Re: "Hidden Secrets" from Parshas Re'ei
I am very pleased that this publication has thought to open
the debate regarding mental health disorders and medications.
I believe strongly that Klall Yisroel is,
unfortunately, decades behind the medical world in this area
and it is high time to take this topic "out of the
closet."
According to developments in the field of mental health, vast
percentages of population, frum Jews included, suffer
from many varieties of disorders (let's call them
challenges). Most go undiagnosed, without the benefits of the
ever-increasing refined medications that could alter the
quality of a person's life.
Remember Zaide who was dynamic and brilliant when he spoke
before students, but irritable when sitting around with
family? Could be bipolar. How about the wife who scrubbed the
walls and moldings before Pesach until her knuckles were red
and almost bleeding? Maybe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The yeshivah boy who never let his mother put her arms around
him for a hug, then seemed cold-shouldered and distant to his
new wife? Could have a touch of autism. The high school girl
who is beautiful and thin, but so thin you almost miss her if
she stands sideways. She could be hiding anorexia. It is
prevalent in our world. We simply refuse to face the
truth.
These subjects are taboo in the frume velt, for the
very reason brought up in the story "Secret." We as a society
are so obsessed with perfection in our economic lives, our
children's mates, our imagined futures, that thousands of
individuals who could be receiving much needed help are
literally kept behind closed doors. I know of a mother
suffering from serious depression who wouldn't dare share
this information with any person in the world, for fear of it
affecting the perfect shidduchim to come for her
children.
I know of scores of children shlepped along in our mainstream
yeshivah classrooms, becoming turned off, restless and worst
of all, uneducated. If only they were treated in programs
specially designed to meet their needs, they could be
developing into the fullest person that Hashem planned for
them to be, with positive attitudes towards life and also
themselves.
Because we don't allow these topics to be discussed, most
people in our society don't even know the meanings of these
various disorders, the difference between mild and severe
symptoms, which medications you can continue to use while
pregnant and which you can't.
Does anyone know that there are teams of gynecologists
working with psychiatrists to keep a pregnant woman with a
mental health problem healthy and with full likelihood of a
healthy baby?
Does anyone know that with certain mental health tendencies,
a mother must be given her medications immediately after
delivery, while still on the table, to prevent post-partum
depression that could end in a breakdown?
Do we know that there are thousands upon thousands of us
carrying these secrets around regarding some member of our
family, but would never disclose them for fear of
"shidduch rejection."
People with mental health issues live normal, healthy,
productive lives. They can be wonderful husbands and wives,
mothers and fathers. We had better find a way to make room
for these people in our world , or they may be hurt so deeply
that they turn away from Hashem's Torah. I have a young adult
child who did so. And the worst thing is, I can't blame
them.
[Signed: Please, if you want to use any part of my e-mail,
don't use my name or initials at all. After all, I've still
got children who need shidduchim...]
