Part 5: Learning Tools

By age 7, getting Tzviel out of the car in the morning wasn't possible. His parents would reassure him, coax him and do everything they could. One morning, while parked right outside the school building, during an anxiety attack, Tzviel said, "I want to help myself! How? How do I make my anxiety better?" This smart boy had asked the smartest question. His family turned to his art therapist and family doctor who both highly recommend cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

In one of the first few sessions of CBT, Tzviel's therapist took a coke bottle and explained to Tzviel and his parents that the coke bottle was Tzviel. She started to shake it. "This is what happens when we start to feel bad inside. Afraid, scared, anxious. Tzviel, can you guess what is going to happen if I keep shaking it?" With a devilish smile and twinkle in his eye, Tzviel answered, "It will explode!" With that, Tzviel and his family went outside to the garden. Tzviel's therapist explained, "Tzviel, you've been feeling so scared and it's making you feel really bad inside. All that emotion has no where to go." She kept shaking the bottle. "Without slowly releasing the air from this bottle, you know what will happen. It's the same thing with you." With that, she opened the bottle and everyone watched coke spray everywhere.

She took a second coke bottle and started shaking it vigorously. "When our anxiety builds up and up, it feels terrible. I'd like to teach you ways to help your anxiety, so it doesn't explode. I'd like to teach you tools or techniques, so you can start feeling better." With that, she slowly opened the cap of the bottle. Some air came out. She did this a few times. "You see, Tzviel. No explosion."

Tzviel went for a few sessions, where his therapist would give him and his family exercises and techniques to learn. As well, she would ask questions and purposefully trigger anxious responses in Tzviel to get a good grasp for his anxiety. For many sessions after that, just Tzviel's parents went for the sessions. It was clear that Tzviel's separation anxiety had now expanded to a more broad anxiety disorder.

With cognitive behavior therapy, Tzviel's whole family learned how to communicate more effectively, to assess the situation, and learned how to diffuse situations very effectively. Tzviel felt much calmer, knowing that his parents understood his triggers. He felt safe when they knew how to reassure him. He started to feel really good.

(To be continued)

Part 4: Getting Help

When Tzviel was 5, he had so much trouble with his fears and frustrations. They just felt too much for him. His parents talked to their family doctor about concerns they had with behaviors they were seeing and the things that Tzviel was explaining to them. Art therapy was recommended as a source of an appropriate emotional support. Tzviel would cut out pictures of animals from magazines, draw their habitat around them and then draw a very firm and thick box around them. His deep seeded need for security was clear from every piece of artwork he made with his therapist. Through Tzviel's art, his overwhelming fear received a proper term "Separation Anxiety".

When his baby sister was hospitalized, his artwork transformed to bird's nests being held up by a string, tied to a pole that could never support itself. His thoughts and fears were clear: Tzviel was frightened by the instability of his home. Tzviel learned to express his anxiety more and more. His parents learned to be more tuned in: to understand this wasn't just a 5 year old acting out (as so many people offered in their brilliant opinions) and to learn how to respond better.


His parents slowly began to understand that his sleepless nights were linked to his fear that something would happen to his family in middle of the night and the uncertainty of what he would wake up to. They began to understand that his refusal to get ready in the morning was really his inability to prepare to leave the safety of his home.


As time went on, Tzviel's anxiety grew and grew. Bedtime became unbearable and only with the help of melatonin, would Tzviel eventually fall asleep. Morning routines changed drastically, as Tzviel needed constant support. He had also developed some chronic stomach problems because of his anxiety.


(To be continued)

Part 3: Tzviel's Perspective

I'd like to tell you our heart story from a different perspective. Tzviel's perspective. 

Once there was a little three year old boy. He was bright, quiet and very funny. He was extremely easy going in most cases, but every now and then, his parents would notice specific situations that would stress him out. Like crowded rooms, or having babysitters. He was quiet around those outside of his family but when alone at home,  he would say some of the funniest things anyone had ever heard and the rest of the time would impress with some scientific fact way above his age level.

When he was three and a half, his parents told him that a new baby was in his Ima's tummy. How exciting! Everyone seemed thrilled about it. Until a few weeks after that big announcement. Then he saw and felt the stress levels go way up. He would catch Ima crying a lot and heard snippets of conversations that he couldn't understand. His parents explained that they were worried about the baby being healthy.

