Christianity as the Environmental and Social Factor in Mental Illness

Continuing to process this shift in my life. I am taking a break from all family and friends who are practicing Christians, in that, interacting with them, does not promote well being. I wrote from the heart, and then asked AI to help my simplify the thought. It is a way of having a different perspective look at things.

Beginning with asking Chat to create some terms to define my observations.

AFTER THE STORM: Clarity and Insight

In the whirlwind of "family healing" and the quest for a functional, loving relationship, this past week has been a rollercoaster of self-discovery. Deliberately delving into familial ties for understanding and resources, I soon realized the paramount importance of prioritizing my mental health amid the complexities of daily life.

(It has been a tumultuous week, this process of focusing on “family healing”, and going back into a relationship with family to see if it was possible to be in a functional, healthy, loving relationship. This was a conscious and cognitive choice. It wasnʻt an internal nudge really, now that I reflect on this. The interaction, to a point, brought understanding, and resources that were helpful, but then, the dynamics of living made it clear, that prioritizing my own well-being and mental health was necessary.)

Seeing that to be human is to naturally be imperfect, and flawed.

To be human is to be inherently imperfect. Society tends to label these imperfections, fostering harmful energy both within and towards others. What I truly need is a personal journey rooted in integrity and honesty, aligning with the cosmic beauty that surrounds us. To walk the talk, to be the change, to grow, to evolve, to become kinder and quieter rather than louder and more combative.

(In life, there exists the part of being human that is to have flaws, and ways of being, where we naturally express imperfections, and these things get given harmful and unhelpful labels. The energy within the labels itself is a form of harm directed towards oneself and to others.)

What is really wanted is a process, personally, rooted in integrity and honesty

What I found the body was asking for, was a process, in alignment with the beauty, wonder, and awe of the cosmos, that cultivates self-awareness and the tools in which to grow one's internal garden to cultivate clarity, creativity, intuition, trust in the process itself, connection to nature, critical and analytical thinking, self-compassion, release, radical acceptance as a texture beyond simple forgiveness appropriate for out of the ordinary extreme impressions brought on by extremely damaging life experiences: such as being trafficked as a child.

These textures place one in a flow where life has moments touched by wonder, awe, sacredness, reverence, synchronicity, magic, and creative fire. When incredibly difficult flashbacks, body memories, and difficult emotions arise the support one needs and tools one needs to process, integrate, clear, and cleanse appear.

There are moments of feeling the beautiful interconnection of everything and being a part of everything. Moments of touching on an awareness that the other person is yourself and you are the other individual, and in so doing, the capacity to sit with whatever arises and love whatever presents itself as something that needs more love, as medicine, for yourself, for the world.

Clarity – Christianity as an External Factor that Breeds Mental Illness and Cruelty

After this storm, which has taken the better part of this week to process, as my life mate and I readied for sleep, with chitter chatter about our day, an awareness blossomed, that on my path, the forms of Christianity I was indoctrinated into, was the external, environmental factor, that was what created what I experienced as “mental illness.”

When I use the term “mental” illness I refer to the brain, thought patterns, and belief systems that can lead to ways of being that throw one off balance, create self-hate, and self-harm, create a lack of capacity for critical thinking, and fear-driven paranoia.

It is all there, if you look, at how the religion works. There is magical thinking, delusional thinking, fear that induces anxiety, and fear at the extreme that can foster paranoia and distrust. 

There is fear-wielding domination that results in deception and power loss, a thing called faith that asks one to accept, hook line, and sinker, to use a Western metaphor, something as absolute truth. Teachings that your body tells you, this is not the “truth”, it is making my physical body and mind feel ill and reel out of balance. How my body is feeling is telling me this while those who have drunk the kool-aide are telling me these feelings are caused by external forces, demons, rather than the simple fact, that your body, if you listen, will tell you what is authentic to you. Words lie, people lie, but your body never lies, you can trust its authentic impulses.

Ways of being emerge that donʻt come into alignment with the essence of the teachings themselves. One acts one way, but it is in direct conflict with other teachings, it is out of sync, seriously out of alignment, like a spine and hips and shoulders tweaked by a severe case of scoliosis. 

This to me, is my definition of “insanity”. To believe and act in ways that go against the wisdom of the body, invite you to live in fear rather than love, and ultimately teaches you to value words written by fallible, imperfect humans with their own political motives, over the wisdom of your body, and the authenticity of the biology of your body, and the beautiful gifts and talents that are a part of your birthright.

