My girl got her life twice, first when I gave birth to her 19 years ago, and the second time when she arrived at Dr. Blank’s Boarding School.
My daughter arrived at the Bnei Arazim Boarding School when she was a wreck. Before that, she was placed in two psychiatric hospitals.
She stayed in the first one for about two months. The Head of the Youth Department decided he could not help her; she was too difficult a case for him.
She hurt herself and the hospital’s team of specialists did not succeed in preventing this. For most of her stay in the hospital, she was tied to her bed—i.e., restricted (the instances of physical restrain were a traumatic experience for her at every level; the trauma from being tied up still stays with her to this day).
The Head of the Youth Department at the first hospital decided “to throw her out” of his hospital and to transfer her to another psychiatric facility, saying that he had no way of helping her. This act shocked her and worsened her condition, as impossible as this seems.
She stayed about a year at the second psychiatric hospital.
During all that time she wanted to die; she did not want to live, and she took active steps to try to end her life.
She almost succeeded. She arrived at the ICU after ingesting an enormous quantity of pills. This happened more than once.
She hurt herself on a daily basis. She cut herself using sharp instruments that she found or made. She hit her head on the wall an infinite number of times. She was violent toward anybody who tried to stop her from hurting herself.
She did not speak. For almost two years my daughter did not speak with anyone around her, with any one of the carers. She spoke only with her immediate family. She had selective mutism.
She ate only when a member of her immediate family was with her.
During her stay at both psychiatric hospitals, she ate almost nothing unless I or Blee came and sat down with her while she ate. She developed a fear of eating in public.
It should be mentioned that before her hospitalizations, we did everything in our power to help her. We did not spare any treatment.
For many years before her hospitalization, she was cared for in the community. We took her to all the renowned experts we had heard about, a selection of psychiatrists and psychologists. We tried different kinds of therapy, art therapy, social therapy, animal-assisted therapy, etc. Despite all these attempts, her condition deteriorated and went from bad to worse.
In 2000 we heard about Dr. Blank. We came to her for a consultation after all the doctors in the psychiatric hospitals where our daughter had stayed for over a year gave up and advised us to start bringing in outside experts to try to help the girl.
Dr. Blank saw our daughter and said that she could help her. We waited a long time until there was a place for her at the Bnei Arazim Boarding School. Months went by until a bed was found for her at Bnei Arazim, months during which the girl was under strict supervision and continuously hurt herself.
The onboarding process was not easy for either her or us. To us, Dr. Blank’s method was revolutionary, different from anything we had known before. The disconnection from our home and the distance were difficult.
The first thing they said to us during the onboarding period was that we could not be in contact with the child until further notice.
The girl had to earn her being in contact with us, it should not be taken for granted. She could not behave as she did and still expect us to contain this and be at her side all the time.
The routine of our staying with her was stopped.
The stages were explained to us. First of all, she had to change her behavior, that is, stop hurting herself, stop hurting others, start eating in public, and start normalizing her life. Only then she may speak to us over the phone—the first conversations would be strictly supervised. Following this, there would be visits, also initially supervised. Only afterward, when the situation stabilized, there would be regular visits at home.
During the first days after entering the shelter boarding school, she did not speak with anyone and refused to eat.
In hindsight, it turned out that when she arrived, she had hidden in the sole of her sneakers a small blade she had taken from a pencil sharpener.
The girl had many fears and one of them was of balloons.
After a few days of refusing to eat, Dr. Blank met the child. She tried to convince her to eat and, when this did not succeed, she brought a big gate made of balloons and started popping them in front of her. She told her that if she did not eat, she would continue popping them. It was a difficult and brave act. From then on, the girl started to eat.
Barely a week went by and the girl gradually began to change. She understood that in this new place, they did not yield to her anymore, she had to obey the laws and rules.
She started to eat, and this was quite a significant breakthrough. It was the beginning of a new and normative behavior.
The girl had a difficult problem with sensory regulation and coping with the noises around her. It was difficult for her to contain the chewing sounds made by people eating around her, she had difficulty with walking sounds… Dr. Blank did not yield to her about not coping with those things. She said that for the child to live an ordinary life in a normal environment there was no other possibility but to get used to it and manage to live with it, and so it was.
It was necessary to treat the child’s communication problem. She did not speak with anybody. The boarding school’s instructors worked with her in various ways.
She began attending the school at Bnei Arazim. At this school, a goal chart is displayed. The goals are individual for each child. One of the girl’s goals was to contact staff, to communicate with those around her.
In the beginning, she did not speak. On one of her first days at school, the teacher finished her lesson and said goodbye to the children. All of them answered her except for my daughter. The teacher did not agree to let my daughter leave the classroom until she said goodbye. The teacher and staff stayed in the school, and only two hours later the child said “Goodbye” and thus ended the study day.
After a while the girl began talking, at first in whispers in a hesitant and almost inaudible voice, Little by little her voice grew so strong that two years on she frequently does not stop.
Upon starting to get better, she became entitled to having phone calls with the family. This was one of the incentives for her to function.
Once contact with the family was taken away from her, she learned to appreciate it and not to take it for granted.
She looked forward to those calls. She overcame her embarrassment at being supervised during the calls.
The girl started to function. She attended school and started to study, to complete all that she had missed during the previous two years.
This year she completed her full matriculation studies with excellent grades. She behaves just like any young girl her age and looks forward to the future.
Our girl sometimes has difficulties but now, in contrast to the past, she has a toolbox that helps her cope with them, she has a full toolbox at her disposal.
Thanks to her unique methods, Dr. Blank gave us back our girl. For that, we will be grateful throughout our entire lives.
She did something incredible. From our standpoint, she performed a miracle. None of the words that I say, of the sentences that I write, can describe the change that Dr. Blank made in our beloved girl.
