scientist. I want to understand what, exactly, is wrong with you people. Please join my study?"