The Structure Can Benefit the Broken, but it will not bring healing from childhood trauma illness, which is different than mental illness

Mental Illness versus Childhood Trauma Illness

Mental illness, in this context I defined as the external factor, the “mind f-ck” of a system of beliefs and actions that lead to thinking and acting in ways that resonate with honesty, integrity, and the wisdom of one's own body. Trauma illness is the damage done to the body, the spirit, the soul, and the mind by a broad range of repeated abuse, that exists on a spectrum, and levels and degrees of harm. The out-of-the-ordinary abuse will lead to out-of-the-ordinary experiences, and to cope, and survive, the body will naturally react as a survival means. I do not see these as a form of “mental illness”, but as a part of the beautiful design of the body. When past traumas are treated, with professional help, by those trained to help one heal, along with one's own commitment to self-growth and discovery, then these ways of being shift, change, and shed, and one finds oneself in a state of what feels like “wellness” and “wholeness”

The Structure and the Rules rather than a Functional and Effective Process that moves the body towards well-being and wholeness.

The structure of religion, having a set of rules to follow, can provide balance and continuity to a life that is struggling with life challenges, especially if they are adverse childhood experiences buried beneath the bricks and mortar of denial, of the vulnerable being. 

Where there exists vulnerable beings, there also exist those, who somehow receive release by preying on the vulnerable. The system then becomes a hothouse of predator preying on prey with no boundaries resulting in further damage to the prey and further boundary loss. This occurs, no doubt, not only in Christianity, but in other rigid religions as well, is my guess. I have read stories of gurus, or teachers, in other systems and cults, that have resulted in great harm to those who are devotees, or members of these spiritual societies.

The structure of Christianity has teachings about not pointing fingers, judging, in essence, projecting what is going on in your own life onto others. It does not have built into it, taking personal responsibility to self-reflect and understand the root cause of why you are pointing the finger at, and asking your inner world, why, why am I doing this? Then do the inner work to change the dynamic, which will stop you from pointing the finger.

The essence is to love, and pointing fingers and launching harmful labels is not love. But the religion programs you to do exactly this. It is at odds with itself, it sets one up to divide, hate, and conquer rather than love. In the country where I live, where Christianity is the predominant religion, this is exactly what we see as a cultural norm. A culture of harm rather than a culture and lifestyle of well-being. One could even go on to say the economic system as well as the military and government thrives on this.

Harming another is not loving, which is the essence of what the structure asks, to love, to love your neighbor as yourself. A radical thought for its time, which actually holds very relevant to me, I hang on to this nugget of the teaching. 

The structure sets one up to be perpetually cursing and harming another person. A type of mental and word warfare that can cause one to feel “stunned”. It can cause one to feel “crazy” as opposed to crystal clear, it can lead to states of mind-altering fear and terror that lead to paranoia, delusional thinking, and magical thinking.

My lifemate, reminded me, as we discussed these things as we readied for bed, that I had moments, of looking up to the heavens and being in great anguish because we had just made love and I was going to die and go to hell because we did not have a legal piece of paper to prove we were married.

This is mental illness, it is a creation of suffering from a mental construct that is not based on a personal and authentic sense of what rings true. It is a twisted lie that twists the mind and twists the gut.

Teachings to take literally dreams and visions and stories

Christianity even asks you to believe in writings, that, are a blend of what my lifemate would call political commentary about Rome, and what I would describe as what reads like either a shamanic journey or a stress-induced psychosis. The creation myth is essentially an incest myth, and while some religions and belief systems practice incest, my lived experience tells me, this is not healthy for a child, at all. God creates Adam, god creates Eve from Adam, and they have sex and have a child. Other children are born, and it either has to be from sex with a mother or father or a sister or brother. This, to me, is insanity. Teaching to take things literally, rather than figuratively, and metaphorically, takes away a person's own power of self-reflection, self-discovery, critical thinking, and discovering one's own personal truth. When individuals canʻt critically think, and arenʻt dialed into trusting the wisdom of their own hearts, their own bodies, and their intuition, this creates a dynamic for humans controlling other humans, rather than a beautiful dynamic of trust, interrelation, and connectedness, respect for the earth and each other.

