When Will I Get Over It?

We have all experienced surprises in life. Many are pleasant yet many are not.  The pleasant ones leave fond memories. The ones which are not pleasant often leave dirty footprints. How do we clean them up?

 

Moshe, in this week’s parsha, calls his eldest Gershom due to the difficulties he experienced living in a foreign land.1 Though he was married to a good family, he still felt like a stranger. In contrast, Yosef named his eldest to celebrate having forgotten all the difficulties he faced with his brothers. Why could Moshe not follow in Yosef’s path? Why not already celebrate the fact that he was safe, at least for the moment?

 

The Netziv explains that Moshe, as opposed to Yosef, when the first child was born, he was still in a place where he felt unsettled. Par’oh was still alive and looking for his neck. He couldn’t fully thank God for saving him because the danger was still very real even though it was hundreds of miles away (with no Air Force One to bring Par’oh and his guards to arrest him at a moment’s notice). He couldn’t go visit his siblings because of that danger. He couldn’t visit his parents. Because he still felt the danger, he could not give his son a name expressing thanks for being saved until later.

 

Moshe did not feel it necessary to “get over it”. He felt the distress of the danger and felt that  he could not call his son with a name of thanksgiving. And he was okay with that the Netziv says.

 

People come to the clinic having experienced traumatic events – whether famous events - like the massacre of October 7, 2023, the wildfires raging in California or 9/11 – or individual, personal traumas. Some people will continue their lives with little effect from these traumas while some will experience physical and psychological distress as a result.  

 

"Take a few minutes to look back at the losses you’ve weathered and acknowledge what a survivor you are" (Kessler)

 

Dr. Viktor Frankl discusses the ability of people to take a stand regarding their suffering. “Wherever the individual is faced with something unalterable, something imposed by destiny…From the manner in which a person takes these things upon himself, assimilates these difficulties into his own psyche, there flows an incalculable multitude of value-potentialities. This means that human life can be fulfilled not only in creating and enjoying, but also in suffering!”2

 

I cannot answer how or when or even if a person will stop experiencing this distress. David Kessler discusses finding meaning after a loss – any kind of loss.  It can stay with us for a long time. “For most of us grief will lessen in intensity over time, it will never end.”3 Yet living a life filled with grief, he writes, does not doom us to a limited life. Rather, he challenges us: “Take a few minutes to look back at the losses you’ve weathered and acknowledge what a survivor you are.”4

 

So, even more important than the question “when will I get over it?” is the question of how we function while in distress. We may continue to feel the distress. It may hurt and bother us for a long time. As Moshe did, we need not feel that we must “get over it”. We will live our lives as best we can as we carry that pain.

 

And perhaps we, too, can accept Kessler's challenge and acknowledge to ourselves “what a survivor you are!”

 

Image by 巻（Maki） from Pixabay

 

Footnotes

  1. Shemot 2:22
  2. Frankl, Viktor E.. The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy (p. 106). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
  3. Kessler, David. Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief (p. 2). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
  4. Ibid, p. 126

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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