Quick Update

I’m still here! I have been struggling with some family issues around the wedding. I didn’t want to go into them publicly, so I haven’t been posting. I think we’ve reached an equilibrium for now, but certainly the family dynamic is changing/has already changed as a result of E joining the family, our wedding and the birth of Nephew and I’m struggling to adjust. My therapist said this kind of change is normal and I guess most people would struggle to adjust to it, but being autistic and having all the social interaction issues that come with autism seems to make it harder. Part of the issue is that my family aren’t very much like me in terms of personality and outlook. That’s not to blame them (or me), but it does make it harder.

I wrote a post on the autism forum about family issues, but after two hours, I panicked and decided to delete it, but apparently I can’t. Someone responded to it (d’oh!) and said I’ve let my parents control my life because I’ve been unwilling to take control, which isn’t entirely my perspective on things, to put it mildly, although I guess there’s a grain of truth in there or it wouldn’t hurt. And it’s true I let them do some things for me because I can’t work out how to do them for myself or because I struggle to assert myself.

I spoke to my rabbi mentor about some of the things I’ve been struggling with lately, around family, Pesach and the wedding. He said some helpful things about focusing on one step at a time and that stresses are common around these events. I said I was upset that I wouldn’t have time this year to do much religious study with a view to sharing ideas at the Pesach seder. Really the seder should be an educational event; I’m always the person with the most Jewish knowledge at our seder, so I focus on teaching more than learning, but he said I should focus on the family aspect instead of the educational aspect. He also said he struggles with this, which surprised me a bit as he comes from a frum (religious) family, but it made me feel a bit better.

Dad and I went shopping for suits for the wedding. There is probably a lot I could say about this, but as it led to my ill-advised autism forum post, maybe I should not say anything at all. I got a wedding suit, which Dad paid for and he insisted on buying me a second suit (or got talked into it by the salesman), which I don’t actually need. But they are nice suits.

***

I thought today marked the fifth anniversary of when E contacted me on email via my blog, but it turns out it was yesterday. I missed our anniversary! We didn’t know then that we would get married or even date. We’ve definitely come a long way since then and I look forward to the next stage in our relationship. And it’s ten days until she comes here!

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Day of Statistics

I got a message on LiveJournal this morning to say I started my blog there seventeen years ago. My blog there has been defunct and hidden for years, but it means I’ve been blogging for seventeen years, minus eighteen months or so when I switched to writing poetry that I didn’t feel confident enough to share. Other important dates: E comes to the UK in two weeks today. And we’re closer to our wedding than to New Year’s Day.

However, I’m in full-blown negative mood today: pessimistic (not about marrying E, but about everything else, from wedding planning to global politics) and drained. I got up late and it’s been hard to do anything. Mum and Dad have been doing Pesach preparation and I haven’t been joining in, which I feel bad about. Dad and I were supposed to buy suits for the wedding today, but the Tube strike ruled that out. I wanted to start getting the invitations done, but I didn’t manage it. I just felt overwhelmed and unable to do anything. I got a bit of a stress headache again too. I ended up taking the day as a mental health day. I know I’ve had a busy few days and I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, but Pesach and the wedding are going to happen when they happen regardless of what I do and I need to be ready.

Family wedding drama has continued. It’s not actually drama, mostly because I agreed to most of my family’s requests. I just feel uncomfortable about what I’ve agreed to and I worry that E and especially I will be exhausted by the time we get to the wedding day (or wedding night). I feel my family understand autism up to a point, but they don’t really understand autistic exhaustion (e.g. today) as opposed to just being tired and I don’t know how to explain it to them. I’m pleased they accept that autism exists and that I’m autistic (many people on the autism forum don’t have that from their families), but there’s probably an empathy problem of them not understanding how I think and feel and not even realising that they don’t understand. Most of them don’t even know that E may be autistic too, as I haven’t told them, as I thought it was E’s decision to say, not mine.

(Parenthetically, autistic exhaustion is something that isn’t really acknowledged by autism researchers, who are only beginning to research it, yet it’s something that so many autistic people complain of, particularly those who should probably be described as “moderately-functioning” – not super-high-functioning people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk (supposedly) and not non-verbal severely autistic, but able to do some “normal” activities, but who struggle with them and often suffer afterwards.)

 I don’t know what to do about any of this. Sometimes I feel that I come quite low down the family pecking order, when it comes to making decisions of mutual concern. My therapist says that there’s often someone in a family who isn’t heard, or isn’t heard as much. I think in my family, it’s me. For years this didn’t worry me much. I would either opt out of stuff, citing mental illness, or I would grin and bear it, but I didn’t get much say over what was happening and I guess I didn’t actually care that much. But now I want more say for E’s sake as much as my own and I don’t know how to be heard. My therapist said this is common too, and why so many weddings result in arguments, because it’s when people get married that they try to change the family dynamic for their spouse’s sake, but I know from experience that people don’t like changes in the family dynamic, especially where the less-assertive person becomes more assertive. It’s hard to draw boundaries after so long (I’m nearly forty!) and when I do genuinely need more help from my parents than most people my age. Sometimes the boundary between “willing to compromise” and “not enforcing boundaries” is not clear.

***

Lately I feel difficulty engaging in autistic special interests that might revive me. I still enjoy the original series of Doctor Who, but the last few years, and the news about the episodes coming later this year, have soured me on the new series, although I’m still looking forward to watching Matt Smith episodes with E when she’s here. We’ve put Doctor Who viewing on hold for the next fortnight, though, as E is busy moving and is going to be living with her parents for a bit.

I don’t know if Judaism counts as a special interest, but I’m too exhausted and lacking in time to engage much with it, and it’s hard working out what I can do, as well as realising that to be a “good frum Jew,” you really have to be neurotypical and mentally healthy, and ideally quite well-off. And I don’t have time, energy or spoons at all for writing (other than blogging), my other hobby. So I feel rather stuck.

I ended up taking some time out for a while for my mental health and maybe think about invitations later today. Watched Undermind and Yes Minister. I’ll probably read Batman before bed. I tried reading Children of Dune before, but it’s heavy-going and by this stage in the series, it seems like all the even vaguely-likeable characters have died or become evil and unlikeable/unrelatable.

***

Just read a not-very-good devar Torah (Torah thought) from a very prominent UK Modern Orthodox rabbi that said that, if you keep Shabbat (the Sabbath), God will ensure you aren’t out of pocket as a result. I don’t know why rabbis share ideas like this. All you need is to find one person who ended up out of pocket as a result of keeping Shabbat and you’ve disproved it, casting the whole of Judaism into doubt. Plus it sends a negative to people struggling financially that God is not looking after them. It just reinforces my feeling that the Orthodox world is designed for “winners” and not “losers.” Although the community does provide support for the poor, unlike some other minority groups in the Orthodox community.

***

I also read a very unhelpful article on dealing with wedding day anxiety for autistics. Like a lot of stuff aimed at autistics, it made me feel like a Fake Autistic for not reacting the way we’re “supposed to,” e.g. I don’t have such a problem with bright light, I only stim very subtly and don’t use stim toys. The only thing I took from it was the need to have time away from the crowd during the wedding day, but E and I have basically planned almost the reverse, four or five hours around people and nothing before or after. I guess we can see if we can slip away during the tea, but I worry my parents will want us to mingle the whole time. I hope it works out, especially now the Shabbat the day before has basically been joined to it.

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Small Victories

I struggled to get up for my telephone appointment with the doctor today. I managed to get up and eat breakfast beforehand, but I was still in pyjamas when the doctor called. I think I procrastinated about getting up and getting dressed because I was nervous about the call, more because it was a phone call than because I was worried about bad news. I did experience the NHS working well for once: the doctor said he would look into my missing sleep study results and gave me the name of the NHS Trust he referred me to so I could chase them too. He also sent a prescription straight to the pharmacist so I could collect it in the afternoon.

