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Our History
Case
studies > Donya
and Svetlana and their mother - Nella
Children - Donya and Svetlana
Donya
Donya was six-years-old when she arrived at Tzel Koratainu.
Six months before, she had jumped from the window of a third
story building in an effort to escape her father who was in
one of his drunken stupors. She was released straight into
our home from the hospital where she had recovered from broken
bones and a punctured lung caused by her fall. Psychologically
deeply scarred by her father's continual abuse, Donya displayed
typical "severe victim consciousness", crying constantly,
hiding under tables and beds and behind open doors. She would
withdraw often into her own world and cry and lash out due
to her inability to verbally communicate her fears, concerns
and needs. Donya went to sleep at night only after contracting
all of her muscles and clenching her fists into tight little
balls. She was like a taut little ball, under pressure all
of the time, sealed so closely within her, as if she might
burst at the slightest touch.
Donya's progress was slow but sure. She had to learn to express
her fears and traumas and to be taught how to assert her needs
and desires without demanding or crying all of the time. Her
home experience had taught her extremes of violence that were
expressed in attacking her siblings and trying to maim herself.
She had to be taught to respect herself and those around her,
as well as to respect property. She had to learn to trust
us, as surrogate parents, to help her deal with her pain.
Slowly, Donya came to understand that there were better ways
to deal with her emotions, with failure, anger, jealousy and
defeat, and to get what she needed and wanted in her world.
Through the six years that she lived in
our home, Donya went through significant character change,
becoming a confident and happy child who became able and willing
to express her opinions and did not back down when confronted.
To her advantage, Donya has strong survival skills and was
able, with guidance, to learn to use her own resources to
tackle challenges without harming others. She developed positive
self-esteem as she developed greater independence and learned
to express and work through her fears and traumas. Donya always
showed a strong desire for order and was the first to carry
out her chores and to offer to perform other domestic tasks.
Donya became the prize student in her class. By fourth grade,
her teacher wrote words of great praise for her efforts, her
independence, her self-discipline, and her desire always to
help. For us, one of the clearest indications of Donya's healing
was her desire to volunteer, through her school, to visit
and help sick people in their home. Her ability to give of
herself, to offer a hand to someone needy, was a result of
her confidence and renewed personal strength. The director
of the volunteer program was effusive in her praise of Donya.
Her "poise, alacrity, and desire to help" were specifically
noted. Her final comment to us - "You should be proud
to have a daughter like that."
Donya arrived at our home as a last step before possible hospitalization
in a facility for the severely disturbed. Through the love
and warmth lavished on her, the therapy and intensive educational
and social intervention, Donya underwent a transformation
that allowed her to use her personal strengths and resourcefulness
to help her heal herself. Donya developed a calm and vibrant
approach to life. She connected well with peers at school
and with the other girls in the home and became an outgoing
and helpful self-assured adolescent.
At the age of eleven, Donya began expressing
clear desires to return to live with her mother who had become
a frequent visitor in our home and a participant in our Mother/Child
Healing Hostel. At the age of twelve, this desire was fulfilled
as Donya moved back with her mother and her sisters into their
new home.
Svetlana
Svetlana was five-years-old on arrival
in our home and seemed to be relatively unscarred by the traumas
of her family life. Svetlana was always laughing and showed
tremendous independence of spirit for a child her age, being
able to get on the private bus to kindergarten alone from the
first day of school and spend the entire day happily occupied
in a completely unfamiliar surrounding. However, two behaviors
that Svetlana exhibited in extremes hinted at the scars she
hid so well. Over the slightest frustration, Svetlana would
tear, smash, or otherwise deface any property in her reach,
reeling with emotion that overwhelmed her until she would physically
collapse. She also indiscriminately offered affection to nearly
any passerby and would walk off with complete strangers whenever
we were out in public. Svetlana seemed to lack any sense of
"significant others" in her life, being unclear to
whom she belonged or to whom she should give her trust.
