PTSD is a sinful coping mechanism, Ya'll

[chaotic life]

Two of my children have suffered PTSD. Neither of them have PTSD because of SIN, nor is it a coping mechanism. Given that you cannot FUNCTION, calling it a coping mechanism is nothing but willful ignorance.

My oldest son had PTSD so bad that for years he did not remember a single night without nightmares. It would take an hour of helping him orient and getting food into him in the morning before he could FUNCTION and this was a little child, not a grown adult. The first night he slept without a nightmare after intensive trauma therapy, he was GIDDY.

My other son hasn't been a lucky with therapy. He requires medication to put him asleep without dreams. It's the only way he can actually get sleep.

Fundies and their hate towards mental illnesses makes me stabby as well. My other son with PTSD was thrown away by his first adoptive home when he could no longer hide his PTSD from them (mostly because they made it worse by abusing him on top of what he already endured).

[ADoyle90815]

Things like this are why I have issues with organized religion, as this thinking contributes to the stigma of mental illness.

[slickcat79]

This chick has a special (and long-winded!) talent for pontificating on things she doesn't understand. She has some entries about how to raise teens, but her oldest child is only ~10. Claiming that PTSD is caused by sin is just offensive par for the course.

She's also a raging hypocrite with zero self-awareness. She has an entry about how awful divorce is and how people who get divorced are ungodly and NOT EVEN TRYING. Except that she herself is actually divorced :doh: She also claims to be quiverfull, but will not be having any more children because it's physically dangerous for her after multiple c-sections. Now, I actually consider that to be a very smart decision, but that's not being QF. It's making your own decisions to control your fertility when it becomes problematic to continue with more pregnancies. Yet she's till more godly than those unbiblical birth-control users who are just being selfish :roll:

ETA: She also has a FB page under the same name. You should see her opinions of atheists, it's actually pretty funny :lol:

[latraviata]

Is there no shame in this people? No embarassment about their utter stupidity and ignorance whatsoever? Not even hindered by any knowledge? (loosely translated from Dutch)

This really got me infuriated. Do they ever consider for a moment that their soldiers suffering from PTSD because they fought for her freedom of speech so is able to shamelessly write this insanity on her blog? An insult (to say the least) to all people suffering from PTSD.

They just.....no words....

[precious_one]

STFU you ignorant B!tch!!

[latraviata]

STFU you ignorant B!tch!!

Are you referring to me?

[thoughtful]

To illustrate fictitiously the differences between the various systems, consider the following parable. Picture a poor fellow sitting on a tack suffering from severe pain. The little red warning light on the dashboard of the car is going off!

A counselor approaches him who holds the somatic or chemical view-point

:. Hearing the client’s complaints, he immediately pre-scribes tranquilizers or pain killers. The solution is to anesthetize him. Or perhaps the client is a do-it-yourselfer who does not have any pills in the medicine closet. He may resort to his own chemical solution by anesthetizing his brain with alcohol. If a surgical specialist is on hand he may suggest that the nerves which are activated may be severed. This will knock out the symptoms and give the client relief. Smash the red light on the dashboard!

Then, of course, there’s the Freudian analyst who looks over the situation and says

: These pains are located near the sexual area. I think we’d better go back into the patient’s childhood experiences and learn about some of his early sexual experiences. Then, perhaps we’ll be able to alleviate his pain, though of course no assurance can be given. We recognize that he has been wrongly socialized and his superego is a cruel tyrant. If he can be resocialized he will possibly get better.

Next, a disciple of Rogers appears

: When the sufferer asks him what he must do to get relief, the therapist replies: I’m not going to advise anything. I’m sure that you have all the resources within yourself to solve the difficulty. I’ll reflect your questions back to you and help you clarify and gain insight. Now, sir, you say you are torn two ways?

Finally a Christian (nouthetic counselor) comes upon the scene

: He looks around and finds a tack under the client. He says, “Get off that tack. Now that you’re up, sit down on a chair over here and we’ll talk about how you can avoid sitting on tacks in the future.†(Competent to council, Jay Adams, p104)

Oh, yeah -- the pathetic nouthetic will see real pain from a real source and give a practical solution. :roll:

When pigs fly.

I think that last description should go like this -

He looks around and finds a tack under the client. He says, "Look deeply into your soul and find the sin that is there. You know you are a sinner, and you must repent. Oh, and tithe -- starting now."

When the deeply-guilt-tripped client drags himself out of the office to go flagellate himself, the counselor claims the tack for himself and uses it to stick a copy of The Good Person Test to the church bulletin board.

[RosyDaisy]

Mental illness is deep-rooted sin NOT a chemical imbalance blah, blah, blah. :roll: From my experience (as a patient with anxiety and depression, and biology and counseling courses) mental illnesses are seen as biological not chemical and have been (mostly) for about a dozen years or so now. But her response in the comments about PTSD... :pink-shock:

lightnercrew.com/2011/10/14/mental-illness-the-product-of-your-childhood-unconfessed-deep-rooted-sin/

Ummm...... :? Anxiety attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, irrational fears, etc. uh, I'm sorry but I fail to understand how someone suffering with these symptoms is "coping".

