BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

JUDAISM & ABUSE: EXPECTING BETTER This was written a few years back. Despite strides in educating leading rabbinic authorities it seems that nothing much has changed… not yet. Some are truly working on the problem and I beg them to keep working on it. Sometimes preserving a marriage AT ALL COSTS or allowing a manipulative man to make a woman an AGUNAH and then looking the other way - is NOT the way to go. Allowing the verbal & emotional abuse of children in the name of Torah and keeping it hush-hush for appearances is enabling the abuse! Loshen Hara can be a mitzvah if it stops an abuser from taking advantage of his family, his friends and the world at large. If You Beat Him He Will Not Die by Richard Silverstein A personal and theological meditation on child abuse As spiritual communities, it is enormously important that we provide grief work as part of the process of healing [from the effects of abuse]. At the same time, we have to take that lesson of choosing to...

I'm drawn to work & people that provoke thought for me. Even if I don't agree with it - I take it in because I find I learn more from disagreement, about myself and about the way Hashem works in each of us. I used to read a site called THE DAILY OM. The other day the article du jour was entitled BLAMING OTHERS. At the end it said: We do this by forgiving our parents, even if they have not asked for our forgiveness, so that we can be free. We end the abusive relationship with our partner, who may never admit to any wrongdoing, because we are willing to take responsibility for how we are treated. In short, we love ourselves as we want to be loved and create the life we know we deserve. We leave the resolution of the wrongs committed against us in the hands of the universe, releasing ourselves to live a life free of blame. BULLPOCKY!!! I don't buy it. For many many years I was raised by a parent who abused, used and manipulated me - but I was taught that I HAD to l...

by Kathy Krajco The victims of narcissists are relentlessly re-victimized by a rationale for blaming the victim called co-dependence. I am still waiting for some evidence or explanation to persuade me that there is such a thing, so I’m still open to the idea. But, sorry, I haven’t heard a single reason to think that there even is such a thing as co-dependence. So, I am very skeptical. I’ll share my reasons for that skepticism, not so much to persuade you as to give you reason for pause, some food for thought. Reason 1 I trust science, including medical science. But not blindly. I know science and have seen enough bad science to have no illusions about the integrity of scientists and doctors. I know that they are just people, as capable of dishonesty as any other people, that they herd, gaining up in groupthink. They mocked Louis Pasteur. They predicted the end of the world by now due to population explosion. They ignored the evidence in favor of a low carbohydrate diet for de...

From this great site: The not-so-bitter truth “You’re just bitter.” This is a phrase commonly used to silence women . Another variation says, “You are so unforgiving.” The bitterness accusation is used to bully a woman and tell her how she “should” feel instead of asking her how she does feel. Someone who uses this label expects her to pretend there has been no harm, no foul. She is expected to pretend the one who hurt her is a great person, even if she knows he is a terrible person. If she does not pretend, it is because she is “bitter and unforgiving.” Abusers nearly always sling this accusation at their victims. She may have accepted him back with open arms after a dozen violent episodes, but the first time she hesitates to “forgive and forget,” he will tell her she is a bitter and unforgiving person. If only it stopped there. The world does not want to hear the voice of the abused, either. Let her speak of abuse in the divorce hearing, and the judge may roll h...

I read this on one of my all-time favorite blogs and it really hit home. A few people have tried to demoralize me too. Even my late narcissistic parent. And its what terrorists do to get others to do what they want - demoralize. It's petty. So, herewith, an excerpt from Kathy Krajco's masterful blog : The aim of Error Tactics, then, is to demoralize us. First, don't allow a narcissist to relate to you as your judge. You can confront any attempt to do so. But you don't have to. You can just non-respond to it. In other words, act as though the narcissist didn't say the judgemental thing they just said. Change the subject. Walk out of the room. You are taking away their mirror. Then they can't see the image they're projecting in it. That is very unsettling to a narcissist. Really. Since they identify with that mirage, by making it disappear you give them an existential problem! There is probably nothing meaner you can do to a narcissist than just act...

A Ritual for Domestic Violence Awareness I ask my friends and fellow bloggers to remember abuse victims as Sukkot begins. Victims of mental, emotional & verbal abuse have "no safe place." While Domestic Violence Month officially begins in October - I would ask all of you to get and wear the Purple Ribbon during Sukkot and all of October - in support of people like myself. Victims & Survivors - who deserve peace & justice. Rebecca Schwartz remembers the first Sukkot observance that her organization, Shalom Bayit, initiated in 1994: A small group of women, survivors of domestic violence and volunteer staff, reclaimed the sukkah as a shelter of peace. "The sukkah was like a refuge," recalls Schwartz, associate director of the San Francisco Bay Area organization devoted to combating domestic violence. "For some, this was the first time they had felt safe in the Jewish community." Today, with more awareness and less denial in the Jewish co...

FOR THOSE WHO TELL OTHERS TO "get over it" and/or "move on" - or that we are obsessed, out of control, etc.  It's not up to YOU when a victim moves on.  It's up to them in their own time and their own way! Talk about closed system of logic! ~~~~~~~~~ and its ABUSIVE to suggest that they should! Reality and Revictimization... (some changes made, for the original & updated version at a GREAT website see the link at the bottom of this post) Victim, survivor, victimology, victim abuse... why are victims being told to deny their reality? You have been methodically and diabolically abused and suddenly you hear "don't be a victim, choose to be a survivor." The concept that a victim can always consciously choose how to proceed, is wrong . The phrase, "move on with your life" is common. In a commanding, offhand and arrogant tone, those who have fought and lost a custody battle, their home, car and savings, family, job ...