Writer’s Thoughts and Religious Styles

I mentioned yesterday that I’ve had the idea for a while that someone should write a novel about pornography addiction in the frum (religious Jewish) community, but that I didn’t think I was the person to do it. Except that the idea has roosted in my head overnight and now I find myself thinking up supporting characters and details, like, “What if he has a feminist teenage daughter who is struggling with Orthodox gender boundaries and her father’s addiction tips her over the edge into stopping being religious?” So I wrote some notes in my ideas notebook to one day come back to when I’m looking for a project. It’s a scary topic to even think about writing about, though, far more so than my thoughts about a Jewish fantasy/time-travel series of novels.

One of the reasons I was always reluctant to go down the route of writing fiction (for publication or for fun) was the fear that I would eventually (and probably quite quickly) run out of inspiration. Related to this was a belief that a “real” writer would intuit a story in its entirety from the start without really needing to work on it. I realise now that ideas are regularly floating through my head ripe for development and in the past I’ve quite deliberately pushed them away for fear of where they would lead, in terms of feeling the need to write them and the potential for failure inherent in that. I also realise that even “real” writers have to work on their stories and sometimes significant things need to be changed quite late in the writing process.

Of course, that doesn’t make writing less scary, particularly when the ideas that find me sometimes seem to have to do with difficult, rarely-discussed subjects like abuse or addiction, but I suppose it’s the “not being discussed” element that makes me want to write them, because I want to read those books, but they don’t exist (yet).

Just to note why this might be important, I just looked on Aish.com, a popular Orthodox Jewish inspirational site, and found five articles on pornography addition in the frum community, three from the point of view of the addict and two from the point of view of the spouse. So, it is out there, whether we want to admit in the frum community or not.

***

I spent nearly an hour working on redrafting my novel (my current one). Initially, I tried to work for an hour as usual, without much success, as I procrastinated online. I switched to intense twenty minute blocs of writing interspersed with online breaks. It seemed to work better that way. I did about fifty-five minutes of work. I would have liked to have made it to a round hour, but I was at a chapter break before a long passage that would take more than five minutes to read and redraft and too tired to keep going beyond that.

Redrafting seems to be going quite quickly. I’m not sure if that’s good or not. It’s good that I don’t seem to need to change much, but maybe I should be changing more and I just can’t see the flaws in my writing because I’ve spent so long working on it (getting on for two years by this stage).

***

I wrote the following in my devar Torah (Torah thought) for this week (for those of you on my mailing list, consider this a sneak preview):

In a lecture entitled Religious Styles,[1] Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik describes Torah transmission as being two-fold.  There is the aspect of learning halakhah, the details of the various Jewish laws.  This can be learnt from any scholar or from a book.  However, there is also the aspect of learning how to develop “a Torah style of living,” to find the unique way that God wants you, and you alone, to live a Torah-based life, and this can only be learnt “by osmosis” from attendance on a personal teacher.  Even then, because style is ultimately unique and individualistic, the real creation of a religious style has to be done alone, through the experience of living a Jewish way of life.  In particular, it is only by developing a unique religious style that one can develop happiness, meaningfulness and satisfaction with Judaism, even ecstasy, and it is these that allow a person to transmit a Jewish way of life to his or her children – who can then develop their own unique style based on what they receive.[2]

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[1] In Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Morality: Essays on Ethics and Masorah

[2] Rabbi Soloveitchik, Halakhic Morality pp. 196-201

This passage helped me to understand my own feelings about Judaism, the way I feel that I do what is required of me, at least as far as I can, given my “issues,” but somehow feel a lack of something “more.” I think what I lack is the sense of having my own religious style, what Judaism means to me, and the distinctive way I live it. Maybe I’m so allergic to contemporaries who talk about “MY Judaism” (as if there were no objective content to Judaism) that I’ve over-compensated, or maybe I haven’t had a close enough relationship with rabbis and mentors. Certainly for a long time now I have felt that it is this, the close contact with great scholars and righteous people, that I feel that I missed out on by not going to yeshiva (rabbinical seminary), as much as the actual content I would have learnt there. Or maybe I’m a work in progress. Although he doesn’t say it explicitly, Rav Soloveitchik could be read as implying that developing a religious style is a work in progress across a lifetime as personality develops.

I am trying to convince myself that it is OK to have my own unique relationship with Judaism, which sometimes means doing things differently to my community and can mean doing things like writing fiction that aren’t traditionally seen as religious. Including potentially writing about Jewish pornography addicts.

Inappropriate

I was slow to get going again this morning, although not surprised as I did quite a bit yesterday. As I messaged to E, I was probably feeling a little down and looking for a reason to justify feeling like that, as nothing that I felt vaguely upset about was really enough to make me feel down. They were just explanations after the event. I think I was probably just exhausted. I don’t always find it easy to tell the difference between depression and exhaustion (alexithymia), which is something I need to bear in mind in the future.

***

Shiur (religious class) was very good, except that right near the end someone asked a broad question about academic Biblical criticism that was only tangentially related to the topic of the shiur. It took the teacher five minutes to deal with the topic even in a brief way, as it was such a massive question and so unrelated to what she had been talking about, and it ate up the end of the shiur. I was left feeling that I hadn’t really heard or understood her final point, even though what I did process was fascinating and I would have liked to have heard more, or understood better.

Being on the spectrum, I’m not always good at sudden changes of topic and don’t like it when people ask irrelevant questions, which seems to happen a lot in shiurim. I’m not sure if Jews are particularly bad at sticking to the topic or if lots of people do this and I’m just around groups of Jews more than I’m around other groups of people.

I was also left with a feeling of perhaps inappropriate responsibility again (as happened last week), as the teacher suggested one (very good) book on biblical criticism that I have read, but I wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate to recommend one that I’m reading at the moment that also deals with biblical criticism from an Orthodox viewpoint. I wrote the name of the book in the chat section on Skype, but then felt that it wasn’t appropriate and didn’t send it. In retrospect, that might not have been the best thing to do.

***

I spent some time working on my novel, about an hour of redrafting, excluding procrastination. There wasn’t much procrastination compared with the past, which is especially good as redrafting is tiring and the chapter I was redrafting brings back a lot of negative memories, almost triggers.

I actually dreamt about one of my stories last night, not the novel I’m currently working on, but the one I’m jotting down ideas for as they percolate into my brain. I guess it shows I’m thinking about my writing a lot and taking it seriously.

I also feel a bit more reassured about being able to write about sensitive topics while remaining in the frum (religious) community from something I heard today. Ashley Blaker is a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) comedian (I actually see him in real life sometimes as he lives in the same area as me) who has a comedy series coming up on BBC Radio 4. I heard a trailer for it today and it had a joke which was… surprising to hear from someone the Haredi community (about his teenage son trying to use the satnav to access PornHub). It occurred to me that Blaker gets away with a lot of stuff lightly making fun of Judaism, whereas I would not go that far. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t consider the Haredi community his audience, although he has performed in Modern Orthodox settings, so he can get away with a lot. I don’t really see the Haredi community as my audience either (people in the community tend not to read books written by outsiders or not approved by their rabbis), so I should be OK. Although I wouldn’t write about PornHub. Actually, there probably is a novel to be written about a frum man struggling with pornography addiction, having read several articles about this exact issue from the point of view of both the addict and his wife. I’ve felt that for some time. However, I don’t think I would have the knowledge, ability or guts to write it. I think it would take a lot of courage to write about that even from a secular point of view, let alone an Orthodox Jewish one. There are so many mines you could step on there…

Poem: Service of the Heart

I’m not going to blog about today, because not very much happened. A number of my blogging friends post poetry. I actually went through a phase of writing poetry a number of years ago. I have no intention of writing more poetry or posting what I wrote in the past, but one poem was insistently in my mind this afternoon, and I was curious to see what response it would get. I don’t consider it a great poem, but I do like what it’s trying to say, and I wondered how clearly I’d said it.

I should say in advance that most of the first stanza and some of the second is a reasonably accurate translation (by me) of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh (I Will Build a Sanctuary in my Heart), a liturgical poem by Rabbi Eliezer Azikri, a sixteenth century poet.

EDIT: WordPress has messed up the layout (stupid blocks); the second stanza should start with “Were this son of Azikri”.

Service of the Heart

Not quite five hundred years ago

The kabbalist Eliezer wrote:

“I will build a Temple in my heart

For His glorious majesty,

Place an altar there for His splendour,

Take for the everlasting flame

The fire of Yitzchak’s binding

And for a sacred offering

Bring up to Him my unique soul.”

Were this son of Azikri

To take up his quill today

He would surely write instead:

“I will build a Temple in my heart

For His glorious majesty,

Place an altar there for His splendour,

Take for the everlasting flame

The fire of my inner passion

And there I shall serve as High Priest

And deliver my offerings.”

Busy and Fast Day

Shabbat (the Sabbath) was pretty good. I went to shul (synagogue) on Shabbat morning as well as Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon, which was good. People were shaking hands. This seems to be permitted now, although I didn’t think it was and shied away from it. I mostly didn’t get too upset about someone I was at school with having his daughter’s bat mitzvah on Shabbat. It’s hard to get my head around someone my age having a twelve year old daughter. In the past this would have made me very envious and depressed, but I was mostly (if not quite completely) OK about it this time. I skipped the kiddush (refreshments) after the service. The shul had been doing this in a socially-distanced way, but, perhaps because of the hand shaking, I got it in my head that they didn’t need to do that any more and I didn’t feel comfortable going back to a less distanced form of kiddush. In retrospect I may have got that wrong, perhaps influenced by general social anxiety and repressed negative feelings about my peer’s daughter’s bat mitzvah.

I followed quite a bit of the Talmud shiur (religious class) in the afternoon, which was good. I was pretty exhausted by the evening, though, and read instead of playing a game with my parents after seudah shlishit (the third Shabbat meal).

