by Christ Alone 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I've seen that many in the organization have an unhealthy view of medical professionals, especially as it relates to psychiatry/psychology. I thought this was an appropriate topic considering what happened with Oompa.
How do you feel about your mental health now that you left? Did you exist in the organization with the fear of "worldly" mental health professionals? Have you sought out help after you left? Or do you still distrust them?
There are medical professionals in the org that have serious "issues" themselves. I wouldn't recommend anyone seeing a JW medical "professional".
If a person needs help they should seek treatment.
If they hear voices, they should definitely seek treatment.
If they have a disassociative disorder, they should seek out professional treatment.
If they have a physical injury, they should seek out professional treatment.
If they have an infection or high fever, they should seek out professional medical treatment.
Some Doctors are good, some are great and some, not so good and some bad.
That's life.
Find a Doctor you trust and get help if you need help.
~~~~~
This made me think of the quotes that jwfacts has on its site.
Watchtower 1990 September 1 p.15
"The sister then told her how a knowledge of Bible truth had helped her. She had lost an 18-year-old daughter in death and had gone into a state of deep depression for eight years. Neither psychiatrists nor costly medications helped her to overcome this depression. Several times, she said, she was hospitalized, but no improvement resulted. Her household was taken care of by servants because she herself was not able to take care of anything. She tried to commit suicide because she had lost interest in life. Nothing seemed to help.
Then, she told the lady, one day Jehovah's Witnesses called and left her some Bible literature. That sparked her interest in God's Word, and she began to read the Bible all the way through. Something started to change within her. She began to get up in the morning and take an interest in her household. She finally decided to take care of the house by herself and found she was able to do so. It was as though she had never been sick! This made her feel very happy.
She did not return to the psychiatrist. (GREAT ADVICE!!!!) Her will to live was stimulated by her knowledge of God's Word, and this proved to be the best medicine. She looked for Jehovah's Witnesses, and they started a regular study with her. She also began to attend meetings, and very soon she got baptized. No longer bothered with depression, she now finds joy in serving Jehovah."
Awake! 1975 August 22 p.25
"Is the turning of people from the clergy to the psychiatrists a healthy phenomenon? No, for it really is a case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They are worse off than they were before... That they are not the ones to go to for help when one is depressed and beset with all manner of problems is to be seen from the fact that suicides among them are twice as frequent as among the population in general... what is needed at such times is not worldly psychiatrists who may wholly ignore the change that the truth and God's holy spirit have made in one's life and who know nothing of their power to help one put on a new Christian personality. Rather, what is needed at such times is a mature Christian in whom one has confidence and who is vitally interested in one's welfare and who will not shrink back from administering needed reproof or counsel so that one may get healed."
Awake! 1960 March 8 p.27
"As a rule, for a Christian to go to a worldly psychiatrist is an admission of defeat, it amounts to 'going down to Egypt for help.' Isaiah 31:1. Often when a Witness of Jehovah goes to a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist will try to persuade him that his troubles are caused by his religion, entirely overlooking the fact that the Christian witnesses of Jehovah are the best-oriented, happiest and most contented group of people on the face of the earth. They have the least need for psychiatrists. Also, more and more psychiatrists are resorting to hypnosis, which is a demonic form of worldly wisdom."
Watchtower 1963 January 15 p.37-8
"The second reason for our critical times is modern man's rejection of God's Word the Bible. Enemies such as Wellhausen and his prejudiced school of higher critics, Darwin and his evolutionists, Freud and his theories, Marx and his atheistic revolutionists all these have played a sinister role in destroying the guiding influence of the Bible for many; especially since so many of the clergy have adopted such worldly wisdom.. According to Freud, one of psychiatry's chief authorities, religion is a great illusion that man will get rid of someday. Psychiatry stresses, 'Know thyself,' as if an enlightened self-love is sufficient for successful living. More than ignoring God,analysts often contradict God by advising those with guilty consciences that fornication, adultery and sodomy are not wrong in themselves. The charge rightly has been made that such counsel tends to exterminate the conscience."
Awake! 1954
Without doubt psychologists... have a lot to learn and they think they know more than they actually do, or they would not have let two chimpanzees make such monkeys out of them.
Watchtower 1952 January 15 p.53
"So we must shun the false guides of men and their false religions, babbling psychologists, wordy psychiatrists and polluted politicians, all of which have built up such tremendous reputations as colossal failures. Look at the messes they have made, know them by their rotten fruits, reject them for their fruits."
I sought out therapy long before I left the JWs. I just didn't discuss it with most people. Either way, my therapist never criticized my religious beliefs at all and never suggested anything anti-God or what have you. As I started becoming more aware of my deepest feelings, the process of waking up ended up growing out of that branch, I suppose.
I tried talking to elders and they proved entirely useless and if anything made me feel worse. I was more than glad to talk to a neutral party about my problems and feelings; I felt I could do so without being criticized or threatened for saying something that didn't fit in with the JW system. It was one of the best choices I ever made. I'd tried some counseling back in college and really liked it then, too, just never pursued it until years later.
I'd still be doing therapy if I had the money for it.
