Grievance, Entitlement, Resentment, and, it turns out, Actual Addiction

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, juliann said:

No one in their right mind would deny that you can be LDS and unhappy. You have been told about the improper use of anecdotes as a substitute for data and yet double down on the anecdotes as usual. 
 

Every study I have seen reports that religiosity is correlated to life satisfaction. So CFR. 

No need to CFR, I'll concede but it's not as clear as you think. https://religionnews.com/2015/07/02/5-reasons-why-mormons-are-happier-says-researcher/

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

but it's not as clear as you think.

Can you identify what you think is in the article that is more complicated than how Juliann thinks about the issue?

Edited December 15, 2020 by Calm

[Tacenda]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

Can you identify what you think is in the article that is more complicated than how Juliann thinks about the issue?

No, just substantiated her feelings, but my feelings are not in agreement fully. I think that sometimes it's external that LDS seem happier. And the connections made aren't as long lasting sometimes, but maybe I am basing this on my experience, but I do hear this often from the ex LDS crowd as well. That the relationships are short lived. And certain callings are what make people reach out to others in kindness. 

But I will concede I'm not sure I'm as happy some days as when I was when active. Kind of leaves the ex or the disbeliever member in a bind, they only knew one life for however long, and that life is gone so they are sometimes in a limbo state, which causes their unhappiness. Most are able to make connections with others that are more like minded and get along fine but not in my case. 

I'd love to know Juliann's sisters' stories. They could be like my 2 inactive sisters that haven't resigned but weren't active for most their lives, sure they can leave the church alone. And even believe in it! It's members like me and others that gave it their all for many, many years...lots of time commitment and even the feelings of the so called Holy Ghost. Temple attendance and the many many tiers of membership. 

And then poof! It's no wonder there's some mental illness, lol! That darkness or the light gone from their countenance, well that's the mental illness of discontinuing their belief or attendance, it's one of the strangest and most difficult situations for many. 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Tacenda

[Calm]

Just now, Tacenda said:

No, just substantiated her feelings, but my feelings are not in agreement fully.

So what you mean to say is the article agreed with Juliann, but you still feel there is something wrong in the claims?

[Calm]

12 hours ago, Emily said:

'm also not sure what any of this has to do with the original post, which is specifically about EX-Mormons who can't let go of their grievances against the church. This small subset of ex-Mormons are very puzzling to active members and probably other ex-Mormons who don't have the same problem. 

Their behavior is hard to understand. They have left... done, finished. So why do they keep coming back, dripping with angst and vitriol? Kevin's article sheds some light on this very puzzling phenomenon. Understanding that it could be a form of addiction really does help me have more compassion for them

Emily, I am enjoying your posts. I hope you stick around some. The board would benefit from more of them, imo. 

[Tacenda]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

So what you mean to say is the article agreed with Juliann, but you still feel there is something wrong in the claims?

I edited my comment to you, if you care to read the rest. My happiness in the church was definitely because of what the article stated. But it may have been superficial, if I'm not as happy in my situation now. As a happy person, shouldn't they be happy in other circumstances as well? And I guess we all have our days. So I've answered Juliann's CFR by agreeing, but my agreement feels shallow because I'm not sure it's fully transparent that members are as happy internally. But sure hope so! 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Tacenda

[katherine the great]

22 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

The essay on grievance and addiction ends with this:

I wanted to try to engage in this thread but the OP is a little too convoluted. I’m sure the article has some really good mental health insights but I’m having a hard time looking past the transparent psychoanalysis of a particular politician to see the research. Although I agree that someone is “nuts”, it is hard for me to read through the article without thinking about the flipside and all of the mental health issues that go with the alternative. Maybe I’m addicted to analysis. 🤷‍♀️

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

As a happy person, shouldn't they be happy in other circumstances as well?

If circumstances had no effect on happiness, why would being in the Church correlate to greater levels?

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, juliann said:

No one in their right mind would deny that you can be LDS and unhappy.

Hi!

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, katherine the great said:

I wanted to try to engage in this thread but the OP is a little too convoluted. I’m sure the article has some really good mental health insights but I’m having a hard time looking past the transparent psychoanalysis of a particular politician to see the research. Although I agree that someone is “nuts”, it is hard for me to read through the article without thinking about the flipside and all of the mental health issues that go with the alternative. Maybe I’m addicted to analysis. 🤷‍♀️

I hope the OP will post it all in a nutshell!

[bdouglas]

An interesting OP, one I agree with.

In C S Lewis’ The Great Divorce certain souls on the other side (what LDS would call the Spirit World) make a long pilgrimage to see Napoleon.

Quote

'The nearest of those old ones is Napoleon. We know that because two chaps made the journey to see him. They’d started long before I came, of course, but I was there when they came back.'

