It’s been some time since I covered the ongoing struggles of those brave young women at “Mercy Survivors” in Sydney, who are battling against a questionable Pentecostal ‘medical and social service provider’ entitled “Mercy Ministries,” which is also active in New Zealand.

This time, I thought I’d discuss the experiences of one young woman who experienced eating disorders before she entered the tender embrace of these miscreants. It’s the usual story- isolation from friends and family, either cursory or non-existent independent consultation with featured ‘medical practitioners’ affiliated to MMA, exorcism of alleged ‘demons’ from one’s body, and ‘counselling’ from bible college students without qualifications in counselling or psychotherapy.

“Meg Smith” (not her real name) welcomed the chance for ‘free treatment’ of her anxiety attacks and panic disorder problems. Unfortunately, “free” meant signing over her Centrelink (NZ: WINZ benefit) payments to MMA, and then discovered that the counsellors, therapists, doctors, psychologists and social workers either weren’t there, or could not be independently consulted. She said that her only ‘treatment’ consisted of bible readings and an ‘exorcism.’ 

MMA Glenhaven house occupants weren’t allowed to form friendships within the house, were discouraged from external contacts, and their lives consisted of a seven o’clock reveille, ‘praise’ and exercise session, and fruit or yoghurt snacks, followed by a Joyce Meyer bible study session, homework, letter writing, more cleaning and more bible study.

Understandably, without proper professional treatment, Meg started to self-harm. This led to her ‘exorcism’ as advised by her ‘counsellor’ -who turned out not to have any formal counselling or psychotherapeutic skills.

As noted in my earlier “Restoring the Foundations” blog, Meg was then asked to deal with her ‘demons’ of pride, unforgiveness and anger, and told that she was ‘only’ self-harming to ‘get attention’ - this, from unqualified MMA personnel who weren’t adequately qualified to assess the seriousness of self-harm attempts, or provide a professional diagnosis!

Meg didn’t get any better, and when her panic attacks resumed, she was told that ’she’d let the ‘demons’ back in’, or didn’t ‘want’ to be ‘healed.’  Moreover, as with other young women within the MMA house, she was discouraged from going to mainstream, qualified professional counsellors or psychotherapists.

Fortunately, she went to see a proper psychologist after removal from the programme, who told her not to go back to it. Happily, Meg is better now, no thanks to her fundamentalist ‘carers’ at MMA, who left her suicidal, self-harming and experiencing hallucinations after being told she was ‘demonic.’

It should be noted that Gloria Jeans Coffees still maintains support for the controversial ‘healing’ (sic) ministry, which continues to operate without any critical governmental scrutiny or regulation, despite stories such as Meg’s harrowing account.

One hopes that nothing similar is happening to the occupants of Mercy Ministries New Zealand’s premises…

Recommended:

http://www.mercysurvivors.com

Mercy Survivors

Tim Brunero: “How to Cure Anorexia with Exorcisms”: LiveNews: 07.08.08:

http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/07/18/How_to_cure_anorexia_with_exorcisms_101