I felt most of the day feeling exhausted. I did some wedding paperwork and went out to get that prescription and some blood test forms as well as going to check my library card still works. I tested it by borrowing two graphic novels (I have too many prose novels and non-fiction on my ‘to read’ pile to add more of those), one Batman collection of short stories (Batman Black and White Volume 4) and the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, which my oldest friend recommended I read about twenty-five years ago. The library’s graphic novel section is disappointingly small and focused on superheroes (notwithstanding my recent Batman reading/borrowing), but as I’m slow to try new things, it probably doesn’t make much practical difference. Long before I got home, I was struggling with exhaustion and feeling slightly faint. I’m still not sure what causes this, except the doctor today said it doesn’t sound like diabetes, although he’s going to test me for it to be sure.

 I didn’t do much in the rest of the afternoon. I did a few minutes of Torah study and cooked plain pasta for dinner. I would have liked to have done more Torah study and cooked something more interesting for dinner, but ran out of time. Then I had a long wedding planning Zoom call with E, my parents and her parents. We made some progress, but it was overwhelming. My parents and E’s parents get on well, which is good, but it means the call is constantly at risk of going off at tangents into a general conversation. E and I Zoomed a bit by ourselves afterwards, but I was too drained to speak for longer.

I’m left wishing I had done more, had more energy and coped better with things, although I suppose I didn’t do too badly. I am exhausted now. I read a few pages of Children of Dune at lunch and watched an episode of Yes Minister at dinner, but not much else relaxing. The Yes Minister episode was also the bleakest one, The Whisky Priest, where Hacker tries to tell the Prime Minister that British arms are being sold to terrorists, but gets bullied out of it by Sir Humphrey Appleby and the Chief Whip. It’s funny, but less funny than usual, and more downbeat, even by the standard that Yes Minister episodes usually end with the status quo upheld and no positive change forthcoming, so they’re all downbeat to some extent, especially if you think this is how British government really works (Margaret Thatcher did; it was her favourite TV programme). Ugh, tangent, but I’m too tired to do anything about it. OK, bedtime.

Dependency

Today was another slow day at work. I did make a number of difficult phone calls, requesting payment of invoices. I think I did OK. The other news is that I’m worried we’re about to have the first family broiges (argument, fall-out) of E and my wedding, but I’m unashamedly putting E and my needs first for our special day. I’m not going in to more detail here. Hopefully we can negotiate our way through it.

I went into the GPs surgery on the way home. I masked, but no one else did, staff or patients. I felt somewhat stupid. I’m not sure whether it’s still legally required. Masks are rare enough now in London for it to be notable when people are wearing them and I keep being jolted by seeing references to them as necessary on American blogs. I did some research the other day and, over the last year, only about six weeks saw excess deaths above the number before the pandemic in England and Wales i.e. most of the time no more people are dying than pre-COVID. The figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland were somewhat higher, but not enormously so. I don’t know why, though, especially as Scotland had stricter laws than England for most of the pandemic.

The reason I went into the surgery was to try to get the results of the sleep study I had done last year. Worryingly, there is no sign of it and the receptionist told me to phone the hospital that did the test. As I had it done at home, I need to find the paperwork that says which hospital was analysing the results. I’m worried that the sleep study equipment, which I had to send back in the post in a pre-paid package, has got lost in the post and I will have to do the study again.

Today was also the second anniversary of my autism diagnosis, but I’m not really sure what I make of that right now. By coincidence, someone on the autism forum asked today how we came to terms with diagnosis. I commented, “I’m two years from diagnosis (today, actually) and I think I still haven’t completely come to terms with it. I accept that I am autistic, I am glad I finally got an explanation for a lot of things in my life that made me feel weird and inadequate, but I still struggle with what it means for me and my life. I can’t really say that I see it as “a difference, not a disability” as many people here say. I do feel disabled, at least in some ways, and I don’t feel I have any of the “autistic superpowers” that some people describe. I want to see it as a difference, but I’m not there (yet?). I’m hoping things might get better in coming months as I get married, move out of my parents’ home and life with my wife (my fiancée is a lot more compatible with my autistic needs than my parents) and perhaps I’ll be able to improve things job-wise too, but at the moment autism still feels something I struggle with a lot of the time.”

[Reading the comment back, writing “my wife (my fiancée…” looks really awkward, but it does make sense if you read carefully: she will be my wife when I live with her, but right now she’s my fiancée, albeit only because I didn’t go into the whole between “two weddings” scenario.]

***

I read an annoying advice column originally from a Jewish newspaper. A full-time kollel student (advanced Talmudic student, but probably not training for the rabbinate), married, with a baby and a wife who works part-time, and getting a stipend from the kollel, was complaining that, while his parents lavished money, gifts and free babysitting on him and his family, his wife’s parents hardly gave them anything. He wanted them to help them buy a house! And yet his wife refused to raise the subject with them! So he was asking the therapist who writes the advice column how to get them to pull their weight. He wanted to ask a rabbi too (given the Yeshivish mentality, I am actually genuinely surprised he didn’t just ask a rabbi straight off). Fortunately, the therapist politely gave him a reality check.

I don’t agree with the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) full-time kollel for all men mentality, and this culture of entitlement is one of the reasons why (aside from it being innovative and totally against Jewish law and the Talmud). Sadly, E and I are going to be stuck in similar dependency when we marry, not due to religious or cultural norms, but due to our respective mental health and neurodivergence issues preventing both of us from working full-time, without having enough of a recognised disability to get any kind of state benefit. I know it’s not the same; we do both work even if we don’t work full-time and I am trying to increase my workload. And we do have genuine issues, even if the state doesn’t acknowledge them. Still, it saddens me a bit that we’re going to have to rely on parents to help us find somewhere to live and to help practically and financially with childcare.

***

Speaking of entitlement… I say I don’t talk about Harry and Megan, but then I end up making snide remarks, because they are just so funny. The front page story on The Evening Standard today was about their declaration of their children’s “birthright” to be called a prince and princess. I love the way they oscillate between super-woke “everyone is special, everyone has a right to be themselves” egalitarianism and aristocratic “of course we deserve privileges, it’s because we’re better than everyone else” hauteur, without the slightest trace of self-awareness. You can draw your own conclusions about any wider societal applications of this observation.

Incidentally, I think the only way I can cope with the news nowadays is by engaging my sense of dark humour and irony. Who says autistics don’t get irony?

Purim Part II

The good news: E is coming here on 29 March! Three weeks! Also, the wedding is seventy-five days away!

I didn’t blog yesterday. Purim was a mix of good and bad, but I didn’t have the time or energy to blog. I went to shul (synagogue) for Shacharit (Morning Prayers) and the daytime reading of the Megillah (the Book of Esther). As usual, it was a lot less noisy and faster than the evening reading. I was a bit late for volunteering as it took me longer than I expected to eat breakfast and do one or two other things at home. I was glad I went, as we were very understaffed, with several people on holiday and at least one doing Purim stuff elsewhere. We had extra Purim food during the coffee break and were given some mishloach manot (gifts of food) to take home too. I mostly listened to the conversation between volunteers and paid staff. I wanted to join in, but as is often the case, I struggled to find an entrance point or to be heard.

Afterwards I went to Golders Green as I knew my parents were going to see Sister and Nephew so decided to eat my Purim seudah (festive meal) at a cafe that does a tuna cheese melt that I really like and which I rarely get a chance to eat now that I only eat meat and fish on Shabbat and Yom Tov (Sabbath and festivals). One of the other volunteers got the same bus. I would have liked to read, but I was polite and made small talk, difficult though I find that. It turns out that her best friend since childhood works in the same shul where my office is.

The tuna cheese melt was very good, but I struggled with the noise in the cafe. It wasn’t very busy, but I struggle with noise more since COVID, and I found the “background” music intrusive. The journey home took about an hour and a half when it should have taken an hour at most because of bad traffic. It seems like every major road in Barnet is being dug up simultaneously. It’s probably to use all the council’s money up before the end of the financial year in April, otherwise the budget will get cut next year.

