What led me to God

[Finella]

Oooh, as a former mental health professional I have to disagree, there are bad practitioners everywhere. However the willingness to seek treatment is a societal phenomena which the mental health system very actively tries to change. Please don't tell me that I spent twelve years of my working life making it harder for people to get treatment. Please do a search on Fred Friese at Case Western University to see where the mental health system gets it's perspective, then there is Dr. Fischer, and then the whole Boston U. recovery/PSR movement.

Families and culture lead to more stigma than the mental health system.

In my experience most people ignore the prodomal period when they talk about schizophrenia, there is usually this long time period where the symptoms are sub-critical. As for why some poeple get well and others don't, there are over three hundred chemicals our brain uses, so there are most likely three hundred schizophrenias.

Sorry I will now get off the soap box.
Sorry to hijack the thread.

Peace
dancing david

No, I will apologize-- my week at my work has been difficult, and I was perhaps being overly negative about my experiences trying to help people.

There are phenomenal caregivers out there. I know my department contains a bunch of them. The problem is in the overall stucture ove the system, where the combination of the nature of mental illness with the inadequacies of the system makes it very difficult for clients to feel cared for and supported. So yes, I agree, that culture and families (or lack of them) play a huge, huge role in this. However, all it takes is one bad experience with a psychiatrist to put you off seeking help in the future. It's true with any service out there -- you remember the bad stuff more easily than the good stuff.

I will look up your references.... after I stop procrastinating on my presentation. I know, however, that it is really difficult to make positive changes in established, old-school systems, and even more difficult when the state cuts your budget by $7.2 million (as they have to my facility this year). I hate to say it... but is the solution for mental health care in the community, in private hands? Ugh... my democrat genes are cringing...

---,---'--{@

 

[BillyJoe]

originally posted by Ruby
I am not ready to call the voice of God just another part of me. I need other things clarified or put to rest before I can drop my belief in God. Frankly, that seems terrifying in itself. How does one cope without a belief in God?

originally posted by dwb
Losing faith that God exists isn't really terrifying. It's a lot like letting go of that teddy bear you loved as a child. Even though the bear is old and worn, and totally irrelevant in your day-to-day life, you still feel better holding on to it.

I have a vivid memory form childhood. I had one of those bears, tattered and worn with stuffing pouring out and one eye hanging by a thread. We were burning off in the back yard and I was holding on to my teddy bear as was my custom. Dad looked at me and at the teddy bear and said "Why don't you throw it in the fire". Almost without hesitation I tossed it in and watched it burn to ashes. I didn't feel happy. I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel relieved. I just stood there and watched it burn. I guess I was through with it and hadn't realized it till then.

Still, I wonder why, of all the things that must have happened to me in those years, I especially remember that incident.


Ruby,
I am happy to have read your story. You seem a nice, friendly, mostly straight up and down sort of person with some problems which you are managing the best you can. If it means holding onto that teddy bear a little while yet, then so be it. For me there are more terrifying things than that God doesn't exist - for example that he does and that He is goning to make me live forever - but that's another story. I wish you well with finding solutions to your problems and I especially hope you find relief from your social phobia - that's a real bummer.

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[Ruby]

Thank you!!!

 

[Guest]

Dear Ruby,

I read your original post earlier, and wanted to comment on it, but never got around to it in any detail. I read it over again today during lunch, and wanted to post my thoughts.

It sounds like you have a lot of investigative spirit and curiousity, both very good traits! I enjoy exploring a variety of things, similar to things you have explored (church, occult, and so on). The idea is to explore them tentatively, and keep things more at the 'data collection' stage rather than at the 'conclusion' stage. Because we are normal humans, actually doing that is difficult to do, and takes practice.

Also, as you have learned, getting all the information you can from a variety of sources (pro and con and lots of both) is the way to proceed. Ask people, professionals, read books, watch videos, read journal articles, and do internet searches to get a dizzy-ing amount of information. (just don't do it all in one sitting! )

If, in your course of inquiry, something 'works' for you, then by all means, explore it more. We naturally have desires to explore more the things that interest us the most. I think it is very possible to explore without being dogmatically attached to the thing being explored.

Someone can study god and endorse the idea of god without being dogmatically attached, and I think that is a tremendous accomplishment.

When I read your thoughts about how you were closely examining the Ouijia board and concept of god, I thought "There is an intelligent, brave person. A scientist." You may have examined those things later, and ideally you would have liked to examined them sooner, but actually examining them is the main thing. I believe that it is the process of thinking things through that counts, not necessarily the end-point.

I find that just the act of writing down and telling someone else one of my problems (and there are enough of mine to go for days and days) every-so-often helps a lot.

