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what would the toeles be? is it still nogeah?
yup.
its also why a lot of women stay with abusive men. the men abuse them then make it up to them and they say “i cant leave him…tru he does X Y and Z to me, but he really loves me”
ideally yes. absolutely.
“So you’re basically saying that she should have no emotional contact with her mother?”
thats what i think. there are those who disagree…some say she should try to reconcile her differences…but in my opinion thats just like liberal idiots who say that we need to educate the terrorists into stop bombing israel…i dont see any alternative. she should cut emotional ties. people, feel free to disagree with me, but i think thats the right course of action.
“Not exactly sure what you mean…
I think you’re heading in the right direction…:)”
no i mean if you know of any places which would take me on in such a role…id gladly help out
“Bomb, I must say, you’re truly amazing. I’d suggest you deal with kids at risk. You know precisely what should be done, and your approach is very healthy.”
i would…point me in the right direction 🙂
“Quick question: did you move out of the house once you cut off all your ties with her or you lived in the house with her and just stopped talking?”
i make enough money to move out, but the jobs arent stable so i have not yet moved out. my grandmother covers rent though so i depend on my mother for nothing.
“I think I’m going to tell her to read this”
please do!
yeah, she obviously cant cut all ties, but she needs to detach herself emotionally from her mother. IMO, in the case of an abusive parent, the option of reconciliation must be off the
table because that means that she is still emotionally invested in her mother, and that is damaging. there is no reconciliation with an abusive parent. she should take what she needs from her mother in terms of money, but not give anything emotionally.
also she should try and find another way to pay for the wedding…cuz yeah…first of all her mother probably wont…and secondly because that will just make her “owe” her mother…
i dont have any siblings.
the hurricane isnt hitting us until sunday so i see no reason to leave the radio on on shabbos
run?
“are you talking to me?”
yes, deniro
the nuttiest thing i did today was leave work.
ok really the nuttiest thing i did today was write the above sentence 😛
It was pretty painful. a month later i was severely depressed for 2 weeks…
Here’s the attitude I adopted. It’s a bit callous, but it is what it is and it works. Basically whatever my mother says is of no consequence at all because I have the upper hand. I’m her son and I took myself away from her. So I see her as a broken shell of a human being whose own son wants nothing to do with her. It’s harsh, but it works. If she views every word that comes out of her mother’s mouth as absolutely inconsequential then she won’t take her mother’s bait. If her mother says something nasty or argumentative, she should just walk away knowing in her heart that she is a better and stronger person than her mother, because she is.
I would suggest that she read this thread. She should know that she’s not the only one who has had such problems. It helps. Show her my Ami article, show her this thread…it helps.
Good job on being candid 🙂
As for going over to her house, don’t feel bad about that. She doesn’t want you over at her house, because she herself doesn’t want to be at her house. Why would she want to be there if she can be at your house? My friends stopped coming over a long time ago and I’m fine with that. I would much rather be at their houses and so would they 🙂
You were right to tell her not to return the stuff herself. There is never any reason to apologize for buying necessities, and like you said, if her mother doesn’t like it she can return the stuff herself.
Her mother has no right over he stuff. Not her license, not her sheets, not her books, nothing. My mother was and still is the same way. She used to say “I bought it for you, I an take it when I want.” Which, if you think about it, is a dangerous way of thinking because it sounds like “I gave you life, I can take it away.” Your friend should understand if she does not already that what was given is her’s and NOT her mother’s. Once something is given it cannot be taken back. If i give my friend $50 for his wedding, I have no right to later ask for it back.
My mother used to steal the books I got from the library, read them, and damage them. I ended up owing the library $500 because of her. She used to take my medicine too. I’m allergic to mosquito bites, so I NEED Benadryl. She used to take my Benadryl. So I bugged my grandmother to buy me a safe. I kept all my stuff in that safe. Problem solved.
“Do you think that her line of thinking is correct? That if she listens and does everything her mother says her life will be better?”
LOL no. Would you say the same about cancer? “If I just let it have a few cells it may just be so grateful it’ll go away without chemo.”
Absolutely not! First of all because her mother has no right to abuse her. No human being has the right to abuse another. Any kind of abuse, even for a second is wrong, and should be fought against. Your friend is a human being! Would she volunteer for a month of abuse if it were her choice? Would she do it for a million dollars? No. There is no reason for her to take any abuse. EVER. I used to think like that, and it got me nowhere. If she does that, her mother will just get more and more abusive. Right now I would imagine her mother feels pretty powerful. The most important thing is to shatter that image of power. Her mother needs to be brought down from her high horse, so to speak.
Regardless, it is never a good idea to bend over and take abuse like a dog. She should not get used to taking abuse. No. She should fight back against it even if she only has a day left. It benefits her in two ways:
1) That she doesn’t get abused…that’s always a good thing.
