Utah Ranked Most Depressed State
Posted by skiutah on Sunday, July 27, 2008
This is the (depressed) place!
The skiing is good though…
Social Conscience & Rational Thinking
God myths have survived because smart people are very good at rationalizing things that they came to believe for non smart reasons
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Who said What
deaconj123 said
There’s a lot of pressure in Utah to get married young, for both males and females. For women, it’s go to college and find a mate. For men, serve mission, get married.
The whole Utah Mormon culture is “hurry up and get married”. Very short engagement period. Once you’re married, have lots of kids. High pressure from the LDS church to be the perfect family.
Often the couples find out that they don’t like each other until after they’ve been sealed and married for “eternity”. That’s depressing.
coventryrm said
What I find interesting is how the Mormon apologetics completely dismiss that there is any correlation, they have both high rates of depression and suicide, but of course since they are not willing to actually examine the potential role the LDS church plays in this they have come up with some really interesting explanations. A while ago I followed the LDS explanation of suicide and it was amazing to me how they manupulated the numbers and data to show it wasn’t a Mormon thing.
blazeheliski said
When I lived in Utah for a coule of years – I thought it was kind of fun. Of course I was skiing almost every day.
coventryrm said
I love Utah, I would love to live just at the base of the wasatch for at least a season or two. It is much different to live there and try to be an active LDS in a tight community trying to live up to impossible standards, or to be a non mormon in a small community like orem or provo, from talking to many non mormons that have or do live in Utah those that were closer to SLC or outside of the Orem/Provo type areas seem to have a more positve outlook on their time in Utah. Of course I do know a few inactive or non mormons that went to BYU and had a blast. I think the main pressure is if you live there and actually take the LDS Church seriously and believe it and base your self worth on how well you are living the Gospel.
blazeheliski said
Yeah – you can put me in the “inactive Mormon that went to BYU who had a blast” category. I did see many of the things that article talks about when I was there. The striving for “perfection” put a lot of pressure on a lot of people.
SkiUtah said
I like to ski at Sundance. Usually not too crowded.
BYU students were recently commanded to make babies:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600110324,00.html
I liked the one quote about broad minds and narrow waists should trade places.
That would be depressing…
coventryrm said
I can’t beleive he actually said that, 50 years from now you should be FAT and Narrow Minded!!! What a great philosphy to live by!
SkiUtah said
Yeah, it’s a great line.
Maybe they should change the name of the Utah Jazz to the Utah Blues:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22087867/
blazeheliski said
I dont know – Homer Simpson seems to be pretty happy with the fat and narrow minded philosphy. Maybe he is on to something?
SkiUtah said
yes, I think Homer’s philosophy keeps him happier than many Utah folks.
The suicide rate is pretty high in Utah:
http://health.utah.gov/vipp/pdf/suicide%202007.pdf
That’s probably the Utah non-Mormons who are committing suicide after living in Utah for a while…
dstizzle said
“He urged his listeners to seek first to follow the teachings of the church before seeking wealth, which includes the commandment to create families.”
If wealth includes the commandment to create families, why wouldn’t the church want us to seek after it?
coventryrm said
I researched the Suicide rate in Utah once and it is much higher, what I found interesting was the LDS apologetic response, it has been awhile so I don’t have all the data or links anymore, but basically what he did was take just the suicide data (ignoring that it was higher than other states) and then showed that active LDS were a lower stat within the suicide numbers, it wasn’t a huge difference from what I recall, but the conclusion was since active LDS represented a smaller percent of the suicides than inactive or non LDS there was no correlation between the LDS faith and suicide rate. That is some twisted or what I call pretzel logic.