LDS Support Groups

[_Sam Harris]

With regards to healing, I think that one thing society needs to focus on is dropping the stigmas that come with emotional/mental/psychological struggles.

My new BF is dyslexic, and he has struggled. Nowadays when a child is diagnosed, a plan is let in place. But 20 years ago? So now I am faced with a brilliant man who thinks he's stupid. And I just pray that God will bless me with the right information to at least put a bug in their ear.

Gaz, depression is real. It's not about weakness, ok? For twenty years of my life I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning, but I did. For ten years, I wanted to die, but I spent that ten years fighting the urge to overdose or slit my wrists. I prayed, I cried, I asked God what the hell was going on. And in His time, He answered. And you know what?

I'd do it all again. Because I like the strong woman I survived to become.

I think your pitiful diagnosis of people who struggle with issues within themselves and their families is cruel and heartless. And I personally think there is a special hell for folks like you, people who think they're God's annointed, yet who cannot perform the simplest task of a Christian...act with compassion. Goodness.

[_wenglund]

With regards to healing, I think that one thing society needs to focus on is dropping the stigmas that come with emotional/mental/psychological struggles.

My new BF is dyslexic, and he has struggled. Nowadays when a child is diagnosed, a plan is let in place. But 20 years ago? So now I am faced with a brilliant man who thinks he's stupid. And I just pray that God will bless me with the right information to at least put a bug in their ear.

Gaz, depression is real. It's not about weakness, ok? For twenty years of my life I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning, but I did. For ten years, I wanted to die, but I spent that ten years fighting the urge to overdose or slit my wrists. I prayed, I cried, I asked God what the hell was going on. And in His time, He answered. And you know what?

I'd do it all again. Because I like the strong woman I survived to become.

I think your pitiful diagnosis of people who struggle with issues within themselves and their families is cruel and heartless. And I personally think there is a special hell for folks like you, people who think they're God's annointed, yet who cannot perform the simplest task of a Christian...act with compassion. Goodness.

I have found in my own life that it doesn't work very well to unempathetically and uncompassionately demand empathy and compassion from others. I may feel the brief and somewhat artificial exileration of supposed righteous indignation, but in the end I tend to compromise myself as well as squander an opportunity to educate and uplift, if not also come across as hypocritical.

Gaz's exposure to support groups may have been quite unfavorable (not a few of the T-groups during the 60's and 70's were abbismal failures and even left there participants far worse off than when they started), and his thinking that people should pick themselves up by their bootstraps and move on with life (the Book of Mormon speaks of "rising up from the dust and being a man"), is not without its merits, as your own life atests.

However, the best way I can think of to perhaps change his perception and mind, is not to condemn him, but demonstrate that certain kinds of discussion/support groups can be of great help and personal benefit.

In fact, given his devotion and commitment to the Church, there are correlaries within his own faith that may help him to see the advantages of addressing personal issues as a group--not the least of which are Wards and Stakes with their priesthood, Relief Society, and Sunday School meetings, and their Home Teaching visits, etc. (which to me are very much discussion/support groups designed to uplift individuals in a variety of ways and on a number of levels).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Mister Scratch]

In fact, given his devotion and commitment to the Church, there are correlaries within his own faith that may help him to see the advantages of addressing personal issues as a group--not the least of which are Wards and Stakes with their priesthood, Relief Society, and Sunday School meetings, and their Home Teaching visits, etc. (which to me are very much discussion/support groups designed to uplift individuals in a variety of ways and on a number of levels).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

On the other hand, don't you worry, Wade, that it might become a sort of witch hunt, or an excuse for punishment?

[_moksha]

Is there anyone here who is interested in real and healthy healing (not to be confused with gripe sessions and pity-parties), and who would like to participate in an online support/discussion group designed specifically with that end in mind?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I suspect if you build it, they will come.

[_wenglund]

In fact, given his devotion and commitment to the Church, there are correlaries within his own faith that may help him to see the advantages of addressing personal issues as a group--not the least of which are Wards and Stakes with their priesthood, Relief Society, and Sunday School meetings, and their Home Teaching visits, etc. (which to me are very much discussion/support groups designed to uplift individuals in a variety of ways and on a number of levels).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

On the other hand, don't you worry, Wade, that it might become a sort of witch hunt, or an excuse for punishment?