I wanted to relax after a couple of intensive days by watching a film (The Batman), but I was distracted by eating, emailing, speaking to Sister on the phone (and hearing Nephew, who now gurgles, in the background) and having strong emotions prompted by an Intimate Judaism Facebook post, which led to my spending an hour emailing them about it (not an angry post, I should clarify). Because of all this, I only watched half of The Batman, although at nearly three hours long, it’s arguably too much to take in one go anyway. I’ve still got half an hour left. It’s pretty good, although not as good as the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. I’m annoyed that everyone in Gotham City mumbles, as I keep having rewind to hear important dialogue. If my parents borrow the DVD, I’m going to recommend they put the subtitles up (which they do a lot anyway).

Today was mostly spent with wedding stuff, aside from a useful therapy session. Wedding preparation is going slowly. I do one thing, but it leads to another thing to do that I didn’t expect. But I am getting there and, as I said, E will be here soon and things will seem a lot better then.

***

I don’t want to be political, but I want to comment tangentially on the Gary Linekar/immigration/Nazi Germany controversy. I feel like everything people don’t like politically gets compared to Nazi Germany these days and it’s overkill (except the thing that should most be compared to Nazi Germany, but is largely ignored, i.e. China’s concentration camps). Perhaps people don’t actually know any other historical events to compare things to. That’s why no one says, “This society is like Ancien Regime France” or “We could be facing another Defenestration of Prague” (although there probably are politicians I would like to throw out a window onto a dung heap). Also, I note that the people making these comparisons are rarely Jewish; one wonders what would happen if a white person compared something to the American South in the era of slavery or segregation. I think public the response would be rather different.

Being Accepted

I woke up about 10am and got up to go to the loo, but then went back to bed and oversleep, which I really shouldn’t have done. I was glad to get some peaceful relaxation time when I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed, which has been hard to come by lately, but the rest of the day was a rush.

I felt sad for much of the day. The immediate trigger was an email on a mailing list I’m on, but I think it broadened into not fitting into the frum (religious Jewish) community. What I’m slowly thinking about Purim is that I have to do it on my own terms, trying to keep the mitzvot (commandments), but trying not to beat myself up if I can’t do all of them, or not perfectly. This is hard! But really I need to do it with my whole religious life. The frum world is not made for neurodivergent or mentally ill people.

The problem is still wanting to be accepted by frum people and wondering if I’ll ever have friends who can understand all of me. Maybe that’s not necessary, I don’t know. I just feel uncomfortable compartmentalising my life: frum friends, Doctor Who fandom friends, blog friends, autistic forum friends… Maybe that’s normal. I guess I remember the rabbis at school who were upset that I didn’t go on to yeshivah (rabbinical seminary) for a year and who were disappointed in me. I felt it was partially their fault for not convincing me that it was important to go or guiding me to an appropriate yeshivah, but I still felt bad for letting them down. Sometimes I wonder if people on the Orthodox Conundrum blog would shun me if they knew more about me (which just wants to make me dump my life story on there to see what reaction I get, which would not be sensible).

I wrote the above in the early afternoon. Towards evening, I joined a video call from a Facebook group for Jews with medical struggles related to festivals, in this case, Purim, which starts tomorrow evening. The group was originally for people who couldn’t fast on fast days, but it’s broadened to any kind of medical problem affecting fast days festivals. Actually, the conversation drifted into even more general issues with religious observance and I spoke a bit about some of the issues I’ve posted about here above and in the past. It was good to feel heard and accepted, although I struggled to work out when to speak on a multi-person video call. Another call is planned for before Pesach (Passover) and I hope to attend. The organiser said that they’ve had attendees from different Jewish denominations in the past, although everyone there today seemed to be Orthodox-affiliated. I did feel a bit like “Maybe I’ve found some people who can really understand me?” and one participant messaged me on Facebook afterwards and asked to stay in touch as she has autistic family.

***

E and I were talking about making friends when we get married and live together. I suggested we might want to volunteer at our shul (synagogue) or similar as neither of us is great at the “talk to people in the Kiddush (refreshments in synagogue after the service)” mode of socialising and making friends. I feel like I’m a lot better at making friends online than in the real world.

Not Secure in My Self and My Life

Last night, I blogged that I would do ten minutes of Torah study and relax. I actually did about twenty minutes, although it made sense to split the sedra (weekly Torah portion) where I did, as Tetzaveh falls into two very different chunks. I just spent too much of the evening doing “stuff,” but it was important stuff. The upshot was that I had little time to relax (just one episode of Yes Minister) and when I got to bed, I couldn’t sleep. I am not good at the whole balance thing, even though I only work two days a week and don’t take my work home with me.

I did eventually get about four hours of sleep and coped OK at work, but it was slow and boring and even a trip to the bank was hard as I got overloaded from the crowds in the streets. J asked me to cover for him on Purim next week if we need to do the Very Scary Task in the afternoon, as he wants to fulfil the commandment (“unhealthy custom” is probably a better description) of getting drunk at the celebratory festive meal. I agreed, as he’s so flexible and forgiving for me, but also because I didn’t have the courage or vocabulary to explain just how much I’m dreading Purim and how this could make it even worse. I just have to hope we don’t have to do the Very Scary Task. Between all this and worrying that alexithymia (difficulty experiencing and understanding my own emotions) means that I will never experience religious joy, I came home feeling pretty depressed.

I watched another episode of Yes Minister and some of Undermind and spoke to E and I feel a lot better now, but I still feel very drained and as I have volunteering tomorrow and more stuff to do, I will try to keep this briefer than might otherwise have been the case.

***

Reading some of this week’s sedra, combined with the family event yesterday, got me thinking about not being envious. Moshe and Aharon (Moses and Aaron) could, according to rabbinic tradition, have fulfilled each other’s roles as prophet and leader and as high priest, but each was happy for the other’s success in their roles. I suspect this is a lot easier if you are secure in knowing what your own role in life is and this is where I struggle as I just don’t know.

On the Intimate Judaism podcast they spoke about the Orthodox world’s tendency to exhort young people to “date for marriage” being counter-productive, as it encourages over-thinking and turning down dates for reasons that need not prevent a relationship developing. They said instead to date for the date, to see if there is something there. I’m glad my rabbi mentor said something similar to me, otherwise I would not have gone out with E. But I wonder if I need to think the same about my role in life, to stop over-thinking my role in my life as a whole and just focusing on being a good husband/son/brother/friend/online community member in the current moment. The problem is that I’m not sure how good I am at any of those…

***

A while back I watched a video on Chabad.org where an abuse survivor said he struggled with tefillin (the leather boxes Orthodox Jewish men and some non-Orthodox Jews strap to their arms and heads during weekday morning prayers) because wrapping them tightly around his arm gave him abuse flashbacks. He asked a rabbi, who said he could stop wearing them, but after a while he went back to wearing them again despite the flashbacks, as he felt that a Hasid should go further than the letter of the law.

I’ve been struggling with this. Aside from the negative social effects of the way this attitude of going beyond the letter of the law in everything has taken hold in many parts of the Orthodox world, it just reinforces my feeling that relying on so many legitimate leniencies myself (leniencies for mental illness, autism, low income, living with less religious parents) makes me somehow inadequate. That I should be able to get by without the leniencies, let alone the things I do that are against halakhah (Jewish law) without being permitted even by a genuine leniency. It’s a struggle and probably connected with the idea of not being secure in my sense of self and my own role in life.

Wedding Anxiety, Religious Anxiety

I feel quite stressed and anxious, partly about the wedding, partly aware that E is struggling with things at the moment and I can’t help her. I’ve contemplated jumping on a plane just to give her a hug, but she said not to, and, for reasons I won’t go into here, it might actually make her situation worse, in practical terms, if I did, so I just have to wait. It’s very frustrating. I guess now I know how my parents felt for years when I was struggling with depression/burnout and they couldn’t do anything for me.

