Chaptzem Blog!      

The letter below that was sent to us was written by Psychologist Asher Lipner, Ph.D. in response to the letters written by Lakewood bochur Shua Finkelstein, a child molest victim who passed away from a drug overdose a short while ago, and his father and sister.


This conversation and the original letter can be amazingly educational to us all.

To start with there is indeed a connection between drug addiction and obsessive compulsive character defenses.

There is also a HUGE connection between developing these defenses and being sexually abused as a little child. People need to wake up indeed to what is happening all around us and to what happened to Shuah A"H, and what is happening to his family and friends.

The focus on the spelling in such a powerful letter shows the exact same defesive reaction: Obsessive compulsiveness. These commenters do not mean to be hurtful. They are traumatized themselves by hearing the pain of Shira Finkelstien and realizing the horror her brother went through. Not being able to get any kind of sense of control over the events, and not having the ability to control their overwhelming emotions, leads to trying to focus on something they CAN control....spelling. It is no different than people with OCD who wash their hands 30 times a day, fantasizing that this will control their world and they won't ever get sick.

As for the writer who commented that Shuah was trying to control the whole world by helping others but not himself, that is not fair at all. He clearly did a lot to help himself out of his addiction having been clean for 8 months after years of struggling due to terrible abuse as a kid.

His desire to change the world was not an escape from facing his problems it was actually quite healing. Victims of abuse, especially in a close-knit family like community like ours, can never heal without doing at least something to make some change in their community. That is why so many Holocaust survivors and their children became writers, teachers, psychologists, or in some way tried to make a difference in the world. To do otherwise is to pretend that your abuse happened in a vacuum. As if it was an isolated incident, which it is not. The abuse Shuah lived through and that all victims of sexual abuse in our community live through is COMMUNAL in nature. His facebook posting explained this beautifully, better than I can. Please see it.

As for did he win the battle or not. How about this, he won the battle of confronting his sickness, but he died in the battle. But those of us he inspired will continue for him until we win the war.

Asher Lipner, Ph.D.