I still feel “crashed” today. After having “only” slept nine hours over Shabbat (less than usual, seven at night and a two hour doze in the afternoon), I slept for twelve hours last night and got up in the afternoon. Even that was a struggle, as I felt so drained I think I could have happily slept for a few more hours.

Today is a Jewish fast day. I’m not allowed to fast on the minor fasts for health reasons, as fasting is dangerous while taking lithium, which makes fast days feel a bit weird to me. I guess they’re weird anyway. With this fast (17 Tammuz), there’s the knowledge that we’re three weeks away from a much more serious fast (albeit not a lot longer). In between is a period of mourning, with no weddings, celebrations, music, haircuts or shaving. I find it an awkward time. I use music a lot to motivate myself, and while there are exemptions for workouts, depression and autistic burnout, I find it hard to work out when I “qualify” for these things, and sometimes clearly do not qualify, particularly now I’m mostly not depressed. And not shaving for three weeks itches like crazy.

I worked on my novel for an hour or so. It was OK. I didn’t procrastinate as much as usual, but I definitely lost momentum after my sister interrupted by phoning me, after I’d been working for twenty minutes. It doesn’t help that I’m in the most difficult part of the novel for me, drawing on painful experiences from years ago.

I somehow managed to fit in about half an hour of work on my devar Torah for this week, my usual Torah study pattern being somewhat disrupted by the fast and adding in some extra shiurim (two today for the fast; one an ongoing thing for the next few Tuesdays that I haven’t adapted to yet). By the afternoon I was feeling subdued and vaguely blood-sugar deprived and not sure why, given that I had been eating. I think some of this might be psychosomatic; I seem to feel weak and even ill on fast days even though I don’t fast. But I think some might be from cutting down a bit on snacking during the day, even though I only snack on fruit and nuts. Caffeine deprivation might be another issue, even though I go without caffeine fine on Shabbat.

As it was a fast day, my shul was running some Zoom shiurim (religious classes). One was a mixture of religious and historical ideas about Jerusalem, the other was purely religious. I went to both in the end, which was quite a lot, with all the other things I did today.

The other thing in a very busy day (or afternoon) was Skyping E. I think we’re both frustrated at the way we can’t move our relationship on because of COVID and being long-distance, especially knowing that even after COVID we’re going to face problems with finances and immigration and who knows what in trying to be together. And we’re both aware that we want to have children, but that that’s something that will depend on a lot of practical issues currently outside of our control. However, by this stage in my life I feel ready to tentatively accept that God has some kind of plan for us, having got this far in our very complicated relationship history, not to mention my life as a whole. I know that’s kind of a puny declaration of faith for someone who is supposedly frum (religious), but it’s taken me nearly thirty-eight years to get to a point where I can accept that maybe things in my life happen for a reason and might turn out OK in the end.

Adventures in Time and Space

I didn’t write yesterday. I was going to, but I realised I didn’t have much to say. I have less to say now my mental health situation is better and I’ve got my autism/Asperger’s diagnosis, plus I want to try to carve out some more time for recreational reading (which is also “learning how to be a writer of popular fiction” reading).

I’ve done some redrafting of my novel over the last two days (I was working this week on Wednesday rather than Thursday), completing three chapters, about fifty pages. If I keep up that pace, I’ll be finished by Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year, in September), although I don’t really want to make that a formal target in case I can’t keep up with it.

Other than that, things have been the normal mix of stuff. I feel a bit overwhelmed some of the time, mostly when I stop to think, but I’m doing some things, even if not always everything I want to do. I do still feel that I only have half a life though — working two or two and a half days a week (if you count voluntary work), but somehow still struggling to fit in the other things that I want to do that other people working full-time seem to manage. It’s also hard to have a long-distance relationship when we have literally no idea when we can even be in the same country. On the other hand, it is scary to think that E and I could be married in a couple of years — not scary in itself (OK a bit scary as it is a big decision and at least one of us will have to emigrate), but scary to wonder how we could cope with about one average income between the two of us. It does give me another reason to want to get my novel finished and to start to try to get it published, to see if I really can make writing a career, or at least a serious career-supplement, or not.

Watching Babylon 5 the other night, there was a line about, “There is no normal life, Michael. There’s just life,” and I guess that’s true. There isn’t a standard or normal form of life that everyone has that I’m diverging from, and I guess blogging shows me that lots of people are struggling with their lives and feeling that they aren’t coping well, even if they aren’t necessarily struggling with the same things as I am. It’s a little strange how some social media prompts people to “filter” (literally and metaphorically) and present a “perfect” view of their lives while blogging often seems to encourage people to tell the truth “warts and all.” I guess people who want to write usually have something to write about, often something negative that they want to get off their chest or find help and support for, whereas Facebook and Instagram allow to post photos of a fantasy “perfect” live.

***

In other E news, we’ve been continuing watching Doctor Who together (at the same time rather than in the same room), following the 2005 season with a couple of original series stories (first City of Death and now we’re halfway through Genesis of the Daleks), mostly because I was curious about how E would react to the original series, and I couldn’t really face watching the whole of the new series uninterrupted. E is getting really into it, which amuses me a lot. City of Death seemed to me a story with a similar atmosphere to the 2005 episodes, but, while E liked it, so far she prefers Genesis of the Daleks, which I was worried would seem overly-serious and cheap compared with more recent episodes.

In the past, I’ve been wary of sharing Doctor Who with non-fans, and tend to turn the conversation away from it if it comes up, being too jaded by years of mockery at school, when Doctor Who was off the air and distinctly unpopular, but I’m curious to see how E responds to more stories, both original and new. The current plan is to finish Genesis of the Daleks, watch The Mind Robber (another favourite of mine, but distinctly different to anything we’ve seen so far, both in content and production values) and then rejoin the new series with David Tennant’s first episodes.

***

I did get up earlier today, I’m not sure how, but I’d like to do it again, to get to shul (synagogue) tomorrow and to get a bit more time out of my non-work days in the future. I certainly got more done today than I expected.

***

I feel sufficiently jaded by politics not to react to this story (and picture) with anything more than curiosity as to why the Health Secretary has apparently adopted Tintin as his hairstyling guru. Next he’ll be turning up to the House of Commons in plus-fours and a small white dog.

“Je suis Marxiste, tendence Groucho”

I had a feeling today of not fitting in anywhere. It’s a feeling I often get, but today I was pulled in a lot of different directions: by the high street (increasingly woke, but still consumerist, somehow), by blogs, by The Jewish Review of Books. Pulled in different directions by different visions of politics and lifestyles and Judaisms most of which I am unable to assent to. Experiencing so many so rapidly was uncomfortable.

I distinctly remember years ago a discussion on Hevria.com where a former ba’al teshuva (person raised secular who became religious — in this case before returning to secularism) argued that ba’alei teshuva (plural of ba’al teshuva) are “sold a bill of goods” by kiruv rabbis (“outreach” rabbis who try to get secular Jews to become religious). If I understand the American idiom correctly, this may well be true, at least in some cases, but it avoids looking at the bill of goods sold to all of us by mainstream society — and, indeed, by its more usual counter-cultures (Orthodox Judaism is a counter-culture, just not a very popular or highly regarded one).

I try not to get upset by people’s political, religious and “lifestyle” choices. We all have blind spots and biases in our worldviews and we all have to get along together somehow. I was a bit shocked today to see someone I regard as level-headed and a critical thinker acting in a less than critical way to assent to a political proposition I regarded as question-begging (not necessarily untrue, just in need of more serious examination). I didn’t say anything, and I don’t know if that was the right decision. I doubtless have my own biases and blind spots, and I worry sometimes about the things I’m unaware that I’m wrong about, as well as my “unknown unknowns.” Ultimately, the mystics and rationalists agree that the only thing that we know is that we do not know.

Possibly, like Groucho Marx, I refuse to belong to a club that will have me as a member. At least with E I can be a misfit club of two now instead of one. It is strange and surprisingly comfortable to find someone who agrees with me on a lot of stuff, big as well as small.

***

My sister and brother-in-law came for dinner in the garden with me and my parents. It was good, but I tend to drift in and out of the conversation, and also to feel inadequate that my sister and BIL have their own careers and house and other things I work part-time and live with my parents. I think about this every time I see them, which isn’t healthy. I realised after everyone had gone that I forgot to share my news, such as it is, that things are still looking hopeful (although not certain) for my job being made permanent and my friend reviewing my Doctor Who book in a fanzine that may lead to a few more sales.

I also had one of my occasional “can not get filled up” evenings and ended up eating kosher pot noodle in addition to real food, and then eating too much Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with dessert.

***

I feel pretty shattered now after work and socialising (plus shopping and Torah study), and possibly coming down from an ice cream sugar high (curse you “Ben and Jerry” (OK, Unilever) with your facile politics and your addictive flavours!). I’m going to watch Babylon 5 and then Doctor Who “with” E. To be honest, if “fitting in to a community” means watching Doctor Who with E, then for the first time in my life, I think I can manage it.

Adulting Fears and Empathy Overloads

Today I slept a lot, had anxiety dreams (I don’t know why I still get anxiety dreams about breaking Shabbat when I’ve been shomer Shabbat for twenty years), woke up still feeling burnt out, as well as overwhelmed at the things to do in the next few days, in particular fitting Talmud study and writing my devar Torah around work, dinner with my family and therapy, as well as buying Dad a belated Father’s Day present, collecting my repeat prescription and hopefully continuing to work on my novel.

Once I got going, things got a bit easier and I began to work out when I could do things. I spent an hour redrafting my novel. There was some procrastination, but I actually did quite a lot, writing about five hundred words, although I’m not sure if I should necessarily be writing much more at this stage. I probably need to cut and rewrite as much as write more. I do need to force myself out of narrating and into showing, and hopefully the new bits helped do that. It also showed my protagonist’s interactions with his family a bit more, another of my main targets for this redraft.