Letting Go at Last, at 64 years young, is a blip in the continuum of existence.

For me, personally, the clarity about all of this did not come, as long as I did not honor the deep stories of the frightened little girl inside, that the family had this dynamic of deep harming which became a community affair. The family members I was attempting to stay in a relationship with, were a part of this dynamic.

When the brother or sister or auntie or uncle or mother or farmer is not on a path to coming to terms with their own wounds from childhood, and use religion to bury an awareness of the wounds, the patterns of speech and ways of being will reflect patterns from the past. Patterns created to accommodate the nature of trafficking, and ways of keeping the harms secret, controlling others so they donʻt tell the secrets, and keeping the status quo toxic.

To reclaim “mental health” is to test the waters, experiment, and see perhaps if an in-person relationship can be managed, then self-reflect.

No, it is not possible, to be in direct relationship with those a part of the dynamic of the abuse unless all parties agree to step into the healing path and work their respective journey.

It is asking for more harm, it is inviting a return of the “mental illness”, and it also, is not kind to the other person, for reasons I do not have total clarity on as of yet.

What Remains, is loving a brother like myself

What remains is a tremendous amount of love and compassion for those who also suffered, but also I realize, there remain trauma bonds seeking to be dissolved. It was in a shamanic journey, in the midst of this family break up, a dream, that I had an experience of loving my brother as myself. We set the intending to journey from Quan Yin's garden and to go where the spirit would seek to take us. I set the intending to journey around the conflict with my brother, and the decision that day, that it was in my best interest to attempt no further communication. This was confirmed as a healthy step to take, by the psychiatrist I still see once every six months, and who reflects back when I am experiencing turbulence in life, grief, difficult relationship dynamics, and such.

In this journey, this dream, which is not to be taken literally, but is merely an impression, a young part of my brother appeared, and told me to not go away, that this aspect appreciated my perspective. A Hawaiian elder appeared and gave this little boy some teachings. A ladder appeared, and the little boy and I climbed up and discovered another aspect or connection of my brother. The boy was a little older had his arm around a big wolf, and was smiling. During the journey, I invited this young boy to nestle in my heart, and said, I would always be here to love and care for the little boy, I would never abandon this little boy. The next day, in a mindfulness session, this came up again, I could feel my brother, in my heart, as me in essence, and as I breathed, I simply gave love to this part of me. I loved my brother, as myself. The day following that, I came to an awareness, of a craving, an anxiety, an unhealthy impulse to connect with my brother, sort of like picking at a scab, and I re-remembered the concept of “trauma bonds” and engaged in a meditation to release and shift this, and set the intention to continue the works.

Ceremony and Positive Affirmation

In this process, I had an image in my mind's eye, of a good way to release the harm. I pulled out the sentences that expressed harmful Christian dogma that was making me feel really sick and transformed these into positive affirmations. I created a ceremony to release this, wrote words to speak to let go of the harm, and burned the words of harm. I committed to both not reading the words again, recited the affirmations, and printed them out, to have nearby to read, in that, it can take time to lay down new tracks in one's foundation of such things.  

I also, sent the correspondence, and words to a few trusted friends, to inquire, is it me, or does this language seem off? The consensus was, that these were harmful words, and not the way a brother ought to treat a sister, and that affirmation helped me push against the thoughts that arose that I am the crazy one for lacking the capacity to believe these things my brother is telling me.

Creating New Language

The time comes to pick apart the harmful language, and retrain the brain, the subconscious, and create a positive set of messages as a part of the process. To flow with the process that has emerged authentic to your own path, and to process in a way that gets the body back into equilibrium as swiftly as possible.

For myself, it has been support from a professional, a psychiatrist, support from my beloved, support from within the singing workshop I was in, support from my hands in clay, support from journaling, support from my ancestors and unseen things and songs, poems, and meditations that enable me to process the complex emotions that arise.

There also emerges an awareness, that there are things I learned from some of the things I read in the Christian perspective, that resonate as helpful, and I keep those.

I avoid the language, because the language remains, from what I have learned from my brother, it remains a trigger, a trauma trigger, and I give myself kindness and flow with language and perspectives that cultivate clarity, calm, and impulses to be kind.

In the present moment, I lean into acceptance and begin with myself.

I accept the part of humans that might be seen as being imperfect, and having flaws, and make a commitment, with these, to find a way, to do no harm.

