"God gave us certain attributes which we can hang our
self-esteem on. For true healing and recovery, people often find
themselves able to accept these in themselves. Dysfunctional
religion can cause certain people to deny all these attributes in
themselves. They can't have the ability to feel like they have
these attributes and also live a life in their sense of religion. We
are created to feel good about various things such as having
health, financial security, a good personality or friendliness,
attractiveness or intelligence. The hyperreligious who has these
qualities deny themselves the ability to feel good about having
them because they are seen as a type of pride. Because they can
no longer feel positive about having these qualities, they then
begin to feel that they are the opposite of these things. This is similar to body dysmorphic disorder, where attractive or
average looking people feel that they are ugly and deformed.
There are a whole range of ways to avoid accepting that one has
the attributes of a normal person. The prolonging of this nonacceptance
of one's own virtue, if held long enough, can erode
the sense of self and is said to be the cause of psychotic
breakdowns and grandiosity."
R.S. Pearson
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