I agree, and so does my uncle who fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. Deep-rooted sin my ass!

[Phoebe]

My comment on her blog is awaiting moderation (aka will never see the light of day), so I thought I'd share it with all of you:

Which particular mental illnesses are rooted in sin, exactly?

Schizophrenia is a mental illness, yet we see in MRIs that those with schizophrenia have enlarged ventricles of the brain (1). Bipolar disorder is a mental illness, yet patients with bipolar disorder have changes in the prefrontal cortex and unusually low lithium levels…a chemical imbalance, as it were (2). Depression is a mental illness, and we have MRIs showing unusual electrical activiy and blood flow in areas of the brain that don’t appear in MRIs of people without depression (3). Anxiety disorders, including obssessive-compulsive disorder, have been linked to low dopamine and serotonin secretion in areas of the brain as well as changes in the amygdala (4).

They are all well-documented brain dysfunctions that have been proven through double-blind controlled studies performed by researchers all over the world. Notice how all of these issues have to do with both brain structure and — yes, I’ll say it — chemical imbalances. I don’t see anything in the research I have done to suggest that mental illness is the fault of the person with the illness, due to sin. Are we all sinners? Absolutely. But changes in the structure and chemical makeup in the brain — not sin — are the causes of mental illness.

1. Schizophr Bulletin (2008) 34 (2): 330-340. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbm158 First published online: January 27, 2008

2. Strakowski, S. M., Adler, C. M., Almeida, J., Altshuler, L. L., Blumberg, H. P., Chang, K. D., DelBello, M. P., Frangou, S., McIntosh, A., Phillips, M. L., Sussman, J. E. and Townsend, J. D. (2012), The functional neuroanatomy of bipolar disorder: a consensus model. Bipolar Disorders, 14: 313–325. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-5618.2012.01022.x

3. Anand A, Li Y, Wang Y, Gardner K, Lowe MJ. Reciprocal effects of antidepressant treatment on activity and connectivity of the mood regulating circuit: an FMRI study. The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. 2007;19:274–282

4. McClure EBMonk CSNelson EEParrish JMAdler ABlair RJFromm SCharney DSLeibenluft EErnst MPine DS Abnormal attention modulation of fear circuit function in pediatric generalized anxiety disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2007;64 (1) 97- 106

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I find this blog particularly sad since fundie women get depression just as much as the rest of us but they have to suffer through it without any help. I tried to tell my mom about my crippling anxiety and she told me, "well have you been reading your bible???!" oh ok, it's my fault for not being good enough. Which is somewhat ironic since its rooted in deep seeded HER.

Terri Maxwell might have avoided a lot of suffering had she had medication.

[Hane]

Are you referring to me?

No--I'm sure she's referring to the writer of the post we're discussing.

[latraviata]

No--I'm sure she's referring to the writer of the post we're discussing.

Well you never know, I am not that popular on FJ....... ;)

[Hane]

Well you never know, I am not that popular on FJ....... ;)

You're popular with me! We seniors have to stick together!

[latraviata]

You're popular with me! We seniors have to stick together!

Thank you, I will mow your lawn!

[maybeizfundie]

I'm very sorry to hear this, maybeizfundie. I hope you and your family are managing as well as possible on your own.

Thank you. We are doing very well, in large part due to the *amazing* support system I have in my family. We are thriving, actually. Which tells ya' how bad it was with him. :( I'm sad for him because he still seems to have no concept of what he's lost, in losing his family. :(

[precious_one]

Are you referring to me?

NO NO not at all. I was talking to Lori!!! I am sorry I forgot to put her name. I would never to a fellow FJer that!!

I suffer from severe depression and anxiety. Logic like hers drives me insane!!!

[latraviata]

NO NO not at all. I was talking to Lori!!! I am sorry I forgot to put her name. I would never to a fellow FJer that!!

I suffer from severe depression and anxiety. Logic like hers drives me insane!!!

Oh dear, sorry I even asked! Considering your situation I pefectly understand your reaction. Please ignore Lori don't give her any power, the woman is so utterly stupid, words can't even describe.

I hope you get all the help you need and believe me things will be better, I promise!

[precious_one]

Oh dear, sorry I even asked! Considering your situation I pefectly understand your reaction. Please ignore Lori don't give her any power, the woman is so utterly stupid, words can't even describe.

I hope you get all the help you need and believe me things will be better, I promise!

Thank you. I am doing fine these days. I had my last really bad episode back in early 2012. If I wasn't feeling good I wouldn't even have the energy to tell Lori to shut up!!! LOL LOL

[thoughtful]

Well, Jay Adams solves it all, in a 2-minute video! Since nouthetic counseling's first goal is to honor God, there's just no comparison to other actual forms of therapy.

When asked, "has Nouthetic counseling ever been studied empirically?" he answers with things like “I don’t think so, and I hope that we don’t.†Since “paid pagan systems†have “different goalsâ€, for example, “ to help people,†he's quite sanguine about the lack of proof, or even results. :shock:

http://vimeo.com/34632561

More info on Jay Adams:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_E._Adams