Am I too damaged to go on?

Question:

I've had a rather difficult life and it seems to have just gotten harder and harder, more and more miserable...

I do count my few blessings and pray to G‑d as well. I have always worked on having complete trust in Him. But at some point, it gives out after much disappointment...

In a time of great loneliness and depression, I acted in a way which went against my core beliefs and value system. Naively though, in the hopes that it would turn into something proper and everlasting. In return, I was taken advantage of. I am constantly being punished both mentally and in other ways... I feel that I should not go on living, that I do not have the right, that I am too damaged and that I have been judged harshly.

I feel so hopeless and helpless..

Can you help?

Response:

Dear J____,

Your words touched a very raw nerve in me. For the past few years someone very close to me has been going through a struggle similar to yours. I have been part of her struggle, a witness to her initial shock and realization, the misery that followed, the hours of grief and torment...and ultimately her complete victory over her regrets, her guilt, her old self, and her triumph over the man who took advantage of her.

This is a girl I have known since her childhood—known her to be sweet and kind and good. But nothing compares to how her experience empowered her—the newfound courage, determination and source of strength she now is to others. There is not a vestige of anything negative in her from that incident.

Rather the only change I see is that where she used to be an easy target for manipulation, she now would never fall for that again; and where she used to be a loose leaf blown about by the slightest breeze, she now takes a strong stand over herself, exercises self-control in every part of her life. The Talmud says that the place where the one who fell away and returned now stands is such that even a perfect tzadik cannot reach. In this girl, I can see how true this is. I can tell you that from all of the people I know, this girl is someone I admire most.

You've been through a bad haul. Overcoming something so traumatic is a process. It's a slow process, but one with many steps which are constantly bringing you upward, and further away from the incident.

The most important step, the first step, is letting go. I don't mean flippantly ignoring that something went wrong. Rather, you acknowledge the fact, but you separate it from who you are. You are not that incident. That incident is something that happened to you, but it in no way defines you. It doesn't define you any more than your shopping for butter and eggs defines you. It is something you have done, but it is not you.

Letting go means removing yourself from what you did—two separate things: This is me. This is what happened to me. This distinction is vital. You are a person, a complicated person, a person with many facets to her character, with many talents and some faults, with various likes and dislikes, with various outlooks and a unique, evolving mindset...you are a complex creature capable of so much. What happened is not intertwined with your person—it is not intertwined with your essential character—it is one of the many thousands of choices you made over your life. The choice doesn't become you, doesn't become part of your person. It is external to you. And you are above it. Your powers of intellect and control, your powers of future choice put you above anything you chose in the past, put you above this incident—you are more powerful than it, you have control over it now.

This is the whole idea of what we call teshuvah. Elsewhere, they preach repentance—forging a new path toward G‑d. For a Jew, the goal is not to change who you are, choose a new path, forge a new way—but rather to return, to rediscover your essential, native bond with your G‑d. Because that bond is who you really are, and even at the time you went away it remained your true essence. It is only that your essential self was temporarily hijacked, like a captive prisoner on a pirated ship. Teshuvah means simply to untie the prisoner and allow him to once again steer his own ship.

At every moment, a person is continually connected to G‑d. Every one of us has a G‑dly soul, an actual share of G‑d within us, which cannot be diminished or removed. All we need do is to return to who we really are.

J____, be honest with yourself. You have far more potential than you grant yourself. You have a G‑dly soul, and that knows no bounds.

When G‑d created the world, He created good and bad as a mirror image, in equal amounts so the good would have a chance to overcome the bad and vice-versa. When G‑d created you, He created a complicated, rich personality, capable of making a variety of choices. Certain circumstances prompted your character to make certain choices that you now regret. But realize that you are created with an equal amount of capacity to make completely opposite choices—to accomplish great things. Not only do you have the power to overcome the negativity, you have so much more power because of the experience you went through, because that experience gave you increased depth and understanding of the world and of yourself.

Letting go is the first and most important step, and everything else is easier from there. I want to continue this discussion with you, so let me know how it's going. Let me know, also, if anything here is unclear or you think doesn't pertain to you.

Wishing you the courage and strength to do this. The Torah is perfectly confident that you can.

Let's be in touch.