“It’s no surprise when a woman becomes her husband’s mashgiach — in essence, that was what she was taught to be”

Why Are You Villainizing the Parents? [A Better You / Issue 906]

I’m writing in reference to the letter from a teen who is complaining about her parents not willing to take her for therapy for her self-diagnosed panic attacks. I found the column disconcerting for several reasons. Mainly, I felt the author was villainizing the teenager’s parents.

Who was this article meant for? The teenager who wrote the question? Writing back to her individually should have been enough of an answer.

It feels wrong that the therapy world of today is often glorified, especially to the younger generation. I beg you not to shoot me for that sentence. I do not mean survivors of true trauma, who need to get help as soon as possible, and are justified in using any means as a method to get that help. Many teenagers think they have many illnesses/problems/mental health concerns based on the reading material available to them, combined with the tendency of teens to take situations to extreme levels.

If this parent felt that her daughter’s “panic attacks” could be overcome with breathing techniques, but the child “wanted” to go for therapy, who is Mrs. Kohn to “side” with the teenager? This parent sees her daughter daily, and is seemingly not concerned with her basic functioning skills. A teenager’s own perspective of a problem does not always describe the problem accurately. If you have a 15-year-old at odds with her 38-year-old parent, why are we so quick to assume the 15-year-old is right/knows better?

Additionally, although there may be an element of shame that keeps some parents from allowing their child to go for help, there’s no need for a teenager to know that, or hear about that from a mature adult. Parents are parents. Old-school respect is still called for in the Torah. It’s like we’re telling the teen: You’ve asked your parents for help, they seem to be willing to help, but it’s not the help you had in mind. Now reach out to strangers and follow their advice instead of implementing your mother’s suggested breathing techniques, and yes, maybe wait it out until you’re 18 without falling into a pool of despair.

S. Klein

Brooklyn

Sarah Rivkah Kohn responds:

Thank you for taking the time to write.

It’s interesting that you felt I was villainizing the teenager’s parents when the entire premise of my column was to help the teen figure out the best way to articulate her feelings and thoughts to her parent. Oftentimes what teens believe they said isn’t quite clear, and parents aren’t mind readers!

My goal with teens is always to ensure they’ll go back to their parents, to get them to see what they can do differently this time to create better communication because most parents are ready to listen.

The letter was sent to me anonymously via Family First, and so I felt this was the best forum in which to respond.

To me, there were two challenges at hand:

1) Panic attacks most often get worse with time and rarely just disappear. If this is what she suffers from, getting her parents to get her the right help, be it therapy or meds, can help her in the long term without any lingering effects. Waiting it out generally makes them come more often. Oftentimes teens find ways to make themselves feel better during those attacks, not necessarily good ways, and those ways can become habits, making it far more complicated to deal with in adulthood.

2) The greatest gift we can give our teens is the knowledge that their parent is the first, second, and third place they can turn to and be heard. There is something dangerous about a teen approaching a parent and feeling shut down. Sometimes we, as parents, do this inadvertently, and helping a teen reapproach it, or finding an outsider to reapproach it with the goal being the teen feeling heard, can be helpful not just for this, but for everything in their relationship.

I want to take the teen out for a moment and turn this into an adult, a spouse. If a woman tells her husband she feels like she’s having panic attacks, and he tells her he’ll teach her skills, and she shouldn’t get other help, we’d be up in arms that the spouse is being harsh and not understanding or whatever. Teens and adults deserve to have their thoughts and feelings taken seriously and allowed the opportunity to explore what they feel is best to help them in a safe manner.

To close, in no way was I saying this teen certainly needs therapy. What she does need is to feel heard. And that is the gift I was hoping to be able to facilitate.

Is That All We Are? [To Be Honest / Issue 906]

Regarding the article, “You’re Not His Mashgiach,” I noted the quote from Mrs. Nissan, “Girls are taught that they’re the akeres habayis and an ezer k’negdo.” Sometimes, we’re taught that’s all we are.

Twenty years ago, when I was in Bais Yaakov, many of the lessons from nearly every Torah subject had this conclusion: Your role is to marry a learning boy and support him. So it’s no surprise when a woman becomes her husband’s mashgiach — in essence, that was what she was taught to be.

I was raised to know that I have spiritual value on my own. If I’d believed that I had none as a single person, my ten years of dating would have been even more excruciating. It was those many shiurim I listened to that kept me going and growing.

There are three shutafim in the creation of a person: the father, the mother, and Hashem. Both parents bring their own form of ruchniyus to the table.

Lea Pavel

We Can Influence Him [To Be Honest / Issue 906]

I enjoyed reading the article, “You’re Not His Mashgiach.” It brought out some thought-provoking points.

In my work with kallahs and married women, I’ve observed that the term, “not his mashgiach” addresses only one aspect of the issue. If she’s not his mashgiach, what role is she left with? Should she focus on her inner work, risking a deepening chasm between them where she becomes more spiritual while he spirals downward? Or should she swallow her values for the sake of shalom bayis, essentially giving up on her principles?

What’s missing here is what she can do to encourage him. Consider examples from our mesorah: Rivkah Imeinu helping Yaakov receive the brachos, Devorah Haneviah inspiring her husband to become more spiritual, and the wife of On Ben Peles preventing him from joining Korach’s rebellion. There is so much a woman can do to influence her home with creativity while still staying true to her ideals and being respectful to her husband.

