Mormonism fosters Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You know, the whole thing with "be ye therefore perfect...," and there you have the Perfect Storm whereby OCD is born.

Which helps explain why such a high rate of depression among Mormons, and eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. It's the difference between being driven to be perfect and falling short that the malady becomes ingrained to do more, be more, have more, and so on. While never measuring up no matter how hard one tries.

As ghawd is my witness, mormonism caused my addiction to masturbation. Probably my addiction to golf, too, but they didn't mind that one, as long as I didn't play on Sundays.

I guess I got off easy...



ETA: as ghawd is my witness, that last phrase was not meant to be masturbation-related!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2016 02:55PM by elderolddog.

My stepdad, OCD to the max, cited as one of his reasons for converting to mormonism "It's so orderly and well-defined."

Yeah. And nuts.

That's exactly what I was talking about.

Thanks for sharing. :)

Morons are addicted to Mormonism/ fiction/ fairy tails... beating themselves up, suffering, being lost... false promises, misjudgments, misalignments... broken promises, envy, lust, greed, guesswork/ 'faith'...

Mormonism is cause, not cure of OCD....

Not true. no where does it mention Mormonism or even religions.





What Causes OCD?
While, we still do not know the exact cause or causes of OCD, research suggests that differences in the brain and genes of those affected may play a role.

Is OCD a Brain Disorder?
Research suggests that OCD involves problems in communication between the front part of the brain and deeper structures of the brain. These brain structures use a neurotransmitter (basically, a chemical messenger) called serotonin. Pictures of the brain at work also show that, in some people, the brain circuits involved in OCD become more normal with either medications that affect serotonin levels (serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SRIs) or cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

Is OCD Inherited?
Research shows that OCD does run in families, and that genes likely play a role in the development of the disorder. Genes appear to be only partly responsible for causing the disorder, though. No one really knows what other factors might be involved, perhaps an illness or even ordinary life stresses that may induce the activity of genes associated with the symptoms of OCD.

Some experts think that OCD that begins in childhood may be different from the OCD that begins in adults. For example, a recent review of twin studies [1] has shown that genes play a larger role when OCD starts in childhood (45-65%) compared to when it starts in adulthood (27-47%).


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[1] March J. & Benton C. (2007). Talking Back to OCD (pp.10-11). The Guilford Press. ↩
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2016 08:06PM by saucie.

I'm OCD and I like it.

I'm guessing that Mormonism attracts and has always attracted those with a genetic predisposition for addiction, where religion becomes the addiction itself.

Good point! I wonder that too. Alcoholism runs in the Mormon side of my family.. Not a coincidence, I think.

Some of the most OCD personalities I've met in my time were met at church.

Church was my frame of reference growing up. Maybe the real world is no better off, dysfunction wise. But the reality check is better!

I agree wholeheartedly with your topic sentence. While I am not sure about the OCD connection, I can tell you from my own experience that Mormonism propelled me into a hell of addiction and made getting out of it 100 times more difficult than it would have been if I weren't a Mormon.

Why?

The answer is extremely simple: dishonesty. A very special form of LDS dishonesty: inauthenticity.

The Mormon church teaches you to put on a happy face, to say things that you do not believe, to go along to get along from a very young age.

Their 12-step group simply affirms the same unhealthy tendencies.

I learned to suppress and lie about what I really thought and what was really going on with me and countless interviews, sacrament talks, mission experiences, and many more socialization techniques of the church that reinforce addictive behavior.

Then they sell you fictional cures, like praying and fasting as if those are the way to get over addiction.

They tell your family that you are addicted because you are not drawing close enough to Jesus and allowing the atonement to work in your heart. They moralize instead of medicalize, with disastrous results such as increasing the shame that all addicts already feel and that causes them to sink deeper into their addiction.

Far from Mormonism being a cure for addiction, I see it as a huge cause of it, and I believe that statistics on rates of addiction in Utah would back me up. Sometime I would like to write a book about this huge problem in the Mormon church.

Amen. Please write the book.

