Mrs Batya Ruddell - My Journey Toward Healing Compassion and Understanding

hello and welcome my name is bachi Rudolph it's so nice to be here I flew in from Eretz Israel and and it's just a an honor to be here and to be at the this event for those of you who don't know who I am so my name is bachi Liddell and I'm a columnist for hammer dear and bina magazine I've authored seven books and my last book which I just published recently just before pacer is called unmarred era for those who haven't heard about it it is a compilation of stories experiences of parents of struggling children I have stories in there from the children themselves I have also articles from professionals who were working with the kids and it started off as a column in the bener magazine and where I wrote about my own personal experience raising my children on their Darer so I took the the term off the Dara OTD and turned it into on there Dara and I which I which I can totally agree with that this is each child is on their own Dara it ran as a column for three months initially it was six weeks and then the response was so good so that they extended it to 12 weeks and after that I made it I started a support group in usual I am I live in out says role so I said I started a support group in you shall I am and then I was approached by tomorrow and firmed foots our publications to turn it into a book so the book was burst just before pacer Umbra Hashem you're all going to leave here with a free copy of it so a little bit about myself I was born in England about Hoover I grew up with no yiddish kite whatsoever not even yom kippur not even pay sir nothing so I came to I was very always very spiritual always talking to God I used to write to Hashem in my Diaries even though I didn't really know where to put him but I I was very connected and Marah Hashem came back to Yiddish height got married and I have four children Brahe Hashem and we live in Tel stone in can you hear me yeah I see you're straining a little bit you can't right you can't hear me very well okay so okay so we live in Tel stone which is around about 20 minutes away from usual I am and you know I got married and life was dandy right wife was so perfect I mean I was going to have this wonderful family just like all the families I'd visited when I was be coming from and I was going to have those perfect children and they might sons were all going to learn Torah and my girls were going to be these wonderful base Jakov girls and so modest and and and everything and it started off that way it did start that way and I have to say that I really played the part of being a very good mother in the base Jakov and I was very involved in my kids education I was always speaking to the Rebbe ease and speaking to the teachers and I was very own hands as a mother and things that I didn't particularly like or agree with I just kind of overlooked them eat for the sake of my kids you know to just kind of keep on keep them on the on the right side when my daughter my my I have four children my nice eldest son is 27 I have a 25 year old 22 year old and an 18 year old so when my daughter my eldest daughter she's 25 when she when she was in eighth grade she decided that she did not want to go to a basic of high school that was terrible it was like roof had collapsed the ceiling had collapsed I was inundated with phone calls from the teachers and the principal how could you do this how could you send her to a high school which is non-basic off and she wanted to go to an on-base haircut because she wanted to be in an environment that was less oppressive that was not as frightening and earned that she wouldn't feel so afraid all the time she was a very sensitive girl she was very quiet and actually nobody really noticed my daughter until she decided to go to non basic or school and then all of a sudden everybody noticed her and her friend her best friend was told was told not to be friends with her any longer because she was on a uri Danny according to the teacher and she was wearing some makeup and she didn't want to go to basic of high school so all of my all of my good mothering the good mother act or I would I don't know but toeing the lines of Hostess feet so to speak that all blew up in everybody's face because when I heard the teacher saying this about my daughter I went in there like a lioness and demanded that the teacher apologized to my daughter I told her I was going to take her to based in for achelous and speaking loshon hora and do you how do you know what my daughter's spiritual level is Amina you have raw Hakodesh so that was the beginning of the beginning from then on things change dramatically in our family she did go to a non basic of high school and after that she she lasted there for three months until she transferred to a different school and then she ended up in a Kamiya which is a dorm it was a farm out in the desert in the Jordan desert for Jordan Valley for girls at risk and from there she went to rehab at return Oh for drug addiction and alcohol addiction and that was where we found out that she'd actually been a victim of of abuse so that was that was our first that was that was the beginning there my son who is 27 dropped out of his Shiva started going through his own stuff also started drinking a lot and ended up in rehab as well so I had two for the price of one in return Oh which is the rehab the main rehab place in in Israel and then I had my son my younger son who went through also a very bad terrible experience where he was molested by three brothers and then I had my good child my daughter who was toeing the line and doing everything the way she was supposed to so as you can imagine things were a