Amudim Event 9-11-2016 Part 2 Dr Akiva Perlman, Ph D

thank youas and all the wonderful people here I can't tell you what an honor it is to be here they say there's a hole one of the famous music HS in the world Cari Hall they say there's only one way to get there and that's through practice practice practice I've always wanted to become a part of Lakewood and unfortunately I didn't do it the right way I found a loophole and but thankfully I'm here and thank God I have this opportunity to share some of my experience and hopefully pass that along in through through words of strength um and today's a day that we should celebrate not a day that should we should look at ourselves and say where are we but rather where are we going I especially want to give a thank you and a hello to my colleagues my former students from liou um who are really in the front line of working within our community with our people um it's so wonderful to see you here settled and I finally get the chance to see you on your own your own grounds it's never an easy day and I certainly don't get any comfort in speaking about sexuality and speaking about Intimacy in a public for it's not intended to be spoken about in a public form it's designed to bring intimacy it's designed to bring closeness between two individuals and that's how it should be spoken about it's not supposed to be discussed in a way where we're diminishing its ultimate power however tonight we have no choice the time has really come because there's so many people that are suffering that we need to find a way to talk about something that is so hard to talk about that is not intended to be spoken about in public simply because we have no other choice so I would like to find a way to balance discussing something that is so sensitive while also upholding these values that are so beautiful it's these values that keep us as a nation close and connected to one another but it's not only that but the way that we don't talk about it could even just slightly be perpetuating this problem because there's no Forum we haven't developed a way to talk about Intimacy in a way that works for us then we have we don't hear the voices that are calling our names that are screaming out saying please help us so we need to develop a way to discuss something that is very hard to talk about and it's almost like a muscle there's a muscle that when you first start developing something or you first start working out it hurts a lot but then over time you gain strength you gain comfort and gain increased ability I remember the first time when I started out as a therapist and someone mentioned something that I was simply not prepared for I wasn't emotionally ready for it no one told me about it in graduate school and there it was in my office someone talking about something I was simply not ready to talk about and at the time I tried to compose myself but I couldn't I said please excuse me for a minute I walked out of the therapy room I tried to pull myself together gained some strength came back in and continued the session and since then it's been a journey of trying to develop this muscle of being able to listen to things that are so hard to hear but are necessary to hear I keep looking for this guy I want to give him some money back and say like that was a terrible session and uh you deserve some money back there's a a wonderful study and a teaching that was given over to us by a a psychologist a world-renowned psychologist named Alice Miller and she shared an idea and she said we have a natural defense against seeing something that is too painful to look at and however painful it is the increased our defense is going to be towards it so an issue like this however prevalent it might be it might be in our doorstep it might be in our house because it's so dark because it's so painful we have this defense against seeing its actual existence this issue is far more common than we'd like to think it is but I could say this we don't have actual numbers in the Jewish community community and we'll explain why we don't have actual numbers and we certainly don't have actual numbers in the World At Large either we only have estimates because people themselves who are hurting with this are too afraid to talk about it it's too painful so even them we don't know how many of them are there actually how many people are suffering but I know this as a therapist I do not know a single Jewish therapist or single therapist that works with the Jewish community that has been doing it for more than 3 years that doesn't know this problem exists I don't know a single RV who's been practicing in any community that doesn't is not dealing with this problem within their community and the picture is a little different than we might think there was a campaign called stranger danger that was very popular and it would basically told us stay away from strangers if to someone knocks on your door and he ask you for something Clos the door someone pulls up in a van and offering you candy stay away and that was easy for us to absorb it was comfortable because it was another people it was the outside it was some weird guy in a van but the reality is that 90% of the people who are perpetuating these crimes are people that the victim is familiar with the victims know the people that are harming them the families are familiar with them the families trust them they trust them largely to be with their children to take care of their children so we talk about 90% it changes the picture a little bit it's no longer a stranger effect it is no longer another guy it is our neighbor it is ourselves it is us as a people 30% it's a harsh number to talk about but 30% of those people who are abused are abused by family members and that family member could be a parent it could be a sibling it could be an uncle or an aunt but these are people