Don't Talk About It

Recently, the Jewish community experienced a tragedy. A woman, apparently suffering from post-partum psychosis, killed her two young children. Some people relayed the story with a gossipy edge of glee. Others whispered, as if lowering their voices could make it less real. Some reacted with horror or disgust, others with tears. And I wondered, how long has this poor woman been in pain?

“Don't talk about it”, people said. “It's shameful for the family, they've asked that people not discuss it.” I can understand the embarrassment. I can only imagine how this family is grieving; not just the dead children, but a mother who will have to live with guilt, and whose life will never be the same. 

“Don't talk about it”, we say, after a tragedy. 

“Don't talk about it”, we say, when someone is diagnosed with a mental illness. When someone gets divorced. When someone is abused. When someone succumbs to addiction and overdoses. As a community, we are very very good at not talking about it. 

A few years back, Amudim released an extremely powerful ad, depicting a family sweeping dirt under the rug, while the dining room table became more and more unsteady with the pile of dirt beneath it, until eventually everything collapsed.

This is our community. This is the society we have built. We don't talk about things. We don't discuss mental health, or addiction, or abuse. We are not trained to recognize the signs. We are color-blind to red flags. And when we start to question behaviors, we have no one to turn to and ask, “Is this normal?”

I've often wondered why women who are abused stayed with their husbands. Physical abuse, while terrible, is obvious to identify, but mental abuse can happen so slowly, over a long period of time, that you don't even notice you're a victim until you have been removed from it. So many women are victims of controlling men, so many men have manipulative wives. Abuse does not always beget visible scars.

And still, we say “don't talk about it”. Don't talk about the way your husband treats you in the bedroom. Don't talk about the way your wife criticizes and belittles you. Don't talk about the gaslighting, the mind games, the slow erosion of sanity. “Everything is fine, Baruch Hashem!” we say, in our rose-colored glasses. We put our hands over our ears as we walk around with dreams too large and marriages too tight, and we must never, ever, show anyone the blisters.

Maybe if we talked about it, women would know what sexual experiences are supposed to be. 

Maybe if we talked about it, we would know how to identify signs of controlling behavior. 

Maybe if we talked about it, we would feel that we'd have support if we left our toxic marriage, or we could help someone else get out. We could pull someone from the dance of addiction. We could prevent some of the blows of abuse. We could know how to ask for help. How to say “something is wrong” without the worry of being shamed. How to escape without the hushed whispers and pointing fingers and the shaking of heads.

Maybe if we talked about it, two little children would still be alive today. 

Maybe.