little bit nightmarish you could can you hear me now no not so well okay things were a little bit nightmarish in the Rudel household and we really didn't know what to do and how to handle it initially obviously we reacted like most parents do and we reacted to our children keeping out I didn't know the term keeping out in those days but we reacted to that like most parents do of in an Orthodox household we reacted to their decline in their level of of observance in their Yiddish count and that's usually the first thing that happens you know in a from home a child who's been through any kind of trauma they don't usually tell you about it they usually keep it to themselves and around puberty things start coming out and that's what happened you know in our house and the first things that you the changes that usually happen initially are that the child if it's a girl she'll dress less nearly her skirt start getting shorter her sleeves start getting shorter her friends she changes her friend she starts hanging around with a different crowd for a boy he stops wearing his yarmulke he doesn't get up to tavern you know you all probably have experienced this yes okay so the mistake which we make or I don't know if it's mistake because we we surly didn't know any better then was that we respond to thee to the Yiddish card issue but the Yiddish card is not the issue the issue is that the child is in pain the child is struggling the child is hurting for some reason so it's complicated in our circles because in our circles we we we just react to the Yiddish kite so we get into fights with our kids so we get into power struggles and and things usually just deteriorate from there and in addition to that there's the embarrassment were embarrassed our child is walking around looking a certain way what are the neighbors going to say and what are they going to say about our family and all of those things so we went through all of those things and experienced those things but there was one pivotal moment for me when my daughter the one who went to the non basic of high school she I took her to see a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist told me she did an evaluation on her and the psychiatrist told me that she actually had ADHD and because she was a very shy sensitive girl she didn't actually act out her ADHD she sat there in the classroom very quietly but in fear in terrible fear and she danced ballet I used to send her to a ballet teacher a religious ballet teacher so she was and she was very talented she was probably the top student there so she had this outlet and an over sudden when I heard the psychiatrist tell me about about her and about different things that she was struggling with all of a sudden I a light went off in my head and I suddenly understood that this was her issue this was her problem this was not mine like she had a she had a genuine struggle of her own and it was nothing about me and it was nothing about how I'd raised her and it was nothing about what kind of mother I was it was just about her and her struggle and her journey and I think that was the beginning I never heard of Abby fish-off I don't think he was around in those days I'd never heard of T P and I think that we just naturally my husband and I we just naturally twisted because once we were able to get out of ourselves and get out of what what this does to me and how this makes me feel once we were able to do that and we were able to go into our child's world and understand our child our children then we were able to help them whilst we were stuck in our world and about how we felt about it and how could this child do this to me and and the shame they're bringing on me and the embarrassment they're bringing on me whilst we were focusing on ourselves we could not help our children so we began when when my daughter was in rehab that was the first time we actually heard the extent of the trauma that she'd been through the rehab was actually I would probably say one of the best experiences in our lives as parents because we used to go to parents groups and we would sit all together and we would have parents coming from every walk of life from extremely her Sidis to very secular we made friends with people that we would never have dreamt we would have made friends with and we would sit in the group and sometime we would talk about how the visitor be with our child that day there were parents who would drive all the way for him to Varia all the way to Beach just for this once a week visits and they were they were incredible these parents sometimes their kids would just say give me the stuff you brought me and go I mean it was agony to watch it sometimes but one of the things that brought it we it brought us all together just like this is bringing everybody together this chabot on those meetings brought us all together because I remember one session where we were talking about the reasons that our children had ended up in in you know addicted and and the various different reasons and some parents would say we were we were too strict with our kids you know we just were very strict and we weren't flexible enough and then there were others who would say I wasn't strict you know if we didn't know how to put boundaries on we just you know we didn't we didn't know how to do that and as we were as we were talking we realized that there was there's no magic formula so when we but beat ourselves over the head and we and we berate ourselves well we berate ourselves that we weren't enough this and we weren't enough that if that was the case then there wouldn't have been people sitting there in that room saying I was too strict I wasn't strict enough you know I was i I was too