I was a bit stuck for both ideas and time for my devar Torah this week and spent forty minutes or so revamping an old one from years ago and expanding it significantly. I’m not really happy with this, but I feel overwhelmed this week and it seemed the best thing to do.

I went for a walk and my mood went down a bit. The future seems scary sometimes. Even the good things, like building my relationship with E, will lead to scary things, like possibly changing communities or even countries or dealing with immigration law in the UK or US, buying a house, and other scary “adult” things. Then there are the things that are scary without any positives, like the fear that I might never being able to hold down a full-time job, while simultaneously not being eligible for compensatory state benefits. E and I have been told to stay in the present and not race ahead to the future, but it’s hard, particularly when (a) we’re both pessimists and worriers by nature and (b) the present is frustrating because we don’t know when we can spend time in the same country due to COVID travel restrictions.

E and I “went” to a Zoom shiur (religious class), the first of five on Devarim (Deuteronomy). It was very interesting, with a lot of information to grasp in a short period. One thing that happened that I found curious, not related to the content, was that the teacher had made a mistake on one of the handouts, mistranslating “eleventh month” as “twelfth month,” which had a knock-on effect to which month was being referred to. I noticed the mistake, both spotting the word and knowing that the month should be the eleventh one, but I didn’t say anything because I was too shy. The strange thing was that I became filled with a lot of anxiety lest someone else point it out and embarrass the teacher. Eventually someone did pick up on it, and I felt quite embarrassed for several minutes on the teacher’s behalf, as it were.

I know people think that autistic people don’t feel empathy; I think the reality is the reverse, that we feel a lot of empathy and can “pick up” other people’s emotions without really understanding them or being able to process them properly, which is what happened here.

Show Me the Way to Go Home

I don’t really want to write tonight, but I feel compelled. I’m exhausted, but I need to vent because my mind is running. Or part of it.

Work was OK. I did a bit of phoning people and messed up one phone call when I misunderstood something and may have to go back and sort it out later in the week. In the afternoon, I was just doing a lot of slow data entry.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I felt almost physically ill. This has happened to me a few times on work days lately and I’m not sure why. I associate it with the open-plan office job I had that left me in a state and made me sure that I was on the spectrum. I don’t know why this job is suddenly making me feel like that, with no obvious reasons. On days when I did a lot of phoning, I could understand it, but I only made a few calls today. I also don’t know if this is burnout or fatigue or what. It doesn’t feel like “just” being tired. It feels painful and dysfunctional.

My parents were out when I got home and I think that annoyed me on some level, because they hadn’t told me they would still be out, and then I felt bad for feeling annoyed, as I’m an adult and they don’t have to tell me. Even though I’m a socially anxious, introverted autistic, I guess I’ve just got used to there always being someone around when I want to vent over the last year and a half.

I was too exhausted to do very much other than eat and watch TV. Just feeling completely drained and ill. I decided I was not well enough to spend a couple of hours on Zoom for depression group. After dinner (with my parents — we’re getting back in the habit of eating dinner together on Mondays), I wanted to do more Torah study (ideally another chapter of Ezra in Hebrew, but at least a a bit more of To This Very Day: Fundamental Questions in Bible Study), having done about forty minutes on the Tube in to work in the morning, but my head hurt just thinking about it, so I watched more Babylon 5.

Babylon 5 is perhaps not the best thing to watch at the moment because (a) season five isn’t very good[1] and (b) Babylon 5 is largely structured around a series of wars, and at the moment wars are… not exactly triggering, but upsetting. I’m still processing a lot of thoughts about the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and antisemitism, and part of me wants to run away from that sort of thing and part of me thinks I shouldn’t run away. (Although the confluence of the two gives me a vague writing idea to think about, if I really don’t want to run away…) Nevertheless, I want to finish Babylon 5 so I can concentrate on my Doctor Who watching with E, and there’s not much left now.

It’s nearly 10.30pm now. Over five hours of not doing much has not improved how I feel. I’m just writing this quickly and posting. I will probably watch TV (something lighter, probably The Simpsons) to fill the time between Ma’ariv (Evening Prayers) and bed, as I don’t feel up to reading even something as light as James Bond. Strangely, I don’t think I would sleep if I went to bed at the moment. I’m too tense. I need to watch something to relax me.

***

A friend has reviewed my Doctor Who non-fiction book in a forthcoming fanzine (fan-produced magazine). I had drifted out of fandom, but I feel curious to know what he said, even though it will cost me £7 to find out. I just hope it’s positive…

***

OK, brain is just not working any more tonight…

***

[1]I have a lot I could say about season five and why it doesn’t work, which I won’t say here as it’s not a Babylon 5 blog, but I’ve never liked Byron and I could never work out why, but it struck me on this re-watch that he comes across as a cult leader rather than a revolutionary. It just makes me uncomfortable.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

…which is what I have been trying to do, not terribly successfully, for the last three days.

I slept through most of the weekend. I slept through Saturday morning and missed shul (synagogue). I think I woke up for a few seconds around when I was supposed to get up, but not for long enough to actually get up. Then I woke around and 10.30am and went to the loo, but was too tired to stay up, especially as there was no chance of getting to shul before it would be over. Then I fell asleep again in the afternoon, for more than two hours. I did make it to shul on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and to Talmud shiur (religious class), which was an effort. I didn’t manage much in the way of other Torah study. Unlike the last few weeks, I didn’t play a game with my parents after seudah (the third Sabbath meal) as I wanted to read, although really I think I would happily have fallen asleep again; it was an effort to stay awake. I went to bed late (as inevitably happens in the summer when Shabbat finishes after 10pm) and took about an hour to fall asleep. To be honest, I slept so much that I thought I would be awake much later.

The weather is pretty grim, which doesn’t help. From an uncomfortable heatwave the week or two, we have suddenly plunged into autumn: cold and wet with no sunlight.

***

I tried to work on my novel today, but my brain wasn’t really working. I looked over some of what I wrote last week and tried to read through the first chapter and rewrite where necessary, but I didn’t get terribly far. My brain just was not functioning and I procrastinated too much. I also think I’m reaching the point of diminishing returns with redrafting. I’m struggling to imagine it being ‘different’ to how it is now. Maybe that’s the brain fog, or maybe not. It’s hard to get excited about a fourth draft.

I managed a little Torah study, reading over this coming week’s sedra (Torah portion), but struggled to think of anything to write my devar Torah about. I did some ironing too, not terribly well, but I got it done as I think my parents wanted it done.

E and I had a Skype call. Our calls are going well, but it’s really frustrating that we can’t just “hang out” together when I’m having bad days like these. Not that I’ve ever been good at just “hanging out,” by myself, let alone with anyone else (hence all this activity today even though I felt bad).

I have a busy few days ahead of me: work tomorrow and Wednesday (rather than Thursday) because J moved his work day and I had to follow. That has led to therapy moving to Tuesday, the same day E and I start a Zoom class at the London School of Jewish Studies. Then my sister and brother-in-law are coming here for dinner with me and my parents on Wednesday. I hope I’m a bit less burnt out and can get through everything OK.

***

My father’s day card arrived on time, fortunately. Not much else to say about that, though. My sister and I didn’t have any ideas for presents. Dad asked for some aftershave, so I’ll have to see if I can go to Boots sometime this week. I’ve only been inside the shop a couple of times in the last year and a bit.

***

I’m letting the paid for domain name on my Doctor Who blog lapse when it comes up for renewal in a month. It was one of my attempts to manoeuvre myself into paid writing work and it didn’t work out, sadly. The Doctor Who writing world seems a bit of a closed shop. But it does make me think how badly I’ve done at getting paid writing work, and how risky it is to try to build a career as a writer. I’m lucky that I have my part-time admin job, and that my parents are supporting me, and that E isn’t pushing me to work more. It’s hard to see how I could do much more work at all, counting what writing I already do as work. I’m just tired so much of the time.

“Don’t get me wrong/If I come and go like fashion/I might be great tomorrow/But hopeless yesterday”

…or OK yesterday, but hopeless and burnt out today (quote from Don’t Get Me Wrong by The Pretenders). I probably did too much yesterday. I didn’t want to write a long, not to mention political, post, but I just had stuff in my head to let out. I stayed up too late writing it when I should really have been taking time out (or doing the ironing). The result is that today I feel drained and somewhat unwell. I didn’t pressure myself to work on my novel today, but I feel upset that I’ve lost valuable writing time. I also will at least try not to pressure myself to do a lot of Torah study. I’ve booked for shul (synagogue) tonight, tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, but I think it’s likely that I’ll miss the morning service at least. I am still hoping to make it tonight.

I guess days like today are why it’s never been easy for me (and possibly mental health workers) to tell burnout from depression. I just feel drained physically with low mood. Whenever I think about the wider world, it just seems relentlessly negative.

I didn’t do very much other than my usual Friday pre-Shabbat chores, as well as twenty-five minutes of Torah study (all I could manage, and perhaps more than I should have done). I really just wanted to go to bed and wrap myself in my weighted blanket. I avoided doing this for most of the day, but eventually decided it would help, so I went back to bed for twenty minutes in the afternoon with no screens, music, etc., which helped a bit. I would have liked to do so much more (walk, ironing, work on my novel, more Torah study…), but I’m just trying to do what I can and try to get to shul later.

I watched an episode of Doctor Who to cheer myself up as well. I thought that now we’ve watched the first season of the new series, E might like to see a couple of older stories “together.” Plus, I admit, I couldn’t really face watching twelve seasons of the new series uninterrupted! We’ve started with City of Death from 1979, which is a very popular story with fans and one of my favourites, but I feel incredibly self-conscious, wondering what E makes of it and how it looks through modern eyes and compared with the modern version. She enjoyed the first two episodes at least, even though she enjoyed the 2005 season more, which is fair enough.

