By Mike Conan, PastorMC’s weblog
I remember sitting across from a pastor I respected deeply and asking him why he was staying and not even considering discerning if he should leave. We were both evangelicals who felt called to our denomination at one point, but both saw our future in it differently. He gave some reasons related to his call, to bigger problems outside the church and a few other healthy reasons and then he shared something that has simmered in brain for a while. He sighed then he took a moment to try and tell this younger pastor his most important insight on discernment and leaving a denomination. In his unique role he had seen many friends and colleagues who had gone through the process. He had seen the toll on the church and especially the leadership was so great that it took all of them years to recover and some weren’t sure that they were going to recover. For him, that along with the actually financial costs to his congregation did not seem worth the potential freedom that awaited.
On the other side now, I would like to say that he was right. Discernment and change are exceptionally difficult to navigate and no matter how careful and prayerful we are in the process, we are only human. Change at its core is relinquishing the known and the safe for the unknown and the chaos. Change always brings some sort of emotion, few embrace it and call it energizing, the rest grow to almost despise it and call it anxiety. Huge changes are exceptionally stressful and often we don’t realize the stress we have been under until we are on the other side. It is there that we discover that we are frail as pastors, frail as elders and frail as the people of God.
The emotional tax that all of us have paid, as we have left a place we called our spiritual home for decades to a new place with new relationships and expectations is enormous. The Spiritual tax of discerning what is God’s Spirit, what is our own flesh and which feelings, beliefs and impulses are prompted by the devil himself is overwhelming. And to try and help an entire group of people with differing levels of spiritual maturity, Biblical understanding and diverse personalities process these same feelings and emotions has at times seemed impossible.
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Two tours in Iraq as well as the 1st Gulf War in1990. PTSD is a clinical condition marked by a cluster of behavioral, emotional, and stress reaction changes in response to exposure to shock, trauma, or the experience of loss. (to be simple). The DSM-V book definition is 3 pages of differential Dx. to establish such.
Can civilian clergy get PTSD? Sure, again it is a matter of personal experience, exposure to a debilitating work, home or personal/professional environment. And most importantly, one’s perception of their reality and resiliency issues of personality. Can a religious denomination give or cause PTSD to happen to its clergy? Again, matter of length, duration, type of exposure to those conditions or situations one interprets as hostile or personally threatening.
Clergy of all stripes and groups do as a group suffer from far higher degrees of “burn-out”, psychological disorders, and exit the career in far greater numbers than those of allied professions like nursing or teaching. But those are not necessarily PTSD not does it always meet the clinical definition of. Does the PCUSA make it hard on its clergy as a group, well yes. Not only does one have to manage the ups and downs of any church and its people, but also have to deal with the pagan nonsense at times from the home office. Its hard, and very very few will ever hang around long enough to collect on anything from the Board of Pensions. But’s that’s the reality.
Vietnam veteran 1968-1973. Clinical counselor of 30 years. PTSD is the result of exposure to objective life-threatening trauma that any other person would also perceive as life threatening, e.g. POW experience, repeated beatings or rapes, etc. While being in the helping profession(s) can be stressful, nothing clergy experience rises to the level of PTSD’s life-threatening mandate.
pastor PTSD, almost laughable. my list of forgettable experiences, meaning the brain stopped remembering them because they’re too painful to process, reads like a NYTimes bestseller. everything i’ve seen on this website is child’s play in comparison. to those who haven’t personally experienced PTSD, i would simply say be grateful and leave it at that. you don’t want to know, or need to know, any more about it. there is no such thing as long term total recovery from PTSD, no pill or treatment that ‘fixes’ the pain and suffering. not even close to anything i’ve read on here. losing a paycheck for a few months or years sounds like bliss to me. changing denominations, or shuffling of the deck chairs, financially and legally, give me a break.
PCUSA members are leaving because life is short & they don’t want to waste any more time obsessing over the moral shortcomings of their denomination.
Pastors’ situations are more complicated, but I honestly don’t know how a conservative pastor can put up with the ultra liberal PCUSA.