2) She works on her assertiveness and realizes that she is a human being, and that no human being should ever be treated the way she is being treated.
It’s good practice for the future. So no. She should NOT just lay low and take it. I’m not saying that she should look for provocation, but if her mother gets abusive she should either walk away…let her mother go and have a nice life…or if she is not ready to walk out of her mother’s life yet she should tell her mother as assertively as possible that her mother is being abusive and that the way she treats her is disgusting and not befitting a cockroach, let alone a human being, and walk away. No crying, no storming away in a huff, just say that in a matter of fact and assertive strong voice and walk away.
Personally I think that walking away while not saying a word is a better option, but that’s only going to work if your friend is truly ready to break from her mother. Her mother’s words need to have absolutely no effect on her before she is emotionally ready to walk away from abuse. Otherwise she will hear it anyway, absorb it, but never express her anger, and compartmentalize it. That;s damaging. Like I said above, for her to be able to take her mother’s garbage in silence, she needs to truly understand and believe that she is a better person and on a higher plane than her mother. She needs to think of it as a homeless drunk on the street shouting insults at her.
Just to give you an idea…my mother will not attend my wedding. She will not know when I am dating. She will not be there for the birth of my children. She will not be there when they get married. I will not say kaddish or sit shiva for her when she dies. She is dead to me.
I’m not saying that your friend has to take it that far…and I’m not going to advocate that. But the break needs to be clean and final. No looking back. No regrets. At whatever level she decides to break, it needs to be final.
One other thing. She says she hates her mother. Hate is an emotion. That emotion ties her to her mother. It needs to go beyond that if she wants to break from her mother. It needs to go beyond hate. I would suggest indifference.
make a comic book about me…
It’s happened to me…i just declined and explained that i couldn’t because my religion forbids it. they understood.
“yes come to monsey!!!!!!!!!!!”
Joseph now knows that you live in monsey.
olook. my name
the titanic: who woulda thunk it.
by the way, on the subject of problems…ill tell you what problems i had…just because it ties into the part where she emotionally distances herself from her mother.
i waited too long before i severed all ties, and the way i did it was to stop talking to her. i have not spoken to my mother, not a single word, in 3 years. your friend though probably would have a problem with that. my parents divorced when i was born and ive been living with my grandparents (now only my grandmother) and my mother. so my mother was never an essential part of my life because i could always and often did have to rely on my grandmother, both emotionally and financially. your friend probably doesnt have that luxury. she probably depends on her mother for all of her material needs.
when i did it (and this is a problem she will have to watch for. it should not preclude her from distancing herself from her mother, but she will need to monitor herself. i would suggest that she sees a therapist every so often.) it took a huge amount of…idk how to phrase it…emotional energy? to close that connection to my mother. for a year afterward i was incapable of feeling emotion. everything bounced off me to the point where i had to stop myself from ever telling someone that ploni had died because i would smile after i said it. (i was smiling because i felt good about being able to deliver news that someone didnt know…not because i was happy that the person was dead.) only last year did i regain my ability to feel proper emotions, but even now theyre a little…lacking. now i feel…but sometimes the wrong emotion. so she will have to be careful about that.
as for the how? well, i think ive established that cutting off all communication is out of the question, so i would suggest that she either be as busy as she can, or appear as busy as she can. that way she has no time to have any heart to hearts with her mother…no time to chat…no time to talk…her material needs will be provided for, but the emotional exchanges will be avoided. they will naturally grow apart eventually.
as for my friends. they took it all in stride 😛 i was kinda surprised. one day i just dumped the whole mess on them and they just took it in stride 🙂 i dont know how strong your friend is, how much she can take before she feels angry…and if she does feel angry would she show it. (that bit is important because if she never expresses anger you could be doing damage and she would never react) so. assuming she can handle pretty much anything you say, be as candid as you an be about whatever is on your mind. dont dance around the issue when youre talking to her. doing so only reinforces the problem. if she sees you feeling awkward while discussing her situation, the situation grows bigger in her mind. by being open and candid and not mincing words you minimize the problem and help her make decisions.
the only specific advice that my friends gave me was to either go to B”M after HS or college just to get out of the house. i did neither. i got jobs. (not steve…i detest apple ::)) my friends kept bringing the subject up, among others that i didnt want to hear, and sometimes i DID get angry, but im pretty sure they saw that. (which is good…like i said above) so basically, if you feel that something would be beneficial to her situation, keep pushing it. dont be afraid to broach any subject that you feel must be discussed. if she gets angry at you, then back off, but try again later if you feel its important. i would push her to work on her assertiveness because right now it seems that that is the most important tool she could have. she cant keep taking all the trash shes been taking like a sheep.
obtw mods…you can send sister bear my email address…if you want it
Like I said above, ‘overlook’ is the best and most proper definition for the word ‘fargin.’