Once I get to that point, my thoughts start to spiral out of control worrying about how two people with so many diagnosed and suspected neurodivergence/mental illness “issues” between them, and such an insecure income as a result, can actually be happy, particularly when my parents aren’t able to help any more, practically and financially. At least we’ll be together, that counts for a lot. It’s scary, though.

Other than wedding/marriage/future stuff, I’m worried about Purim, the minor Jewish festival coming up in about a week and a half. I’m actually more worried about Purim than Pesach at the moment. Pesach is a more major festival a month later that triggered my religious OCD much more than Purim in the past, but I think that’s under control now. Purim triggers a lot of things, like OCD, social anxiety, perhaps autistic sensory issues, social overwhelm and so on as well as feeling like a loser for having no (local) friends. Ugh.

***

In terms of the last few days… on Thursday I had to do the Very Scary Task at work. I think I’m getting better at it, but it’s still hard and I get flustered and confused on the phone, especially if J isn’t around. On the plus side, I did get to go out to the Post Office and do some shopping which at least broke the day up a bit. I spent the afternoon doing a very boring printing and scanning job that is not yet finished. After work I went to Sainsbury’s and was so distracted and confused that I nearly left my food behind. I also collected my glasses with new lenses and left my spare pair so the new lens prescription can be put in them. I have to remember to wear the spares on our wedding day otherwise my glasses will turn tinted from the sunlight/camera flash (the everyday glasses have reaction lenses, but the spares don’t).

I was exhausted again on Friday. I probably would have been OK if I could have had a mental health day (autism day?), but even minor Shabbat (Sabbath) preparation finishes me off on Fridays recently. I felt too exhausted to go to shul (synagogue) again, which upset me a bit. I feel as if I’m drifting away from the Jewish community, while still believing and practising Judaism privately, and the Purim anxiety is a part of this. I don’t want to do it, but it’s what my mental/autistic health seems to demand right now and I feel that if I go away, the community won’t come after me they way they would for someone more involved and connected. I’ve never really felt fully a part of the community, except maybe for two or three years in the shul I grew up in, before we moved. Three years out of nearly forty is not a good record.

My uncle is here for the weekend. We had a good time at dinner, but there are aspects of the family dynamic that I find uncomfortable. I mentioned the other day that E and Nephew joining the family has changed the family dynamic, which it has, but there’s been another, more subtle, shift for a decade or more that I don’t feel comfortable with, but it’s not really my place to do anything about it. The problem is that I get sucked in and say things that I later regret. Speaking of which, I said something completely different (unrelated to family stuff) that I immediately regretted for religious reasons. I am trying not to beat myself up about it and accept it was a slip of the tongue, but I expect myself to be perfect.

I had a headache that got bad enough that I took tablets for it on Shabbat (the rules about taking medication for minor ailments on Shabbat are complicated. In the past I was very strict with myself; now, as in other things, I’m trying to tell myself that sometimes it’s more religious to be more lenient. It’s hard, though). I lay on the bed for a bit after dinner because of the headache. Lying down made it worse, but I propped myself up by the headboard and covered myself with my weighted blanket and adjusted the Shabbat lamp so there was only a little light.

After a while the headache went and I wanted to do some Torah study before it got too late. Like last week, as it was late, I went for depth over length of time, studying some Talmud (reviewing the page I’m on) and a chapter of Shoftim (Judges). It took about forty minutes in total. After that, I read for fun for a bit, finishing Greenmantle and starting Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before going to bed.

Today was more of the same, really, until Shabbat ended and the anxieties I mentioned above kicked in.

***

I worry that I over-shared on the Orthodox Conundrum blog Facebook group on Friday. There was  a thread about Orthodox men not wanting to date women who study more Talmud than them, or better than them, and I asked if the reverse is also true, wondering if I got set up on so few dates in the Orthodox community because I didn’t go to yeshivah (rabbinical seminary). To be fair, there were plenty of other plausible explanations for my lack of dates, but, as you know, I’m paranoid that my failure to go to yeshivah or to study Talmud at a high level marks me as a “bad (frum/religious) Jew” even though I know that the idea of universal male yeshivah study or Talmud study for all but an elite is a product of not much more than the last century, not the entirety of Jewish history.

Perhaps relatedly, on Friday night/Saturday morning, I dreamt I was back in school. I had done my BA and MA, but, somehow, not my A-levels, so I had to come back to do them, but I was in the middle of burnout again and felt I couldn’t finish the course. Of course, I probably did have burnout when I did my A-levels, but it was mild compared with the burnouts during my BA and MA. I think the dream is about me trying to come to terms with not being the academic success that my achievements at school led me to think I would be, particularly in terms of secular academia, but also in terms of the frum community, where so many people seem to be able to study Talmud at a much higher level than me and where this seems to count more than other types of religious knowledge and perhaps even than being a good person in some circles.

***

It turned out that I did not copy all my music (or my non-classical music) to my phone. I need to delete some phone apps and try again…

Chatty?

Today was ninety days until the wedding! That seems like an important milestone. Tonight is Rosh Chodesh Adar (New Moon of the Hebrew month of Adar). This means that Purim is on the way, as I mentioned yesterday. It’s supposed to be the start of a time of joy, but for me it’s worries about Purim and then Pesach. Pesach anxiety is getting better, although I imagine there will always be some, but Purim, as I said yesterday, seems quite intractable, with anxiety about a whole bunch of different things.

Yesterday I felt pretty exhausted and depressed. I felt I should skip volunteering this morning and take a mental health day, but E said I feel good after volunteering, so I decided to go and just take a mental health afternoon.  I don’t really have a lot to say about it. I got home lateish. I felt a little faint, which seems to happen more often lately. I’m beginning to wonder if I should go to the GP and ask for a diabetes test (faint = low blood sugar = possible diabetes is my reasoning), but it’s so hard to get an appointment even for something as easy as this. I suppose it’s designed to deter frivolous appointments, but I fear a negative side-effect is deterring the genuinely sick. I don’t have a lot of diabetes symptoms, so it’s probably not an issue, but it’s starting to worry me a bit.

I wanted to have a mental health day, without work or wedding stuff or too many chores. I did some Torah study, worked on my novel plan (I wanted to do this, but I still had to disconnect the internet to focus!) and cooked macaroni cheese for dinner. I Skyped E too, but that was about all I did. I feel I should have done more, but maybe I shouldn’t feel like that.

***

I wonder if I’ve become overly chatty online. I left a blog comment the other day that was probably a mistake, about autism in the frum world, really on a post that was only tangentially about that; I leave lots of comments on the autism forum, including telling someone who hadn’t posted for a while and who I have not really interacted with that I was glad she was OK as I had been wondering where she had gone; and leaving a 400 word Facebook comment (almost as long as this post) on the Orthodox Conundrum group. On the other hand, E did say I should talk more as I seem weirder when I’m just silent all the time. I feel I should probably be more vocal in the real world and less vocal online.

***

I didn’t mention that I picked up a Terry Pratchett book from a free bookshelf yesterday (I Shall Wear Midnight). I haven’t read any Pratchett for a while. When I was a teenager, I was a massive fan, but as I grew up I got put off by his vocal support for assisted dying while refusing to believe it could ever be abused and also by realising that he just wasn’t as clever as I once thought. (I can actually pinpoint the joke that did this. Interesting Times features a country that is sort-of Medieval China, and we’re told the similar Great Wall is really to keep dissidents in rather than keep invaders out, as invaders would have ladders. Aside from the fact that getting an army up ladders isn’t easy, and that Medieval rulers didn’t really care about dissidents in the way modern dictators do, the fact is that the Great Wall of China was built to stop raiding horsemen from the Asian Steppe. Horses can’t climb ladders. When I read that, I wondered if he wasn’t actually as clever as I thought.) However, the book was free and I should probably be reading humour if I want to write a satire, even if this is fantasy humour rather than science fiction.

