Mental Health & The Amish…

Well now, let me take a moment, settle myself, and tell you somethin’ mighty peculiar about a chapter in my life, one that unfolded when I was livin’ in the green hills and cotton fields of Tennessee. A place so still, it felt like the whole world was holdin’ its breath. It was rural, sure, and not the kind of rural I was used to, this was a different kind of quiet, one where the wind whispered secrets, and the shadows of buggies flickered against the fields.

It was there I first came across the Amish.

Now, I’ll admit, at first I was like most folks, beguiled by that homespun image the world just eats up like warm biscuits and molasses. you know the one, humble people churnin butter, bakin’ bread, sayin; prayers ’til the cows come home. But darlin’, I had no idea they were were buyin’ Bounty paper towels by the bundle at Walmart and parkin’ their buggies at their very own hitchin’ post like some medieval drive thru. I mean, paper towels. Isn’t that considered “worldly” in their books?

But here’s the thing: I’ve always had this little compass deep inside me. It ain’t flashy, it ain’t loud, but it’s never lied to me. It’s that universal, spiritual guide, that clairvoyance, or to me, the whisper of Brunhattie tellin’ me somethin’ is good, and hollers when somethin’ is wrong. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t always listened to it; I’m a hard-headed woman with a stubborn streak wider than the Mississippi. But even then, the Amish gave me that unmistakable nudge. you know the one. That quiet tug that says: “Something here is not right.”

And I listened.

As I lived there and peeped all of the weird shit I wasn’t accustomed to comin’ straight from Louisville, Kentucky, I took mental notes. I mean truly, what kind of humble, God-fearin’ folks leave a horse tied up for hours on searing hot pavement outside a Walmart, or standin’ there in burnin’ hot or bitter cold while their 1700s owners are in the big chain store stockin’ up on modern goods that supposedly go against everything they preach? the trip itself was over twenty miles one way. That’s cruel and unusual punishment for any animal, let alone one that’s been standing on blacktop in steel shoes.

And still, they tell the world they’re separate. They claim purity, simplicity, contentment. but are they as happy as they want people to think they are?

No, sugar, they are not. And I’ll tell you why.

Because they are discouraged from being happy. It’s an honor to be the most miserable fuck in the room, at least when you’re Amish, because they repel happiness. You’ll be happy when you get to heaven, so for now, shut up and be sad like the rest of us!

Now I know that sounds wild, like somethin’ a gossipin’ auntie would say on a porch swing with a glass of sweet tea, but it’s true. I’ve watched them with my own eyes. Joy unsettles them. Smiles too wide make ’em suspicious. Happiness, in their world, borders on pride, and pride is sin. So, they keep their spirits dimmed, like lanterns turned down low.

I started to notice it more and more when I lived there, but since I’ve been thrust into it these past few years, it’s given me an up-close and ringside seat to the craziness, and lawd, is it crazy! But more than that, it’s the sadness behind the stares. The strictness in every step. The silence that wasn’t peace, but oppression dressed in plain cotton. These weren’t just people in a community, they were prisoners in a system.

They claim to be free. Free to walk, to choose, to live life simply. But my God, they are more confined than the men in orange jumpsuits behind locked gates. You can see it in the way the women hold themselves, heads bowed, hands calloused, lives dictated. They raise the babies, clean the house, and carry the culture like a yoke on their back. They are the backbone, yet somehow still considered the bottom. No voice, no vote, just silent conformists, oppressed.

And the truth? Most folks don’t want to see it. It’s easier to romanticize what they don’t understand. But I ain’t built that way. The more they watched me, and Lawd, did they watch, the more I watched right back. Ans what I saw wasn’t quaint. It was calculated. It was cruel. And it was covered in a bonnet and a beard. It was shaded with straw hats and side-eyes. It was bare-feet and question marks. So, I made it my mission to dig. To ask, to learn and to get answers for my questions. Even if it were for my own benefit, and after work when there was nothing else to do in Stantonville, Tennessee, I figured it would at least let me ride my cute little bike around with the basket and do some sting-oppin’. I’d call my cousin Jason in Oregon, and we’d investigate via facetime. At that time, it was funny, and we’d laugh at us being idiots, but the more I dug, the less funny it got. But, I wanted to know if it was just my hang-ups and maybe the culture was good and I was the crazy one, but in life, we need to quit taking things at face value and just assuming. I learned that in the military, don’t assume (it makes an ass out of U & Me). Shoutout to Drill Sgt. Elliot.

What are the ramifications of being raised in isolation, like the Amish?