For example: “I am willing to overlook the fact that you smashed my car with a tire iron.”
I’m just going on what i understood. If I am corrected, I don’t mind modifying my advice 🙂
I saw no alternative at the time, and I see no alternative for her friend based on the information provided.
gah…itll be fine. remember floyd? we all survived…
mulch ado about nothing
“and she doesn’t want to leave her home for complicated reasons”
I can guess what those complicated reasons are because that’s why I never left my home. Life became manageable after a while, but it wasn’t worth it. She should get out. Whatever the issues are, she stands only to lose by staying with an abusive parent.
I know how the process goes. I lived with it for 16 years. They have a fight, her mother says some very hurtful things, or does something that leaves your friend emotionally hurt in some way. Then, after an hour, a day, a week…whatever, her mother finds some way of making it up to her. She buys her something nice, takes her to a restaurant, tells her that its nit her fault…she just has a mental illness…and the whole cycle starts again. I used to do all that. It would escalate in a 3 year cycle eventually culminating in my mother’s hospitalization. She would come home and we would start again.
2 weeks after she would come home she would hurt me in some way, and then a week later she would make up for it. Then again. And again with increasing frequency until her next hospitalization. A truly vicious cycle. One that cannot be broken. Trust me on that.
I gritted my teeth and bore it because I had no choice at the time, but at 16 I had had enough. I severed all ties with her. I haven’t spoken a word to her since around September 3 years ago.
I’m not going to advocate that course of action for your friend because I don’t know enough details about her specific situation, but she MUST distance herself from her mother in some way. They cannot maintain their current relationship. She will only keep getting hurt like this. Like I said in the article, her mother isn’t the only one affected by her mental illness. Your friend can develop problems of her own. I know, because I developed some personality problems as a result of the abuse to which I was subjected.
Her mother clearly has no desire to get better because she refuses to acknowledge that she has a problem in the first place. It is a waste of time staying with such a person, or maintaining a close emotional bond. I’m not broadly condemning the mentally ill to a life of loneliness devoid of love. There are plenty of people with mental illnesses who have very happy marriages and wonderful families, but that is because they acknowledge they have a disorder, the accept it, and they get help. I have a friend who is mentally ill. I have to deal with this friend’s cycles often, but i don’t mine because this particular friend is aware of the disorder, has accepted it, and is willing to treat it. Unless the patient is willing to be treated, and acknowledges their problem, they cannot be helped. Mental illness cannot be forcibly cured. All those asylums where people sent their crazy uncles are proof positive.
As for her being too passive, I was the same way. I used to love my mother, so I took all her garbage in stride, never saying a word to protest. Until one day, she gave me 20 dollars for a cab. I didn’t take the 20 dollars. I threw it on the floor at my door. 20 minutes later she walks into my room and starts yelling madly that I should give the 20 dollars back. This was after I had stopped talking to her. She’s standing a foot away from it and she doesn’t see it. So she runs over to my bed, where I was lying, and starts punching me in the face and choking me. So I crawled under my covers and waited for her to stop.
5 minutes later it was over. But this had set a precedent, and it happened twice more in that month. By time number four I had had enough. So I kept a belt near my bed, and the next time she walked in and started punching me, I reached for the belt and whacked her as hard as I could on the back and in the face. She didn’t touch me for 6 months. Then one day she walks into my room and starts unplugging my computer and taking it. So I shoved her, as gently as I could, out of my room. She started punching me in the face again. So I shoved her, as hard as I could out of my room. She clipped a doorpost on the way out. She never touched me again.
To those of you who are reading this, I don’t care if you judge me, because as far as I was concerned it was pikuach nefesh, and makeh av v’em is not yehareg v’al yaavor.
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way advocating the use of violence against a parent. The above anecdote was recounted simply to make a point.
Back on point. The reason she felt it was OK to punch me in the face and choke me is because she was physically stronger than me, and I had never fought back before when she physically abused me. As soon as her image of her strength was shattered, she never touched me again. From what you said, your friend’s mother only emotionally abuses her. The reason why she does it is because your friend takes it. If your friend fought back (not physically) then her mother would realize that she is NOT an emotional pincushion, that your friend can dish it as well as she can take it, and she will back off. Obviously any kind of close relationship with her mother will be out of the question at that point, but trust me. A close relationship with an abusive parent can never work. She should phase her mother out of her life as much as possible. There is no other alternative. It can only get worse.
nope. you get a junior license which has all the functionality of a learner;s permit. the only thing a junior license does for you is guarantee you a birthday present from the DMV.
how long did it take you to come up with that?
