I worked for a non-profit organization and was in charge of creating marketing communications to convey the impact of its programs, enhance understanding of emotional health issues, and inspire people to support it financially.
The challenge was to make people with no experience in the mental health field understand and appreciate the ‘product’, (the services), while maintaining 100% client confidentiality and reflecting the professionalism of the organization.
I wrote fictionalized versions of real client experiences, as related by the organization’s clinical staff. The stories were distributed by email, with a donate CTA. They were the first emails in the organization’s history to receive donations from new donors without any other prior solicitation.
Neshama was a popular student who was looking forward to finishing school and going traveling with her friends. Her life was shattered when she was involved in a terrible car crash just before she was supposed to graduate. She was hospitalized for nine months and left with permanent spinal weakness. For Neshama, the most painful part of this whole traumatic episode was that her friends abandoned her. They barely visited her in the hospital, they went traveling without her, and they lost touch. Neshama felt hurt and completely betrayed.
Seven years later, Neshama became a mentor in [the organization’s] school group social and emotional learning (SEL) program. She was assigned a group of girls who were considered very dysfunctional. Most of them had highly unstable home lives, with people coming and going all the time- and no structure or routine. They had a hard time attending school regularly, concentrating, or planning ahead. Neshama worked with the group to create a space where the girls would know what to expect, and what would be expected of them. Every session followed the same pattern, and the group appreciated Neshama for her consistency and her commitment to them. Neshama emphasized that commitment wasn’t just important for success in school or in the world of work. It was also the bedrock of all relationships. Without commitment, a friendship was worth nothing.
Because the group had opened late in the school year, there wasn’t much time to make progress. Neshama and the girls mapped out what they would do in the remaining sessions, and also agreed to carry on after the long summer vacation. But with only two sessions left, Neshama had to let the group down when a child on a bike lost control and rode into her. Due to her old injuries, this minor accident left Neshama immobilized for weeks, and she could not come into school to finish the year with the girls.
When September came around, the group resumed. But Neshama was still in serious pain and was struggling to cope. Finally, her doctor advised her that she had no choice but to undergo another spinal surgery, which would require her to remain flat on her back at home afterward for two months. Neshama felt terrible. The most important thing that she could do for the girls in her group was to be trustworthy and to show up. And yet, she had been left with no choice but to unexpectedly leave them, not once but twice.
When Neshama got home after the surgery, something unexpected happened. First, Neshama received a teddy bear wearing a T-shirt that said ‘get well soon’ with the names of all the group members. Then she began to receive a steady stream of text messages from group members inquiring after her and sending jokes and pictures and sharing updates from their own lives. Neshama replied to every message, and they kept the connection throughout her convalescence.
Neshama had never shared with the group the story of her original accident and her broken friendships. And yet, a group of girls who had never been able to rely on anyone before, and who had been anything but dependable themselves, managed to be there for Neshama and help heal the old hurt. Despite all the disruption, Neshama had taught this group why commitment matters, and they had honored it.
Meni grew up as the youngest child in a large and deeply unhappy family. He saw his father violently attack his mother on many occasions. His mother would in turn all too frequently lash out against his older siblings, with Meni watching from his hiding place behind the curtains. Meni learned from a young age to fade into the background so that he wouldn’t attract attention and get hit himself. He was physically small and thin for his age and his parents mocked him for being pathetic. School was a refuge for Meni, and he did well academically. Yet even when he brought home report cards full of praise, his parents still both called him a waste of space and a disappointment.
When he turned 18, Meni left home and started backpacking around the world. A few years later he met an Israeli woman, and followed her to Israel. She was sweet and kind and truly accepting of him, and they set up home in Jerusalem.
Everything was fine until their first baby was born. They both adored their beautiful new daughter, but she had reflux and screamed all day and all night. The frustration of not being able to calm the baby, mixed with the lack of sleep made everything look black in Meni’s eyes. Suddenly, he found himself shouting horrible insults in his wife’s face because she left the milk out of the fridge or was talking too loudly on the phone, reducing her to tears. Suddenly he heard himself hissing at his tiny baby to ‘shut up or else.’ He was horrified about what was coming out of his mouth and felt as if his parents were staring back at him when he looked in the mirror. Meni’s wife handed him a leaflet for [the organization], and Meni made the call.
Meni told the therapist that he was disgusted with himself. “I’ve spent 28 years vowing never to be like my parents, and at the first hint of pressure, I behave exactly as they did. How could I of all people say such awful things to the people I love the most in the world? I’m terrified that this is just the beginning- if I’m capable of this maybe I’m capable of being violent too? The thought makes me want to throw up!”