My childhood was wild at times. My mom was a young mother who didn’t have the support she needed, so it was a learning curve and much of our life was just growing up together, just figuring things out. Lucky for me, we had a lot of family back then and I never knew I was lacking anything, because I was an imaginative child, always exploring somethin’. Especially abandoned houses, still my favorite thing to do to this day. I wasn’t isolated. I spent mad hours in the library reading every book I could, fattening my brain. This is necessary for development, as is having friends, being exposed to different cultures, doin’ different things, and knowin’ that everyone is unique in our own way. So, these children and people who live in this society that are isolated and taught only one thing, and one thing only, and that is that they are Amish and must remain Amish, it got me to thinkin’, what are the downfalls of this kind of life? Aren’t we born to be and do what sets our souls on fire? How can a person be expected to be a carbon copy of their siblings, neighbors, and friend?

When a child is born into a world where the walls are high and the outside world is called “evil,” their understanding of reality is narrowed to only what they’re taught. They are not raised to be individuals; they are only raised to conform. Every shirt, every prayer, every rule reinforces the message: You are not yours. You belong to us.

In an old Psychology book from school, it stated a few things I found interesting.

Lack of autonomy breeds anxiety, depression, and disassociation.
Suppressed curiosity dulls imagination and ambition.
Strict gender roles turn girls into servants and boys into silent soldiers.
Isolation from education and modernity leaves them defenseless in a world they’ve been taught to fear but are eventually thrown into if they ever try to leave. A paradox really. They live in this bubble, inside the world they truly live in. It’s hard to explain, and even harder to navigate when they attempt to leave and forced to do it solo.

And if abuse happens? Which, God help us, it often does, the victim is blamed. the abuser is protected. And forgiveness is demanded like it’s the ultimate act of obedience.

🩶 Living with an abuser and a silent mother, can that be forgiven?

I’ve heard so many stories from those who have left and one in particular comes to mind where the mother was eventually charged for failing to protect her child, when she knew that her sons were abusing her daughter. Every day of her life she was forced to endure their assaults, and a mother who only said she should have fought harder.

That’s one of the deepest betrayals imaginable. A mother who knows and says nothin’ is like a locked door when the house is on fire. She was supposed to be the safe place. The voice. The shield. And instead…silence. We can’t protect our kids from everything, and Lawd knows, there is a creep around every corner these days, but if you know and do nothing, wow, but especially from a mother who wears this cloak of Chrisianity and deems herself a child of God, but puts more focus on keepin’ the peace with the abuser and the culture, than the attack on her kid. Can that be forgiven? Maybe. But not before it’s faced. Not before it’s named. Not before the pain is allowed to breathe in full daylight. Because forgiveness isn’t forgetting and is sure as hell isn’t excusing. It’s reclaiming your power and refusing to let the infection spread inside you. It damn sure ain’t breaking bread and allowing some arbitrary book of made-up rules ignore the brokenness someone caused you or your kid and pretending that two weeks of shunning is a “good enough” punishment.

No one has the right to demand that kind of forgiveness, especially not the one who failed you. Yet, it happens every day in the Amish communities. The bishop like Bennie Byler, demanding to have his title back as the leader of his community after violating his granddaughters and others, as they sit on those hard benches every other Sunday facing the man who should have protected them, not cornered them and took their innocence. While the parents sit silent, afraid to speak up, because they’ve been told to forgive, or else, they assume the crime done by the abuser. That is mental warfare, its abuse, and it’s unacceptable. There is no accountability within this culture. NONE.

🌱 Are we born to be what our parents want us to be?

No, love. We are born with a spark, each of us. We are born with imagination, wonder, wild hearts, and dreams that reach for stars we’ve never even seen.

But in places like the Amish world, that spark gets smothered early. The message is clear: Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t dream. Just obey. It’s not parenting, it’s programming.

🧠 Are the Amish brainwashed? Is this culture real, or just control?

There’s a word for this: psychological captivity.

When every book, belief, and adult in your life tells you the same thing, this the only way, you stop questioning. You stop believing in options. You internalize your chains, and the ones in charge, they know exactly what they are doin’.

They’ve woven fear of hell, loss of family, and spiritual damnation so deeply into the fabric of their system that to question them feels like questioning God himself. That’s not culture. That’s control.

🪞 What is narcissism, and are the Amish narcissistic?

Narcissism is not just vanity or pride, it’s the manipulation of others for self-serving purposes, using guilt, shame, and gaslighting as tools. It’s when someone uses love as a leash, and religion as a mask. Do the Amish exhibit collective narcissistic traits? Absolutely.

Shunning is a psychological torture device.
Forced Forgiveness is spiritual abuse
“We are the only true way” is classic exclusivity.
Dismissal of anyone who speaks out, calling them liars, lost, or “worldly” that’s textbook narcissistic projection.