Us women are blessed with extraordinary binah yeseirah and have the powerful ability to influence the direction of our home, just like our Imahos before us.

Miri Wajchman

Marriage Coach

Host of RelateInHarmony Podcast

Another Medical Option [Healing on a Plate / Issue 906]

I read the article about the woman who healed her daughter from Crohn’s through diet with interest as I’ve had Crohn’s for over 20 years. I found the information a bit outdated as there are many other alternative medications that weren’t mentioned.

I also tried the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for seven years, and although it relieved my symptoms in many ways, it never cured my inflammation.

After a bout with a stomach virus, my stomach issues got out of control and my doctor told me that I needed to start medication as my body need to heal. I wasn’t responsive to Humira and Remicade so my doctor decided to try me on a new medication that had been used for many years as a cure for psoriasis, but was being trialed for Crohn’s. It’s called Stelara/Ustekinumab and for me it has been a miracle drug.

I’ve been on this medication for five years already. It’s given as an injection every eight weeks, and I feel amazing. I have no inflammation and my quality of life has improved dramatically. I try to reduce my white flour and sugar intake, but aside from that, I eat whatever I like. I live in the UK, where it isn’t licensed for use during pregnancy, but in Eretz Yisrael it is.

I hope this information will help other Crohn’s sufferers get the relief they need.

A fellow Crohn’s sufferer

The Diet-Illness Connection [Healing on a Plate / Issue 906]

Yasher koach to Family First for writing about the connection between illness and junk foods. I was diagnosed with both Crohn’s and colitis in my twenties and, thank G-d, found a functional M.D. who put me on the path to health. He told me to avoid sugar and gluten and to eat according to the food-combining system, i.e., to eat fruits by themselves, protein with veggies and starches with veggies, but never protein with starches. I’ve followed this for 50 years and have had no problems since! I do have to take food enzymes and HCl before a meal with protein, but otherwise, the problem is managed with proper diet.

When I told my gastroenterologist, the one who said I’d have to have my intestines removed, about my dramatic recovery due to these simple changes, he became furious and yelled, “Don’t ever come back to my office!” He often told me, “There is no connection between what you eat and your illnesses.”

It’s so sad to see how many people live on a diet of sugar and junk foods. They may never make a connection between what they eat and their inflammatory disorders, including arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and digestive problems, as well as mood disorders, like depression and anxiety. When people go to a doctor or psychiatrist, they are usually given medications and told, “There is no connection between what you eat and how you feel.” But Alzheimer’s has been called, “Diabetes of the brain” — there must be a sugar-illness connection there.

It takes great self-discipline to overcome a sugar addiction and face the mockery of a society that pushes sugary foods on people at every event, but it’s so worthwhile to make the switch to a healthy diet.

Miriam Adahan

A Niece Misses Her Ex-Aunt [Words Unspoken / Issue 905]

I got emotional when I read the Words Unspoken about a divorced woman’s emotions when she bumped into her ex-husband’s niece who she’d been close to when she was a young child. I’ve had similar experiences, and as I write this, tears stream down my face from acknowledging how this is a deep pain that I almost never touched upon.

When my older brother got married, I was really young and so excited to have a new “sister.” My sister-in-law did fun activities with us younger siblings, went on trips with us, and did all the things a sister does, plus more, taking a real interest in us younger kids.

She was there for me through my teenage years, and later through my dating sagas. When I got engaged, she taught me how to make and cook Shabbos. When I had a baby, she helped me so much and gave me critical new-mother tips.

Then we moved away, and after a few years, they got divorced.

When I saw her a few years later at my niece’s (her daughter’s) vort, I had to hold back tears. This was someone who was in my life for so much of my childhood, teenage years, and early married life, and taught me so much. How could it be that she’s disappeared from our life so completely? When she saw my now grown son, whom she helped me care for, I felt like crying and saying, “This is the baby you helped me raise.” My son didn’t even know who she was.

My kids now only vaguely know who she is and yet she was such an integral part of our family for those years.

The divorce had to happen and my brother is happily remarried. But it’s still sad when people who were once close family members are no longer.

Name Withheld

Too Late to Spot the Red Flags [Manipulated / Issue 902]

It was with great interest that I read Dina Cohen’s article on how she was manipulated by a woman in her neighborhood.

I was pleasantly surprised to read how she had the foresight to end the relationship on her own, before any long-lasting damage was done. In many cases, it isn’t so.

My friend was the most attractive, brilliant person out there. (At least, that’s how she portrayed herself.) She had that streak of intimidation that set her on a higher plane.

Yes, I had to bend over backward for her. Yes, I was her sole emotional carrier and soundboard. But I’m a giving person, and I thought the world of her, so who has the time to ponder that perhaps I was trapped in her web?

Unlike in the article, it was actually my friend who terminated the friendship, because of a heinous crime I committed: I subconsciously set down a boundary, and she didn’t like it at all. It was only afterward that I realized what I’ve been saved from.

Recovery was long and hard.

Baruch Hashem, I’m now blessed with the ability to spot the red flags in those seeking unhealthy friendship.

Thank you for bringing up the topic.

Name Withheld

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 908)