Reading Lists

Work was OK today. I was very tired and could hardly do any Torah study on the train in, but I was OK once I got to work and drank a second cup of coffee. The morning was mostly spent sorting out paperwork. I don’t mind doing this, although it’s fairly routine. I’d say it’s not challenging, except I seem to find almost everything challenging these days. Anyway, it left part of my brain free to be miserable (see below).

The afternoon was mostly spent trying to phone people to get them to pay their membership fees. It was not always easy. To my secret relief, a lot of phones weren’t answered, or went to number not available.

***

I feel that I haven’t done much reading this year. This is not true, although arguably I have not done much recreational reading. I’ve been doing quite a bit of Torah study/reading. I tend to do Torah study on the way to work or volunteering. I would normally do recreational reading on the way home, but J gives me a lift home from work, which becomes dead time in the car, as these days I can’t read in the car without getting motion sick, plus it would be rude to read and, anyway, J has the radio on so I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.

A while back I decided to alternate fiction reading with non-fiction, not least because I had accumulated a big pile of non-fiction books from charity shops and library withdrawals. Worse, these were books I was often not that fussed about, but owning them meant I wasn’t buying or reading non-fiction I might like more. So I started adding in more non-fiction to get through the backlog and maybe buy books I might like more, but now I worry that my writing will not be so good if I read less fiction, especially as, on a page-by-page basis, I read fiction faster than non-fiction, both because it’s easier and because I’m more likely to pick up a fiction book than a non-fiction one. So one non-fiction book probably displaces more than one novel. Then again, having a wide general knowledge is also good for a writer.

I also have some classics to read or re-read (on the grounds now I’m older and will understand them better) which I never get around to reading either. In the last few years (decades, if I’m honest, since I was depressed), they have often seemed too daunting. I’m not sure why. When I was very depressed it was understandable that I didn’t want to read “heavy” books, whether fiction or non-fiction (although periodically I did read them, and sometimes enjoyed them), but now I’m just tired so much of the time, it’s still hard to read heavy-going things.

Lately I’ve come to realise that although the book I’m working on is mainstream and somewhat literary fiction, I’m never going to be a “serious” author. I want to write science fiction, fantasy and maybe horror hybrids with Jewish themes and characters, partly for my own amusement and hopefully to amuse others, partly to get Jewish ideas out there, to Jews who don’t know their own heritage and non-Jews who see Judaism as weird, or more likely just don’t see it at all.

So I feel I need to be reading quality popular fiction. This isn’t such a problem, as I already read a lot of it. My problem is more that I tend to read particular authors in great depth rather than read around particular genres. There are quite a lot of authors on my bookshelves where I have all, or at least a significant amount, of their work, often piled up vertically to save space. I also re-read books I’ve already read. On the other hand, while I’ve always been a fan of what I once pompously referred to as “non-mimetic fiction” (science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, horror… anything that doesn’t aim at reflecting the world just as it is), I often feel like I’ve never explored any genre in great depth. I’ve always been quite a small-c conservative reader, afraid of trying new things in case I don’t like them, or simply because I’m autistic and love to turn to the same things again and again to explore them in depth. I feel this is not ideal for an aspiring author. I want to write a Jewish fantasy/horror/time-travel book, and I feel I need to do a lot of research reading fantasy and horror (and Jewish books, I guess) as well as the more obvious research on the relevant time period.

This was taken six years ago, in our old house, on my old bookshelves, but it gives you some idea both of space issues and variety of content

***

I’m nervous of writing the next bit, because I can see myself being attacked from two sides, but I have been thinking about it and feeling miserable about it all day. There’s a video going around on social media showing Israeli youth on a march shouting “Death to Arabs!” I’m not sure why this upset me so much. And I think it was shame, sadness and maybe even anxiety I felt, not righteous indignation and superiority (which seems to be the main thing people feel when they criticise Israel). I wasn’t naive enough to think that there’s no racism in Israel before this, so it wasn’t shock per se. I’m aware of the internal “Jew vs. Arab” violence inside Israel during the war a few weeks ago, which had not really happened in previous conflicts. I’m also aware of a Kahanist (Jewish Fascist) party getting a member elected to the Knesset in the most recent elections. I suppose I should say that I was worried about the chillul hashem (desecration of God’s name — making it look like God supports violence) or about pushing off the coming of the Messiah again (and with the Three Weeks around the corner), but I wasn’t thinking it through that much, I just felt emotionally sick and fixated on returning to it again and again all morning (and never has Mishlei’s/Proverbs‘ simile of the dog returning to its vomit seemed more apposite).

It fed into something I’ve been feeling for a while, but haven’t spoken aloud, the feeling that Israel was manipulated into the last war by Hamas. To clarify, Hamas started and was morally responsible for the war, but Israeli politics created the situation where Hamas thought it was worth firing at Israel and where it thought it could get away with it. Once the rockets started flying, Israel had a right and duty to defend its citizens; my — not anger, but astonishment and fear — is how a civil court case about occupancy that didn’t even involve the government and that had been drifting through the courts for years led suddenly to war. It is hard to avoid blaming Binyamin Netanyahu, if not directly, then at least indirectly for causing the constitutional crisis that led to politicians desperately scrabbling around trying to put together some kind of government to avoid the fifth election in two years, because of Netanyahu’s refusal to accept defeat and step down. Because I can’t see Hamas chancing their luck in this way without that context, thinking things were confused enough in Israel that they might get away without much in the way of reprisals.

As an editorial in The Times of Israel said towards the end of the war, in Hamas has been thinking strategically, while Israel has merely been thinking tactically, not just now, but for years. The war enabled Hamas to position itself (and not Fatah) as the leader of the Palestinians, and of “resistance” to Israel generally. It let Hamas show its value as a proxy army to its funders in Iran. It won a propaganda war in the Islamic world and in the West (actually two propaganda wars, with very different messages: to the West they presented themselves as passive victims, but to the Islamic world even the dead were martyrs and mujahideen — warriors on jihad). It may well have sabotaged a potential Israeli-Saudi peace deal, which could have improved Israel’s strategic position. All Israel managed to do was destroy some of Hamas’ arms, which will doubtless be restocked soon by the Iranian government.

Contrary to most people who berate Israel’s position, I don’t have a magic solution. Years ago, the political scientist Shlomo Avineri suggested that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insoluble and the focus should be on de-escalation, not solution, as per other long-running conflicts. Some problems are insoluble, at least within the terms available. Hamas is not interested in compromise, but is not powerful enough to destroy Israel. Israel is neither willing nor interested in genocide (contrary to what its enemies say). This being the case, neither side can win, and all that can be done is kick the can down the road a bit further with sporadic outbursts of violence until something game-changing happens (like an Iranian nuclear weapon, God forbid).

I guess I sound depressed. Well, lately I am depressed, not clinically, but when I look at the world. There is an idea in Judaism that the Messiah (if you don’t believe in a Messiah, think of utopia) will come when everyone is absolutely good, or when everyone is absolutely terrible. In the first instance he comes not so much as a reward as the culmination of the individual narratives of redemption. In the latter, God gets so fed up with mankind’s misbehaviour that He intervenes to pull the plug on history before we wipe ourselves out. I feel that we are not absolutely good (obviously!), but the world isn’t absolutely terrible either. Despite excitable media coverage, I can’t see the world today, or the position of the Jews in it, as anything like as bad as the 30s and the 40s. Or even later (think of Cold War flashpoints like the Berlin Airlift or the Cuban Missile Crisis where a nuclear war seemed likely). I wonder how long the world can go on being awful, but not absolutely awful.

Ugh. I feel I’m just rambling, and I’m afraid what the comments will say, so I’ll wrap this up. Genetic testing shows that the ethnic group most closely related to the Jews is (you guessed it) the Palestinians. Some people think the Palestinians are the descendants of Jews who weren’t exiled from the land of Israel by the Romans, but hung around and, when the Arabs invaded a number of centuries later, converted to Islam and forgot their Jewish past. The similarities between Judaism and Islam are manifold, much more so than the more well-known similarities between Judaism and Christianity. The conflict seems just pointless. I can’t do very much about that, but since the war I’ve been reading Islam by Alfred Guillaume (tying this back to my reading) to try to understand more. To be honest, I probably already knew a lot more about Islam than most Jews, having studied some Islamic history at university. I want to read the Qu’ran (I do actually have a copy), although I think a person can misunderstand a lot by reading ancient religious texts without context and interpretation. But I want to understand more, even if I can’t actually do anything. I’ve said before htat, contrary to the “You can change the world!” message endlessly repeated in the media, I don’t think individuals can do very much at all to change the world, but I think we can aim to improve our understanding and empathy and gain some kind of personal redemption for ourselves and those around us.

Slightly Whiney

I struggled to sleep last night, but I managed to get up early for volunteering, although I was slow and didn’t have time to shave or to daven (pray) as much as I would have liked.

At the food bank, I was mostly packing bags by myself today, which I don’t really mind, but I did finish after everyone else. I did a lot of schlapping (carrying — most people pronounce it schlepping, but my family’s pronunciation is definitely with an ‘A’. Maybe one day I’ll find out where our idiosyncratic Yiddish is from) of heavy objects. Some volunteers ask me to bring heavy boxes down from high shelves a lot. I am taller and probably stronger than they are (middle aged women), but I’m not very tall or strong, so I worry a bit about dropping something, or something falling on me, or otherwise hurting myself. I thought I coped OK, but have had some backache this evening, so maybe I should say something about not putting very full and heavy boxes on high shelves — except that space is at a premium and there isn’t anywhere else to put it, and, anyway, I don’t know who to tell.

I was volunteering for nearly three hours and came away with a headache, probably mild dehydration. Someone did go to get a jug of water late in the morning, but (a) I already had a headache by then and (b) there is no toilet there (we’re in the garage and car park) and I am usually bursting by the time I get home, so I didn’t want to make that situation worse.

