I’m going through something, and it’s big

Dear Friends,

We’ve been through it all together: high school, seminary, dating, adjusting to marriage. Before we were married, we spent fun vacations together, had inspiring Shabbosos together, laughed together, and cried together.

In adulthood, whenever one of us went through something, we knew we had each other to fall back on. Whether it was something we’d share with the whole group or just individuals in it, whether it was something we could share at the time or only after the fact — we knew we could find strength and support from one another.

Life happens, as we know. We’ve all had our individual journeys to get there, but baruch Hashem we’re all married and blessed with children. We don’t live in the same country or have the same schedules and we don’t even talk that often, maybe every couple of months. But even so, when one of us faced a challenge — be it infertility or a difficult pregnancy or illness in the family — we reached out to each other for tefillos, for strength and support.

Now I’m going through something, and it’s big. I’m trying to tackle a deep trauma from my childhood — to face it head on, to finally be free of it. It’s confronting every one of my deepest fears. It’s one of the bravest and hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s empowering and exhausting and some days it sucks the life out of me, making daily life feel impossible. And it’s also deeply lonely.

Because it doesn’t feel like something I can share, even with you. In recent years, issues that used to be more taboo to share, like divorce or infertility or even mental health struggles, have become more normalized. People have a frame of reference to understand and empathize with the challenge, even if they haven’t been through it.

But trauma, abuse? Not so much. Would any of you have any frame of reference or way to relate to me, if I opened up about flashbacks or shame or brokenness?

I don’t want to become the broken one, the heavy one. I don’t want to dump something so heavy and ugly and hard on our group of friends.

And at the same time, I feel so incredibly alone. After a hard night, or a hard therapy session, or even a great session where I made an amazing breakthrough, there’s no one to share it with. No one to relate to. And carrying this crazy intense burden at the same time as carrying on normal life, while nobody knows about it, is so, so hard.

I don’t even know what I want to suggest. I’m not sure what could change. I just wish you could be aware of what I’m going through. I wish that the same way we rallied around others in our group when they were going through something hard, checking in on them, and davening for them and supporting them, I wish I could ask for that for me.

But this topic feels too big.

I feel like it would redefine the way you view me, redefine our friendship.

Maybe if we spoke more regularly, I could bring it up in stages, over time, sandwiched between regular conversations and anecdotes about lighter stuff in my life, so that revealing my struggle wouldn’t feel like I’m dropping a bombshell.

I love you all and I know you love me. I don’t blame any of you for the fact that I feel stuck, unable to share this with you. I just need you all right now, and I don’t know how to tell you that.

Your Friend

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 982)