'But they got there?'

'That’s right. He’d built himself a huge house all in the Empire style—rows of windows flaming with light ...'

'Did they see Napoleon?'

'That’s right. They went up and looked through one of the windows. Napoleon was there all right.'

'What was he doing?'

'Walking up and down—up and down all the time—left-right, left-right—never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about a year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. "It was Soult’s fault. It was Ney’s fault. It was Josephine’s fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English." Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment. A little, fat man and he looked kind of tired. But he didn’t seem able to stop it.'

I was a full-blown drug addict by the time I was 15, and I have continued to struggle with drug addiction all through my adult life, and I can tell you that (1) addicts, perhaps more than other people, harbor grievances, and (2), the first thing an addict has to do when going into recovery is toss out all of the grievances.

"But what if the grievances are justified?"

It doesn’t matter. They still have to be tossed out.

If the addict wants to be forgiven and find grace, he must himself forgive and extend grace to others.

[Ahab]

15 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Please do not make that judgement about people with addictions. I have a brother, a really good man, who had a wife with psychological addictions. He once told me that she liked feeling depressed, etc. I really wish that I had spoken up to him about that then. As a person who has to deal with chronic depression on a constant basis, I know better. I knew better then but was undergoing therapy at the time and did not have the knowledge of my own condition and the words to let him know how wrong he was. Maybe such an intervention would have saved that marriage.

Glenn

If by my judgement you're referring to my acknowledgement of the fact that people who grieve actually like it or get a pleasurable feeling from it then you are wrong to suggest I should not acknowledge that fact, which has now been corroborated by science.  And your brother could have been right when he said his wife liked feeling depressed if what he meant by that was that she got some pleasure from airing her grievances.  

Understanding what causes people to act the way they do can go a long way when trying to help them overcome their problems, sop if someone is grieving or complaining or feeling depressed it can help to know it may be because their brain is not functioning as it normally should.  It is normally not good for a brain to act as if it is on drugs and sometimes it may take some other drug or drugs to help correct the vproblem.

[katherine the great]

1 hour ago, bdouglas said:

the first thing an addict has to do when going into recovery is toss out all of the grievances.

By tossing it out do you mean they need to talk about it (put it out there) or rid them selves of the burden and make peace with it? (hence being in a position where they can begin to take responsibility for their own lives?)

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, bdouglas said:

An interesting OP, one I agree with.

In C S Lewis’ The Great Divorce certain souls on the other side (what LDS would call the Spirit World) make a long pilgrimage to see Napoleon.

I was a full-blown drug addict by the time I was 15, and I have continued to struggle with drug addiction all through my adult life, and I can tell you that (1) addicts, perhaps more than other people, harbor grievances, and (2), the first thing an addict has to do when going into recovery is toss out all of the grievances.

"But what if the grievances are justified?"

It doesn’t matter. They still have to be tossed out.

If the addict wants to be forgiven and find grace, he must himself forgive and extend grace to others.

Beautiful post, including your quote from someone else about Napoleon.  And it looks to me like the real problem is all about harboring resentment.  Not being willing to just let go of bad feelings harbored against someone else.

I will tell you that I have noticed a lot of people doing, including saying, many many stupid and mean-spirited things to me and that if I had not learned that I needed to let go of all of that stuff, and continue to forgive in the future, I would be a real mess.

[pogi]

On 12/14/2020 at 3:09 PM, Tacenda said:

My grievance has moved past the unknown wart filled church history, toward the church "can" be bad on the believing member's psyche. I see it all around me now, and even before my disbelief, but back when I didn't blame it on the church. 

The affect on the psyche is that LDS members that aren't cafeteria members struggle with feeling like they aren't perfect enough, and that leads into depression and then that leads to a domino affect of many symptoms that come from depression which could be a dependence on opioids.

If people didn't have the church's teachings hung over their heads, and leading them to think that without the church they are not going to see God etc. Then I feel that is harmful. If someone feels they are enough without all that, I think that's healthy. 

For example when I visit my MIL, I feel like she isn't happy, and she is the most stalwart member you could know. It's a doom and gloom feeling, when all she seems to say is the continuing tape of quotes in her head heard in the church concerning the end of days. It's like she doesn't appreciate living but instead concentrates on the next life. And she's always worried about her family and if they are active. How much better would her life have been if she weren't worried about whatever church lessons were put in her head? 

Why aren't current believing members happier? If the gospel is supposedly suppose to do that, or is it?

Pretty much anything "can be" bad on a person's psyche when taken to the extreme - including being Mormon, or anti-Mormon for that matter.  There are psychologically unhealthy people everywhere.  I can all but guarantee that if your MIL wasn't a Latter-day Saint she would be unhappy wherever she was (the grass is rarely greener...).  Most psyche issues are familial/generational and only express themselves in different avenues of life, like religion. 

