I personally have a few friends who went OTD and some even came back. If you ask the most of them and you try to single out a reason you won`t find it. Yes there are some with bitterness, some with challenged families, some have been abused, and some lazy or enjoy it the other way around. But non of my friends ever went public to hurt their parents or place they grew up. My question is what motivates these few who do turn their backs on their friends and family and openly speak lies against them.
(Story edited with OP's approval):
I`m not a Lubavitcher, but I have seen many, many open miracles by the Rebbe`s Ohel. And I do try to keep a lot of things he requested from his followers to do.
I want to share a personal story I had when I was living in Israel.
I used to make a coffee every day at the same store. Over time I became friends with one of the workers, let’s call him Yoni, and he opened up to me about his life.
Yoni is Sephardi, his father is religious and he was raised orthodox, but he left his father’s way and no longer keeps Shabbos etc. So, one day I asked him the same question we are asking in this thread, Why? why hurt your father, your family, leave the ideals that raised you… His answer was: I don’t know, I just left.
He really was a lost soul, not trying to hurt anyone, he made some friends on the streets and was simply enjoying their lifestyle. As we became closer, I asked him if he would mind to put on Tefillin every day when I come to drink my coffee.
He agreed as long as I first got permission from his boss. The boss, a frum guy himself, happily agreed saying “You don`t know how happy you will be making his father, who is a close friend of mine".
We started on a Monday morning, and continued to put on teffilin for just a few moments every day that week. That Friday when I came to do my morning coffee and Tefillin, Yoni told me he wants to do something more for Shabbos, because he will miss putting on teffilin, BUT he does not want to actually keep Shabbos.
I got an idea, I told him he should put his phone down for just 1 hour every Shabbos. And this went on for around 3 weeks until one night I was on the Kosel bus and I saw Yoni at one of the bus stops. I called him onto the bus and told him to join me to the Kosel. He gladly agreed to join me. When we arrived at the Kosel we met a nice Lubavitcher Chassid and after some conversation he offered Yoni to come for Shabbos (I think to Kfar Chabad) if he is willing to keep this one Shabbos, arrive before Shabbos and leave after while observing it and joining with his own family during meals in shul etc. To give him a feel of a beautiful Shabbos which he hadn’t experienced since his childhood.
Since that Shabbos, he has kept everyone.
40 Days later he had kept his 5th Shabbos, he calls me up Motzei Shabbos and tells me that he`s engaged! And invited me to come to the party.
He got engaged to a girl that he was hanging out with and dated over a year before our story.
Her father had forbidden her from dating him though, and they broke up. Her father was affiliated with Lubavitcher Chassidim but wasn’t fully observant himself, he wasn’t shomer Shabbos yet he put on tefillin daily.
When I came to the engagement party, I asked the girl’s father asked why he broke them up a year ago and now he was the one that actually got them back together?
His answer shocked me then and I still can’t wrap my mind around it.
He said, It is not my fault that my father didn’t bring me up religious. But I always told my daughter that I want her to marry someone that identifies himself as Jew. When Yoni and my daughter first met I didn`t care that he wasn’t religious but I did care that he isn't acting Jewish, there was nothing about him that he identified with as being Jewish. One morning I was passing the coffee shop and saw you guys putting on Tefillin. The next day I saw the same thing, so I went to the owner and asked him what is going on here. He told me that you guys put on teffilin every day. I immediately called my daughter and gave her my blessing to call up Yoni and ask him out again.
The rest as they say is history. They are happily married and have a baby girl.
Before I left Israel I put him in contact with a Rav, they are both currently much more religious and still shomer Shabbos.
The saying that as we keep Shabbos, Shabbos keeps us, is so true, and something Yoni will never forget.