again that are not the creepy guy in a car they're not the guy who knocks on your door and S offers you a candy these are the people that come over for a Kaneka event these are the people that we celebrate our family Simas with these are people that the family ultimately trust and it changes the picture it changes the picture from one of outside people who are harming us and we protect ourselves and we could keep it pristine it turns it into a picture that we have a problem that is starting Within ourselves within our families within our people that is emerging and as a result of that people are suffering and the suffering is a lot more painful it's a lot suffering is never good and no one should ever suffer but it's easier to digest when it's a stranger who's a sicko who's hurt you it's a lot easier to look at that than it is to look at someone that I know and I care about how could someone love me yet hurt me at the same time how is someone who is supposed to take take care of me take care of my needs also harm me in such a profound way I had someone who said to me recently a client of mine I just wanted to know in advance these stories I change so of course not to reveal the identity of these individuals these special people who have come forward who are talking about it and he came to me and he said after an incident that happened to him he was abused by someone that he trusted that the family trusted and after it was over the person just acted like it was normal and he said how could they do that how could they just pretend like nothing happened and just wave to me when they see me walking down the street how is that possible and that confusion that pain is much more profound than a guy who lives in a neighbor a neighboring community that is the guy who lives down the block who's harming someone who's close to him one thing we know and they these are only estimated numbers they can't tell for sure because this problem like we said we're changing the face of it it's no longer others it's us one thing we know is that around 40% of people who are victimized never ever disclose we only know this based on the amount of people who have come forward and the ages that they've come forward and how long it's taken them I had a man in my office recently was 70 years old he lived with the shame the silence for who knows how many years 70 years old and I was the first person he disclosed anything to and I do believe that because there's no Forum because there's no place for people to talk about this in an open way for people to know that I can turn for help certainly in our community that that number might be a lot bigger that 40% that exists in the World At Large within us might be larger than 40% now numbers are easy to talk about but stories and people and lives it's much more different when you sit with someone who's been hurt in such a way they're no longer a statistic they're a human being who's in profound pain I don't like telling stories to dramatize or to paint a picture that would say okay let's all wake up but there's a reality and what is it about there was a young woman I worked with when I first started out who feared and greatly feared when her brother would return from Yeshiva during ban and this is a one-time event and I tell you this story only because we want to start to begin to understand what is this what is this problem how does this affect the people around us and ultimately a most importantly what could we do about it but she feared bayaz man because her brother would come into her room and harm her now she pretended the whole time that she was sleeping because she knew if she pretended she was awake and hear this for a second she didn't want to embarrass her brother she didn't want her brother to feel like he was doing something wrong so she pretended like she was sleeping now that shame that aloneness that quietness of the Sleep lasted however long it was until she shared that with me what happens with this because it's such a private matter because it's something we don't talk about it happens in the dark it happens in secrecy and ultimately with shaming feelings for example statements like and I can't tell you the amount of times I heard this you liked it you wanted it you were seeking it out I didn't hurt you you wanted to get hurt yourself and not only that you came back for more that message the darkness of that the sh shame that comes along with that ultimately when they look at this in numbers and they look at in statistics they look there's a study done in Denmark that looked at all harmful behaviors bullying making fun of a kid children from homes that are broken all these places neglected physically hurt and what they found when they put it on in numbers they found that this type of abuse this type of pain hurt more than any other the shame connected to it was just more profound than any other and that's something that we need to understand what about it it seems like a physical Behavior how does that manifest in something that's so deep and lasts for so long to First understand that pain let's first look at what life is like for an individual before such an event occurs and this is of course idealized and I only hope that everyone in this room feels this way but it might give us a sense of what happened to that individual prior to an event and then ultimately what it did to them later imagine a person who's supposed to be unconditionally loved simply because they are born and simply because they're a child of Hashem and that's it they're supposed to be unconditionally given to all of us we're taught that we're inherently good and worthy and this is a message that's given over to us as a child and there a message that we should be giving over to all of our children you are good simply because you're a child simply because Hashem created you and you're a beautiful