There are good data that people in conservative religions fare better in resisting and/or overcoming addictions; I'm sure quite a few on this board will vociferously disagree. So be it.

We've had an excellent post above which touched on the vagaries of OCD from both environmental and hereditary approaches.Then there's the issue of whether addictions are environmental or hereditary. I'm agnostic on this, and will point out that every generation or so the scientific community tilts one way, then the other.

Hereditary causation is currently en vogue.

I was an atheistic when I got sober. Four years later, I was a born-again Christian with an extremely heavy smoking habit (2-3 packs of Camel "straights" a day). I had tried all sorts of things to quit (except for Christian Science and hypnosis). I went on a young adult retreat, and stayed off it for the first two days, barely. On the third, during Communion, we could state prayer requests, and I asked for prayer for my smoking habit. I have not had a butt since, and only rarely do I find them tempting.

That's 34 years ago.

I state this to point out that, based on anecdotal testimony, both atheism and Christian prayer were operative in one person's recovery. As I said, generalizations on both the causes and treatments for addictions (I'll risk including a lot of mental health issues as well) are fraught with problems.

Okay, I wasn't an atheist when I sobered up (I've got a bit of time on you, but who's counting? :-); I was crazier than that, seriously (and my first psych eval after I sobered up came back "psychotic or pre-psychotic"). I also smoked Marlboros, but I was an atheist roughly from the time I was old enough to have an opinion until my early 20's. Close enough, I think..

I agree with your statement about "generalizing about addictions" in that there still needs to be considerably more research and dialogue on the subject. For all our "vaunted progress" in areas of mental health, we're still barely past the Stone Age or "understanding and using fire" (speaking metaphorically, of course).

I spent an hour last week with an old mentor, one of the country's leading luminaries on the subject (and I've discussed the subject with others as well). I brought him some information on "addictions and trauma" which is a subject Christopher Kennedy Lawford has been discussing in the media of late. One element that is part of addiction is "toxic shame," which was identified by the late John Bradshaw as being at the core of addictive behaviors.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1815126,1815126#msg-1815126

Addressing those "shame-based wounds"--which fuel addiction and are largely "concealed" below the level of conscious awareness--is particularly problematic. And yes, the LDS Church is a particularly horrid purveyor of shame; they have no monopoly on the practice, of course.

My advice to anyone seeking to "purge themselves" of this toxic stuff is to go slow; work through the "adolescent stuff" first (per "Transactional Analysis") and then be prepared for some really tough going. That may or may not be necessary for recovery; in therapy we use the term "parsimonious" to identify a hierarchy of approaches from "least invasive" to much more intrusive, and that is up to an individual and their relationship with their counselor.

Last bit of advice: Beware the gurus and the salesmen--of both sexes--and "instant experts." The field of addiction therapy is overrun by both, and codependency--the "flip side of addiction" that involves "pathological control"--thrives on denial itself.

Anyway, at the risk of offending Amyjo, I'll point out this thread is "definitely an example of codependent control," but she may have trouble a) perceiving this reality (see Johari Window) and b) difficulty letting go because the "pay-offs" are so powerful.

'Nuff... Best to keep it simple, honest.

SL Cabbie Wrote:

> Addressing those "shame-based wounds"--which fuel
> addiction and are largely "concealed" below the
> level of conscious awareness--is particularly
> problematic.
>
> My advice to anyone seeking to "purge themselves"
> of this toxic stuff is to go slow; work through
> the "adolescent stuff" first (per "Transactional
> Analysis") and then be prepared for some really
> tough going. That may or may not be necessary for
> recovery; in therapy we use the term
> "parsimonious" to identify a hierarchy of
> approaches from "least invasive" to much more
> intrusive, and that is up to an individual and
> their relationship with their counselor.


This is great advice. We need to deal with our childhood and adolescent wounds before we can move on. Erikson's stages of life theory explains how we can keep re-visiting stages throughout our lives, but it becomes pathological when we don't resolve and mitigate the issues from the earlier stages, so we get stuck in an endless loop of shame, mistrust, confusion, isolation... and so on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2016 09:54AM by Itzpapalotl.