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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   26076 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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Anyway, if you go along with any of that, it's not hard to see how the Christian concepts of "faith" and a general "Let go, let God" orientation have a very specific role in easing the demons that beset anxious women who are prone to relitigating all the things that inflame their worst inner voices. One general read of the tradition might say, "There is an authority outside yourself, it can and must be infinitely trusted, it is the root of all reality, it is all benevolent and all knowing, you are a child of God and of infinite worth, you are not wise enough to stand in judgement of anyone or even yourself and humility and hope and forgiveness are thus commandments, despair and gossip are sins, trust God and do your best and turn to faith to come to internalize that all this suffering and anxiety and confusion and difficulty has meaning and has a point and will be bearable."

My god, you sound exactly like my evangelical mom when you say this.

Some of the most effective advice against mental demons actually comes from my mother -- she talks frequently using the exact language you've used here, about how we've got all these voices in our head that sound like one's voice but aren't. And in her mind, it's a choice to listen to them or to do something else that's important; focusing on them gives them more power.

What's funny is prayer also came up as a potential coping strategy (in a long list of coping strategies) that my definitely-not-religious therapist shared are helpful to some people when dealing with strong emotions. And I can share I do find it helpful at times.

If you allow me to be psychological instead of theological, I think it has the same effect as those mental excercises where people imagine their worry as physical object and then imagine getting rid of it. It unburdens the mind in a way it will accept. (And if you'll allow me to be theological instead of psychological, there was a thread not too long ago about why people believe in petitionary prayer, and this is it -- it's not about somehow bending the will of God towards something, but about releasing the concerns about which you can do nothing outside of yourself and putting it into the hands of God.)

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