being we are taught that we are capable and we can achieve and then we are told that we can and will'll make mistakes but then ultimately it's okay we could overcome them and we're still good which means the center of who we are is okay is intact is comfortable and therefore we internalize this we take the message that the world gives to us and the message that we're supposed to giving to our children we internalize it and we Define ourselves by it we take risks we overcome the obstacles we feel okay not all the time but generally speaking we take this message that's been given to us and we feel okay but imagine for a minute what if that was taken away from someone and they were left believing that that core that Center of who and what they are is bad is unworthy is unlovable that essence that is unconditional that is supposed to be given to every human being is taken from them by an act by a message that's inherent to that act what would happen to that person now shame is the opposite of this same is shame is the exact opposite of description of a person who could face the world because they feel okay and they feel comfortable shame is the the inverse to that experience shame is created when you are treated like an object and not a person when you're viewed as a piece of meat and not someone who has any self value a client one sent to me and it was such a painful thing to hear CU why was this person thinking about this but he said I often wondered if he cared about me as a person here's this individual who was paying attention to them who was grooming them who acted like they like them yet they treated them like an object they didn't treat them like a human being yet yet this person who was being harmed and hurt on a regular basis was left wondering does this person know that I'm a person does this person know that I exist outside of this shame is created when a person has their powerlessness regularly held in front of them so they can't escape that feeling powerlessness I don't know if we know what that feels like but to feel like you are not in control where that's being stripped from you client said in tears tears and bitter tears I tried so hard to escape but I always found myself back in the same place there was nowhere to turn it was an individual that was there that had access and harmed and harmed and harmed and in spite of desire to leave to run there was nowhere to go shame is created when a person is forced to experience something that they are not yet ready to experience and if there's one essential statement that could explain shame and its totality it's that experience we are not supposed to experience things that we are de not developmentally ready to experience yet everyone goes through stages of development children learn to share they learn to communicate with others and then as they get older they develop this ability this this capability to communicate with others and make decisions for themselves but when you're forced to experience something that you don't yet understand that you can't maneuver your way around that develops a deep sense of shame in a person a client once said to me and this happened to him when he was very young and he said I knew I knew in my heart that there was something wrong but I didn't know why developmentally he couldn't make sense of the harm that was created in it even though he still knew there was something wrong in it so shame is the opposite of what we were describing for before of someone who feels like they're given to shame is created when your essence your most private part of your being is taken advantage of leaving no one to trust and certainly not yourself a client recently said such a painful thing it was just a moment to answer and this is an individual who hasn't harmed a single being has been harmed a great deal but is so terrified of their power and who they are as a person they've stayed so far away from harming anybody yet they still looked at me and said would you trust me as a person to teach your son how to lean which means he didn't believe in himself as a person it was taken from him it was the message of you are bad you are unworthy there something about you that's wrong was internalized he took that message that was given to him and he began to feel it and he felt like a person even though he didn't do anything wrong that was simply incapable of doing any good that essence of him was taken so what happens to this shame let follow the journey just a little bit what happens to it as that individual whose core whose Soul has been tarnished over time you begin to internalize that message that there's something really wrong with you you've been told you've been treated like there's something wrong with you and over time you begin to feel it I think one of the most painful moments in all my years as a therapist happened when I was seeing this one young man he a beautiful man from our community who's been hurt I believe more so than anyone I've ever encountered in my life yet he has the strength and fortitude to keep moving forward and I was working with him for 6 months and it was very slow the stories he just had a hard time even talking about what happened to him had a hard time sharing his life with me and I asked him one day I finally had the courage to say what's going on why do I feel so much distance so much protection I've been here I'm trying to connect with you I'm trying to create a place that's safe for you yet I still feel the distance and he turned to me and he said you have been good you've treated me well you've treated me kindly you've seen me when I didn't have any money to pay for therapy yet I'm just waiting for you to abuse me I'm waiting for you to hurt me he believed this message I sat there I just could I couldn't breathe but he believed this message he absorbed this message that he was supposed