❤️ Do Amish parents really love their children?

Love isn’t just feeding, clothing, or raising. Love isn’t expecting your child to forgo an education so they can work like beasts of burden and giving up their formative years, so they can pay the family notes. Love isn’t spitting a kid out and expecting them to have no life of their own, no choices, no voice, no dreams or aspirations.

If a parent turns a blind eye to abuse, or worse, facilitates it by staying silent, then no, that ain’t love. That’s allegiance to a system above the safety of a soul. That’s fear disguised as faith.

🌹 So then, what is love?

Love is truth, love is fierce, love is the mama who believes her child, love is a father who breaks tradition to save his daughter, love is a whisper in a child’s ear that says, “You can be more.” Love is not silent. Love is not blind. Love is not shunning. Love is being awake in a world full of sleepwalkers.

🧠 How can a person, an entire culture, be so brainwashed?

Brainwashing doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in layers, from the moment of birth.

Imagine this:

You are born into a world where obedience is survival.
You’re told that questioning is sin.
Your education is limited on purpose, barely past 8th grade, and ony enough to farm, bake, build, and follow.
You don’t get to read other worldviews, books, or even see the news.
Your entire family, your community, your survival, all hinge on one thing: conformity.

You aren’t just taught a way of life, you’re taught that every other way of life is evil and dangerous, and you WILL GO TO HELL.

And so, the brain doesn’t develop autonomy. It develops fear-based loyalty. That is not culture, that’s generational mind control.

🍞 How can you break bread with a known child abuser and ignore the abuse?

Here’s the gut punch: They believe it’s “in the past.”
They believe forgiveness erases responsibility. Well, I won’t say they believe it, they are forced to endure that mindset. They are trained to minimize the pain, especially pain that threatens the illusion of purity within the community.

They are not taught body parts for a reason, control, easier to manipulate a child or person who has been raised to be ashamed of their body. “We don’t talk about those things.” Why? Because acknowledging abuse threatens the entire power structure. Because if one man is held accountable, then they all might have to be. And they’d rather sit beside a predator at supper than risk shaking the foundation they’ve worshipped their whole lives.

🩸 Does this fuel psychopathy? Does it make them all psychopaths?

Not all of them are psychopaths. But the system? It absolutely fosters psychopathic behavior.

It protects abusers, silences victims, uses guilt, shame, and religion as tools of control, and it rewards those who obey, no matter the cost.

A psychopath feels no empathy, no guilt, and often manipulates people to uphold their image or power. So, while not every Amish person is a psychopath, the culture enables and empowers psychopathic patterns, especially among the men in charge.

📖 Are they fixated on narratives?

Oh, yes. Fo’ Sho’!

Narratives are the glue that keeps the lie intact.

“We’re the chosen people.”
“We’re separate from the world.”
“We don’t need or want outside help.” (Unless it’s to give a ride, write our prescriptions, purchase our goods, let us build your house, or offer donations to one of our many causes)
“If someone leaves, they’re wicked and going to hell.“

These stories are told and retold to protect the bubble.
Even if those inside the bubble are suffering.
Even if children are being assaulted behind those barn doors.

Because narratives aren’t about truth in the Amish world, they’re about control.

🧬 How can this many people live in a culture with the same mindset, even when they’ve been abused themselves?

Because trauma, unspoken, unhealed trauma, doesn’t disappear.
It repeats. When someone is abused and taught that it’s normal. When they are told to forgive and shut the hell up. When they watch their parent stay silent, their bishop defends the abuser, and their entire community look the other way. In the rare chance the abuser is charged and goes to jail, the victim is always blamed. It doesn’t matter if they are 4 or 44. It doesn’t matter if they weren’t the one who turned them in. They are to blame and treated poorly because of it. They learn to bury the pain. Then they recreate the cycle, because it’s the only version of life that they know. They are not allowed to heal. They’re not allowed to rage. They’re not allowed to see the truth, because the moment they do, they are looked at differently. They become outcasts. They are transported to places like Green Pastures in Pennsylvania, where they’re told that God doesn’t want them to leave the Amish. Obey. Do what you are told. Take these pills. The Devil has got to you, and it must be purged.

💔 The truth is this:

The Amish world isn’t built on peace and holiness. It’s built on fear, secrecy, control and compliance and until someone steps outside of it, they can’t even begin to see it clearly.

You stepped out, you asked the questions, and now carry a responsibility, yes, but also a power. Because every time someone speaks truth about this system, another crack forms in the walls they’ve built so high, but one day, those walls won’t hold anymore, and it will crumble. So those who leave, keep writing, keep asking, and keep fighting. There’s nothing more terrifying to a cult than a person who lived through it and refuses to shut up!