Getting Better All the Time

I got up about 10.30am today, which was earlier than I expected, as I thought I would be exhausted after yesterday. However, I wasted what I had of the morning as I was too exhausted for anything other than internet stuff. I’m not sure if I’m going to go to shul (synagogue). I want to and I don’t feel exhausted to the point of illness, as I have on recent Fridays, but I do still feel exhausted, am getting the “headrush”-type feeling I associate with autistic exhaustion and I am at least trying to notice the signals my body is sending me and not try to push through them in the belief that “doing something” is always better than “doing nothing” (relaxing/reading/watching TV or literally just lying still and recuperating from the noise and busyness of the world).

I had a Pesach anxiety dream last night, but it was a “can we make Pesach in time?” dream, not a Pesach OCD dream, which was good.

It feels like my life is getting better lately, but not uniformly. I don’t think any of it is getting worse.

Good Things

Getting fully married soon is good. Wedding planning is eating up a lot of energy, with less for cooking and housework and none for writing, but I can live with that for a few more months.

Volunteering has become my main social activity. I don’t say much, but do occasionally make a funny remark and people laugh. It’s good being around people. It’s slightly awkward that they’re all twenty years or more older than me and retired (hence time for volunteering), but it means I’m not comparing myself to them. I don’t expect people of my parents’ generation to be living lives like mine. I often get on better with older people anyway.

Work is difficult, but bearable and at least my boss seems to tolerate my mistakes. I do worry that he secretly thinks I’m an idiot, but I’m trying not to care.

I’m trying to give myself more breaks and more relaxation time (at home, not yet at work), as indicated by my remarks about possibly missing shul today. It’s hard. As I said in a comment today on Paula’s blog, since my teenage years, I’ve found it hard to set aside more than half an hour or so at a time for reading fiction or TV; it feels too much like “wasting” time that should be spent on something “productive.” Yet not relaxing means I can sucked into hours of internet procrastination instead (much of it designed to make me feel angry and threatened), because of the addictive “junk food” nature of internet links (“Just one more”).

Getting There

I have a lot to do still regarding proofreading. I want to set up profiles on more sites and chase the person I worked for to get a review, although I think it’s probably too late (I’ve been focused on the wedding). I know I have a lot to do to build my brand before this becomes a significant revenue stream and it does seem that it will take a long time to do, maybe never.

I am accepting that my novel(s) may not ever get published. I would like to write more despite this, even if it’s just for E. I still need to type up notes for my new novel, plus research and actually write the thing. Unfortunately, this all takes time, time I don’t currently have. However, I enjoy just thinking about it, so that’s good!

I feel like I fit in a bit better on the autism forum and am connecting with some people, although it can be hard, especially when I try not spend too long on there. I do wonder how some people can say that they feel an affinity with all autistics and no allistics, which seems very strange and stereotyping (and possibly an example of autistic black and white thinking). I find autistics, even high-functioning ones, to be as varied in personality and interests as any other cross-section of the population, albeit with certain traits or interests that come up perhaps a bit more than in general society.

There is sometimes drama on the forum, but I try to stay out of it. It can be hard to work out what I should post there and what on my blog. I definitely feel that the Jewish aspect of my autism is not really recognised there and there is still some Impostor Syndrome regarding traits that others have that I don’t, whether it’s the fact that I have some ability to make small talk (even though I don’t like it and it’s draining) or the fact that I increasingly think I like reasonably bright light and strong contrasts rather than preferring muted lights as most autistics prefer. Again, the fact that many people on the forum assume their experience is universal for autistics is probably not surprising when you consider that difficulty with perspective-taking is a classic autistic trait.

Still Struggling

Religious life is still hard. Going to shul is draining and I don’t always have kavannah (concentrate) well there. Davening (praying) at home can actually be much better on that score. Shacharit (Morning Prayers) are a lost cause, but the other services can be better, although I’ve got a long way still to go.

I am doing quite a bit of Torah study most days, and fairly difficult stuff at the moment, not fluff (Talmud, The Guide for the Perplexed, Aviva Gottleib Zornberg’s Torah essays which combine traditional Jewish thought with contemporary literary criticism, philosophy and psychology). Even so, I feel like I should do more, although maybe I don’t need to.

I am also aware that I’m going to have to compromise religiously with E when we get married, but I’m trying to keep in perspective the fact that the compromises will largely be on chumrot (stringencies) or, if not, will be for the purpose of shalom bayit (domestic harmony), which is a legitimate halakhic (Jewish legal) concern that can counter-balance some laws, even some biblical ones. I also think that E and I will grow together religiously in ways that I can’t manage alone e.g. I think she will help me get back to going to shul on Shabbat mornings and take more of a role in the community. I am also trying to stay aware that I can legitimately make compromises with myself over religious engagement because of my autism e.g. less shul attendance, pressuring myself less to daven, or daven with kavannah or study Torah when exhausted. I find it hard not to strictly “follow the rules,” (which may not always be actual halakhah, but the customs or even whims of the community) which may be another autistic thing and not halakhically necessary.

I do worry a bit about how E and I will cope if we have children, as we would like, given our respective “issues,” but I think first we need to see how we cope as a couple!

I do still have some Impostor Syndrome in different areas, particularly with my Judaism, but also feeling I’m not autistic “enough” or not coping with life “enough,” but I guess things are getting better overall.

Overwhelm (Again)

It’s been a quiet few days, so I haven’t posted. I had a headache on and off on Friday, not a bad one, but a persistent one despite medication. That contributed to my not going to shul (synagogue) in the evening, combined with the usual end of week exhaustion.

Shabbat (the Sabbath) was quiet. I did some difficult religious study: a bit more of The Guide for the Perplexed, focusing on an argument for the existence of God (largely irrelevant now, as based on an Aristotlean worldview that is no longer held); a complex Talmudic section that I will have to go over again to have any kind of chance of understanding it; and an interesting, if depressing, article I had printed out from Rabbi Jonny Solomon about the lack of interiority and spirituality in the Modern Orthodox community.

The fire alarm went off on Saturday morning. Rather disturbingly, even though it’s right outside our rooms, neither Mum nor I woke up, although I had a weird dream about the fire alarm going off. Dad at least woke up. Still, even though I knew I’m a heavy sleeper, it’s disturbing that it failed to wake us. What if there had been a real fire? I’ve never been so worried about not being woke…

I didn’t get much response on the piece I posted on the autism forum about being Jewish and autistic, just two comments, plus the first commenter responded to the second one. There was one interesting comment where the commenter said they’re autistic, queer and blind and that while there are a lot of queer people in the autistic community, they feel their blindness separates them from everyone else in a fundamental way and suggested that’s similar to how I feel about being Jewish. It’s not a perfect analogy (I don’t see my Judaism as a disability), but I suspect there’s a lot of truth to it in terms of feeling fundamentally different and unknown, even unknowable, in a community that prides itself on its tolerance. I guess it feels that some things, while not intolerable, are inconceivable to outsiders.

On the plus side, a couple of people friended me on the autism site, including the person I tried to friend weeks ago.

I woke up at 9.45am today (Sunday) and got up rather than going back to sleep, mostly because I was too hungry to sleep. It was good to get up a bit earlier, even if I spent a long time online before getting dressed. I feel I wasted the day, although I did manage to do several things, and I was fighting against low mood/depressive and anxious feelings for much of the time.

I did some Torah study. Unfortunately, it’s a very difficult parsha (portion) this week, mostly legal, with complicated and unclear syntax in many places and, to make matters worse, lots of places where Jewish law rules completely differently to the apparent literal meaning of the text, while still basing itself on it. I also managed to quickly put together a “Save the date” note on Canva (I hope to send it out before bed) and went for a walk. I didn’t manage anything else, although I would have liked to have done so, but maybe that’s enough for a depressed and anxious day.

