I remember a church I went to 15 years ago where the pastor told people they shouldn’t be on antidepressants and to rely on God instead. Another church I went to convince me to do healing prayer for my anxiety and then a year later I discovered I was in perimenopause, and I started taking hormones, and the anxiety was gone within a week. The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated. I’m glad I’m not part of these kinds of communities anymore but I do worry about people who are.
Religion tends to have the unfortunate distinction that its leaders, who others trust for their spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, have woefully inadequate training or understanding in areas such as psychology, human biology and biopsychology. You said it well, "The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated."
A fundamental teaching of the Christianity I grew up in was that all that was bad about you was internal and really you, while anything good you ever did was of god acting through you, therefore external to your nature and who you are. If that isn't a recipe for disastrous self esteem and depression I'm not sure what is.
I have been mulling this over. When my husband and I joined a church here in our very small town…912 people, we noticed fairly quickly that there were quite a few very depressed congregants. Getting down on their knees on any given Sunday and snot crying was a common occurrence and there could one or more active participants. This was new to us but since our pastor encouraged us to pray for them that god would heal them that is what we did. Over and over and over for years to no avail. One of the ladies who was a great loud crier informed me that I would need to break in that way and cry if I ever wanted to get close to god. I told her I didn’t want to cry…that I wanted to be joy filled. I was instructed that without the tears there could be no connection with god. She was one of the pillars of that church. Bible study leader…totally immersed. That was the start of my secret stepping away from the religion of church. I kept attending even knowing that I was a condemned sinner with no chance of making it to the “kingdom”. Not too many years later I had completely given up on ever being a Christian and just settled for being a secret heathen
I remember a church I went to 15 years ago where the pastor told people they shouldn’t be on antidepressants and to rely on God instead. Another church I went to convince me to do healing prayer for my anxiety and then a year later I discovered I was in perimenopause, and I started taking hormones, and the anxiety was gone within a week. The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated. I’m glad I’m not part of these kinds of communities anymore but I do worry about people who are.
Religion tends to have the unfortunate distinction that its leaders, who others trust for their spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, have woefully inadequate training or understanding in areas such as psychology, human biology and biopsychology. You said it well, "The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated."
I’ve decided before I accept a diagnosis of depression I need to make I’m not surrounded by a-holes
A fundamental teaching of the Christianity I grew up in was that all that was bad about you was internal and really you, while anything good you ever did was of god acting through you, therefore external to your nature and who you are. If that isn't a recipe for disastrous self esteem and depression I'm not sure what is.
I have been mulling this over. When my husband and I joined a church here in our very small town…912 people, we noticed fairly quickly that there were quite a few very depressed congregants. Getting down on their knees on any given Sunday and snot crying was a common occurrence and there could one or more active participants. This was new to us but since our pastor encouraged us to pray for them that god would heal them that is what we did. Over and over and over for years to no avail. One of the ladies who was a great loud crier informed me that I would need to break in that way and cry if I ever wanted to get close to god. I told her I didn’t want to cry…that I wanted to be joy filled. I was instructed that without the tears there could be no connection with god. She was one of the pillars of that church. Bible study leader…totally immersed. That was the start of my secret stepping away from the religion of church. I kept attending even knowing that I was a condemned sinner with no chance of making it to the “kingdom”. Not too many years later I had completely given up on ever being a Christian and just settled for being a secret heathen