The fact is that people are just as happy, if not more happy, in the church as they are out of the church.  

Here is a really interesting Capstone project on the subject:

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=mapp_capstone

It suggests that current believing members are indeed happier than those who doubt and are less active, and are associated with higher levels of well-being and lower levels of depression, confirmed by several studies.    Areas of exception are that LDS women with more children tend to have more depression than those with fewer children.   "On the other hand, some researchers have argued that although not easy, having children ends up bringing more meaning and satisfaction in the long run (Brooks, 2008; Evenson, Ranae, & Simon, 2005)."

Quote

Interestingly, researchers have found that the happiest places in the world also tend to have the highest suicide rates (Daly, Oswald, Wilson, & Wu, 2011; Szalavitz, 2013). For example, Hawaii is the second happiest state in the nation but also ranks fifth for suicide rates, whereas New York ranks 45th for life satisfaction but also has the lowest suicide rate. According to researchers, this paradox is not explained by population demographics or confounding factors but is most likely explained by “relative comparisons of utility” (Daly, Oswald, Wilson, & Wu, MORMONS AND WELL-BEING 85 2011, p. 1). People compare their happiness to other people and thus it may be “particularly painful to be unhappy if surrounded by happy individuals” (Daly et al., 2011, p. 1). Thus, contrary to intuition, high depression and suicide rates in Utah are not incompatible with the claim that Mormons generally have high well-being. 

Quote

The study suggested that LDS religious devoutness was not related to psychopathology. Indeed, as we have already seen, in the largest national study (n= 676,000) comparing faith and well-being, Mormons scored higher in the emotional health index (which included measurements of depression) than any other religious or non-religious group (Newport et al., 2012a).

The take away is that religion can bring greater happiness if we allow it.  Stop comparing yourself to others and truly practice and value your religion and you will find greater joy in it - at least that is what the research suggests.  Is that really a bad thing?  

 

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by pogi

[bsjkki]

18 hours ago, Emily said:

Thanks for posting this Kevin. It's a fascinating theory that I haven't seen before. I managed to find a link to a .pdf of the study that he referenced if anyone else is interested. https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/7/1173/1753550#.X9gbSNCjy0w.link

Thanks for posting this! I read the Politico article in OP but had not taken the time to find the original source.

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 hours ago, Tacenda said:

And the connections made aren't as long lasting sometimes, but maybe I am basing this on my experience, but I do hear this often from the ex LDS crowd as well. That the relationships are short lived.  

All of my deepest, most intimate, most intellectually and emotionally satisfying relationships have been forged within the social framework of the Church. I once had a non-member acquaintance ask me and another member if we had grown up together. We laughed and pointed out that we'd only met three months earlier when I'd moved into the branch. He was dumbfounded. He said our relationship appeared more solid that anything he'd experienced even from his own biological brothers.

And I love how richly persistent the bonds of friendship in the Church are: no matter how much time intervenes, reconnecting feels like no time has passed whatsoever.

Quote

And certain callings are what make people reach out to others in kindness.

One can certainly turn a Church calling into a superficial box-ticking exercise, but that's a personal choice that I would not recommend.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

If by my judgement you're referring to my acknowledgement of the fact that people who grieve actually like it or get a pleasurable feeling from it then you are wrong to suggest I should not acknowledge that fact, which has now been corroborated by science.  And your brother could have been right when he said his wife liked feeling depressed if what he meant by that was that she got some pleasure from airing her grievances.  

Understanding what causes people to act the way they do can go a long way when trying to help them overcome their problems, sop if someone is grieving or complaining or feeling depressed it can help to know it may be because their brain is not functioning as it normally should.  It is normally not good for a brain to act as if it is on drugs and sometimes it may take some other drug or drugs to help correct the vproblem.

It seems that we have a a  few divergent impressions from the essay. I did not get the impression explicit or implicit, that people who grieve enjoy it. The essay was endeavoring to establish a link between addictive behavior and grievance airing/retaliation. Misery may like company but it doesn't like itself. My former sister-in-law did not enjoy being miserable. There were other problems which could possibly be explained by the information from the essay.

I do agree with your second paragraph.

Glenn

 

 

 

 

[Ahab]

46 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

It seems that we have a a  few divergent impressions from the essay. I did not get the impression explicit or implicit, that people who grieve enjoy it. The essay was endeavoring to establish a link between addictive behavior and grievance airing/retaliation. Misery may like company but it doesn't like itself. My former sister-in-law did not enjoy being miserable. There were other problems which could possibly be explained by the information from the essay.

I do agree with your second paragraph.