***

E set up an online countdown timer to our wedding.  I look at it quite a lot. I’m glad we’re down to double digits in terms of days now, but ninety-eight days is still nearly three months. I miss E a lot. She’s hoping to get some idea of when she’s coming to the UK soon. It will be good when we’re in the same house, even if we aren’t sharing a bedroom/bed.

***

I’ve managed to fix the wedding Dalek, at least for now, but I worry it’s going to be too fragile to take to the wedding. Sigh.

***

I posted the following on the autism forum.

I struggle to advocate for myself in the workplace. I have to deal with things like using multiple documents at once or doing things with multiple steps which is hard with executive functioning issues. I have lists of what to do, but I still make mistakes sometimes, not least because I don’t always remember to look at the lists. I also have to make and take phone calls occasionally. Periodically, there are days when I have to make a lot of important and very difficult phone calls, which means dealing with social anxiety, spoken word processing issues, telephone issues and problems talking to people and remembering the correct responses or even problem solving on the spot. That doesn’t happen too often, thankfully, but it did last week.

I feel uncomfortable with this aspect of the job, but I’ve had long periods of unemployment and don’t want to risk losing this job, which in other ways is good (relatively high pay considering the hours and workload; a very understanding and laid-back boss). When I try to think of possible adjustments, autistic rigidity kicks in and I feel like there are no adjustments I can ask for that would be both reasonable and useful. I don’t feel that asking not to use the phone is not [1] reasonable, given my contract. I actually don’t know what reasonable adjustments I would like, I just know that I feel a certain level of depression and anxiety in the workplace, not to mention feelings of inadequacy and overwhelm. I just feel I have to deal with it somehow or lose the job.

I would be grateful for any possible suggestions.

[1] I actually missed out the crucial word “not” in the forum post and couldn’t work out how to edit it! I had to add a comment to clarify.

Intersectionality

I just posted the following on the autism forum. I’m nervous about what response it might get, and I won’t find out for twenty-six hours or more because of Shabbat (the Sabbath).

I often feel that I don’t fit in anywhere. I know that’s a common feeling with posters here. People only feel comfortable around “neurokin.” However, I’ve never really felt that inherent connection with other autistic people. Partly it might just be me. I have often wondered if not fitting in has become so much a part of my personality that I unconsciously stop myself fitting in anywhere. That may be true. But I feel a lot of it is being Jewish, indeed an Orthodox Jew. It feels like I have two different identities. We live in an era of multiple, overlapping identities, but I feel like I have two identities that make me massively different to “normal” people, two identities that completely shape my sense of self and my outlook on the world, two identities that summon me to an inherent connection with others (neurokin/mishpachah (“family” i.e. other Jews).

The problem is, I feel torn. I can’t leave behind either identity and I wouldn’t want to leave behind Judaism (I’m honestly not sure about autism), but I feel like among other Orthodox Jews, I feel different because I’m autistic, and among other autistic people I feel different because I’m Jewish. And it’s hard to tell which identity is more stigmatised and misunderstood among outsides, autism or Judaism. (I should probably clarify that Jewish identity is multi-stranded. A person can be ethnically and culturally Jewish without being religiously Jewish, and, more rarely, vice versa. I happen to be all three, ethnically, culturally and religiously Jewish.)

Religious Orthodox Jewish identity brings with it for me so many different thoughts, beliefs, practices, insights, viewpoints, that I struggle sometimes to find common ground with people who aren’t frum (religiously Jewish). It’s not deliberate, we just view the world and live our lives very differently and it can be hard to find common ground.

That said, I have always had non-Jewish and Jewish-but-non-religious friends, so I guess the empirical evidence is that I can bridge the cultural gap in a way that most frum Jews are not willing or able to do (most Orthodox Jews socialise mainly if not entirely with other Orthodox Jews).

I’m just so lucky to have found my wife. She’s the only person who gets me 100%, or near enough (I don’t think anyone can know someone else 100%). She is Jewish, but she’s actually not as religious as I am, although she is interested in becoming more religious with me. But she’s Jewish AND geeky AND, while she doesn’t have a diagnosis, we suspect she might be autistic. And she just accepts me for who I am and lets me be me. She hits my “intersectionality” as well as anyone could, although it’s interesting that she isn’t as observant as me; I guess I feel that there really must be very few of us like that. I suspect a lot of autistic people raised frum stop being religious because being autistic in the frum world is so hard, practically and socially. Others probably go undiagnosed due to social stigma and the fact that the Orthodox community tends to lag somewhat behind the secular Western world in terms of social trends, so we may see awareness and diagnosis suddenly rise in ten to twenty years’ time.

I feel like I ought to do something to reach out to other frum autistic Jews, but I don’t know what. I’m on a couple of Facebook groups for autistic Jews (not just religious ones), but they’re pretty quiet. It really feels like there aren’t many people like me out there.

Overwhelm and Incompetence

Today was a bad day really from before I actually woke up. I awoke from a bad dream. I can’t remember it now, but I was feeling quite disturbed for a while. I remember thinking that my unconscious seems to have a better imagination than my conscious mind and that I need to find a way to tap into it. Then again, most of the dreams I remember are completely incoherent, so maybe not. I did feel quite anxious, although I felt better after eating breakfast.

I had to do the Very Scary Task again at work. I realised that the difficulty with this is only partly social anxiety. A lot is struggling to process what is said to me on phone and to deal with questions on the spot, as well as the fact that I still struggle to remember all the procedure, for reasons that I am unsure of (possibly some kind of psychological block on something I find frightening).

I also had to deal with other phone calls, a LOT of noise (building works in our building and one nearby, plus a group of schoolchildren visiting the building – not our office, but we could hear them) and various other issues I won’t go into here. At one point, I lost Wi-Fi and it took me a while to realise it had spontaneously switched to flight mode (or I had accidentally switched it somehow). I went to the bank, but was too overwhelmed by the people on one of the busiest streets in London. By the afternoon, the phone ringing was making me jump and even the printer was too loud. I felt overwhelmed and wanted to hide in the toilet, although I didn’t.

I did manage to go to the opticians after work and try to get new lenses in my spare glasses (I’ll get my main pair done afterwards). There was noise and it was very busy. I felt didn’t cope, but I got through it, so I guess I did cope.

I did manage to spend a lot of time decompressing when I got home without screens and that really seemed to help me feel better.

***

I spent some time today thinking that J must think I’m incompetent. It’s not just the mistakes I make (although there are a lot), but the hesitations, uncertainty and checking. If he asks me something, I answer positively, but then I worry if that was right and start to sound uncertain, so I then go and double-check, which looks unprofessional, even if I had answered correctly first time.  Work today just felt impossible and I remembered my boss in my further education library job who more or less told me that I wasn’t good enough.

This then spilled into wondering how I can get married when I feel I won’t contribute enough to the household. I don’t mind that E earns more than me, but I wish I earned more than I do. I really need to get some more proofreading work (which reminds me that I need to check I’ve been paid for the work I did, and to try to get a review for it). I know E loves me and wants to marry me anyway, but I still wish we were more financially secure.

This all led on to wondering if I should tell J that I struggle at work or ask for adjustments. J knows I’m autistic. If you recall, I had an article about being autistic in the Orthodox Jewish community published on a Jewish website, under my own name and with photos of me. I wasn’t so keen on the photos bit, but it is standard on that site for those kind of personal story essays. I didn’t think anything more of it, but about a day later J texted me to say he’d seen it. I had stupidly forgotten something that I say a lot, which is that the Jewish community is very small and we all know each other (J wasn’t the only person I knew to see it, but I still think it was the right decision).

