The Glade 4.0

I got mad agreement for this post, yo.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Note that the info graphic also validates my position that so many of you were crapping on, namely that a significant percentage of people believe serious mental illnesses are not real diseases that you can beat alone if you just want to badly enough.

No, it actually doesn't, since those same people believe every other kind of illness can also be dealt with exclusively through prayer.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

"With Bible study and prayer alone, PEOPLE with serious blah blah blah CAN overcome blah blah blah."

I'm quite comfortable saying that there are people out there that can pull this off. There are people who can do pretty much anything. That doesn't mean I think it's a recommended strategy.

Knowing the intent of the poll, I probably would have answered "disagree". But if you asked me the same question in passing, I'd probably answer that it was possible.

And I am in no way a fundamentalist or evangelical.

I don't think that's the case. Some mental illnesses are treated with therapy and such. This CAN be done solo if you are capable of such things, same way physical rehabilitation can be done solo. Again, it's not recommended but it can be done.

Of course, this would not extend to every mental illness. My wife, for example, is obsessive compulsive, and I have seen first hand how that can go without treatment.

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatme ... ebo-effect


Never doubt that belief - by itself - can change things. Google "placebo cancer Mr Wright"

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In time, this too shall pass.

Especially if we're talking about healing the mind. That said, it could also simply delude you into thinking you are not ill, which could actually make things worse.

Like I said, this would not be my recommendation, but I wouldn't be surprised if it worked for some people.

You're misunderstanding. Those sorts of people believe that illness can be treated exclusively without prayer, not that one necessarily should do so. What the vast majority of evangelicals would tell you is that prayer alone backed with sincere faith can treat pretty much anything, should God so choose. However, like Rori, most of them would also tell you that God gave us medicine and mental health sciences for a reason, and so there's no reason to "put the Lord to the test" by ignoring those gifts just to use prayer for the sake of using prayer.

There's a huge difference between "Prayer can work by itself" and "You should use prayer and prayer only".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Meh, prayer is just another form of meditation. And there are all sorts of non-religious people out there who feel that meditation is enough to work wonders on all sorts of things. And neither group is entirely wrong. There are some merits to the healing power of the mind, but obviously it's limited. Wishing for your severed arm back isn't going to do much.

In my youth I was professionally diagnosed with Major Depression. The traditional methods of treatment were forced on me, but they didn't really do much. It wasn't until I voluntarily spent some time in a mental hospital that I had my breakthrough. It wasn't because of therapy or anything like that. It was just the realization that if I wanted to get better, I had to do it on my own.

I don't know if anyone here has ever experienced regimented incarceration for a length of time. It's like nothing you can fathom. I was in there for only 7 days, but it was the longest length of time I've ever experienced. It felt like at least a year. I came in voluntarily, but I couldn't leave voluntarily. And I wanted out, and I lied to do it (especially after hearing insurance had granted an extra 14 days).

Sure, I had a mental illness. But I saw others who had things way worse than me. Or, at least the same as me but they chose to deal with it in a much worse way. There was a kid who had been in there 1 month (I don't even want to know how long that felt like) and on the day of his release, they gave him a razor to clean up his face for his parents. He came out of the bathroom with bleeding forearms, giggling and smiling.

After I got out of there by completely lying and saying what they were doing was helping, I decided to truly get better the way I knew that would work for me. And it was only through personal reflection and meditation that I could do that. It wasn't prayer, but I'm no stranger to prayer. Again, the two things are not dissimilar. So can prayer have the power to heal a mental illness?

In my own, personal, firsthand experience: yes (and I'd add the caveat that it may depend on the illness as well). But it wasn't overnight. It was several years of personal work.

The better question would be "Is there a magical superbeing that can heal a mental illness?" But then, that's just picking on a certain group of people. I'm of the belief that if a person is superstitious *at all*, that if a person believes they actually are in control of their fate and destiny, that if a person believes when they perform certain actions or change their behaviour slightly it can affect the outcome of completely random events (like dicerolls, televised sporting event outcomes, etc.); then those people are in the same pot and kettle boat as the religious types.

A lot of people hate the idea that life is just a big random chaotic mess. And a lot of people have their own way of sorting it out. I don't see why some people feel the need to generalize others and rag on them for their beliefs. Let them think what they want to think. It doesn't make them inferior to you in any way. If you feel that they are inferior to you somehow, then maybe it's time to do some of your own personal reflecting and get over yourself.

Sure, some people may have differing opinions and some folks go a bit too far. And it's ok to disagree with these people. But they're still just people, trying to make sense of the chaos like everyone else.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Great post Numbuk. Thanks for sharing your story.