"While people sometimes worry that the person may not want a call or visit, who says a call/visit is intrusive— what did we do before texting?"
Thank you for your important article on yeshivah bochur burnout and the sense of powerlessness parents feel in this situation. It is so painful to have intuitively known that your son needed guidance, your request for help went unheeded, and then to watch in horror his deterioration. I have unfortunately encountered too many bochurim just like your son in my practice.
There’s an important distinction between a bochur who is learning all the time because he would like to grow in Torah and a bochur who is learning to ward off his sense of inadequacy. One is rooted in ahavas haTorah while the other is derived from sinas atzmo (self-hatred).
The first bochur pushes himself and feels good that he is moving in the right direction. In contrast, the second bochur learns but doesn’t feel a sense of accomplishment, regardless of his growth. He keeps learning incessantly in the hope that this will make him feel whole. Despite the constant learning, his emptiness continues to grow. These bochurim are constantly berating themselves as failures.
After spending countless hours of learning under the stress of self-criticism, the mind begins to shut down and the bochur is no longer able to learn. This is the way the mind protects the bochur from his own ruthless demands. Typically, the bochur is then diagnosed with a fatigue disorder or censured for slacking off.
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