"If you were uncomfortable with the story, instead of feeling threatened, you can feel thankful that this message isn’t a lifesaver to you"
I’m sure Alisa Avruch is speaking from professional experience when she says that stories such as “The Long Road Home” can make people think their problems are unsolvable and that divorce is the only option. She asks, quite legitimately, why share such a story?
When “Grab the Reins,” about my work as an addiction and codependency specialist, was published as a serial diary in Family First, I received many emails from people who hadn’t known addiction existed in the frum community. They thought their (or their loved one’s) out-of-control behaviors were happening because they were bad, crazy, or both. The serial was an eye-opener for many. Not only did it validate their experience, it gave them a direction in which to go, in order to get the tools they needed to live a normal life.
When the serial was published as a book, I added the stories of six women with whom I’d worked. Suddenly, I was receiving email after email from women who’d been struggling with codependency and simply had no idea. Email after email from women who opened with, “I think I’m Hadassah.”
There are many excellent nonfiction books that explain codependency; why had these women not simply read up on the topic? The answer is simple: You can’t learn more about a problem you don’t know you have. A story, whether fiction or nonfiction, is a very powerful medium. It gives us entry into others’ thoughts, intimate understanding of their feelings. Yes, a story has to be used responsibly. In the 12 years that I’ve been writing for Family First, I can attest that every story, every article I’ve written has been vetted by a chain of people to make sure it is purposeful and hashkafically sound.
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