"Aviram, I can't take it anymore": The recording to the reservist husband - and the wave of emotional reactions
"Do you understand that the children haven't been with you for even a minute during the summer vacation? I can't do everything alone": Bat-El Sananes shared on the web a recording she sent to her husband, who received a call-up for another round - and received thousands of supportive responses. "Thank you for this sane voice - I thought it was just me," wrote one user.
"Aviram, this is not real, I can't do everything alone." A video uploaded by social media star Bat-El Sananes, in which she breaks down in tears after her husband received a notice of an extension of his reserve duty for another week, flooded thousands of reactions on the web, mainly from wives of reservists who identified with the feeling of burnout and overload. Within a short time, dozens of women joined her post and told of similar struggles and the great difficulty they have been carrying for almost three years.
"Do you understand that the children haven't been with you for even a minute during the summer vacation?" Sananes says in pain in the recording she sent to her husband. "They know that on Thursday you finish reserve duty. Enough already, I have no strength. They have no strength. Always a day or two before you return from reserve duty I lose it, and now you inform me that you are extending it by another week?".
"I am so exhausted," she says in the recording, sounding like she is crying. "It's already 12:10 AM and I'm still sitting on lists for tomorrow. I have no strength. Aviram, this is not real. I can't breathe for one more moment. I know that on Thursday you return and we are done. Noam already cried to me today asking why you hate me. He told me today before bed 'Mom, why do you hate me so much?'. I am already really, I can't function, I can't function.
I am with the phone in my hand all day, answering calls on speaker and trying to manage unexpected events, manage the schedule, answering a million messages. I am trying to work while doing so. I can't do everything alone. I can't. Aviram, I can't take it anymore. I really can't take it anymore. Noam also woke up, he didn't understand why I was shouting. He was scared. Forget it, just do what you need to do. I will just continue to lose it. It doesn't matter anymore. Do what you need to do."
Sananes explained why she chose to share the recordings and said: "I don't believe I am sharing this like this, but I really feel that this is a voice that is not heard enough. Like me, there are thousands more women, mothers, and partners who can no longer hold everything on their shoulders! I feel that as time passes, we become more and more transparent." She added in pain that "it is as if it is already taken for granted that we put ourselves in last place for whole months every year anew. That we care for everyone except ourselves. Caring for the husband who is in activity while broadcasting to the children that everything is fine. Caring for the children who see us through our cracks and lying to the husband that everything is fine at home. The main thing is that everyone will be okay. And us? Who cares for us? Who notices that we are okay?"
Among the thousands of reactions to the reel, many reactions of identification from the wives of the reservists stood out. "Crying with you," wrote Abigail, "Anyone who has been there understands. Hearing your recording and tears are falling. In the last round, there were moments when I felt that enough, this price is too high and I am not coping with it. How much our children go through! How much we go through!". Another user named Shai also responded and wrote: "I am sitting here and crying with you. My husband was released two weeks ago when I am with a baby at home and I returned to work along with that. Really crying, there is no way to describe the difficulty, the loneliness, the intensity, and the pain that exists in such a period."