This is what the truth quest that began at 28 has taught me.

It has brought me freedom from fear, freedom from the predators who preyed upon me as prey, and it has enabled me to pursue my dreams, to walk in a way that I perceive is sorting out how to be the change I wish for the world, it has allowed me to process ACES too High and trauma illness with roots in cultural genocide, it has brought me circles and communities of fellow beings who value spiritual growth, creative growth, supporting each other.

Now, I ask from the universe, rest.

This was incredibly difficult work, and everything asks for rest.

Blessed rest.

Playing with Chat, again... to simplify.

Title: After the Storm: Navigating Healing and Insight

The past week has been a tumultuous journey, focusing on "family healing" and attempting to re-establish relationships with family members. It was a conscious choice, driven by the desire for understanding and resources. However, amidst the interaction, it became clear that prioritizing my own well-being and mental health was imperative.

Embracing Imperfections and Cultivating Self-Awareness

Acknowledging the natural imperfections of being human is essential. Harmful labels only perpetuate negative energy within and towards others. What the body truly craves is a process rooted in integrity, honesty, and alignment with the beauty of the cosmos.

Clarity on Christianity's Role in Mental Health

Reflecting on the week's challenges, a realization emerged that the forms of Christianity I was indoctrinated into were the external factors contributing to what I perceived as "mental illness." This term encapsulates thought patterns and belief systems leading to imbalance, self-hate, and paranoia.

• Magical Thinking and Fear-Induced Anxiety: Christianity fosters magical and delusional thinking, inducing anxiety and extreme fear that can lead to paranoia and distrust.

• Literal Interpretations and Lack of Critical Thinking: Teachings often demand literal belief in writings that may be political commentary or stress-induced visions, stifling critical thinking and personal truth.

The Structure of Religion and Its Impact

The structure of religion, with its set of rules, can provide balance, but it often fails to address the deeper wounds of childhood trauma illness. Vulnerable beings are preyed upon, creating a hothouse of predator and prey dynamics. The structure perpetuates judgment and harmful labels, contradicting its core teachings of love.

Differentiating Mental Illness and Childhood Trauma Illness

Distinguishing between mental illness and childhood trauma illness is crucial. Mental illness arises from external factors like religious beliefs, leading to thinking and acting incongruently with one's essence. Childhood trauma illness, a result of repeated abuse, requires a holistic approach to heal.

Letting Go and Reclaiming Mental Health

True healing only began when I honored the frightened little girl within and acknowledged the family's history of deep harm. Attempting direct relationships with those unwilling to address their own wounds invites more harm and perpetuates mental illness.

Trauma Bonds and the Path to Functional Love

Acknowledging trauma bonds and their inability to foster functional love prompted a profound dream. Loving my brother as myself in a shamanic journey highlighted the need to dissolve these bonds and engage in a process of positive affirmation.

Ceremony and Positive Affirmation

In this process, I had an image in my mind's eye of a good way to release the harm. I pulled out the sentences that expressed harmful Christian dogma that were making me feel really sick and transformed these into positive affirmations. I created a ceremony to release this, wrote words to speak to let go of the harm, and burned the words of harm. I committed to both not reading the words again and recited the affirmations, and printed them out, to have nearby to read, in that it can take time to lay down new tracks in one's foundation of such things.

I also sent the correspondence and words to a few trusted friends to inquire, is it me, or does this language seem off? The consensus was, these are harmful words, and not the way a brother ought to treat a sister, and that affirmation helped me push against the thoughts that arose that I am the crazy one for lacking the capacity to believe these things my brother is telling me.

Rest and Acceptance: A Heartfelt Closing

As I find myself in this present moment, I lean into acceptance and begin with myself. I accept the part of the human that might be seen as being imperfect and having flaws and make a commitment, with these, to find a way, to do no harm.

This is what the truth quest begun at 28 has taught me.

It has brought me freedom from fear, freedom from the predators who preyed upon me as prey, and it has enabled me to pursue my dreams, to walk in a way that I perceive is sorting out how to be the change I wish for the world, it has allowed me to process ACES too High and trauma illness with roots in a cultural genocide, it has brought me circles and communities of fellow beings who value spiritual growth, creative growth, supporting each other.

Now, I ask from the universe, rest.

This was incredibly difficult work, and my everything asks for rest.

Blessed rest.