If a former believer says that Christianity made her depressed, obsessive, or post-traumatic, she is likely to be dismissed as an exaggerator. She might describe panic attacks about the rapture; moods that swung from ecstasy about God’s overwhelming love to suicidal self-loathing about repeated sins; or an obsession with sexual purity.
A symptom like one of these clearly has a religious component, yet many people instinctively blame the victim. They will say that the wounded former believer was prone to anxiety or depression or obsession in the first place—that his Christianity somehow got corrupted by his predisposition to psychological problems. Or they will say that he wasn’t a real Christian. If only he had prayed in faith believing or loved God with all his heart, soul and mind, if only he had really been saved—then he would have experienced the peace that passes all understanding.
But the reality is far more complex. It is true that symptoms like depression or panic attacks most often strike those of us who are vulnerable, perhaps because of genetics or perhaps because situational stressors have worn us down. But certain aspects of Christian beliefs and Christian living also can create those stressors, even setting up multigenerational patterns of abuse, trauma, and self-abuse. Also, over time some religious beliefs can create habitual thought patterns that actually alter brain function, making it difficult for people to heal or grow.
The purveyors of religion insist that their product is so powerful it can transform a life, but somehow, magically, it has no risks. In reality, when a medicine is powerful, it usually has the potential to be toxic, especially in the wrong combination or at the wrong dose. And religion is powerful medicine!
The article goes on to describe in what ways Christianity, in particular conservative Christianity, can have a detrimental effect on the psyche of those who participate in its beliefs and teachings.
At the bottom of the article is this summation:
Religious trauma is difficult to see because it is camouflaged by the respectability of religion in culture. To date, parents are afforded the right to teach their own children whatever doctrines they like, no matter how heinous, degrading, or mentally unhealthy. Even helping professionals largely perceive Christianity as benign. This will need to change for treatment methods to be developed and people to get help that allows them to truly reclaim their lives.
Those of us working in the mental health field have already noted a rather startling link between feelings of a direct connection to God and schizophrenia. And in fact many schizophrenics are extremely religious.
One of my pet peeves in life is the idea of ministers or priests working as therapists and addressing their congregant's emotional or mental well being.
Often they are not adequately trained and, since they tend to see things in terms of good and evil, are not equipped to identify and treat people with actual and possibly dangerous mental health problems. In my opinion a religious leader should NEVER be allowed to provide counseling unless they have been trained in a secular atmosphere that teaches scientific methodologies.
And of course there are those who simply see religion itself as a mental disease, which can and should be cured.
I may not be firmly in that camp myself yet, but to be honest I am moving in that direction more every day.
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