The problem is that I don’t know what reasonable adjustments I could ask for. I don’t think it would be reasonable to ask to be excused from speaking to people on the phone or doing the Very Scary Task. They are too important for me not to do and the Very Scary Task only comes around infrequently (and I am slowly getting more adjusted to it). I’m not sure what exactly my problem is, just that often everything feels very overwhelming. I am still thinking about asking to work later in exchange for a mid-afternoon break.

***

The other thing I kept thinking about today is that I want help people, but I’m not very good at it. I don’t really want to go into detail about this here, though. Years ago a psychiatrist told me that I want to help, but I can’t because I don’t understand people and I think she said I never will and I just need to accept it (I wasn’t even known to be autistic at that stage). That feels very true, sadly. I guess E is the right person for me because I can understand her enough to give her what she needs.

***

I listened again to Burt Bacharach’s upbeat theme tune to Casino Royale – not the Daniel Craig film, but the largely forgotten 1967 spoof. I did this because I saw that he had died, and this is the only song of his I really know. Casino Royale is mostly awful, but I really like the theme, corny 60s tune though it is. If I was the kind of person who knew how to edit video and had a flagrant disregard for copyright, I would set the grim violence of the Daniel Craig Casino Royale to the jaunty 1967 Casino Royale theme. “He’s gonna save the world at Casino Royale!”

Less Than Brilliant

No proper post today, as my brain exploded some hours ago under the weight of work, mistakes at work, a commute home involving a not-quite hilariously offensive portrait of autism in a novel, a long wedding-planning Zoom and frequent bouts of apparent low blood sugar. I did write a reply to an article on the autism community about having autism being “brilliant”. I worry that I’ll get flamed there, but decided to post anyway, possibly because I’m operating without a brain. I thought I would post it here too so you can see what I’m talking about if I complain tomorrow about getting flamed.

***

(I’m going to get hated for this.)

Your mileage may vary. Or, my mileage.

I don’t really see my being autistic as “brilliant.” I’m not as negative about it as I was a year ago, but it still seems that, for me (I stress, FOR ME), the negatives massively outweigh the positives. Yes, it’s nice that I can name 300 Doctor Who stories in order (or could, before the last few years nearly destroyed my enthusiasm for my longest-standing special interest – I’m going to get hated for this too), but that doesn’t compensate for struggling to get and hold down a job, being unable to work full-time, giving up on the career I wanted because I couldn’t find a suitable workplace, struggling to make friends, not fitting into the religious community I want to be a part of, being increasingly unable to tolerate busy shops and public transport, etc. etc. etc. I just had a moderately difficult day at work (and not even a whole day) and an hour and a half wedding planning Zoom meeting and my head is ready to explode, and has been since about half-an-hour into the Zoom. This is not “brilliant.” Some of this we can blame on structural ableism (ugh, don’t like that phrase), but I’m not convinced all of it is in that category (another discussion for another time).

I don’t think allistics are horrible people living their lives in a totally alien way to how I would like to live mine. I know some nice, thoughtful, considerate allistics who are quite like me in terms of personality, but can do a full day of work or a trip to the shops without feeling that they’ve been wrestling a gorilla by the end of it. My point is that my personality is not the same as my autism and I don’t think the latter is necessarily responsible for all of the former.

If you can make your autism work for you, I’m very happy for you, but this is how I feel about MY autism. Basically, the only thing that is positive about my autism is that it’s very unlikely that my wife would have married me if I wasn’t like this: my “Renaissance Man” attitude (as my therapist put it) of having both religion and worldly knowledge and culture (although I’m not sure how autistic Renaissance Man really was – in some ways that seems the opposite of autism!). Which is obviously a massive positive, but I worry that for the very same reason, we are going to struggle, because I am never going to earn enough for our combined income to be enough for our needs. (My wife says she wants to be with me anyway. She’s amazing.)

If I can make the proofreading side hustle (ugh, don’t like that phrase either) I’m trying to set up work, then maybe I’ll feel more positive towards autism. My proofreading skills are probably another rare autistic gift, but like Superman near Kryptonite, they fail embarrassingly in the office, perhaps under the stress of masking. However, at the moment, I don’t feel great about the proofreading, as I struggle with the self-promotion and networking needed to succeed (again, not naturally autistic skills). But, as I said, if YOU think YOUR autism is a benefit, then I’m very happy for you (I mean that genuinely).

Wedding and Marriage Thoughts (Part 1?)

After some awkward back and forth between E and the rabbi we want to marry us, we managed to confirm a date/time for our chuppah (religious wedding)! It’s the 21 May (please God). I’m suddenly superstitious about saying things like “Please God!” which I don’t normally say. I’ve had some anxiety this afternoon that somehow the wedding won’t happen or we will have to move the date and all the friends and family from overseas that we want to invite (a big proportion of the small guest list) will lose money on their plane tickets and be angry with me.

There are probably some subsidiary anxieties, like learning to balance E and my parents. It still feels strange adjusting to having E rather than my parents as my primary emotional support after having lived with my parents for so long. I wasn’t that close to my parents as a teenager, but when I had my big breakdown/burnout/depression/whatever at university, they were shocked that I hadn’t told them what was happening to me, particularly that I was suicidal. After that I tried to keep them in the loop more, and I also realised it was safer to rely on them than friends who are more likely to get overload with my issues (as happened at university). I did also find professional support in therapists, psychiatrists and my rabbi mentor that I didn’t have in the big breakdown/burnout, which helped spread the load, but I still spoke to my parents about a lot of stuff.

I think E’s understanding of the world is closer to my own, so I’m pleased to be able to talk to her, but I guess it feels weird trying to work out exactly how close, emotionally and practically, I’ll be to my parents after I move out, especially as E’s parents will be on another continent, so not local for help, but I don’t want E to feel that my parents get more input to our lives than hers simply because they live closer. It’s particularly hard to confide more in E than my parents now, given that the time and distance gap makes it hard to contact her sometimes, whereas my parents are usually around in the house with me.

The wedding planning stuff probably took quite a bit of time. I went for a walk, which helped the anxiety a bit. It is hard still being long-distance, especially doing wedding planning. I did some Torah study, but not much else; wedding planning and anxiety took up a lot of time and emotional energy.

Wedding Venue Scouting

I had some sub-OCD thoughts last night. I call them “sub-OCD” rather than OCD, because, while they were OCD-type thoughts, I stopped them turning into obsessions, let alone compulsions. I just refused to think about them, which is the correct way to deal with these kinds of thoughts. Nevertheless, it was a bit of an effort and, rather than reading Dune to unwind before bed as I intended, I watched The Simpsons instead as I needed something more light and distracting. The feeling that I had to concentrate on not concentrating on the thoughts (if that makes sense) was still present when I woke up this morning and I worried that I would have over four months of this until the wedding, but it subsided after a while, which was good.

Dad and I went to a shul (synagogue) in Central London to scout out its potential as a wedding site. It wasn’t really suitable. It was a pretty enough shul, but there was not enough natural light or room. Dad and I had some awkward moments getting there. Dad was running late and I thought I would be good for once and not nag him. After about twenty minutes, I thought I should say something. It turns out he was waiting for me, even though I was waiting for him. Then I thought we were driving there, as Dad had said that he had found parking round there, but we went by Tube. I didn’t realise until we were driving to the station (Dad doesn’t like walking) and I didn’t want to ask to go back to get something to read, but I was a little bored on the trip. I would have liked to have done some Torah study on the trip, as I haven’t had much time today, and I wasn’t dressed as warmly as I would have been if I had known we were not going by car. I read some news articles on my phone, including a very long, very scary article about the state of the NHS that avoided the usual knee-jerk responses (“Evil Tory cuts,” “Too many managers,” etc.).

I am still struggling to communicate effectively and politely with Dad. I realised today that it’s no surprise that I struggle to talk to people when my parents are so talkative and I have to really push and assert myself to be heard when they are around otherwise they dominate the conversation. It’s hard to know what to do with a realisation like that, because obviously my parents aren’t going to change (if anything, both have become more talkative in recent years) and my social anxiety isn’t going to go away by itself. Again, I think I’m just waiting until I leave home.

