Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
On the FB page:
From a saint, “My first husband who I met in the church had schizophrenia but we never dated before getting married so I didn’t realize how mentally ill he was. It got so severe he went to the elders and was told “no psychiatrists, no meds. You just need to pray-read more.” He got worse and worse, became totally disabled, couldn’t work and lay for hours in a fetal position. After 20 years of marriage I told him I was done. Sadly he was shunned for years by lots of “saints” because he didn’t measure up.”
This right here is why I am speaking up about receiving mental health help. I have received message after message from saints both still in and those who have left who were afraid to go to a psychologist or psychiatrist due to things told to them in the church life. If LSM no longer endorses this view from Brother Lee they need to issue a public retraction of his statements that are used against the saints.
Here’s a direct quote from Brother Lee regarding not receiving mental health help. I also find this statement to be sexist:
“Most young women are sick either emotionally or mentally. No psychiatrist can help them. However, if you live the church life, the very Christ whom you offer to God will heal you. He is better than any psychiatrist. Do not go to a psychiatrist—come to Christ and offer Him to God. Then you will be healthy, sober, and emotionally balanced.” (Witness Lee, Life Study of Genesis, Volume 2, Message 32, Anaheim, CA, 1975, page 431).
One aspect of high control groups is programming their members to fear receiving mental health help:
http://bit.ly/ProgrammedtoFearMentalHealthHelp
Any other experiences both positive or negative regarding receiving mental health help in the church life? I realize many of you cannot comment due to needing to protect yourself and your families. I received permission to anonymously post this story about a saint with schizophrenia.
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I came into the LC all happy, because all my problems were over. I was in the church life, on the local ground, calling "Oh Lord Jeeezuss!!" with all the saints. What could be finer?
Eventually my problems came back. I went to the elders, one by one. And one by one they blew me off. Years later, post-LC, I went and got professional help.
That's probably one reason that they told us they wanted "good building material" - stable Caucasian college students from stable homes. Good earners, with no problems. Because the LC is not very interested in your problems. It exposes their inability to actually transform human lives. |
We've all read the accounts in scripture of Christ casting legions of demons out of people making them of sound mind again. It's indisputable. If he can do that with demon possessed people, what type of challenge does any kind of mental illness present for the finger of God?
It's heartbreaking that these individuals weren't given the proper attention and care that they needed in the LC's but the issue wasn't in saying that only Christ can truly heal mental illness, the root of the issue within the LC's is the dispensing of the wrong Jesus and the wrong spirits and only masking certain issues with mind emptying techniques. And these techniques, rather than confronting personal issues head-on, help one run away from their issues for a short time.
So instead of leadership taking blame for these shortcomings, the blame is passed onto the unwell individual for having a lack of faith. And pride prevents them from further recommending help outside of the church group. As a temporary fix to avoid outside help, the Nee and Lee implemented psychological methods done through certain mystical practices such as pray-reading and other mantra type exercises that pierce the psychic realm but can only, at best, temporarily subdue mental unease. And then these experiences are past off as being of God's Holy Spirit.
In a sense this is really no different then psychiatric help. These types of things have nothing to do with the spirit of Jesus Christ whom doesn't merely patch up our broken minds or help us avoid our minds altogether but he gives us a new mind, the mind of Christ (Ephesians 4:23) .
LC doctrine also substitutes a personal and individual relationship with Jesus Christ with a corporate "Christ" which is termed as "church-life". This in reality is just a synonym for a type of pseudo communal mentality acheived through a collective submission to church authority where one has to lay down their individuality for the greater good of the group and sold as the only way to have a relationship with Christ. I suppose the thought here is that if you "get out of your mind" by blindly submitting to "the vision" you will no longer have to deal with the problems of the mind. But what this does in reality is cause dissociation in the individual.
With that said, I understand the importance and place of psychiatry in today's society. I would never tell someone to avoid this type of help. I'd be a hypocrite if I did so. I know it's a crutch that can help people in desperate situations maintain or regain stability but to go to the extreme of viewing psychiatry and God as different but equal help isn't the correct stance to take either.