Otherwise, today was a day for chores: shopping (online), laundry, emptying the dishwasher, dealing with the weekly food delivery and putting out the bins. Some of these tasks I would do anyway, others I have to help with because my parents are away. I finished the first draft of my devar Torah for the week and did some Torah study. I cooked dinner, the couscous and vegetables I meant to cook yesterday when I was too tired to cook. I also (somehow) managed about an hour of work on my novel. It was only about 300 words, but it was also quite a difficult passage, so I was glad to get through it, even though it may need more work. Fortunately, it is raining heavily now, so I don’t need to water the garden as Dad asked me to do, although I will probably regret that if it’s still raining when I go to work tomorrow morning.

By dinnertime, I was exhausted, and my mood plummeted. I should probably not have done so much today, but if I had skipped anything, it could only really have been working on my novel, and I want to keep my momentum with that.

I Skyped E after dinner, which did restore my mood a lot (she’s awesome like that), but by the end I was feeling shattered and we had to finish early before I fell asleep at the computer.

***

This has turned into a bit of a whiney post. There are other things I could say, but I think they’re probably still a bit whiney; in any case, I’m too tired, and it’s too late, for me to write them. I feel I probably shouldn’t have written this post if I feel it’s whiney, but I wanted to vent. Looking on the positive side, I am excited, and a bit nervous, that E and I are watching some twentieth century Doctor Who “together” tomorrow. We’ve been watching the 2005 season and I suggested trying some original series Who before moving on to the 2006 season, partly to contextualise the new series a bit for E, partly because I’m curious to see what she thinks of it, and also because I couldn’t face watching a lot of new Who uninterrupted. We are starting with 1979’s City of Death, generally seen as a ‘safe’ introduction to classic Who.

***

I feel bad as I forgot father’s day. Actually, I haven’t forgotten it, it isn’t until Sunday, but, having only just ordered a card (actually going into shops is so pre-COVID), it will be touch and go if it arrives on time. Usually I would have seen the father’s day displays in the shops and remembered to buy a card, but I haven’t been going into shops, so I forgot until my sister asked me to take her card for Dad on Monday (which I then forgot to do — another reason to feel guilty). Yesterday I was too burnt out to do anything about it, which means the card I just ordered will have just three days to get here. If it doesn’t arrive on time, I know Dad will say it doesn’t matter, which somehow makes me feel even worse.

Prayer Mindsets

I went to bed late last night, as I didn’t think I would sleep, having forgotten to take my meds when I got home from the restaurant, plus I needed passive unwinding time in front of the TV. I watched Doctor Who (Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways), and felt myself frustrated by Russell T Davies’ writing style again. To be fair to him, some of it is just contemporary TV in general rather than him in particular, but I can put up with other writers more easily.

When I did get to bed, I remembered something I need to do today, but I was too tired to get up and write a note, which was a very bad idea, as if it’s not written down, I don’t remember it and now I can’t work out what it is. I think I figured it out in the end, but frustrated and worried me for much of the day.

I woke up very late and after breakfast was so tired I went back to bed (or laid on the bed, as it was hot). I’m not sure if I dozed; I think just lying in a cool (ish), quiet, dark room helped restore me after all the social interactions, social anxiety and sensory overload of yesterday. I felt a bit fatigued afterwards, but not burnt out. Unfortunately, it was 3.30pm by that stage and I was still in pyjamas.

I spent a while trying to track down the complete Hebrew original of a Midrash (rabbinic expansion of the biblical story) that I had only read in part for my devar Torah; when I finally found it, I couldn’t make much of the bits that I didn’t have the translation for, which was frustrating. Aside from that, I spent about half an hour starting to write my devar Torah. I’m glad to have got the bones of it down, although I need to work on it some more tomorrow. I am conscious that I could have done more if I hadn’t been burnt out, which is frustrating, but there isn’t a lot I can do about it.

I didn’t really have time to exercise today, and I thought it was too hot even for a walk.

After dinner it was cooler outdoors than in. I sat in the garden and worked on my novel. Making amendments after having finished a couple of drafts turns out to be like remodelling the bottom layers of a house of cards after I’ve finished it; one false move and everything collapses. That’s how it feels, anyway. I’m terrified of accidentally repeating myself or introducing a continuity error or just introducing a very obviously interpolated and out-of-place passage. When writing a new passage, I “merely” have to think up something interesting, original and true and write it down, but rewriting requires revisiting written (and half-forgotten) passages and restructuring them, keeping them doing what they were doing, but also fitting with my new writing.

***

One of my religious targets for this Jewish year was improving my kavannah, my concentration, or, better, mindfulness, in prayer, although I wasn’t really sure how to do this.

There is a kind of paradox in Jewish prayer, that if God is omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent, He knows what we need and supplies it, so what is the point of praying? There are many approaches to this. I once gave a shiur (religious talk) about just three of them. To summarise very briefly:

1. Prayer is a process of building a relationship with God by asking Him for everything we need and telling Him all our thoughts. The content is less important than the interaction, which builds relationship. (Rebbe Nachman of Breslov)
2. Prayer is a means of establishing a “covenantal community” which happens to include God as a member. Asking for things isn’t the point as much as establishing the community. (Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith)
3. Prayer is a self-reflexive process of examining ourselves and whether we truly need the things we want and whether we will use them well. If we undergo the process correctly, we can become worthy of things that we did not deserve previously. (Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Horeb)

(1 and 2 are quite similar, except 1 is personal and 2 is communal, including other Jews. I’m not sure if Rav Soloveitchik views the covenantal community as being the local community or the entire Jewish people.)

The last week or two I have been trying to focus on one of these mindsets of prayer while saying the Amidah, the most important prayer and the centrepiece of every prayer service. It’s been an interesting experiment and it has definitely helped with kavannah. I’ve mostly been focusing on numbers 1 and 2, as 3 is more self-reflexive than I’ve felt up to lately and doesn’t really apply on Shabbat (when I have most time and energy for prayer) as Shabbat prayers are not petitionary, at least not to the same extent as weekday prayers.

Hanging on the Telephone

Work was difficult today. I spent an hour on an unusual task, which I can’t really talk about here, but most of the day was spent phoning people to chase fees. A lot of them had simply forgotten to pay and a few actually paid by credit card immediately, which was good, and others promised to send a cheque soon. Someone claimed to have posted a cheque two and a half weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived, which I will have to follow up on Thursday. Some people have financial difficulties, which we try to be sympathetic to, but it’s obviously easier to do that if people are upfront about it, instead of just not paying and hoping we will go away.

Unfortunately, when I called the first person on my list I remembered too late that I had phoned her a few weeks ago and that she is immobile and with poor eyesight and has to wait until a relative can help her to pay. I was very apologetic about phoning her again, but I wish I had remembered in time and not phoned. Then I had one call where the person sounded… well, to be honest, she sounded like she had dementia (many of our members are elderly). I was trying to politely get off the call and ask J what to do, when suddenly she sounded more ‘with it’ and asked if she could pay by debit card. I said yes and she read all the right card details to me. So I’m not sure what happened there, but I do feel somewhat uneasy without knowing why.

I still have a lot more calls to make. I guess it’s good exposure therapy, as I struggle with phone calls both from social anxiety and autism/Asperger’s, but it is very draining.

I was exhausted after all of this, but I had arranged to meet my sister and brother-in-law for dinner, as my parents are away for a few days. I wanted to do some more Torah study before then (I’d done forty minutes on the Tube to work, but was aiming towards an hour), but, even after a shower, was still exhausted, so watched The Simpsons instead until it was time to go.

Dinner was good. We went to a new pizza restaurant near where we live (OK, fifteen minutes walk away. I consider that near). I was nervous, as I planned to tell my sister and BIL about me and E being back together and was nervous about how my sister might react. She was pleased for us, but I was nervous enough that I got indigestion. Also, the restaurant is literally opposite the place where my shul (synagogue) davens (prays) during the week. We don’t have our own premises and rent a small room in a shul above a shop during the week and a part of a primary school on Shabbat and Yom Tov (Sabbaths and festivals). Because of this, I saw half a dozen or more people I know walking past, which was a bit distracting (I also saw the Head of Informal Jewish Education from my secondary school days, looking greyer but otherwise unchanged a quarter of a century on).

Also, perhaps because of the exhaustion from work, I did not cope well with autistic sensory overload. I originally sat opposite a screen on which a football match on TV was being projected, but found it too distracting and had to sit on the other side of the table so I couldn’t see it (unlike the two young boys standing outside watching through the glass door until the manager chased them away). I found the loud “background” music uncomfortable as well. It is interesting/strange/frustrating how my tolerance for things like this can vary so dramatically depending on other factors like tiredness and anxiety.

Now I’m pretty exhausted. I would like to have another attempt at more Torah, but I can’t face it. It’s hard enough to face ten minutes of Ma’ariv (Evening Prayers) and another ten minutes of Hitbodedut (unstructured, spontaneous prayer) in my very hot bedroom. Technically, as I have the house to myself, I could try to find somewhere cooler, but (a) there is an idea about praying in the same place every day and (b) I am an autistic creature of habit.

I’m glad I have the house to myself tomorrow, as it will be nice to have space to myself for the first time in over a year, but I’m also vaguely worried, as I don’t always do that well by myself (I’m an autistic introvert, but the last few years have shown that I’m often better if there are one or two people around, as long as I don’t have to talk to them much). I’m tempted to eat ice cream. I’m trying to eat less junk (not that I ate much before except on Shabbat) and in particular to limit myself to ice cream no more than once a week, but it is hot and uncomfortable and I had a very stressful day, so I might reward myself with Ben and Jerry’s.

I Blog Therefore I am

I haven’t blogged for a few days. There’s nothing wrong. Quite the reverse, really. Nothing really happened. When I was very depressed and had a lot of emotional stuff to offload, it was easy to blog every day — hard not to blog, in fact, as I wanted to process and off-load a lot of thoughts and feelings. But at the moment not a lot is happening, and I didn’t feel like writing very trivial stuff. I’m wondering if I should blog less, or maybe blog differently. I toyed again with the idea of writing more analytical posts about Judaism or antisemitism, but I think I’d rather use extra writing time on my novel (sorry). But we’ll see; previous attempts to blog less haven’t really worked. And whenever I say my life is dull and good, something goes wrong, so we’ll see what happens.