I spoiled my kid too much I didn't give my kid enough things no there was no magic formula that would that you could go and just buy that and have your child not become addicted so those meetings were very empowering now since that first since that first child who who went on her her path I have four children and every single one of them is a Kipp so I have that honor that privilege I don't think there are too many people who can say that all their kids are our kids my good child which I'll be speaking about on Shoppers she became a cave as well and but I can say that I am a different person today than I was ten years ago five years ago even do you remember do you dude can you remember yourselves as young mothers like looking at older families and their kids didn't dress quite right or they had some hyperactive kids or generally just not well behaved and you know and you would sit there and think oh my goodness like what kind of mother is that what kind of parents are they and I remember doing that I remember before I had teenagers and I would look at the struggling teenagers Intel Stone and I would feel so sorry for those families and I would wonder what sorry right right it was those families and whatever happened to them and that's not going to happen to us right not never so now when I look back on that I really lost to myself because you know I'm one of those families and I'm actually proud of it because what I have learned through my experience I could never have learned in any other way my experience with my my struggling children my kids in pain has made me into a person that I couldn't have been otherwise I've had to I've had to find the meters of compassion the meters of acceptance the meters of unconditional love and just learning to embrace my children now I for who they are and my mantra is I I look at who you are and not what you do I don't necessarily like what you're doing I don't necessarily agree with what you're doing but I love you you're a beautiful soul and I recognize and see all of those beautiful things and those qualities that you have and we we actually have an opportunity we have an opportunity to actually emulate Hashem and become more godlike through our children through our struggling children we don't doesn't happen with our good kids we don't need to do that with our good kids but with our struggling kids we we have to pull on these resources we have to find ways different ways of of in within ourselves of seeing the world changing our approach changing our outlooks and I'm actually very grateful not that I would have chosen this I don't think any of us would actually have chosen this but to to be able to become the person I've become today through this has really been a gift and I I always say that when when Messiah comes Rosetta Sherman should be soon and we should be back in Eretz Israel right so when Messiah comes I think we're going to have a surprise I think that we're going to be very surprised to see who's sitting on the front row seats there we're going to have a big surprise to see who's who is being embraced by Hashem just this warm loving accepting embrace because we really do not know we really do not know what success is in this world so we as we as a as a community we have actually created a system where we have defined success and that has been created by people that's not being created by God and we've created a system where everything's supposed to go easy smooth and easy and you go from this to this to this to this and out and we try our best to make sure there will be no glitches in the middle there be no hitches everybody will just do the smooth thing and that's what they'll do there's our problem with that is that we only have to look at turnout and we see that that was never the way of the Jewish people we never had easy lives we always struggled in order to in order to grow in order to become the way Hashem wanted us to be we had to struggle so this society that's been created by the community actually I believe and we'll see when Michelle comes but there could there can be a lot of Shakur there the real success is defined by Hashem and only Hashem knows that Anna Shem knows what you do with your struggling children he knows what you're struggling children do he knows it could maybe maybe your child who is dressed like you know a girl on the streets but she stops herself from eating a piece of pork nobody knows what success is and and this is this I I always say that my children they were not successful in the system which people created but that doesn't mean they're not successful in God's eyes and my children are very beautiful souls they're very deep Souls they're very sensitive they have a they have a spiritual connection which is real and that's what I want from them I want them to have a real connection I don't want them to just be saying the words Baraka share pastor Hashem I don't want them to be just saying those words I want them to actually actually be connected be connected to God in in a real way I just went to oh man I have to talk about my human trip right I just went through oh man with my two girls because one of my daughter's is very connected with Rebbe Nachman and she goes to one all the time and I wanted to see what is this place that's so amazing you know like what is it about oh man and I was very skeptical when I went and I actually was going really worth quite a broken heart because we'd had a very rough time at my son had cancer last year and we had we'd had a very rough time with things and so I wasn't going open and I and I'm definitely not her Siddha shawl though I think I am actually now I think I've got Hasidic roots but we we went to the cien of the