No...not at all. In fact, I would think it would lend itself to just the opposite--leaders seeing it as a welcomed relief.

If there is anything I am cautious about, is the potential for things to turn into a whine/accusation fests and petty bickering. But, I think those tendancies can be effective limited if things are set up right.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Gazelam]

I think its a sad state of affairs that the phrase "Suck it up and quit your whineing" has become nearly obsolete in this post Oprah generation.

What ever happened to men like Patton, who could slap a pansy upside the head and tell them to get back to the front?

What the hell has any american got to be depressed about? What, they can't pay their cable bill and their gonna miss out on the new Lifetime movie? Their car isn't fancy enough?

Oh no, let me guess, they never felt that their Father loved them enough.

Damn, I need a swig of Pepto.

[_Bond...James Bond]

I think its a sad state of affairs that the phrase "Suck it up and quit your whineing" has become nearly obsolete in this post Oprah generation.

What ever happened to men like Patton, who could slap a pansy upside the head and tell them to get back to the front?

What the hell has any american got to be depressed about? What, they can't pay their cable bill and their gonna miss out on the new Lifetime movie? Their car isn't fancy enough?

Oh no, let me guess, they never felt that their Father loved them enough.

Damn, I need a swig of Pepto.

You're an insensitive jerk.

Edit: Actually..I don't have anything to add. You're an insensitive jerk.

Edit part 2: Actually I do have something to add. You're view of what Americans would be depressed about is incredibly shallow. Cable and fancy cars may be seen as important things to you, but some people actually have emotions and feelings (you know those things Oprah keeps talking about).

Perhaps you'd like to put on an army helmet and walk into a battered women's clinic and start slapping a few people around. If you don't have the stones to back up your words and do what you think or say that makes you a hypocrite. It's not weak to give a crap about how people are doing or how they're feeling, and it's not weakness to show some damn emotion and admit you have problems. It's human. Apparently you don't qualify.

[_Gazelam]

Your good enough, your smart enough, and gosh darnit..people like you.

Feel better?

[_truth dancer]

Hi Gaz...

To be honest, I'm amazed at your response to this post.

I wish you could spend a day with me and see the sorts of pain people experience.... Have you volunteered at an abuse shelter? An inner city school? What about a soup kitchen? Ever spend time in a hospital ward where children are dying of cancer? You know... the real world?

I'm not sure if you just are unaware of the sorrows many face or if you are in such denial because you don't want to face it.

Regardless.... (I'm writing this as delicately as I can), I think the lack or care and compassion you seem to display is about as cruel as anything I have heard.

How does a child who has been sexually abused for ten years just get over it? How does a mother with five children who is being beaten on a daily basis just get over it? How does a man struggling with sexual addictions just get over it? How about the parents who are watching their child die? Or the mother of a child with mental health issues? What about the father who became paralyzed and can't support his family? Or the wife whose husband just left her with six kids under the age of eight?

You really think just prayer and a few slaps on the head are the answer?

I'm not sure what world you live in, seems like some sort of pretend world where sorrow doesn't exist. The real world is hurting... not because they don't have fancy cars (what in the world is this about anyway). In the real world people struggle, and have challenges, and are lonely, and are starving, and don't have homes, and watch their children starve to death, and use little girls for sex, and kidnap little boys, and have their children die in wars, and on and on.

Do you recall the scripture... in as much as you would do this unto the least of these thy brethren ye have done it unto me?

Do you recall Jesus ever telling anyone to "just get over it"... do you think you reflect the teachings of Jesus as one who cares for the sick and needy? Do you think President Hinckley, when faced with the suffering, just tells them to get over it?

I truly find your responses unbelievable... how do you reconcile your attitude with the teachings of Jesus?

I really don't understand.

~dancer~

[_moksha]

Support groups for members who can't pray and get their act together. Do they all huddle up and watch Oprah and Dr. Phil together and massage each others shoulders and pass around a box of tissues?

The only support those people need is the same kind Steve Martin got from Michael Caine when he couldn't walk in the Movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Fortunately, at a local level it has been my finding that members are basically supportive and understanding of one another. Unfortunately, you do find this type of thinking that Gaz is proposing in the Church and elsewhere. I assume that as long as folks who subscribe to this view are not in the Human Services sector, they cannot do much harm with this point of view and we can all live together.