As for what happened, Thursday was dull. There were some negative things, but nothing really bad or worth going into. The highlight was Skyping E from the garden (I wasn’t sure the wifi would work out there). On Friday I did some chores, worked on my novel and went to shul (synagogue). I missed shul on Saturday morning, probably because I was up late reading Tanakh (Daniel, which is really hard to understand!), having earlier spent quite a while studying Talmud to prepare for the class on Shabbat (the Sabbath) — there seems to be a trade-off between studying Torah on Fridays and getting up in time for shul.

On Shabbat, I did the usual Shabbat things: spent time with my parents, went for a walk, slept too much, went to Talmud shiur (class) and found I’d prepared much more material than we got through, as we spent ages on a long Tosafot (Medieval commentary on the Talmud written over about 200 years by a group of rabbis in what’s now Northern France and Germany, plus one or two in England) — I don’t prepare Tosafot as I don’t have a translation and my Hebrew isn’t good enough. Plus, I mostly don’t understand Tosafot anyway. I played Scrabble in the evening and came second despite getting (I thought) some good words, “nodules” probably being the best of them. Unfortunately, a good word is not necessarily a high-scoring word, which depends on which letters you use. By largely staying off-line after Shabbat, I went to bed early for a summer Saturday evening i.e. 1am (bear in mind that Shabbat didn’t finish until after 10.30pm!), but couldn’t sleep, whether because I slept too much during the day or because I took my meds late.

As for today, I got up quite late after falling asleep so late (after 3am) . I spent a bit over an hour working on my novel, writing five or six hundred words, which is probably the most I’ve written in one session for some time, although I’m a bit uncertain of where this current passage is headed and whether it justifies it’s existence as a late addition to the end of the novel. Is it deepening the resolution or just padding out the end? It is hard to tell at this stage. It’s said that writers divide into two groups, planners (who plan out their stories in detail) and pants-ers who don’t and instead write by the seat of their pants (I assume that’s the etymology). I haven’t fitted easily into either category on this novel, planning the general flow, but improvising a lot of the details, but this bit is very much pants-ing, if that’s a word, which it isn’t.

Other than that, I Skyped E and did some Torah study and thought a bit about my devar Torah for the week. I didn’t do any exercise (run or walk) as it was too hot and I didn’t want to get an exercise migraine, as I was going to a Zoom talk/shiur in the evening. This was Rabbi Dr Sam Lebens talking about his new book on Jewish philosophy from an analytical philosophical perspective of examining the fundamental principles and axioms of Judaism i.e. given Judaism exists, what things are necessary to make these practices meaningful (not proving that God exists or that Judaism is true). It was very interesting. I’m in two minds about buying the book though. It sounds fascinating, but I’m not sure if I will understand it (I have a mixed record with philosophy), and it costs £75. We (people on the Zoom call) were given a 33% discount code, but that’s still £50, which is a lot of money to spend on a book I might not understand.

A couple of things I picked up from the talk that tempt me to buy the book: (1) this is very much a book about believing in a personal God and not an abstract “God of the philosophers”/Deism — I think sometimes my understanding of God becomes too abstract; (2) he mentioned in passing an idea from Chief Rabbi Jakobovits z”tl that God tells a different story through each individual’s life and through each community/group of people and that multiple communities can be “chosen” — something I’ve thought, and seen suggested in Rabbi Sacks z”tl and Rav Kook z”tl, but would like to see spelt out in more detail (Rabbi Sacks got in very hot water over a milder version of this in The Dignity of Difference); (3) the idea that the universe exists in mind of God, which I had heard, but not really advanced in a very serious philosophical way — I guess it appeals to me as a solipsism/Philip K. Dick fan, and also because it suggests that negative parts of my life might not be ‘real,’ which is probably a strange thing to think, but strangely reassuring, and I guess it ties in with Rabbi Lebens’ view (which he admitted was “wacky”) that not only can God redeem the future, He can redeem the past by changing history and will do so at some point.

Obsessive Thoughts, and Finding Your Mission

I had volunteering this morning. For some reason we were preparing fewer bags of food this week. The number varies from week to week (I’m not entirely sure why), but not usually this dramatically. There were also some leftover bags of non-perishable food, which further reduced the number we needed to get ready. The result was that I was finished before 10.00am, rather than between 10.30am and 11.00am as usual. I think there were other tasks I might have been able to help with, but I was not unhappy to leave earlier, as days when I do both volunteering and therapy are tiring and I was glad of the extra time to recover and do other things.

In the afternoon I tried to create a revised version of my Doctor Who book on Lulu.com so I could sell it at a lower price, but the system is still misbehaving, telling me I need to select a book size even though I already have done so. I emailed the helpdesk again, although I did not find their previous response particularly helpful. They emailed back to say that I can’t publish a new version of my book without starting from scratch (which admittedly wouldn’t be a huge problem, but still isn’t right) because since I published the book, they’ve changed the site. This is a bug, apparently. Hmm.

I worked on my novel for a little under an hour. I procrastinated, I didn’t make much progress and I’m not happy with what I did write, but I wrote something, which I guess is the important thing, just to keep hammering away at it.

***

Therapy was good. I spoke about my obsessive pure O OCD-type thoughts, which have got a bit worse in the last few days. I sometimes get intrusive violent thoughts. This leads to obsessive worrying that I could become violent or a murderer. I tend to worry in particular when I read news stories about rapists and serial killers and see similarities with myself (usually that they are loners with few/no relationships and friendships). I know it isn’t likely that I would hurt someone (I’m terrified of hurting people even verbally and unintentionally, let alone physically and intentionally), but it’s easy to get sucked into “How can I know for sure that I wouldn’t do that?”-type of thoughts, or even to think that if I have intrusive violent thoughts for long enough, I’ll somehow act on them by default. The thing to do with these thoughts is just not to pay any attention to them, although it’s very hard not listening to a voice in your head saying that if you aren’t careful, you’ll turn into Jack the Ripper.

In therapy today I realised that these thoughts aren’t all that different from the “Am I a bad person?” thoughts I get. It’s a more extreme form of “bad,” but the thought itself is not that different in nature. And I realised that I haven’t really got very far trying to prove to myself that I’m not a bad person (or a serial killer), so maybe I should just try not to respond to these thoughts. I noticed that I got to shul (synagogue) last week without really thinking about it much, rather than spending ages thinking that I had to go and worrying that I wouldn’t make it, so maybe ignoring obsessive thoughts is the way to go.

***

As well as Lulu.com, I’m angry at victim-blaming antisemitism, but what can you do? There’s a lot more of them than there are of us.

***

Looking for a particular quote for my devar Torah, I was looking at Rabbi Lord Sacks’ z”tl book To Heal a Fractured World. It ends with a two page list of reflections on an ethical life. A lot of this resonated with thoughts I’ve been having recently about trying to work out what I’m here on Earth for, what I can actually do with my life. I’m not going to quote all of it, but here is some of it:

I make no claims to wisdom, but this I have learned:

• that each of us is here for a purpose;
• that discerning that purpose takes time and honesty, knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of the world, but it is there to be discovered…
• that where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where God wants us to be;
• that even the smallest good deed can change someone’s life…
• that those who spend at least part of their lives in service of others are the most fulfilled and happiest people I know…
• that each situation in which we find ourselves did not happen by accident: we are here, now, in this place, among these people, in these circumstances, so that we can do the act or say the word that will heal one of the fractures in the world…
• that it is not the most wealthy or powerful or successful or self-important who make the greatest difference or engender the greatest love;
• that pain and loneliness are forms of energy that can be transformed if we turn them outward, using them to recognize and redeem someone else’s pain or loneliness…
• that we can make a difference, and it is only by making a difference that we redeem a life, lifting it from mere existence and endowing it with glory;
• and that if we listen carefully enough — and listening is an art that requires long training and much humility — we will hear the voice of God in the human heart telling us that there is work to do and that he needs us.

***

E and I have been watching the 2005 season of Doctor Who, the first of the revived run. It’s strange to think that I was doing my undergraduate finals when these episodes were broadcast. I didn’t have a TV at Oxford, and the episodes were broadcast on Shabbat, so I couldn’t get myself invited to someone else’s room/house, so I only saw episodes one to three around the time of original transmission; the rest my parents taped for me and I binge-watched them after finals. It seems like yesterday. It also seems a lifetime ago.

It’s also strange that “new” Who has very nearly been around for more of my life than the original series. In fact, as I was eight when I discovered Doctor Who, for me the new Who era is longer than the era when I was a fan, but Doctor Who was not on TV regularly, even though that feels like the default for me.

***

I finished reading Moonraker (SPOILERS ahead!). I think prose James Bond is rather better than film Bond. Maybe that’s a bit unfair, as they are trying to do somewhat different things, although it takes a while to realise that. Prose Bond is not by any means realistic, but his actions have consequences; he’s not a superhero like film Bond. Here, Bond gets badly hurt and ends up in hospital. His detonation of an atomic bomb in the North Sea (to avoid it destroying London) leads to hundreds dead and missing and M worrying about the fall out, in all senses of the term. The “girl,” Gala Brand, is a capable undercover policewoman and she, rather than Bond, works out what the villain’s plan is and how to stop it. Most surprising of all, not only does Bond not have any real amorous encounters (one kiss is about it), Brand turns out to be engaged and chooses not to spend a month with Bond on the continent, but to get married to her fiance instead. I was impressed.

Stop/Start Writing and People Who Have Left

I woke up exhausted again. Maybe I did too much yesterday.

