{"id":32520,"date":"2011-05-09T16:42:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T00:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=32520"},"modified":"2011-05-11T18:29:25","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T02:29:25","slug":"returning-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=32520","title":{"rendered":"Returning To Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

From DonnaBurstyn.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The first time he attempted suicide, he was ten years old. His parents had divorced. His father was a classic hippie. His mother was more reserved. He came from an Orthodox yeshiva-going family but his mother and aunt chose a different path and disappointed his father terribly.<\/p>\n

This father is still alive in his nineties. He\u2019s outlived two of his kids.<\/p>\n

He once looked at me in the eyes and he said, \u2018Those of us in the camps who were nice, didn\u2019t survive.\u2019<\/p>\n

I heard him loud and clear. He was not one of the nice ones.<\/p>\n

He married into a tight family. Several sisters survived the Holocaust together and formed a community. His wife was the most quiet. They raised two daughters. No one was close. The kids thought they raised themselves. By the time they were teens, the parents had divorced. The family was devastated and embarrassed.<\/p>\n

Everyone married for the wrong reasons, such as to please grandpa. No one found love. From grandpa, there wasn\u2019t much love, just a lot of strict love. The younger generation didn\u2019t want all the rules. They wanted the love and the meals and the conversation. That was something he couldn\u2019t do. His wife was so depressed that she would often show up to the table and not say a word. The daughters were raised with a mentally ill mother and a father who survived the Holocaust and at age 94 is still doing everything himself, going to shul three times a day and saying the mourner\u2019s kaddish.<\/p>\n

One of his daughters had no kids. She\u2019s in her sixties. I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s gay or straight.<\/p>\n

My client\u2019s mother died around age 50 to cancer. That was the same year he married his wife and everything went against them. He didn\u2019t have training to be married. He was a yeshiva bachur (student). She was a baal teshuva from another country. A beautiful woman. They had great intentions but little in common.<\/p>\n

When his mother died, she left an inheritance. They bought a house and tried to create a home and failed. They tried for seven years to have children. They tried for seven years to find things of common interest. The husband was unable to find employment so he sat around with time on his hands. She got several teaching jobs. She was exhausted when she came home and looking for his support. And it wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

So when he was driving across country with the little he had collected after his divorce, she kept the house, he stopped at his grandfather\u2019s house to unload the van. His father and grandfather with their strong accents said, \u2018This is all you have? Your mother left you an inheritance and this is all you have? You\u2019re going to let her keep the house.\u2019<\/p>\n

My client felt guilty. He felt he took her child-bearing years and there was no way to pay for it. He still struggles with it. Perhaps he deserves some of his inheritance back?<\/p>\n

As he grows, he decides who he is. He develops backbone. He\u2019s not grandpa. He\u2019s not an ultra-Orthodox Jew. He keeps the Sabbath and the dietary laws. That\u2019s more than enough for him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m often asked by young couples, what happens when I go through a journey and my husband goes through a different journey? Does that mean our marriage is threatened? If you don\u2019t let your spouse grow, you\u2019ll have an unhappy marriage because they won\u2019t reach their potential.<\/p>\n

If his growth is watching online porn and putting personal ads out there, clearly that is not in the best interests of the marriage. Let\u2019s say one person develops an interest in astronomy and the other in cooking. If they don\u2019t go with each other to the classes, maybe they will find other people in those classes that they have more in common with. Will this threaten the marriage? They\u2019ll have to work that out together.<\/p>\n

As my client spoke to me, he poked and pulled at the hairs in his beard and ate them. He\u2019s unable to defecate like a regular person. He has to go to the hospital. He holds everything in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken a long time for him to trust me.<\/p>\n

We work together two or three times a week on a reduced scale. When I met him, the thought of working was incomprehensible. He got a respectable job.<\/p>\n

Last Yom Kippur was the last day he wanted to be on earth. He boxed up and gave away everything he had. Then he rethought and kept living. <\/p>\n

That was six months ago.<\/p>\n

On another note, I have a client who when he sees me, he folds his hands in prayer position and says, \u201cTeacher!\u201d And I fold my hands in prayer position and say, \u201cTeacher!\u201d<\/p>\n

I know it is not popular in today\u2019s age to have equality with one\u2019s therapist but I feel comfortable with it. I\u2019m comfortable with being a mirror, hearing the things people say and throwing it back at them and seeing if it makes sense for them.<\/p>\n

I meet a new teacher every day. I am open to being open. I thought I was for many years and I was not. It\u2019s not as easy as it sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From DonnaBurstyn.com: The first time he attempted suicide, he was ten years old. His parents had divorced. His father was a classic hippie. His mother was more reserved. He came from an Orthodox yeshiva-going family but his mother and aunt … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[3277,15861,26338,26339,26340,3223],"class_list":["post-32520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donna-burstyn","tag-baal-teshuva","tag-different-path","tag-ill-mother","tag-kaddish","tag-mourner","tag-younger-generation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t