A sicho on mental health

I'm having flashbacks. In 1974 (?) give or take a year, as a new initiate to Chabad, I was stationed in MN for a few weeks of spit, polish and education that mainly consisted of group learning with Reb Manis Friedman beginning at 12AM, you read that right, AM and some lessons on reading prayers in Hebrew. Lo these 35+ years later I'm listening online to his lessons on Tanya and hearing the same sort of black and white posits; such as we were told back then "Being religious is like being pregnant, either you are, or you're not." And this was stated in the context of why Chabad chassidus is the one correct path leading to a life of Torah, mitzvot.

In the lecture I listened to (audio lessons) Chapt 14 of Tanya is being explained-I will attempt to describe as carefully as I can.
On the spectrum of beings created, specifically the lecture dealt with the Tzaddik and the Benoni( benoni being the level average man should strive to become)A benoni can never be a tzaddik-a tzaddik's love is pure because he has no other thought or distraction except to love Hashem. That is the essence of his being, perfect love, he is born that way he does not attain this level by doing anything and is not distracted from this because this is who he is, pshat.

The benoni must work to love Hashem and he does this through learning Torah and doing mitzvot; the benoni struggles between his yetza hora and his yezter tov but because he is a Jew, innately he wants to be close to Hashem, he wants to do the right thing-and when a Jew deviates from doing the right thing and does sin, in that moment he is not in his right mind as a Jew-actually I think Friedman used the word insane to describe why a Jew moves off the derech of doing what Jews are to do and do whatever it takes for that process to move forward while always being in this struggle within himself.

Well...so Im asking myself, does Chabad or Tanya attribute all 'bad' or unJewish behaviors to temporary madness or insanity? Is this a new interpretation by Rabbi Freidman or this was the thinking of the Baal Shem Tov? Other religion have for centuries described possession or evil spirits to account for mental illness in people.

What greatly frustrates me to the point of anger are the pithy statements as the one above about being religious-and in this instance attributing un-Torah like behavior to mental illness. If that is actually the belief, then mental illness as explained in secular texts is nonsense and the only cure for Jew is immersion in Torah and mitzvot. I knew enough women and men who dressed the part and did the acts of a chosid but were clearly not of sound mind.

This is not only about my own battle with depression and anxiety which has effected fulfillment of religious duties, doing or not doing, lacking patience or faith that I can step back and let Hashem do His work...and why is that?

Well when you're a child raised in a house of madness, you adapt certain behaviors in order to survive. Some people drink, drug, other become violent or take on other unacceptable behaviors. I learned early to keep quiet, keep my ears to the ground and interpret trouble fast and see where I can help to put out 'fires.' In other words, I parented two people who were never parents. And yet I have very poor parenting skills as an adult to my own children, I am late in learning.

I left the parental house of madness and after a brief stint in Israel went into Chabad for almost 15 years. It was a deliberate and conscious choice to be religious-I am not my parents, I wanted to be Jewish, religious, have a wholesome and secure marriage with a Jewish spouse and raise Jewish children.

I've already written about my conversion by Chabad because of my mother's non-kosher toivel and absolute nose thumbing at anything Jewish other than my father's bank account, so I'll not repeat it here. The point is, I chose or maybe saying "I" chose is givah...I believe in being chosen and had an impediment (a non Jewish mother) that needed to be corrected. There was never a day in my life I felt to be anyone else but a Jew. Even when I stepped into another religion for a brief period, prayed and studied that religion, it felt like putting on a coat and hat that was not mine, it felt like something borrowed (this must be the 'insanity' clause Friedman describes)that never quite fit. And unlike alot of women, my interest in religion came long before marriage was in the picture. I felt utterly rejected by Chabad-never quite measuring up. I'm told this is my own character defect or 'issue' not Chabad. If the sign of wealth from Hashem is one's children,I am rich.

But from the years of terror, seeing similiar patterns in my then husband made me frantic to 'fix' it all, with therapists, rabbonim and finally leaving, husband and children because the situation was violent, relentless poverty, annual childbirth/nursing with no family help advice it was sink or swim ever day.

After 9 years asking the Rebbe how can I fix this before my children are marked as damaged goods-as a family we had already attained this status with tzaddakah boxes coming each week with food, used clothes, unemployment, me being told to stay home and refused a heter for birth control, yeshivah tuition unpaid, rent owed and the kids being asked to leave school, not welcome to play at neighbors homes. I came from madness to Hashem and His community to find another version of madness, only this version supposedly is sanctioned because everything is cloaked as done through Torah and mitzvot. If you wear a kipota and go to shul to shmooz, alles git.

It's a mitzvah to feed the poor and even better to give person a skill to earn his own bread. Where is the mitzvah when a man eats his fill and looks for the next handout? Is it in Torah to label a person a nebish or amahoretz, thereby washing the community's hands of responsibility to take an active role in holding such a person responsible because the lives he is responsible for are being destroyed?

Yes, thats all happened years ago. And all the destruction has been done. And now I find that because I made a choice to gain control, no longer cede our lives to someone who could not take care of us, but to take it back and go to school (no bracha) or find a way to work (no bracha), that this mental switch of not accepting my position as a dependent wife and mother, was a state of madness. It was not madness to live like that, as long as I would daven and hope beyond hope that someday it would all even out.

Evidently there are not a few once devout chassidim and or their children leaving, speaking out, writing and acting out sexually, with drugs, noted to be behaviors of minds gone bad...insane benonim overcome by evil urges. Who is Rabbi Friedman speaking to...those still inside, those who left, those who might be snared and brought in?

I could be wrong and have misunderstood the points being made. However, my experience then with Chabad and now, is frighteningly similar. Black and White, there are no grays.

My loyalty, though it may seem laughable from the way I write about Chabad, is very deep. I turned to chassidus as a young girl because it fit, spiritually and mentally. I recognized Chabad, yiddish felt like home though no one spoke it at home and living each week around shabbos made perfect sense internally; except it was all done on someone else's dime once I married. Everything in terms of gashmias came from the Rebbe and many other people. I'm not biting the hand that fed me; when you stop loving someone or something, you leave it and could care less. I love the Rebbe for all his kindness despite him knowing who I was and what was going on. But I wasnt knowledgable by any stretch to interpret many of the condensed answers that the office called to give me.

What I'm looking for is not an excuse for my own departue, maybe I'm looking for a sicho that doesnt equate the abuse of women and children as status quo wherein those wives and mother with 'issues' can have their issues remedied with tehillim and bitochan while men go on their merry way...unaccountable as ever.