It sounds as though this fellow was overwhelmed by things not going the way he wanted. Can you imagine Paul or James claiming PTSD because people were hard to lead? I often listen to leaders who gave a super optimistic view of human personality and their own ability to magically motivate people to be nice and obedient.
This may be because their training is all about talk not being change agents.
Wow…I guess I read the post with different eyes. I read it for what it was – an attempt to describe the challenges of leaving while pointing to Christ. The article contained a greater sense of grace and mercy that the response, I’m afraid.
*responses
Keep it classy, “guest.” (Aren’t guests supposed to behave appropriately?)
Old Peter back for all my many fans.
PTSD is not a job or vocationally specific condition. We normally associated the condition with war veterans but those in the helping professions, first responders, police, fire, the abused and battered can still manifest the conditions. At its core is a violation of the trust one may have in their environment or situation, trust is replaced by fear, love by pain. Many times those with PTSD have a faith shattering experience as well. The sense of hopelessness and abandonment.
So, the original question, can PCUSA clergy or any clergy for that matter develop or suffer from PTSD. Yes, depending upon the experience of shock, trauma, loss, and one’s response to it. Pastors get in car crashes, see people die, experience abuse and violence, lose a spouse or child, just like anybody else.
It is not a liberal, conservative, PCA vs PCUSA thing. Can happen to anybody.
Keep it classy all
yes..National Institute of Mental Health, NIH:
“PTSD develops after a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. The person who develops PTSD may have been the one who was harmed, the harm may have happened to a loved one, or the person may have witnessed a harmful event that happened to loved ones or strangers.
PTSD was first brought to public attention in relation to war veterans, but it can result from a variety of traumatic incidents, such as mugging, rape, torture, being kidnapped or held captive, child abuse, car accidents, train wrecks, plane crashes, bombings, or natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.
We live in a time like no other , except perhaps when Paul, Silas and Timothy were on their journeys in Greece.
There are many decisions to be made, not always easy. These were men without families or what we see as responsibilities to a home life. Choices need to be made. Where do we stand? Do we follow the teachings of Christ or are we to be persuaded by the mainstream of political activity? Hard choices or easy?
guest
There are so many examples of Biblical people who had to choose to follow God and move to another place. Sometimes God got their attention from adverse situations. Some times it was brought on by
their own disobedience or others attempts to persecute core beliefs. God doesn’t want us to become too comfortable with the status quo of culture and easy living that we will not follow His call to move. It is a matter of living our life to an audience of One, staying close to God for our emotional well being in the midst of adverse circumstances.
I think about Abraham, Naomi and her family including Ruth, Jacob, Joseph, Israelites in Egypt, David before becoming King, the prophets, the dispersion of the early Christian church. The list goes on.
I love the response of Joseph who saw God’s hand in the rejection of his brothers, jail, and
being forced to leave home place. From the human perspective it looked dire, but from God’s point of view it all had purpose. My challenge for this time is to keep praying for clergy and church
to discern how to.be faithful to the call for the furthering of the Kingdom of God even if that means moving out of one place to another unknown place following the Holy Spirit.
I guess it can be difficult for non-clergy to understand what clergy go thru. Counselors who diagnose PTSD are expected to deal with just 1-2 people at a time, whereas pastors are expected to deal with hundreds of people simultaneously. Counselors are not expected to give their personal cell ph numbers to their clients, & thus have no difficulty seperating themselves from their clients’ problems. Pastors are expected to share their cell ph number AND home ph numbers, so they can be available 24/7, making it very difficult to separate themselves from their members’ numerous issues.
I have known a small number of clergy who’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, who have NOT tried to lead their congregations to change from one denomination to another. Numerous studies show that most pastors are lonely, stressed, depressed, & suffer more health problems than the ave person; so is if any surprise that some pastors suffer from PTSD?
Perhaps PTSD is the incorrect term. How about Caregiver Burnout, which can affect pastors, counselors, doctors, nurses, etc.
i’ll go along with that Bill. having taken care of half a dozen close relatives for many years, full time since 2010, i can certainly understand. a near death experience if ever there was one.
I was refused and denied by my DCOM Because I confessed to ptsd in evaluation .I went before God with Honesty and was denied because I served my Country shame on the Church Leadership .