“The medication works by masking their feelings. The problem is that when you can’t feel your own feelings, you can’t feel anyone else’s either.”
And there lies the rub, as Hamlet might say.
For example, I knew a teacher who was very good in many ways, but would occasionally say the most tactless or insulting things completely unprovoked, which drove at least one very sweet and nice student out of her class and even out of the school.
Later, I discovered that this teacher was likely taking medication at that time to deal with a temporarily difficult situation at home.
Again, I don't see any problem with taking medication to deal with a temporary and overwhelming problem in life.
But all the other halachot of behavior and ona'at devarim still apply.
If medication causes a person to be less sensitive to others, then a person on that medication must make stronger efforts to maintain their sensitivity & derech eretz toward others.
Another woman I knew on medication for manic-depression (what we then called bipolar disorder) used to fall into defensive behavior at the drop of a hat (although she also immediately recovered each time just as fast).
She also often made comments like, “These types of things always happen to me!” if, for example, a waiter accidentally spilled dessert on her shaitel or whatever. (This is exactly the kind of negative self-talk depressed people engage in, so how is the medication helping her with the depression part of her mental illness?)
Also, it's a weird thing to say.
In my experience, it's rare for a waiter to spill food on a person at a wedding.
In fact, I don't know that I've ever seen that happen. So how is it this type of thing always happens to her?
She was also married to a very good and exceptionally patient & sympathetic man, yet she irrationally saw him as short-tempered.
I knew them for years, spent copious time in their home...yet never once saw him angry.
In fact, the closest thing I ever saw to anger was a time when their teenage son was acting up and the father spoke to him with a stern face in a firm tone of voice and gripped the boy's arm, yet there was so much love shining from the father’s eyes at the same time.
However, the medicated mother immediately started rolling her eyes and led the rest of the children in jeering at their father for “losing his temper.”
This set the teenage boy off again and he wrested his arm out of his father’s grip and ran away.
I still remember how the man looked at his wife and children in surprise, then in dismay as he turned back to look at where his son had run off. With his head down & clearly deep in thought, he trudged back into the house.
Obviously, the mother's attitude shows that manic-depression is not really the problem and that medication is not the answer.
Remember, she behaved this way on medication.
Judaism Expects Any Ill Person to Invest in a Cheshbon HaNefesh
She expressed a lot of regret for the manic/euphoric/emotionally blunted behaviors she unwittingly engaged in while on antidepressants because it hurt people.
The point is that if you genuinely believe that mental illness is just like physical illness, then you will warmly encourage the sufferer to do a cheshbon hanefesh (compassionate & thorough self-introspection) and middot work...just like Judaism expects any ill person to do.
Again, if we want to treat mental illness like physical illness, then cheshbon hanefesh is part of that.
In all the examples throughout this series, it's clear the people diagnosed with mental illness actually suffer from problematic beliefs, attitudes, and situations, regardless of the medication.
Meaning, it's aside from the medication.
This is how they think before they took medication and while they take medication.
For example, the woman above diagnosed with manic-depression grew up in a non-Jewish family where not only her parents were alcoholics, but also several aunts and uncles were, too. She was also abused by one of those uncles.
Based on her traumatic past, it makes sense that any form of anger in another person (no matter how benign or appropriate) could trigger feelings of fear or disgust in her.
She also suffered from negative attitudes toward men in general.
But she certainly should not give in to such triggers.
Yes, they exist and are understandable.
But those triggers should not be allowed to control her behavior.
In the case with her husband, how is she different that anyone else who abuses others with the excuse that they were abused?
The Torah does not allow for such self-complacency.
She needs to train herself to see situations as they actually are, and not as she is triggered to see them.
She especially needs to see how good & forbearing her husband is rather than "hallucinating" him as some sort of bad-tempered clown.
(Maybe she does now. After all, this was years ago. Maybe she made an inner-revolution since then.)
Middot AND Meds, Not Middot OR Meds
How do you think my former friend’s children (Part 5) will turn out being raised by a mother who sees absolutely no good in them?
I daven for them (and her) to be well despite everything, but she really needs to do the work herself.
To really raise her children right, the mother needs to get off the Prozac and into emuna and Azamra (finding diamonds in even the blackest chunk of coal).
Judaism holds that illnesses are messages from Hashem (or atonements) and they should be treated as such.
Again, I realize she and many other feel good on Prozac, but she certainly does not behave "good" on Prozac.
Some people do behave well on Prozac (or other psychiatric medication) and they really do need it for their particular situation.
Some people endure impossible situations & truly cannot endure without the medication.
But there exists a a precious minority who also do the inner work too — and good for them for not taking the easy way out.
Unfortunately, with few exceptions, the psychiatric community does not encourage middot work as part of treatment, only medication.
This includes, with few exceptions, frum psychiatrists, who unfortunately have influenced frum publications with an inadvertently non-Torah approach to mental illness.
But baruch Hashem, there are people with mental illness (or an unbearable situation) who take medication to assist their middot work, and not as a replacement for middot work.