Practice makes almost-perfect,
Sincerely,

S. Holmes

 

[Ruby]

Re: Re: What led me to God

Dear Ruby,

I read your original post earlier, and wanted to comment on it, but never got around to it in any detail. I read it over again today during lunch, and wanted to post my thoughts.

It sounds like you have a lot of investigative spirit and curiousity, both very good traits! I enjoy exploring a variety of things, similar to things you have explored (church, occult, and so on). The idea is to explore them tentatively, and keep things more at the 'data collection' stage rather than at the 'conclusion' stage. Because we are normal humans, actually doing that is difficult to do, and takes practice.

Also, as you have learned, getting all the information you can from a variety of sources (pro and con and lots of both) is the way to proceed. Ask people, professionals, read books, watch videos, read journal articles, and do internet searches to get a dizzy-ing amount of information. (just don't do it all in one sitting! )

If, in your course of inquiry, something 'works' for you, then by all means, explore it more. We naturally have desires to explore more the things that interest us the most. I think it is very possible to explore without being dogmatically attached to the thing being explored.

Someone can study god and endorse the idea of god without being dogmatically attached, and I think that is a tremendous accomplishment.

When I read your thoughts about how you were closely examining the Ouijia board and concept of god, I thought "There is an intelligent, brave person. A scientist." You may have examined those things later, and ideally you would have liked to examined them sooner, but actually examining them is the main thing. I believe that it is the process of thinking things through that counts, not necessarily the end-point.

I find that just the act of writing down and telling someone else one of my problems (and there are enough of mine to go for days and days) every-so-often helps a lot.

Practice makes almost-perfect,
Sincerely,

S. Holmes

Thank you so much for your kind post. I sometimes drive my hubby crazy due to my skepticism, but it is also something that he loves about me...if that makes sense!

I have to study something through. I can't accept just anything. I did used to believe that it was demons who were speaking to me, and that an ouija board was governed by demons. I had doubts, but buried it as I could not entertain any other possibilty for awhile. Besides, all the Christians around me, at the time, were saying it was demons who were messing with me.

You can't imagine how terrifying that concept was. It kept me bound up in so much fear.

In time, after I left the legalistic church I was in, and as I became unafraid to look at what happened to me, and evaluate it, I began to see things that did not add up, and that showed me that there was something more going on. I began looking it up online. When I read about ideomoter, I knew right away that it explained almost perfectly what I had experienced.

It would be a blow to some of my old Christian friends to hear my revelations on this. They would argue against it. Thankfully, my hubby agrees with my conclusions on the matter.

(edited to add omitted words and ridculous spelling errors....actually, typing errors)

 

[Julia]

Ruby,
I have been giving your original post a lot of thought. One
thing that really strikes me is how fluid your life has been these
past few years. You have been through a great deal, and seem to have never really stopped questioning, changing, and evaluating. To me, that says a good deal about your strength of character. Your strength overall.

You seem the type who will continue to question and change.
There is not a better way to learn, or a better way to grow. I
also admire your courage to face a group like this and to say
plainly; this is who I am.

Your experience with the ouija board was interesting. You even
managed to use it as a tool for insight. I know that it always just
seemed silly to me. It was something I discounted and tossed aside. But you seem to take things, rip the wrapping off, and jump into everything for a better look. I'll bet you are like that with many things that come your way.

So, good luck Ruby. You are treating your life like the journey it is. I hope you have great success along the way.

 

[Ruby]

Ruby,
I have been giving your original post a lot of thought. One
thing that really strikes me is how fluid your life has been these
past few years. You have been through a great deal, and seem to have never really stopped questioning, changing, and evaluating. To me, that says a good deal about your strength of character. Your strength overall.

You seem the type who will continue to question and change.
There is not a better way to learn, or a better way to grow. I
also admire your courage to face a group like this and to say
plainly; this is who I am.

Your experience with the ouija board was interesting. You even
managed to use it as a tool for insight. I know that it always just
seemed silly to me. It was something I discounted and tossed aside. But you seem to take things, rip the wrapping off, and jump into everything for a better look. I'll bet you are like that with many things that come your way.

So, good luck Ruby. You are treating your life like the journey it is. I hope you have great success along the way.

Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I think I will question things for the rest of my life. I don't know if I'll get all the answers, but I'll try! It's very therapeutic posting here. I am also getting some possible answers to my inner questions here. I feel very challenged here too.

I don't honestly have a lot of close friends in real life. All of my friends are Christian and I cannot even talk to most of them about the way I see things. That causes me to withdraw from them a bit. I am also not comfortable anymore in certain church related events. That also keeps me from making close friends. My hubby is sort of same way...although for him, it has a lot to do with fact that he is very intelligent...far far above me in that respect.....and some men at our church...well quite a few really, don't click with my hubby very well.

