“That you can’t write a letter with your name on it to the entire Mishpacha audience is, if you ask me, a maalah and not a chisaron”
I read the two letters about the stigma that comes with mental illness with so much pain. Mental health issues are extraordinarily difficult — sometimes more so than serious physical ailments — for the very reason raised in the letters, that they cannot be openly spoken about. It is so hard to get the support, empathy and understanding that are needed to survive these challenges.
Respectfully, I want to point out that the fact that you had to sign your letters anonymously is not an example of the stigmas we harbor toward mental illness. It is not because of (or perhaps not only because of) stigmas that you can’t reveal your identities. It’s actually a much higher value that we as a frum society are losing day by day: that of privacy, of tzniyus.
Make no mistake — I am no advocate for remaining silent when one must speak. The issue is that today the lines are so blurred. The secular world has lost all sense of discretion — their message is, “If you need to hide it, you’re ashamed of it.”
Jewish values demand the exact opposite; that which is most valuable is protected. Not hidden, shoved away, and ignored. But protected, revealed on occasion when needed.
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