I spoke to my rabbi mentor and tried to spend some time working on my novel, although it was mostly a day when I ended up thinking about what to write (and procrastinating) more than actually writing. I know that my writing process ebbs and flows, that I find an idea for a chapter or smaller section slowly, but then can work faster for a while until I hit a block again, but it’s frustrating. The fact that I can’t write every day, and can rarely write for more than an hour when I do write, means that it takes a disproportionate effort to get started. I know lots of writers struggle to start work, but if you only write for one hour a day, or one hour every two days, the procrastination time is longer, proportionately, than if you can write for three or four hours in a day once you get going.

Other than that, it was quite a busy day: I worked on my devar Torah and went over Shabbat‘s Talmud shiur (class), I cooked dinner and went for a walk. I also collected the books I lent PIMOJ. I was rather apprehensive about seeing her again. I don’t really like running into ex-crushes or ex-girlfriends or, generally, people who I consider to have ‘left’ my life… I dislike running into ex-schoolfriends unexpectedly and things like that. Once someone has left my life, I feel uncomfortable welcoming them back to it. (The big exception here is E.) I have to say that I avoided a conversation with PIMOJ by saying my Dad was waiting for me in the car, which was true, but he wouldn’t have minded waiting a few minutes. I just got nervous and wanted to avoid an awkward conversation.

I skyped E afterwards, which was at least a reminder that I communicate with her a lot better than I did with PIMOJ. By the time that call finished it was late and I was very tired, and now I’m racing to bed as I have to be up early tomorrow for volunteering.

Unplugged

I had a crazy start to the day. I woke up at 5.30am and thought it was time to get up. It was with some difficulty that I realised that I could sleep for another hour and a half. Then I fell asleep and overslept, having some crazy dystopian dream. Then, after I got up, when I was davening (praying), a magpie sat on my window sill and looked like he (or she) was trying to come in. Fortunately, the window was shut, but I could not shoo him away, he just sat there staring at me. It was a bit disquieting.

The doctor phoned me at work (as arranged). I asked him to refer me for autism-adapted CBT, but he says the psychiatrist at the hospital where I was assessed is supposed to write to the CCG (funding body) to start the process. He said he will write to her to say she can do that. I worry about this bouncing around the NHS bureaucracy indefinitely.

I spent much of the day at work poring over spreadsheets, trying to track down payments that were listed as outstanding to see if they really were outstanding or if they had been paid and not been recorded properly. If they hadn’t been paid, I needed to write them off or phone to see if the debtor would pay. Fortunately I only had to phone once, as that was quite an awkward call.

I was pretty exhausted by the end, and my eyes felt strained from staring at spreadsheets. There wasn’t much traffic on the way home, but the conversation on the radio annoyed me. I don’t like to ask J to change it as he’s doing me a favour by giving me a lift. When I got home I sat and read in the garden for half an hour, which was wonderful. I really should try to be online less. It makes me much happier. I’m not really on social media much and don’t follow many political blogs, but even regular news sites are full of silly stories about “X is AWFUL and you should be REALLY ANGRY about it.”

I didn’t make it to Zoom depression group, as dinner was late and I was exhausted. I ate dinner outside with my parents. Afterwards, I went for a walk. I was still tired, but it was good to go out in the cool evening air and listen to the birds. It’s probably too late now for a really early night (I was watching Doctor Who followed by The Simpsons), but I hope to get to bed earlyish, as I’m pretty tired, albeit aware that a shower is likely to wake me up, but I won’t be able to sleep if I feel sweaty.

Noise Pollution

Well, I made it to shul (synagogue) over Shabbat (the Sabbath), for Friday evening, Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. I was there for the start of Shacharit (Morning Prayers) on Saturday morning and even helped set up (we were praying outside as the weather was good so that we didn’t have to wear masks). In the afternoon I followed parts of the shiur (Talmud class), although we covered more ground than I expected and went on to material I hadn’t prepared for, not that preparation always helps me follow any better. Also, even though I haven’t made many close friends at shul, I feel that quite a lot of people there know my name and will say “Good Shabbos” (typical Shabbat greeting) to me and seem pleased to see me, so I think on some level I’m accepted there.

I also went for a walk, did some extra Torah study, played (and lost) two games of Rummikub with my parents and did a little bit of recreational reading (still the James Bond novel Moonraker). I’ve kind of accepted that the way I live my Shabbatot, there isn’t much time for recreational reading. I don’t seem to have much time for recreational reading in general at the moment, because I’m prioritising Torah study, because I don’t travel home from work on the Tube (which used to be a reading time) and because I find I’m often exhausted in the evening and watch TV instead of reading. I grab brief moments to read a few pages over lunch or before bed.

I got to bed at 1.00am, which is late, but not so surprising when Shabbat didn’t finish until about 10.30pm. I avoided turning on my computer after Shabbat, which is what can keep me up until stupid o’clock in the morning, that and watching TV (I watched an episode of The Simpsons, but nothing longer).

I woke up late today (11.00am), but didn’t feel fatigued or burnt out, so I’m counting this as a success.

***

Today was good. I did some Torah study, went for a run (not brilliant stamina, but it was hot), did a little over half an hour of work on my novel despite an exercise headache and the distraction of loud music from outside (see below). Then I had a virtual lecture/tour about the Medieval Bible/Talmud commentator Rashi. It was interesting, but I had to shut all the windows to shut out the noise so that I could hear, which made me feel ill from the heat (or more ill, as I already had an exercise headache). Afterwards I wrote some emails. I worry that frustration from the noise made me somewhat abrupt in the emails. That and the fact that I felt I was running out of time this evening and just needed to stop procrastinating and write the emails. In particular, there was one to a friend who seems to be drifting towards divorce judging from her recent emails and I don’t really know what to say to her, or how serious her concerns are — is she just telling me to let off steam or is it a “near the end of her tether” situation? I’m not good at reading these things.

I did a lot, but felt like I was running out of time, and felt ill from the exercise headache and noise. I’m pretty exhausted now, and frustrated and ill from various factors (including the continuing noise) and in a weird way, I feel I did both too much and too little today, being hampered by the noise and the virtual tour being at a slightly awkward time, as well as my propensity for getting exercise headaches. I had a Skype call with E too, but felt that I wasn’t fully engaged, partly from the late hour and the noise outside.

***

I realised that a disproportionate amount of my divrei Torah (Torah thoughts) deal with the question of individuality and the relationship between the individual and society. It seems a fundamental question to me in a religion which believes in the sanctity of the individual as the image of God, but also in the collective as the source of religious authority and locus of religious life. I had an idea over Shabbat of a triangular map of Jewish (or general?) religious life with God at the top and the individual and the community in the bottom corners. Sometimes the community tries to absorb the individual, or the individual tries to leave the community, or to leave God, resulting in the triangle getting bent out of shape. But I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

***

We had a neighbour who was playing really loud music today, either in the garden or with the windows open. They had some kind of party going on, with a lot of crowd noise too by the late afternoon. I could hear it with the windows shut (through double glazing), and I don’t want to shut the windows in this weather. During the afternoon I had to have the windows shut, fan going and still could hear the bass loud enough to stop me thinking clearly. It’s not an immediate neighbour, but someone down the street and in the street behind us, so it’s hard to work out who it is to complain, not that I would have the confidence to complain (just as we never complained about our Haredi neighbours’ illegal minyan in the lockdown). I tend to be sensitive to noise at the best of times. In our old house, we had a neighbour who would hold a charity concert in his garden once a year and would always warn us in advance, so I’m a bit annoyed. Things seem to have stopped now, but I worry it will happen again. I think we’ve had excessive noise in the past. We say we’ll complain, but we never do. I guess that’s very English.

Drained Again (Fragment)

I don’t have much to say today, which is good, because I don’t have much time to say it. I slept very late (after 1pm) and have been drained all day, whether that’s burn out or fatigue. I did my Shabbat (Sabbath) chores, but not a lot else. I didn’t have the time or brainpower for working on my novel. I went to the post office and did some shopping, but Dad gave me a lift as it was raining too much to walk and I wouldn’t have had the time for a long walk anyway.

I struggled through a very difficult chapter of the biblical book of Daniel for half an hour; “chapter” is not a precise measurement, but it took two or three times longer than it usually would for a passage that long. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection of my exhaustion, the difficulty of the passage (in terms of both language and concepts) or both. Daniel is definitely one of the harder biblical books to understand, even at a basic level, not least because half the book is written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, although not the chapter I was studying.

I have booked to go to shul (synagogue) tonight, tomorrow morning and afternoon for prayers and Talmud class. I’m still reasonably confident about getting to the afternoon services, but I’m not sure that I’m going to manage to go tomorrow morning.

I feel that I’m doing as much as I can today (and, I hope, tomorrow), but it feels like that isn’t really very much.

Also, a glance at the Jewish Chronicle website has left me feeling anxious and unsafe, so I’m not in the best mindset for shul, but I have to go in a few minutes.

Hidden Joy

I had some somewhat confusing task at work today, looking over bank statements and papers related to investments. I don’t really know about shares or serious financial investment stuff. I found it somewhat confusing. I had a couple of social mishaps too, which I’m deliberately not going to relate, as I suspect that rehashing things like that here as I usually do just encourages my social anxiety rather than discouraging it.

I also went to the bank, which got me out of the office on a nice sunny day, but also took me into parts of London that are becoming very busy again, which perhaps left me more drained than normal by the end of the day (although I get pretty drained even on a normal day).

***

I was thinking about my religious life and whether I find joy in it. I’ve worried in the past that I don’t, which makes me wonder if I really am just being frum (religious Jewish) out of habit or fear. I don’t think that’s the case, but it was only today that I realised why. I think it all gets mixed in with the remnants of depressive anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure) and autistic alexithymia (inability to recognise or understand one’s own emotions).