Government requirements
demanded that the children be given home visits with their
biological parents in order to maintain contact. Svetlana
suffered greatly from a series of these visits, becoming completely
closed after the first, crying constantly after the following
two. She showed us the black and blue marks that she attributed
to her father and described the abuse he meted out to the
family. She felt anxiety over her own beatings, and expressed
tremendous concern for the welfare of her mother and her younger
siblings who remained in the home. She suffered radical behavior
changes, showing difficulty connecting with her surroundings
and resorting to violent and extremely anti-social behavior
with other girls. Svetlana's experiences allowed us government
permission to discontinue these visits for all of our girls.
Svetlana's school
years were fraught with difficulty. She had severe attention
difficulties and disrupted the class repeatedly. She was suspected
of having a reading disability and exhibited gaps in memory
and retention of learned material. She demanded individual
attention from her teacher and, in her frustration, became
destructive of both personal and public property in the school.
Svetlana was evaluated as having above average intelligence
but suffering from emotional and psychological scars that
greatly inhibited her ability to learn. She was moved to a
special education class where her special needs could be addressed.
Through our home,
Svetlana was given intensive personal therapy directed to
her specific emotional and physical needs. She improved slowly
on all levels and, specifically, in her behavior. As Svetlana
became more able to communicate her needs and pains her tendency
to destroy property waned. Her trust and identification with
us as surrogate parents gave her the security she had needed
to implement change. She slowly showed more interest in her
surroundings, developing domestic and self-care skills that
had dissolved in the total apathy that had resulted after
her home visits. She received private tutoring every afternoon
to prepare her for reintegration to regular education. Svetlana's
increased general sense of self-esteem, and specifically her
increasing school success, brought about a healthy level of
motivation for learning and a desire to succeed in academic
pursuits. It was with great pleasure that, after many years
in special education, we could share with Svetlana the news
that she was now able to return to a regular educational framework.
By the time she was to rejoin her family
in their home, some five years after her arrival at Tzel Koratainu,
Svetlana had become an outgoing and self-confident young girl.
She had learned positive means of communication and had succeeded
in applying herself with great motivation in most of her educational
and social endeavors. She is doing well with her mother and
siblings and shows promise of being a contributing member
of the Israeli community.
Mother - Nella
Nella was always a battered woman but claims that a close
family network and occupation for her husband kept the situation
manageable while they lived in the former USSR. Now in Israel,
living in close quarters in a caravan community, the situation
had become unbearable. A copious drinker and frequent gambler,
her husband, who had not been able to find work in Israel,
badly abused all of the children and Nella as well, locking
them into their caravan, screaming, yelling and beating them
sometimes all through the night.
Nella's daughters were referred to our
home by a crisis intervention organization. Nella, herself,
begged us to save her children's lives by taking them away
from their father. She admitted to having no real interest
or skills in mothering, wanting only to work to help supporther
family.
Nella's lack of relationship with her
daughters was evident whenever she visited our home for family
occasions and later as she regularly attended every event
of the Mother/Child Healing Hostel. She was emotionally closed
to their needs, crippled by her own personal distress at the
mess her life had become.
Nella separated from her husband shortly
after she began attending the Mother/Child Healing Hostel.
In our home, she received both counseling and the practical
help she needed to rearrange her life. Our mother-daughter
bonding events reconnected her with her children, allowing
her to realize the positive sides of motherhood. She learned
quickly and aptly from the modeled behavior and courses on
interpersonal relations, mothering and creating a supportive
home environment for herself and her children.
In time, Nella divorced her husband and
was given a subsidized apartment by the government. Her new
sense of independence and trust in her own abilities earned
her satisfying work as a home care provider for the elderly.
As Nella grew in self-sufficiency and competence, she was
able to spend more time with her children in her care as they
visited her home on weekends and for holidays. After three
years attending Mother/Child Hostel events, Nella felt she
was ready to have her children returned to her custody. Nella
had five children, including Donya and Svetlana, who had been
removed to institutional living. All five children were enabled
to return home.
Nella has told us that the healing that
took place in her family continues to astound her, showing
clearly the interdependence of family members who suffered
and then healed together. Donya, she shares, as the oldest
child, had been the scapegoat for all of the family problems.
She, as a result, had shown the greatest dysfunction and disturbance.
As Donya began to heal and appreciate herself, the family
system as a whole became more balanced, healthy and open to
healing.
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