Is chronic mental illness considered a permanent disability that prevents fasting, especially if the sufferer experiences fatigue, depression, exhaustion, and anxiety even with slight exertion, and continues to suffer despite treatment?

Mental illness does not permit breaking the fast unless the patient is taking medication that exacerbates the illness by disrupting it, or delays their recovery. Therefore, the one who breaks the fast must make up the days they missed, and it is not permissible for them to resort to feeding the poor, because Allah the Almighty says: {And whoever is ill or on a journey - then an equal number of other days.} As for feeding the poor, it applies to the elderly and the patient whose recovery is not expected, or if trustworthy Muslim doctors testify that the illness is not expected to go away.