The day before Tzviel's little sister arrived, there was a very big move. Tzviel moved in, along with his big sister and Abba to his grandparents home for a long time until the baby could come home.

And then the baby was born. It wasn't joyful. It was stressful. Ima lived at the hospital for 24 days and came back to visit every few days. Tzviel and Mechal came to the hospital to visit every few days. He spoke to Ima by phone and Skype daily. But nothing was the same for anyone. No one was in their normal environment and everything was different.

And then Ima came home from the hospital with Tzviel's baby sister, Tehilla. Everyone moved back home which felt very nice. His family was all together again. Until 2 days later, when Tehilla had to be rushed to the hospital with Ima. And two days later again, they rushed to the hospital. And for the next five months, Tzviel would go to sleep at night, unsure if his baby sister would be rushed to the hospital again. Unsure whether his Ima would be home. Unsure if his family would be together.

The first year and a half of Tehilla's life were filled with frequent moments where Tzviel's family wasn't together. There were so many hospital visits. Sometimes they were just for one day. Sometimes they were for a week or more. Everyone always did as much as they could to help, but the instability of Tzviel's home made him very scared. He desperately wanted his family together at home.

(to be continued)

Part 2: How to explain

Part 2:

I thought I had parenting and life figured out before I had kids. I knew all the ways I was not going to parent and saw all the flaws in what everyone else was doing. My kids would never do that and would surely be everything I set out for them. Someone give me a time machine to slap some sense into my naive former self.

This post isn't just about giving an explanation for my lack of posting. It's not about updating the world and letting everyone into my personal life. This post, I hope, will do something. I hope this post gives validation to those that have been down a similar path. I hope this post opens minds and educates. I hope this helps in some way to change the world. I need it to change the world.

I'll start by saying that Tzviel does NOT have pediatric diabetes. Again, he doesn't. But what if I told you he did. What if I told you that around the time Tehilla was born, we started seeing something irregular. What if I told you that we spoke with our family doctor, who directed us medically. What if I explained that we started treating him and doing everything we could. What if I told you that as much as we tried helping and treating him, his condition worsened and we had to keep providing him with treatment. And at some point medication became necessary. How would you react?

You would nod your head in understanding and mention some friend of a friend who also had a kid with pediatric diabetes. You'd listen sympathetically to the challenges we faced and the changes we all had to undergo in our family to accommodate and assist our child. You'd have been supportive and wonderful.

Would you have suggested if we were stricter and better parents, then he never would have developed pediatric diabetes? Would you have called our judgement into question for providing him with medication? Would you have pushed for him to be removed from other kids, fearing he somehow effect the other children?

I'd like to tell you our heart story from a different perspective. Tzviel's perspective.

Part 1: I hope

Quite a number of weeks ago, I promised to explain the side story to our heart journey that has kept our family busy and has kept me from updating the blog. It's something big that I really want to explain. I've started and restarted that blog post many times over. I keep having to rewrite it out of fear.

You see, this blog has been with my family through some of the worst situations. You held our hands, held us in your hearts and held us in your prayers. In a lot of ways, that was easy for you to do. We are a family, no different from your own, with an impossible situation. Oh, and an impossibly cute little heart warrior princess. It was easy to understand our predicament and understand that in many cases, the only thing that could save our daughter was G-d's miracles. So, you came running to our aid and loved Tehilla like your own.

This situation is different. This situation takes empathy and education. Our generation is combating re-educating society about this very issue. Often it is met with judgment. I realize I'm being cryptic, and it's purposeful.

So many times, I felt defeated when writing my post, concerned that I wouldn't be able to explain efficiently. Our family has gone through something very very hard, and we have been met with coldness and stigma in small interactions and crucial interactions. I wanted to protect my family from more. I wanted to protect my son. But in remaining quiet, I am only keeping things at status quo. I can only make a change if I speak up and try to explain. For my son and for so many like him.

I'm going to give it my best shot. It's lengthy, so I will split it into several blog posts. I hope it helps make a change. I hope it helps other people, going through similar situations. I hope you all will respond with the same love you have shown us before.