Double Take- Sukkos Story

amother

Oatmeal

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:02 pm

The mother was totally wrong. If she really loved her kids she would tell the marrieds not to come. She knew what was going on with the sister.

BH Yom Yom

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:09 pm

https://mishpacha.com/breaking-point/

Sounds like the mom is feeding into Temima‘s obsessiveness over what-ifs, which aren’t even necessarily about “safety.” Accommodating her to this degree does not help and actually strengthens the anxiety response. Temima could really benefit from distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills (DBT).

Last edited by BH Yom Yom on Mon, Oct 02 2023, 12:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

sushilover

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:15 pm

The mother sounds like a nice person who is trying to do her best. But if she truly feels that it is best to "accommodate" and coddle her daughter, it should be on her cheshbon only. Not guilting her daughter in law and son into doing all the accommodating.

amother

Cinnamon

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:22 pm

BH Yom Yom wrote:

https://mishpacha.com/breaking-point/

Sounds like the mom is feeding into Temima‘s obsessiveness over what-ifs, which aren’t even necessarily about “safety.” Accommodating her for this degree does not help and actually strengthens the anxiety response. Temima could really benefit from distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills (DBT).

This. Never a good idea to accommodate anxiety/ocd, it just feeds the beast.

keym

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:24 pm

I felt a severe lack of empathy towards the son and daughter in law and the difficulty about what was being asked of them.

Ihatepotatoes

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:35 pm

I felt that that the mother should have been upfront before inviting them that they would be expected to kill themselves all Yom Tov and not trigger/derail the sister's progress. The fact that she didn't shows that she didn't really understand just how much it would affect them. As it were, if I were in this situation I would have my husband tell his mother that "While we understand and hope that she is able to get better, until she does we won't be able to come by and stay for long periods for Yomim Tovim. It isn't a punishment, it's just a reality of the situation which will God-willing improve."

amother

White

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 10:40 pm

Temima is not a functional human. Don't get me wrong - my husband and I both have anxiety. But forcing your anxiety onto others is a whole different animal. And the mother needs to understand that accommodating the fears reinforces the fears. She needs to put her foot down and stick up for the parents who have every right to parent their children how they want, as long as it is reasonable and safe.

amother

Snapdragon

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:08 pm

amother Oatmeal wrote:

The mother was totally wrong. If she really loved her kids she would tell the marrieds not to come. She knew what was going on with the sister.

Its sounds like it had been bad, but not this bad and they are all knew to this.

But yeah, mental illness is no fun and mother may jave to come to terms with limited company until she figires how to deal with temima.

Mother needs ti call a therapist and gets tios on how 5o intereact with the anxiety.

Chayalle

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:08 pm

I'm curious - did you think that to some extent Temina was right, and they should be watching their kids more anyway?

amother

Seafoam

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:12 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I'm curious - did you think that to some extent Temina was right, and they should be watching their kids more anyway?

No
It sounded like normal parenting in real life.
Temima has serious issues and is basically not functioning and everyone is supposed to feed into it

Ema of 5

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:13 pm

amother Cerulean wrote:

Can s1 please link the story?

It’s posted above.
I agree with whoever said they should have been warned. Even if this was an ongoing situation, clearly it got worse over the last few months, and they should have been warned that it would affect them as well.

amother

Pewter

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:15 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I'm curious - did you think that to some extent Temina was right, and they should be watching their kids more anyway?

100% not. I actually have a single older sister and she gets like this to an extent about totally normal parenting situations sometimes. But this was to an extreme.

Yes, you can safely allow your children to play in another room without imagining the many far-fetched scenarios that may present “dangers” to them.

amother

Aubergine

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:19 pm

If she just started therapy they should’ve been told to postpone their visit. This isn’t fair to them or healthy for the kids to observe…

Speaking as a DBT therapist, it makes sense that if she was just starting to address this having so much change in routine and triggers over a while week was just too much.

amother

Mayflower

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:24 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I'm curious - did you think that to some extent Temina was right, and they should be watching their kids more anyway?

Most of it was irrational. Letting children play near candles is dangerous, and like with swimming pools, if everyone is watching, nobody's watching.

Chayalle

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:31 pm

amother Seafoam wrote:

No
It sounded like normal parenting in real life.
Temima has serious issues and is basically not functioning and everyone is supposed to feed into it

I agree, actually. I was wondering at a poster who seemed to feel otherwise.

I thought in such a situation, the parents should not have hosted their other children while her issues weren't addressed. Or warned them of the situation to see if they want to come.

amother

Pewter

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:46 pm

Chayalle wrote:

It’s hard to anticipate how a situation will play out. I don’t think the mom did anything wrong by not warming them in advance (in fact it might have been a violation of temima’s privacy to go into too much detail) but as it was unfolding I don’t see anything wrong with her stepping in a little more to mitigate things and taking her son’s side to a greater extent than she did.

Ema of 5

Sun, Oct 01 2023, 11:52 pm

amother Aubergine wrote:

It seems that she hadn’t just started. She had started and had been making progress, but then along came summer and yomim tovim, and I assume she wasn’t going regularly.