to be someone who was getting hurt he was supposed to be someone who couldn't put himself out there to be taken care of in this world and he said I'm surprised when adult when any adult doesn't hurt me I assume that they will now I know that at some point I might hurt him certainly not intentionally but he is is waiting for it he will welcome it and he said I prepared myself for that and in my mind as we looked further into this he said if you wanted to hurt me I would let you because that is what I know that's what I've been taught that's what I know about myself as a person and I asked myself when I met this man I said where was I now he was from another Community there was no way I could have known him but where was I where were we when there were cries there so many times that he was being hurt where were we and today is that time when we say no more we create a platform we create a forum for these voices to be heard and we need to because the suffering is so profound and it's not an individual follow that individual through a marriage and how does that look and how does that look when that individual is a mother is a father is a teacher is working for somebody what does that person look like who ultimately believes that they're supposed to be hurt that they're not supposed to be treated well that they are bad and unworthy people and that becomes who they are are they develop a sense what we call a core belief of I am bad my Essence is bad and I'm a helpless individual and we all know that that's not true we all know that every child deserves the right to feel a different way but ultimately an event can take that away all pain and these are one of the unfortunate things I had to learn that all pain presents itself one way or another when people are hurting when people are hurt when people suffer it finds a way to present itself in real life I just want to read you a line from an author ber Brown where she talks about this process a little bit and she says a deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people we are biologically cognitively physically and spiritually wired to love to be loved and to belong when those needs are not met we don't function as we are meant to we break we break we fall apart we numb we ache we hurt others and we get sick there's a consequence to pain there's a consequence to people being treated poorly is that that person then aches and they don't only ache alone they often hurt others as well there was a a young woman I worked with many many years ago when I was first starting out and I was at an agency ohal Children's Home in Brooklyn and as a young woman that the family came in and they described case after case of terrible events that tragedies the family went through together and they brought in the two sons and they were the identified people saying these are the ones that are suffering and I said tell me a little more about the family they said well we have there's another person in the family but she's wonderful she's great she loves she's kind she's generous she's open she doesn't need to be here and I said has anyone given her an opportunity to talk she went through the same experiences as everybody else in this family and they're all turning their lives upside down and inside out has she had had an opportunity to let some of that Pain release some of it and they said no we quickly set her up with somebody to talk and she presents as the the child that was really doing everything well and all it took was one person asking her one question how are you was the only question that therapist asked that session it was not me it was a colleague of mine and she said how are you and that was it the floodgates open and a World opened up and there was a person finally was willing to listen she didn't have to hide behind all the good behaviors she didn't have to be the one who was taking care of everybody else she could be the individual who was hurting as well thank God she's doing really well today she's made her way through that Journey but it took a long time for her to settle down after that there's a study known as the ace study which basically teaches us this one point the more pain one experiences the more dysfunction they're going to have in their life it's almost like a mathematical formula If you experience a lot of pain you're going to hurt and it's going to present in a really bad way and what they found is that if someone experienced four what they identifi we don't have to go through the whole study what they identified it as four experiences that were really traumatic then that person was seven times more likely to become an alcoholic we're talking about over the general population 12 times more likely to attempt suicide than anybody else that is the reality of pain it lives it's alive it doesn't go anywhere and where does it go how do people act out when we look at substance abuse facilities and treatment centers for people who are really crying for help what they have found is that between 60 and 80% of adolescents and young adults who are in treatment centers have a history of sexual abuse so we're looking at what happens to the people how do they deal how do they begin to resolve some of that pain how do they numb some of that pain but what we know is that it goes somewhere and there needs to be a seeking of some type of comfort in my own informal study that I've asked the people that I know in this profession who are running centers for the atrisk community the people who run the hour places and the other programs the living room programs for our people who are struggling with these types of issues the lowest number I got was 60% of the people who attend those programs as having an issue having a history of sexual abuse that was the lowest number my good friend and colleague man NQ runs the living room last night texted me with the