Baal Shem Tov and I just walked in there and you have to understand I'm not a kafir person I've never really kind of felt anything except by rabbit le Mela of religions in Poland there I felt something I definitely have her city roots somewhere but other than that I never really felt anything when you walk into the de Seon of the Baal Shem Tov you feel like this warm loving embrace you just I just walked in and said I don't want to leave here I just want to stay here and when I was davon I went up to the cavern and I lay with my arms and my head on the cover and I started asking her Shem for the things that I wanted and as I was asking him I found myself just saying gosh am i only want you just you only you only you over and over and over and over again and I suddenly and it was so clear to me that all of the things that I would like to change in my life all of the things that I would like to be different they really don't matter it would be nice it'll be very nice if they would but the only thing that matters is our relationship with Hashem and that's a true one and and he and when I was there by the Baal Shem Tov I felt Hashem was waiting for me with open arms and for the first time I experienced the true simcha of that connection to Shem things that people had told me about and I knew intellectually that that's the only true joy but I I was it was such a gift that Hashem gave me but what I wanted to say was I came home and I said to my husband nothing's changed obviously nothing's changed you know everyone's just the same as they were before who had changed me I was the one who changed because it was so clear to me that the only person the only thing that I'm taking with me in the end of this life is myself I'm not taking my kids I'm not taking my grandkids I'm not taking any of my worldly sessions I'm taking me and what I have done with my challenge and I'm taking and taking who I've made myself into and that's all that matters is that we that we use are challenges and we've all been chosen we've been chosen for this particular challenge and any of you who have read any of my articles of my book you will remember maybe that I speak about the fact that this is a challenge this is an essay on just like any other challenges an essay on the difference is that we get judged for this one we get blamed for this one nobody nobody blamed me when my child had cancer they were running running to support me I didn't really know what to do with myself like I'm not used to this so we have been chosen and we've been chosen for a reason and we have the capacity through this challenge to become great people to become just so godlike just like Hashem it's the generation before Machir and and these children are very very very special souls not before Michele of mushiya and these children are very very special Souls I'm sure that most of you will see that your Kipps are very sensitive deep they're not just going to just accept everything they hear in the school or just do something because they're told to do it there are very special people and if we can look and remind ourselves of how special they are this is going to help us it's going to help us to to connect to them as to who they are and not to keep trying to bring them into our world and make them like we are my kids Yiddish guide has got nothing to do with me my kids relationship with God has got nothing to do with me it's theirs just like mine is mine just like my husband's it's my husband's and so that's something we just need to remember that we we are not responsible we're not responsible for their relay with Hashem does anybody know the time if I'm okay so there was one young mother who was in terrible pain because her one of her two of her children are kind of keeping out on some level and she has also a bum a boy who was going to be Bar Mitzvah in a few weeks and this boy's brilliant suta genius when he was nine years old he was reading a fourteen-year-old level his math level was fifteen when he was nine years old and he's in a is in a program of a very high level program but there's a huge difference a few J at between his intellectual his academic level and his emotional level and he's already started to watch pornography he's on friends cellphones he's experimenting with marijuana already he's 12 almost 13 and she sat there and she cried and she said I don't want to make his Bar Mitzvah I have to make a bar mitzvah for him and I don't want to do it because I know that I'm gonna make this nice bonus for and he wants he wants the Bar Mitzvah and I'm gonna make this nice Bar Mitzvah and the day after he's just gonna go back to doing all of his stuff again so I told her I asked her I said are you able to just focus on the fact that when a boy turns 13 we have to make a Bar Mitzvah for him that's what we're told to do and that's all don't think any further than that don't think about the next day don't think about the next minutes you are doing a mitzvah you're doing what you think you were told to do and that's it and don't focus on anything anything more because if you do you're just going to go into it with tremendous resentment but the other thing that I suggested that she does is that she writes down all of the things that she loves about this child and she started writing and as she wrote there was just more and more and more and more things things that she'd forgotten because she was so in so much pain over the things that he was doing and she'd forgotten because of his behavior because of his behavior she she'd forgotten the goodness the essential goodness that was in him and the godliness that was in him and she now feels that she can actually go and she can make this bar mitzva