I don’t think its so much that people think they’re a bad person as much as our community seems to be rather behind the times when it comes to understanding what mental illness is, what causes it, etc. A lot of frum people still view it as some sort of chisaron on the part of the individual. Let’s take, for example, depression: Maybe if s/he studied more Torah/did more chesed/had more bitachon, they wouldn’t be depressed; s/he needs more simchas hachaim, needs a mussar shmuz from the Rav, because after all, the Torah says must be happy with your life, and if you’re not, clearly you’re not working enough at it. In reality, true depression is a medical condition requiring medical attention, and all the mussar/tischen/what have you will not make it go away. That’s where it stems from, and that’s where people need to be educated.
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