"If you’re nervous that you don’t have time to make food for another family, give it a try. Hashem has all the time in the world"
I would like to commend Chani Muller for addressing the issue of toxic positivity, a subject that has troubled me for a long time, both personally and professionally.
After our daughter, Chaviva, was diagnosed with profound special needs 18 years ago, I was overwhelmed by a flood of complex emotions. The devastation of sleep deprivation was surpassed by the emotional and spiritual chaos that I experienced in the wake of our new reality.
During the early years of Chaviva’s life, I walked a tightrope trying to survive this nisayon while trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy. When I had the rare opportunity to attend a shiur where the topic of nisyonos was raised, I would leave feeling frustrated, alone, and defective. It was painful to hear that everything Hashem does is for the best and that Hashem does not give us tests that we cannot handle when I was struggling. No one addressed the complex emotional and spiritual journey that is required for those experiencing complex and challenging situations.
Over the years, as our situation became more manageable (with the support of the excellent special-needs educational system in Eretz Yisrael as well as the outstanding services of Ezrat Achim in Ramat Beit Shemesh), I was able to slowly embrace our daughter and our situation, after making space and processing the complex array of feelings and dilemmas in our customized test.
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