we've got a couple of minutes left does anybody have any questions yes yes right so it's tremendously painful because what why is it so painful because we believe it's the MS right we believe that this is the way to live and that there is no other way to live that there's no other way that we can be truly happy without it and so it's extremely painful but there's a difference between being in pain for what they are missing and taking responsibility for it when you take responsibility for it then you get very and messed and when you get enmeshed you really can't be there for your child so yeah yeah right right right right right absolutely so I always say I always say that the first thing is emotional health that comes before anything and that they cannot be connected to Hashem properly if they're not healthy and you're 100 percent right and the the the only thing I think is obviously we have we do our hashtag lists in which to help them some kids don't want to be helped some kids want us to lay in bed all day long and they won't go to therapy and there's absolutely nothing you can do and cept Davern you have to turn it this way not this way because if you start turning it this way then it's not going to it's not going to succeed the other thing is you have to take care of yourself lots and lots of lots of self-care do whatever you need to do in order for you to feel happy good you know whether it's going to the gym going for walks going out with friends sleeping whatever it is but to take just to take care of yourself yeah the best thing you can give them right right right yes right right right I agree with you and it's very hard for us not to pounce and not to like have those times where will I just get out of bed already what are you doing and we all have it and we're all human and so we do sometimes you know just kind of say you know we'll just just do something with your life but that's where the self-care comes in because the more we take care of ourselves the more we are able to be there for our children and the other thing that I also want to say is that when we have critical voices in our heads towards or towards our kids or to anybody in our lives it starts with us so when we work on ourselves and we start trying to love ourselves and learning to love who we are we and when we get when we take away the critical voices that we have to ourselves because it always all starts with us it all starts right with us and when we remove those critical voices then they will naturally follow that we will remove those with our children as well yeah right so we do still obviously if your child is much younger than then then hopefully you know we hopefully we can still have some effect unless that child is extremely precocious in which case they might be only 12 years old but they might behaving like a 16 17 18 year old off and obviously the older they get then then the hard we have less control but this is this is another thing that we learn is that we don't have control over anything we only have control over ourselves and our attitudes to to our responses to our challenges and the only thing that we can control is what we do with it and it's kind of you know there have just been times when I've just said okay Shem this is just up to you because I can't do anything and I'm handing this over to you it's actually very liberating like okay you take care of it but it's really giving up control is such a key a key element we are to give space and rape mother now while I have three tips my oldest well I just want what she wanted was face I was trying to give but really maybe on she wanted space she want this she want that the mother not to give up on giving so somehow since it was my first I was very push and and I kept on giving and giving and she had control back but I and what she saw that that's when something eased up and she started you know maple Ke$ha back but then my second one watched it and she really did not want me to go out for her that she ended up moving out of the house and it took almost three years but she should one accept what she accepted the gifts that I said very much but I have the back wall very carefully in anything that you had a bad reaction to never knowing when to at this point this week she she's not finally but let me come into this we this was just like you know right so I'm sorry I just have to cut you a little bit sure because rubbish anon Russell is going to be starting soon and I have to finish but this all comes down to knowing your child and knowing oh right right so it really all comes down to knowing knowing your child and kind of knowing what this child would want and knowing that they're different each child is different and knowing okay this child this child needs me to be more hands-on and this child needs me to give them more space it doesn't matter you just need to do it anyway right so you know they're very confused as we know and they're very unstable so one day it's like give me food one day it's not giving me food you just have to try to be consistent and you know with your consistency and and often I would say to my kids you know I'm giving you space because it seems like you need space but I just want you to know that I'm here whenever you want I'm I am this happened with my oldest son I said anytime you need help I kept asking do you need help with the drinking problem he kept saying no I can manage by myself and I just left him alone and I just said to him if well if you ever need help then just I'm here and one evening I was sitting at my computer writing and he came in and he pulled up the chair next to me and he said Emma I need help consistency yes okay all right thank you very much thank you