men it was around 70% and with the women it was between 80 and 90% now what we look at what we see is a person's self-destructing what we don't see is the pain that is creating that self-destruction and maybe maybe because of tonight we could open our eyes our hearts just a little bit more and start seeing the essential problem not the behavior that comes as a result of the problem but the pain that creates the need to run from it so when we look at acting out when we look at atrisk Behavior that's the manifestation of it often becomes the only means to deal with such pain when you look at people and you really get to sit and speak with them about their lives and what the atrisk behavior means for them they will often make a statement like this is the only way I know how to live this is the only experience that I have that gives me the sense of survival of reprieve of comfort there was a physician Gabor mate from Cal from Canada who made a statement and he said it's impossible to understand risky Behavior without asking what relief the person finds or hopes to find in the risky or addictive behavior he said we need to look at what relief is a person seeking why do they need to do what they're doing we might be asking the wrong question we get frustrated with the people around us who are acting in these ways and we ask them why do you cause so much pain to other people why are you destroying your life but maybe we need to ask what type of pain are you in that you need to soothe it through such means what's hurting that this provides you a sense of relief and a sense of numbing so let's reidentifying to give a chance to Rabbi Dr Brown to really talk about the Practical aspect of what we need to do physical abuse happens to the body but the result of it is not physical the result manifests spiritually emotionally through shame through aloneness through helplessness the solution is going to be discussed in just a few minutes but I want to share a teaching from a great psychologist named Carl Rogers and he said change is much more about being than it is about doing we need to become a people that could listen that could hear we need to be we also need to do but it starts with being we need to become a people that no longer fears this reality we know it we turn to it we face it and we build our muscles our tolerance to be able to communicate about it because they won't communicate with us until we're ready to hear it we need to become aware of the suffering around us and become emotionally available to those who need us most those individuals who live in this Darkness we need to become a people who does not allow this Behavior to continue by protecting the ones committing these crimes there's an unfortunate reality that the people who commit such atrocities are often not caught until they've done it to a hundred children and when we think about it's a controversial subject and I really don't want to touch upon it certainly not tonight when we talk about reporting there's a different story to reporting often I hear about it from the individuals who are suffering who are saying I've suffered enough my life has already been ruined I just want to make sure this doesn't happen to another individual please help me find a way to stop this person I just want to make sure another person suffers does not suffer shame cannot survive empathy it can cannot survive being spoken shame becomes Born Into Darkness and remains alive and develops strength only Into Darkness and once we bring it to light like We Are Tonight it can no longer exist so why do we need to listen why do we need to develop these muscles because tonight we really make a difference by listening by strengthening ourselves we're going to become more likely to hear about it hear about it in the planning phases hear about it when your child comes home or a child comes home your child a child comes home and makes a statement like this something feels a little off about this individual and I can't tell you the amount of times that I've sat with parents and children and the parents said well why didn't you talk to me why didn't you tell me and the child turns to them with these innocent eyes and says I tried I told you I didn't like this person but you said oh don't worry it's okay and the child said I tried and you didn't listen so therefore I gave up by listening we become attuned to that voice in advance and we could catch it in its planning phases by listening we're more likely to hear about it sooner even if it does occur if it happens we could hear about it right away so we could inter intervene and help that person and by listening we could find the appropriate way to respond because figure fing out how to respond really impacts the outcome of this individual's life of the greatest predictors of the amount of suffering it's going to cause a person is based on the first person they tell what their reaction is and I can't tell you how many times I've heard a child say I wasn't believed I told somebody I told a leader and they just simply didn't believe me so we need to listen to them if our children sense and this is so important if our children sense that we can't handle this subject that we can't turn to them and say your body is yours it belongs to you and nobody possesses the right to touch it if they sense that we can't say those words with it a sense of comfort and confidence then they know that we can't handle it and they certainly won't be able to handle it on their own they're looking to us to give them that strength to say we could we could handle this as adults and all we need is for you to come forward but most of all we need to listen because they will not speak until we as a community as a people as individuals are ready to hear and I wish us all and I give us AA that suffering ends and we see mhia speedily in our days thank you