When I was on the inside, I had no reason to fear them. I always felt the Society wanted us to be afraid of everything that wasn't a Watchtower. I knew that couldn't be reasonable, that these folks were professionals and trained to help people. Either way, there was nothing in the Bible that said I couldn't. I figured it was one of things that was frowned upon maybe, like college, but...it didn't bother my conscience at all.
I'd recommend it for everyone, but to be selective about it. You can usually feel it if this is the right person for you to share your emotions and personal growth with.
--sd-7
I don't think I subscribed fully to the J.W fear and low opinion of medics that most had while I was in. But what did affect me was the attitude general in the population that any kind of mental problem/illness was a sign of weakness.
So, it was dangerously late, a long time after I should have, that I consulted a therapist trained in dealing with depression etc
She was a wonderful help in getting me to realise that my problems did spring from being raised in the cult, which I had doubted, and she showed me how to deal with it, by changing my thinking, and by taking positive action where I could.
She has removed me some distance from that dark place where I could well have taken the route that dear Eric chose, I owe my life to her I guess.
I think that as with our general health, we need to take responsibility for our own mental health, take expert advice and act upon it.
The shame that J.W's feel if they have a mental problem is compounded because they are fed the lie that they are "the happiest people on Earth", which is the polar opposite of the truth of course.
So they feel they should not consult someone like I did, as one oldish sister said to me , when she was suffering from evident severe depression, "They will only tell me it is my religion that is the problem ".
They more than likely would, and they would be right of course, but she is too mind-controlled to listen.
After getting DFd I spiralled into profound depression and was suicidal. I started to see a psychiatrist. He was wonderful. However, my JW family tried to undermine his help, telling me I was bringing reproach on Jehovah by telling the psychiatrist about shunning and what the religion did. Unfortunately, when you are still in and try to seek professional help, you are all too often put in the position where you feel you have to defend the WT because the professionals are often so appalled by what has been done to you.
My JW family also called the psychiatrist demanding information about our sessions and my brother, in particular, became quite verbally abusive when the psychiatrist refused to release my confidential treatment information. The psychiatrist told me what had happened because he could not believe my family would feel justified in even asking for private health data.
My family did, however, finally succeed in undermining my confidence in the treatment and I stopped seeing that psychiatrist. I still struggled for many years, fighting depression with meds, other doctors, etc. All along I was dealing with the JW anti-psychology pressure, being fed the "just pull yourself up by the bootstraps" and "pray" and "do more in the service" nonsense. There was a JW doctor who I saw, and I found him extremely helpful - that is, until I discovered he had called my sister and discussed everything about me at length with her.
Ultimately, my mental health improved when I did take charge and, in effect, pulled myself out of it. I stopped any meds and came to the realization that the only one who could change the state of my depression and my mental health was me. By that time I was pretty much completely out of the religion, so I was able to move forward and create a new life for myself. Going to university was the big turning point - pretty much 10 years of solid therapy for me. I became actively involved in volunteering and helping others, too.
A few weeks before my mom died she apologized for how she and the family had treated me when I was depressed. She said she simply did not understand the disease at the time, and that the media had finally raised her awareness.Surprisingly she didn't refer to "such a good article" in the magazines for that insight.
I've been completely mentally healthy for some 20 years now. But I also recognize the triggers and the signs and I'm very careful to keep myself healthy. Getting run down and stressed and neglecting my self-care could make me vulnerable, and I never ever want to go anywhere near that empty black pit again.
I used therapy/counselling to help me gain the courage to leave the JWs and my ex-husband, and have continued checking in with a counsellor on an almost monthly basis since. I could not recommend it more. We are fortunate here in Australia that counselling services are provided free through a lot of places of employment (public sector) and also through my university, I haven't had to pay yet.
When I got involved with the borg, my mental health went to hell in a handbasket. Once the love bombing stopped and the "you aren't doing enough" started in full force, I was a mess. At one point I was on two different meds and I was one step away from hospitalization. Honestly, if my appointment had been on 9/10/01 instead of 9/11/01, I probably would have been committed. But everyone was so freaked out that I got a pass and they just upped my meds. Since Just ROn and I finally got out, I've been way more stable and a lot happier. I remember being afraid to really talk to the doctor and absolutely refusing to see a shrink. It's weird because I had seen a therapist back in college years before I became a dub, and I always thought highly of her. But the borg gets in your head and screws up your thinking.
Christ Alone:
My mental health improved once I made the conscious decision to walk away from the religion over eleven years ago.
Even though I don't expect to be ecstatic (and don't believe it is realistic to expect to be so), I am happier in the sense that I have my own "mind" back - the one before I joined the religion. Thankfully, I was not raised in the religion and shudder to think how much more damaged I would have been. However, it still did a number on my head. I have a residual case of OCD that I am working on. But, I am grateful to be free and have my old self back plus a little wisdom from lessons learned.
The damage that religions like this can cause cannot be underestimated and nobody knows all the untold hours and money spent on therapists that people who leave very often have to turn to just to get their mind on a "normal" track and purge the garbage out of their heads.
Best wishes to everybody.
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