The Pastor and one other man in church are the only ones who are intelligent and secure enough to interact with my hubby on more than a casual friendship basis. My hubby is friendly to everyone, and women love him, but a lot of men seem to clam up and look uptight around him. In conversations, they get stymied by what he says and stammer out responses. Still, my hubby has a lot of good friends at work.

I am a homemaker. I love being home to raise my kiddoes. It does not help the friends situation, but most of the time, I don't miss it. I am very shy too.....so that does not help me.

I'm yammering on here....sorry!

 

[BillyJoe]

Ruby, I think I'm falling in love with you

[I mean that in a nice way. ]

 

[SFB]

Ruby:

Your candor here has a charming quality that is hard to resist! I, like other posters, wish you the best of luck.

 

[LCBOY]

Ruby, I think I'm falling in love with you

[I mean that in a nice way. ]

Hey! I fell in love with you first!!

 

[Ruby]

Ruby, I think I'm falling in love with you

[I mean that in a nice way. ]

Awwww....Thank you!!

 

[Ruby]

Ruby:

Your candor here has a charming quality that is hard to resist! I, like other posters, wish you the best of luck.

Thank you so much. I am so touched. Sometimes, I feel like such an oddball. It's not always easy. Being a skeptic makes me a sore spot for many Christians, and for some atheists. One group thinks I'm too liberal and headed down a wrong path, another thinks I'm not rational enough..or even a downright idiot due to clinging to my belief in God. Still, on the whole, I am finding a lot of people here who accept me despite my beliefs.

 

[Ruby]

Hey! I fell in love with you first!!

You are a dear!!

Where have been lately?

 

[SFB]

Thank you so much. I am so touched. Sometimes, I feel like such an oddball. It's not always easy. Being a skeptic makes me a sore spot for many Christians, and for some atheists. One group thinks I'm too liberal and headed down a wrong path, another thinks I'm not rational enough..or even a downright idiot due to clinging to my belief in God. Still, on the whole, I am finding a lot of people here who accept me despite my beliefs.

I may be going out on a limb here (or maybe not, I haven't read all of your posts or posts about you), but I think perhaps the appeal you have here is from your deep-rooted honesty and desire for truth. You share these with skeptics, despite your wavering (?) beliefs. I'd call you at least a bit skeptic about religion.

Also, I understand your loneliness, as I don't have too many people to talk to about religion and atheism, being an atheist, but I don't need too many people. This forum convinced me of long-held doubts, but I never had much of a conviction in religion. You have been through some truly difficult experiences. If anything, your experiences reveal the power of culture and family/peer pressure to form ways of looking at the world. You are willing to go beyond that, and that takes an enormous amount of courage and honesty, given your expressed experiences. This has probably been expressed by others.

 

[Ruby]

I may be going out on a limb here (or maybe not, I haven't read all of your posts or posts about you), but I think perhaps the appeal you have here is from your deep-rooted honesty and desire for truth. You share these with skeptics, despite your wavering (?) beliefs. I'd call you at least a bit skeptic about religion.

Yes, and my skepticism keeps growing.

Also, I understand your loneliness, as I don't have too many people to talk to about religion and atheism, being an atheist, but I don't need too many people. This forum convinced me of long-held doubts, but I never had much of a conviction in religion. You have been through some truly difficult experiences. If anything, your experiences reveal the power of culture and family/peer pressure to form ways of looking at the world. You are willing to go beyond that, and that takes an enormous amount of courage and honesty, given your expressed experiences. This has probably been expressed by others.

Thank you so much. I live in the bible belt, so almost everyone is a Christian. If some of my friends knew I had doubts and questions about my faith...and some anger concerning it, they would be worried and not understand. That's why I don't open up to them. I don't want to hear "well, I'll pray for you". I am sort of at a place where I don't believe in prayer. It seems pretty pointless to me. I can't tell you how free it's make me feel to admit that........I can't say that to anyone, except my hubby, and it worries him...although he understands.

Still, I do cling to a belief in God and Jesus. Does not make sense to beleive in them and yet not pray to them!!

 

[Hazelip]

Ruby, you're a delusional psychotic. Welcome to my ever-increasing ignore list.

My only regret is that I'll never see your answer as to why your avatar lacks a nose and looks like a man in drag...

Ta-ta.

 

[Hazelip]

As Yahzi and others have asserted, it may be possible that what you felt was the voice of God could have been borne of the same perception of your Mara and Max. As a Christian, I don't think it's necessarily so -- although it is clear to me that Mara and Max were definitely hallucinations and not demons or spirits.

Why?