This Post is so Emotional, It Needs Emojis

…or possibly I’m too stressed to express myself in words.

I haven’t written for a couple of days, and as I probably won’t write publicly tomorrow (a work event that I can’t write about publicly without compromising my anonymity), I thought I would write today even though I don’t have much to say. I’m living a very day-by-day existence, worrying about the wedding (TWO MONTHS!!!😱) and Pesach (TWO WEEKS!!!😱😱😱) and also health stuff – not serious, but annoying, particularly two NHS issues: the ongoing problem of my missing sleep study results and a big mess up with my new prescription. I kept getting prescribed my old prescription, not the new one (lower dose) I started in December. The GP’s receptionist blamed the pharmacy and the pharmacy blamed the GP. I think I sorted it today, but who knows?

Other worries: really annoyed 😡 with a particular rabbi involved in our wedding (not the officiating rabbi) who, after asking for a load of documentation months ago, has now asked for something else that we’re not going to be able to get in time and who suddenly wants to see us next week, after sitting on an email from me for a week, even though I told him E is immigrating next week. I got very anxious about him forbidding our wedding, although after I said it wasn’t possible, he just said don’t bring it. But I do worry about E getting completely turned off Orthodox Judaism from this.

Why do so many Orthodox rabbis act like this? I know they’re all busy, but so many seem not to understand the implications of being in a client-facing role where people have the ability to go elsewhere. I’m sure it plays a big part in turning people off Orthodoxy. I wouldn’t choose to leave Orthodoxy, because it’s the only Jewish denomination that I’m compatible with, in terms of theology and practice, but many people in the Anglo-Jewish world do not think much in terms of theology and are flexible (or minimally-observant) in terms of practice, but respond very negatively to this kind of behaviour (understandably) and go elsewhere. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate is, if anything, even worse. Paradoxically, Orthodox Judaism might be in a better state if more rabbis and synagogue bodies thought of themselves like a business trying to maintain market-share by pleasing customers. I don’t mean interpreting halakhah (Jewish law) extra-leniently, but just being courteous and helpful, replying promptly, being consistent and so on. Then, when people leave Orthodoxy, we just talk about the powerful attractions of the world outside Orthodoxy or cast aspersions on the mental health of those who leave and assume there was nothing we could have done about it. Gah. 🙄Anyway.

I got very anxious because of this and went for a longish walk. I picked up my 25mg clomipramine prescription (I hope that’s sorted now too – the NHS is another organisation that tends to forget the clients are key, not the staff) and went to the park. It was fairly empty (except for the inevitable dog-walkers) and much of it still looks bleak, but there were patches of colour from the daffodils and violets (? I’m not good with flowers).

In terms of doing stuff, I put together a draft invitation for the wedding, but not much else, except emailing back and forth with that rabbi. Maybe it’s OK to focus on wedding at this time. I sent an email to try to chase my sleep study, only to get an automatic response saying not to use that email address for chasing sleep studies, but no indication of who I should email instead (classic NHS).

 I feel bad about not helping much with Pesach, but I’m just struggling with wedding stuff. E and I have said that some stuff (florist, musicians etc.) is going to have to wait until after Pesach, even though that’s just five weeks before the wedding. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I do still feel a little bad that I persuaded E to have a larger wedding than she wanted, even though our “larger” is small by most Jewish standards (fifty or so invitees for tea instead of a couple of hundred for a four course meal with dancing). E is very stressed about moving to the UK too, understandably, and it’s hard comforting and supporting her long-distance. On the other hand – E is immigrating in one week!🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

I am trying not to give in to stress and to take time to relax. I’m not pushing myself with writing or heavy reading. I started Children of Dune, but haven’t got very far with it; mostly I’m reading Doctor Who graphic novels: Steve Parkhouse’s time as writer on the Doctor Who Magazine strip (currently on The Stockbridge Horror, which I think is under-rated). Likewise, I finished watching Undermind (underwhelming, overall) and am still watching Yes Prime Minister. I’m not doing much Torah study, although I did manage to listen to an old Orthodox Conundrum podcast on the Pesach seder which gave me one or two ideas of things to say at the seder. I’m not doing much seder preparation at all this year, though. In fact, most of the seder preparation I’ve done has been trying to work out how to make it easier for E, who we suspect has ADHD or AuDHD (autism plus ADHD) and struggled through our long seders last year.

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I listened to an Orthodox Conundrum podcast today about anxiety in the Orthodox community. I wrote the following to post on the podcast’s Facebook group, then decided it was too focused on myself and my issues and not really engaging properly with the podcast, but I think it does bear posting somewhere:

This was interesting, but I guess it really addresses people whose situation and problems are “normal” for the frum [religious Jewish] community (let’s call it “Ortho-typical”). As an “Ortho-divergent” person with autism and a history of mental illness, including social anxiety, as well as being a BT [ba’al teshuvah – someone raised less religious who became more religious as an adult] with less-frum family, I feel like I’m often in difficult situations that other frum people wouldn’t be in and making choices that I know other people wouldn’t agree with (some people would say I should just not socialise with less-frum family, for example). This fuels my social anxiety and the intense feeling I have that other people in the community are judging me negatively.

One example related to what you spoke about: my minyan [communal prayer] attendance had been declining for years, based on my declining mental health and exhaustion as my work situation changed, but COVID finished it off. I don’t really get to shul more than once a week now, sometimes not even that, if I’m struggling with autistic exhaustion. I often don’t see any social benefits from going, only negatives, in that I struggle to talk to people, people rarely start conversations with the socially anxious autistic guy in the corner, and even if someone did talk to me in Kiddush, I can’t actually hear anything anyone says as I can’t tune out the ambient noise and focus on what’s being said to me. The assistant gabbai at the shul I used to go to once criticised me for always leaving the Kiddush after five minutes, which only made me more self-conscious and socially anxious about it and less inclined to go.

As I said, I didn’t think it was so appropriate to post this there, but I do feel that “Ortho-divergent” people are marginalised in the frum world. We hide and camouflage ourselves, meaning that we can’t turn to each other for support and advice and, I’m sure, many end up leaving Orthodoxy for lack of support when, with help, and a less judgmental community, they might have found their place in it.

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