I think I do get joy and/or meaning out of at least some davening (prayer), Torah study and other Jewish activities. I can’t necessarily feel or understand it directly, but I know some prayers feel less fulfilling than others, some Torah study sessions are harder going than others and so on, so by comparison at least some of the time I must be more engaged or it would all seem the same. I can see a difference, even if I can’t always put that difference into words. Even with Talmud study, which I do find hard and a bit of a chore, there are times when it clicks and it doesn’t seem a chore, and times when I find it interesting even if not necessarily for the reasons I’m supposed to feel it (for historical reasons as much as because I’m “thinking God’s thoughts”).

I do get a lot of pleasure from sitting and thinking about Jewish concepts, playing with ideas and putting them, and disparate texts, together to try to generate new ideas (chiddushim). Even though I’m not sure how many rabbis would list “sitting and thinking” as a legitimate or productive religious activity, even if some of the ideas do end up going into my divrei Torah.* Certainly my parents find it a little weird when I’m just sitting staring into space, or pacing up and down rapidly (I tend to pace when thinking).

Similarly, although not religious, I used to worry that I didn’t love my family enough. However, lately I’ve been having some morbid thoughts about death and I realise that losing my parents would be devastating for me, beyond any practical or selfish thoughts about the change that would necessitate in my life. I can, so to speak, see the hole it would leave and infer the love that must surround it unseen.

Less morbidly, socialising often leaves me feeling awkward, anxious and miserable, but the times when I have socialised and not been left feeling awkward, anxious and miserable were presumably the times I enjoyed myself (as with the Shabbat lunch I went to a few weeks ago), even if I wasn’t sure that that was what I was feeling. So I must enjoy some social events.

Possibly I was living a life of (at least some) joy and love all along and I never realised…

*This is a digression, but I think contemporary society in general and frum society in particular has a real problem prioritising busy-ness over idleness. I mean real idleness, not staring at your phone. Sometimes idleness can be very productive. It’s no surprise most of these “sitting and thinking idly about Torah” sessions happen on Shabbat when there is no phone, computer or TV.

Strings Attached

I went to bed late and got up early for volunteering at the Jewish food bank, yet somehow seemed to function better this morning than on many later ones. Do I need a reason to get up, as volunteering provided today? Then again, I had a reason to get up early last Saturday (shul/synagogue) and I overslept. I feel I need to think carefully about my sleep pattern and maybe my sleep hygiene. I know I often turn my clock radio alarm off in my sleep; I wonder if I should put it across the room, although it’s not a tactic that has worked well for me in the past. I also have a problem on Shabbat, as I won’t use the clock radio alarm (a) in case I turn it off and (b) because if I don’t turn it off, as per Shabbat, it will sound all day and drive us all insane. I use my phone’s timer, but the alarm sound is pretty puny and easy to sleep through.

I got to volunteering a bit early, so I hung around outside and tried to make an appointment to see the doctor, as I am supposed to do regarding my Asperger’s diagnosis. I phoned at 8.28am and was told the surgery was not open for appointments. I tried again at 8.30am and was told I was behind more than thirty people in the phone queue. I appreciate there is a pandemic, but it does seem more difficult than it should be. Dad suggested to try again on my way to work tomorrow. It is possible to set the system to let you hang up and it will phone you back when you get near the front of the queue. I didn’t do that today as I knew the garage at volunteering has poor reception and I doubted I would be able to hear the call, but I could try doing it tomorrow, assuming I’m not underground on the way to work when they call.

Volunteering was good, but pretty exhausting. I do still feel that I end up looking stupid or annoying the organisers with too many “What should I do now? We’ve run out of crackers, what should I do?”-type questions that the other volunteers don’t ask. But I guess I’m doing it for free, so they can’t expect too much of me.

Afterwards I took my tallit to be repaired, but they wanted to charge me £13 for the new tzitzit strings and £20 for having them tied, which is about half the price of a new tallit in total. I bought the strings and had another go at tying them myself, hoping the new, and hence non-twisted, strings would be better than the reused ones. It seemed to go OK, although it took two attempts and I always worry with something like this that I’m doing something wrong. (Incidentally, there’s a video on how to tie tzitzit here.)

While I was in the Judaica bookshop, I used the £15 I had from having a completed loyalty card (literally a physical piece of cardboard with stamps on it, very Old School) to buy Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age by Rabbi Shagar. I have heard good things about Rav Shagar seriously addressing postmodern thought and applying it to Orthodox Judaism. I just hope I can understand it. Philosophy doesn’t always come easy to me. Rabbi Shagar (actually an acronym for his name, Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg) was supposed to be one of few Orthodox Jewish thinkers addressing postmodern thought until his death in 2007.

I spent some time in the afternoon working on my novel and was pleased to make progress, even if it only amounted to a few hundred words. Just getting back in the habit of writing it is good. I did some Torah study too, not so much in terms of time, but difficult Mishnah and Gemarah. I spoke to E too, so it was quite a busy day overall.

***

I’ve seen a part-time assistant school librarian job advertised. I don’t really want to apply for it, but I vaguely feel that I should. I think I need to speak to my parents about what type of jobs they are expecting me to apply for at the moment, if any (given that I am working).

***

I’ve been thinking about antisemitism all day again. When Rabbi Lord Sacks died last year, one of his daughters reflected that he would throw weighty questions at her while waiting for the kettle to boil and the example she gave was about how to end antisemitism. Part of me seems to think that I can succeed where Rabbi Sacks did not, even if I have to boil the kettle a few times. I think endlessly about antisemitism and have done for years, as if I can somehow succeed where generations of Jews have failed and end antisemitism, and bring peace to the Middle East as an encore.

I don’t really have the bravery to write about my thoughts. I doubt that they are particularly profound anyway. Judging by Tablet Magazine and The Times of Israel blogs, if they are in any way representative, lots of Jews, in Israel and the diaspora, are feeling “unsafe” right now and have been feeling that for quite a while, from before the latest round of Middle East violence. I don’t know how we change anything though. As Rabbi Sacks said elsewhere, Jews can’t end antisemitism. Only non-Jews can do that. But it feels like we can’t even communicate our fears without being mocked and attacked.

The Burnout Cycle

I had another bad “waking up burnt out” day. I’m not sure what can do about this. I think autistic burnout isn’t terribly well understood. Also, I haven’t really found much about people waking up burnt out rather than becoming burnt out during the day. I’m not sure how much my parents understand it either. I mean, they accept it, they aren’t calling me lazy, but I don’t think they understand it, or they see it as leftover from the depression — which, to be fair, was my understanding for a long time.

Because I was burnt out, I wasn’t up to phone the doctor for an appointment when they start taking appointments at 8.30am. Dad tried, but was number twenty-eight (!!!) in the queue after twenty minutes and gave up. My surgery only allows the booking of regular appointments at 8.30am; at that time, the phones get jammed with people trying to phone (as you can see). There aren’t any appointments later, except emergency ones (they question you and if you phone with a non-emergency, they won’t give you an appointment), and they don’t allow online booking any more, although they rarely used to release more than a handful of those appointments at a time either. Basically, my surgery makes it really hard to get an appointment, and has only made it harder since COVID. So I’m not sure what to do. After all, the GP wrote to me asking me to book an appointment (about my Asperger’s diagnosis)! And I do want to get on the (very long) waiting list for autism-adapted CBT, especially now I’m dating E (I’m hoping it will help my communication, although my communication with E is pretty good, all things considered).

I cooked dinner, which was my main achievement for the day, except that I had a teaspoon/tablespoon mix up and put too much spice in, although it tasted fine (which is odd, actually). I do this a lot and I don’t know why. I think it’s an executive function issue from trying to process the recipe and do various things at once, or maybe I just want to think that because it’s a stupid thing to keep doing. I guess that might explain why it is worse on a burnout day.

I wanted to get my books back from PIMOJ, but she was suddenly working late and couldn’t return them. She said I could pick them up later, but I was worried she would still be running late and I would have to wait, and I didn’t want to be out late with volunteering early tomorrow, plus I didn’t want to mess up my Dad’s evening as he offered me a lift (as the books are quite bulky and heavy to bring back on public transport). So that’s still hanging over me. E thinks my mood was lower today because I was expecting to see PIMOJ and she may be right. Now it’s hanging over me still, and will be for at least another week, given PIMOJ’s late working hours. I’m not sure what to do about this. I was wary of lending her my books for this reason, that I would need to get them back if we broke up.

I did try to sort the tallit (prayer shawl) issue. Hopefully I can get it fixed tomorrow, although it looks like it will cost a lot. I’m not sure if I’ve made the right decision; days like today are not the best for decision making.

I tried to work on my novel, but just felt gridlocked, unable to write anything. The main thing I did was work out what things could be fixed by adding small sections in to the existing text and what would need to be rewritten by going through the whole novel and making many small (or larger) changes. Eventually I decided that I was wasting my time trying to write today, that anything I wrote in this mood would be subpar anyway, so I went for a walk instead. I hoped that would help my mood. It did a little, but not much.

I felt a bit better after dinner and Doctor Who, although still very drained, something not helped by the heat. My bedroom faces west and gets very hot in the afternoons in summer, which has apparently now started. I guess it is June now.

***

I actually did some reading about autistic burnout, not least because I was having a rather burnt out day. There isn’t much research, as it’s only been recognised by psychologists for five or six years. There seems to be some discussion about what burnout entails: a lot of the writing is about severe burnout that can last weeks or months (which may have fed into, my depressive episodes), whereas I tend to experience a daily cycle of waking exhausted (I’m not sure why), slowly building up steam after lunch, having a reasonably productive afternoon and then sometimes crashing in the evening, in terms of energy and mood, particularly if I was at work or around people a lot in the day. Even if I don’t crash, it seems that the next morning is difficult; my sleep just isn’t refreshing. Maybe that’s something other than burnout? This article seems to be the closest to what I experience.

It would be such a relief to understand that I’m not lazy, I have a genuine struggle with mornings, work and socialising. I mean, my autism diagnosis has already helped with the latter two, but the first still seems a little mysterious and unexplained.