Glenn

I would not use the word "enjoy", either, but apparently they get some sense of pleasure from complaining or airing their grievances.  It explains why people who delight in doing evil talk smack about righteous people telling them evil things are not good.

But of course people who do evil things and talk smack about righteous people do not see themselves as evil or as if they are doing anything wrong.  At least not consciously.  They transform any guilt they may feel into an offense coming from someone else to try to make themselves feel better at the other person's expense.

I am sure you have seen people get offensive when someone else tries to help them see the error of their own ways.  Instead of feeling gratitude with humility they get offensive and take on the "how dare you" attitude against someone who was saying something good to correct them.

For someone who had trouble seeing the connection between addiction and abandoning faith, as I did earlier, I am getting a mindful now in explicit detail.  It explains so much of what I have seen.

[The Nehor]

21 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Hi!

Since I wrote that post I have spent way too much time trying to figure out if I meant that I am LDS and unhappy or that I am not in my right mind.

My conclusion: Yes

[Kenngo1969]

One of my former Stake Presidents once delivered this bit of whimsical verse from the pole-pit:
 

Quote

 

If you see the silver lining

In every cloud of gray;

If you're always smiling

'Cause your face just froze that way;

If you're always happy

Amidst the crowds so blue,

Then have your head examined, Bud!

There's something wrong with you!

 

I don't want to deny that there's unhappiness in the world, and even a lot in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I think, perhaps, that leaders (and members), sometimes, are prone to oversimplifying issues.  Sometimes, they preach the "happiness equivalent" of the "prosperity gospel": "If you're righteous, you'll be happy!"  Yet, there are a lot of reasons to be unhappy here, and if someone's always happy, that probably means he's a psychopath or a sociopath.   Anybody who thinks that righteousness will always lead to happiness (at least here in mortality) is setting himself up for a lot of failure and disappointment. 

Yes, Alma taught that "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10), but that doesn't mean that the righteous find themselves in a state of unending bliss.  I think that a lot of our unhappiness stems from the fact that, for many of us, this life is "unfamiliar" territory in the sense that we're not essentially mortal beings sent here to have occasional spiritual experiences; we're essentially spiritual beings sent here to have a mortal experience.  Yes, certainly, we should do our best to be happy in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.  As President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf have taught us, gratitude has a lot to do with that: https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/11/20/21580557/president-russell-m-nelson-shares-video-message-hope-healing-prayer-gratitude-pandemic-hate-racism; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng

That said, there are a lot of really good reasons to be unhappy here: Man's inhumanity to man; hap crappening; living in a fallen world in which we're subject to illness (physical and mental), disease, and death; the elements and other probably-random forces; and so on.  Our reason for good cheer lies in the fact that our Exemplar has overcome the world, but that doesn't mean that there aren't "miles to go" for the rest of us.  And even He had to "descend below all things" before He could "rise above all things": It's naive and foolhardy to believe, given that fact, that it will be easy for the rest of us.

[Nofear]

On 12/15/2020 at 10:18 AM, katherine the great said:

I wanted to try to engage in this thread but the OP is a little too convoluted. I’m sure the article has some really good mental health insights but I’m having a hard time looking past the transparent psychoanalysis of a particular politician to see the research. Although I agree that someone is “nuts”, it is hard for me to read through the article without thinking about the flipside and all of the mental health issues that go with the alternative. Maybe I’m addicted to analysis. 🤷‍♀️

A very recent study. Needs some replication and study to back it up. Nonetheless, anecdotally it does bears (at least to me) some semblance of relevance.
https://reason.com/2020/12/10/tendency-for-interpersonal-victimhood-trauma-research-study-trigger/

[The Nehor]

Every silver lining has a cloud.

If the blessing had to come disguised maybe it is not a very honest blessing.

The darkest hour is often hours before dawn.

If no one cries over the spilled milk does that mean spilling milk is okay?

[Kenngo1969]

On 12/15/2020 at 12:51 PM, bdouglas said:

An interesting OP, one I agree with.

In C S Lewis’ The Great Divorce certain souls on the other side (what LDS would call the Spirit World) make a long pilgrimage to see Napoleon.

I was a full-blown drug addict by the time I was 15, and I have continued to struggle with drug addiction all through my adult life, and I can tell you that (1) addicts, perhaps more than other people, harbor grievances, and (2), the first thing an addict has to do when going into recovery is toss out all of the grievances.

"But what if the grievances are justified?"

It doesn’t matter. They still have to be tossed out.

If the addict wants to be forgiven and find grace, he must himself forgive and extend grace to others.

Best wishes in your continuing recovery.  That's a tough dragon to slay.  The principal difference between someone who's addicted and someone who's not is the choice of coping mechanism.  Much, much easier said than done, I realize, but the trick is substituting healthy coping mechanisms for those that are less so.  Again, best wishes.