This is very hard for me because it’s something that was so close to my heart, and my separation still hurts, but I feel I have to tell it from the inside.
Unlike nearly all others who left, I left Chabad a while after Gimmel Tammuz and not only did I stay frum I remained a chareidi and joined a more mainstream Chassidic group that doesn’t feed me lies.
So what I’m writing is from firsthand knowledge, not hearsay, and I myself believed most or all of it for years.
How much garbage is a person capable of believing before he finally realizes that it is garbage? An almost an unlimited amount, it seems.
You contributors who are not and have never been part of Chabad don’t understand how effective the brainwashing is.
For most outsiders their only encounters with Chabad chassidim is in the way of Chabad houses or shluchim who are trying to get someone to put on tefillin etc, but for those born into in and on the inside it is much more insidious.
And in virtually all cases it is not out of bad intentions. It is because Chabad people DO really care, but their caring is based on personal ego (and that is of course true with nearly all of mine and your interacdtions as well) and false views which are often antithetical to the Torah (I would rather not term it apikorsus).
Chabad is a huge movement, and it is very charismatic and fun to be part of. But when the veneer is stipped away there is very little there. Less than other chassidica and non-chassidic groups have.
Even now it hurts me to say it, so I have to have a break. But if anyone is interested for me to elaborate just let me know and I will force myself.