“At 18 I married someone with exactly what I was looking for: stability. Yossi had a job and a quiet calm way about him — everything I wanted. We lived my ideal life for ten years till last year when he was arrested for engaging in inappropriate behavior. I was shocked! My world fell apart and I dropped right back into the chasm that I had tried so hard to escape from.”

We prefer clean orderly lives where events are fairly predictable and we experience a comfortable level of apparent control. It can only be “apparent control” of course because — as we all find out sooner or later — it’s Hashem Who has the control not us.

“I had been carefully squirreling away money for decades stuffing bills and coins into jars and eventually transferring them to my special savings account at the bank. I never bought something for myself or the kids that we didn’t need. I was sure that money would come in handy one day especially when it was added to the gifts we’d received over the years the investments my husband had the savings from his salary — I knew we’d always be fine.

“When I learned that my husband had invested every last cent in a bad bet and that — at 50 years of age — we were completely broke I cannot describe the shock I felt. It seemed that my whole life was a failure.”

Part of Life 

There’s no end to the shocks that can be experienced in family life. A woman exhausts herself in her attempt to support her husband in learning only to discover years later that he was barely attending yeshivah the whole time. “Shocked” is only one of the intense reactions experienced by those who learn that a spouse has been charged with embezzlement or other illegal activity or who has otherwise engaged in previously unthinkable behavior.

Marriage isn’t the only place that produces shocking experiences of course. Finding out that your child isn’t who you thought he was can be terribly unnerving. Shock also occurs when one personally experiences workplace (or other) harassment. It occurs when receiving a serious medical diagnosis for oneself or a loved one. Unexpected death produces intense shock.

Whatever provokes it shock disorients a person leaving her feeling as if she is floating in an alien universe. Her world and everything she thought to be true or safe dissolves before her eyes leaving her without solid footing without the framework that had always supported her.

Despite the intensity of emotional shock it is a universal experience affecting everyone at various times throughout his or her life.

Coping with Shock

The formal name for psychological shock is “acute stress reaction.” Unlike post-traumatic stress disorder — a syndrome that happens long after traumatic events have occurred — this condition happens shortly after experiencing witnessing or hearing life-altering news and lasts for up to a month. It is characterized by the disorientation described above as well as by disrupted sleep feelings of anxiety and panic physical symptoms of exhaustion and pain feeling disconnected from reality and other emotional mental and physical signs of distress.

Sometimes the nervous system will settle down over a period of weeks and the sufferer will reorient back to a state of grounded reality ready to deal with the ramifications of the original stress. Sometimes however symptoms will persist and can move into other syndromes such as depression anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Taking care of early symptoms can help prevent prolonged suffering. Accessing personal and/or professional support is crucial. Always keep in mind that shock is a universal experience; there are many books and other resources that can provide information healing interventions and support as well.

Cutting back on activities to allow time and space for healing is as important as it is with physical illness. Finally utilizing natural or pharmaceutical tools for calming and resetting the nervous system reducing anxiety and aiding sleep helps promote faster more complete recovery.