Growing up in a sheltered Jewish Orthodox community, no one spoke about mental illness. It was a topic that was never brought up in school, spoken about at shul or discussed among peers or friends. I distinctly remember my own therapy experience as feeling “shameful” and to be kept secret.
One afternoon during my senior year of high school, I went to my regular therapy appointment and was sitting in the waiting room. Suddenly, my therapist opened her door and someone from my high school exited her office! I was mortified. I turned bright red and looked down at the floor trying to avoid her gaze. I did not want to go back to school the next day in fear of being exposed as someone needing therapy for my anxiety. Looking back, if I saw a peer in my therapist’s office nowadays, I would genuinely wave, smile and discuss how comical it is to be sharing a therapist.
While our community has done work in breaking the stigma of mental illness, there is so much more we can do. One idea is to have a mental health Shabbat in which shuls all over the tristate area designate one Shabbat a year to address mental illness in the community. Shul members could speak about their journeys with mental illness and therapists could present on different treatment protocols, resources and ways to prioritize our mental health.
Mental health is as important as physical health. Just as we go to the doctor annually for our physical exam, we need to be prioritizing and addressing our mental health. With the pressures of our community to be successful in our careers, married by 25, four kids by 30 and a house by 32, it is imperative that we are taking care of ourselves first. There is an overwhelming amount of pressure to do it all, yet there are few resources to help when we feel like we are drowning.
In order to help with this, I first implore you to talk openly about your own struggle with anxiety, depression, anger, relationships and parenting. We all struggle with something; the more you discuss it with other people, the less alone you will feel. Open the conversation and ask your friend or family member, “What is something you are struggling with right now?”
Secondly, I urge the local yeshiva day schools to add mental health into their curriculum and teach the students the importance of it. Schools can have therapists come lecture to students about different relevant topics in mental health such as eating disorders, panic attacks, anxiety, depression and social anxiety. Normalizing these topics will help students feel more comfortable sitting in these uncomfortable feelings, sharing them with their peers, teachers or families, and asking for help.
Lastly, we need to do better as parents to openly discuss these topics with our children. From the time our kids are little, it is vital to teach them about emotions and that no emotion is “good” or “bad.” All emotions are valid and part of the human experience. We cannot experience joy without sadness, happiness without anger, or tenacity without defeat. There are many books that I recommend to my own clients and friends such as “The Color Monster” by Anna Llenas, “The Feelings Book” by Todd Parr and “In My Heart: A Book of Feelings” by Jo Witek. Let’s conquer this stigma together and open the floodgates for honest, raw and real conversations in our communities.
Gabrielle Moskovitz is a therapist at Collaborative Minds Psychotherapy specializing in maternal mental health. She is passionate about advocating for women’s mental health access with issues such as infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum anxiety and depression, and struggles with motherhood. Gabrielle is currently pursuing a Perinatal Mental Health Certification (PMHC) through PSI. Follow along @thecheftherapist on Instagram for tips, resources and personal stories. To schedule an appointment with Gabrielle visit www.collaborativeminds.net/gabrielle.