overlook.
to those of you having a little subchat here about whether rabbonim as a whole are evil dictators or not…make another thread. this isnt the place to push agendas.
im in the same boat as your friend basically…or was…whatever. its in Ami Issue #30 😀 but anyway…basically what you can do is listen. just listen to her. be her outlet. depending on your relationship you can offer her clear and direct advice that you think would be beneficial. I would suggest, from personal experience, that this friend of yours should see a therapist. I didn’t and i had problems that I’m still dealing with.
as far as what she should do…she should try and get out. seriously, if she feels emotionally abused, then her life comes first and she should get out. she can worry about her mother once she is healthy. IDK how old she is, but maybe she can work and move out or something…dorm school if shes still in high school…something. but she should definitely get out.
This next bit is gonna sound harsh, but if her relationship with her mother is such that she is both fully dependent on her mother while being abused by her mother, something has to change. somethings eventually gonna give. either shes gonna snap or one day her mother is gonna do something that they will both regret. i speak from experience. she should try and distance herself from her mother as much as possible. because as independent as possible. again i dont know her age so i cant offer specifics, but it is imperative that the relationship change.
have her over to your house as much as you can. obviously your life comes before hers so dont invite her in if its going to be an emotional or any other kind of burden, but take her in as much as you can. provide a refuge from her mother, she needs that more than anything. an escape. if i think of more ill post it…but that’s right off the top of my head
Call me harsh, but get over yourself. Stop blaming everyone else. Can you seriously look yourself in the mirror and honestly say that your menahel was wrong for chucking you and that people like him cause society’s problems? You admit that you were doing things clearly against Yeshiva rules. See that word, rules? It means…that if you don;t follow them…there are consequences. There are reasons for those rules. People who break them stand to be a severe negative influence on their peers. Tell us, were you suspended? Were you given mussar? Were you disciplined? Ever?! IF yes, then you knew that what you were doing was wrong and would result in your expulsion. So stop blaming everyone. The fault belongs to none but yourself.
That being said, you obviously don’t like where you are right now in life, and that’s a good start. As long as you have a desire to improve, there is potential. There are places for people who have had problems with yeshivos. The yeshiva that chucked you is in no way obligated to take you back, or even arrange for your transfer. They can’t take charge of your improvement, you can. Only you can pull yourself out of your current pit. Relying on others every time life throws you a challenge will get you nowhere. Take charge of your own future, and make yourself into what you want yourself to be.
Find a Rav. Find a yeshiva. Find a counselor to help you through any problems that you may be having with family, etc. Find a group of suitable friends. Find a kiruv program if that;s what you need. But most importantly, be aware of who you are and where you are. You need to understand what your current level is if you want to improve. It may be tough, but you really do need to do a cheshbon hanefesh of sorts. Take stock of where you are and where you want to be. Then work toward your future.
I know what you mean. I’ve had problems too, as I’ve shared on this forum before, and all through it, no matter how dark life got, there were always the good times that filtered through. I don’t think I would trade my life for another’s. My life has made me who I am.
Hatzlacha in everything, MP.
I would gladly delete my Facebook. Google plus provides a better service anyway 😛
fresh ones not so much…dried ones you have to be careful with
5…before the aneurysm
“Everyone who is just saying ‘chill’ is obviously not thinking very deep into this, doesn’t have kids, and just likes to belittle people.”
or maybe you’re just overthinking it and blowing something completely innocent out of proportion…or did that thought never occur to you
its funny cuz the rebbe is dead
they ARE only DE however OU doesnt use the DE designation anymore so it gets labeled as D
yup. mod 80 is a pain in the neck…try to ignore him…
the government remembers you for jury duty if you have a license so dont sweat it. as for voting registering as a republican in a blue state…yes. because local politicians can very well be republican as can state politicians and you probably want to vote in those primaries.
also…as an aside…if you register to vote and vote then you have a right to complain about your politicians and teh state of politics in teh state. you did your part so you can be dissatisfied. if not…then no one wants to hear you because you have no right to complain about something in which you took no part.
the smell of the take out store on friday afternoon…
the cake is a lie
@cherrybim you missed the point.
the point of a yarmulka is to increase your yiras shamayim…to be aware that there is a higher power “above” you…to put something like a sports logo or a TV show character on that is so diametrically opposed to the purpose of the yarmulka…youre advertising that your yiras shamayim is lacking on the very article which is supposed to broadcast and enhance your yiras shamayim…
weve been over this in another thread…someone find it
i give 50 for weddings 36 for bar mitzvas
why 54?
Proper grammar is of paramount importance.
that being said i really dont care at all i mean i just find it a pain to conatantly be grammatically correct especially when posting on sites like yw where no one knows proper grammar anyway…soliekyea