I got a headache on the way home. I suspect it was a stress headache. It didn’t last too long, but I hope I don’t get stress headaches any time I do anything wedding-related! Because of that, and the fact that we left late, I didn’t do much else, just some dusting and a tiny bit of Torah study. I put away some of my bric-a-brac, mementoes of things and wargaming miniatures (except a few that I thought I painted particularly well). It felt like getting my life ready for adulthood and a shared life with E.

***

Chaconia’s comment the other day has left me a bit nervous about changing my medication right before I get married. Of course, I tried to see a psychiatrist to do this months ago, when I was thinking there was lots of time before my marriage, not least because E and I were operating on a worst case scenario of a six month wait for the visa. I don’t think I’ve been clinically depressed or had clinical OCD for some years, even if I have bad moments or even bad days. Really there isn’t a lot I can do about it now other than wait to see what happens.

Volunteering and Wedding Planning

I overslept a little this morning. It wasn’t surprising, as I stayed up late last night eating. I often feel hungry at bedtime, but sometimes I feel incredibly hungry and can’t get full and that’s what happened. I’m beginning to wonder if this is really hunger or habit or some kind of interoception issue. I know interoception is my go to autistic issue at the moment, but even so it might be the problem here. I only overslept by a few minutes, but I felt I had to rush to get ready on time. Then the bus was late, but I did manage to get to volunteering on time.

Volunteering was cold. The food bank is in a large garage area with no proper doors, just gates, and it’s freezing at the moment. In the summer it’s hot (although cooler than outside), in the winter it’s cold and much of the time it’s damp. I pack tins and other dry food with two other men, there are three women who pack fresh vegetables and a couple of people who pack toiletries and things like kitchen towels. The women who prepare the vegetables were able to work indoors, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us and it’s not really feasible to carry all the tinned food (etc.) upstairs and indoors anyway. We were a bit slow starting as things were not set-up for us to start straight away either. This meant that by the time we stopped for our coffee break, later than usual, the drivers who deliver the food parcels had arrived, so we didn’t get much of a break. I did eat a very nice, but very diet unfriendly, chocolate brownie. At least it was very small. Everyone was pleased that E got her visa.

I had a couple of moments that would have triggered kashrut OCD six years ago that I was unfazed by, which is good. I did unfortunately break a jar of jam. Someone had donated a bag of food that was left on a chair. I took out the packets of rice that were in there, but the jar of apricot jam rolled out of the bag and fell onto the concrete floor and smashed. My fault for leaving it on a curved chair. Odd donations of one or two jars of something aren’t hugely useful to us anyway as we donate in bulk, but I felt a bit bad.

***

I think there’s a WhatsApp group that the other volunteers are on that I’m not on, and I don’t know how to tactfully find out and ask to be put on it. I think I’m not on it because it was originally for planning a meal which I wasn’t going to, as it was going to be at a non-kosher restaurant, but now it’s just a communication channel. Suggestions for what I should do would be welcome.

***

I felt really tired by the time I got home. I must have been expending more energy than normal to keep warm as well as do the packing. It was a struggle to do anything in the afternoon. I did manage to cook dinner and to make a prioritised list of potential wedding venues.

***

More mistakes: I was cooking dinner and missed a step in the recipe. I managed to rectify it, and I tell myself I was tired and distracted, but it feels like yet another reason I can’t really function in the world like a ‘normal’ (read: neurotypical) person.

***

In the evening, we had a Zoom meeting to discuss E and my wedding: E, E’s parents, my parents and me. It went well. We got through a lot. We decided that getting married before Pesach (Passover) isn’t feasible, given that it will take a while for E to sort out her stuff and ship some to the UK, store others at her parents’ apartment and sell/donate the rest before she comes to the UK. It’s not permitted to get married for the first month or so after Pesach, so we will be getting married at the end of May (please God!), exact date to be decided on the availability of the rabbi and venue.

I did try to participate, but I found it hard to get heard sometimes. E’s father, who is more than a little like me, sent me a private message at one point saying something about us being quiet. I guess it’s good he connected with me, as I still worry that E’s parents see me as weird and overly religious. I’m not sure how to be myself while simultaneously appearing “normal.”

I did notice that when my Dad is speaking and starts to go off on a tangent, I start frowning quickly and automatically, which is probably why he gets annoyed at me for being inpatient. I’m not sure how I can fix something that is so instinctive.

***

I finished listening to an Intimate Judaism podcast I was listening to about sex and dating in the frum (religious Jewish) community in middle age or older (singles, divorcees, widows). They counted middle age as forties or above, so I just dodged the bullet on that one. Many parts of the frum community consider an “older single” any unmarried person over twenty-five.

E listened to the podcast too. She felt from listening to this that the frum community just makes people in this demographic needlessly miserable, by refusing to allow non-marital sex. I can see her point, and certainly some people in this demographic are miserable. I was miserable as a thirty-something celibate single before I met E, so I can only imagine what a forty- or fifty-year old single would how. That said, I’m not sure how much the frum community is contributing to this misery or how much the misery is just there from the situation. It’s not like sex-related misery, or celibacy-related misery, are unique to the frum world. I’ve seen plenty of men on the autism forum complain that they want girlfriends, or just hook-ups, but don’t know how to get them and so are really lonely. I think there are also autistic women who get pressured into sex they don’t really want (particularly via dating apps) in the hope it will lead to a relationship (doubtless these genders are sometimes reversed, but this is the way they usually present). Autistics are particularly vulnerable in this area because we often have poor social skills and a lot of naivety, but I think “single and miserable” is a wider demographic than any particular neurotype, religion or culture. Whether non-marital sex is allowed might help some people in this category, but not everyone, and for some it might make things worse by opening them to other pressures.

I don’t think halakhah (Jewish law) needs to permit non-marital sex, but the frum world does really need to do a lot more to include older singles, divorcees and widows generally, to accept them as adult individuals and active parts of the community and not as pity objects or people who are waiting to start their lives when they marry (or re-marry). In the Haredi world in particular, an unmarried forty year old is a “boy” or a “girl” whereas a married nineteen year old female (with or without baby) is a “lady” (the Haredi world prefers “lady” to “woman” for some reason, which I find slightly weird).

My Family and Other Anxieties

I feel overwhelmed with emotions that I’m struggling to feel and understand.

I’m happy about E getting her visa, but frustrated it’s going to be a while before E comes to the UK, let alone before the wedding. E needs to spend time in the States working out what to take to the UK, what to ship, what to leave with her parents and what to sell. I’m also nervous about the stress organising the wedding and finding somewhere to live will involve as well as what it will be like living as a married couple with my parents, which we’re probably going to have to do at first in order to get married as quickly as possible and not rush into getting the first flat we see.

I feel mildly anxious, the kind of mild anxiety I used to get every Sunday evening before school (although I didn’t recognise it as anxiety at the time; if I had, it would have been an alarm bell regarding my mental health), so maybe this is just that “start of the work week” anxiety, but it’s more likely wedding anxiety. Mum and Dad are already throwing ideas at me, which is nice, but overwhelming. Mum said she’s worried about having another heart attack; I certainly don’t see her being that involved, or the preparation being that stressful (although what do I know? It’s not like I’ve organised a wedding before).

I’m also stressed about Nephew’s baby blessing, which is taking up far too much of everyone’s time and energy. It’s not that big a thing in itself, although it’s been combined with a birthday meal for my sister (her birthday is in a little over a week). My parents have found a guest house that seems to allow them to be Shabbat- (Sabbath-) observant and is quite near to Sister and Brother-in-Law’s house. Unfortunately, they only have one room for the time in question. This has led to me being asked a lot of difficult questions like, “Would you be happy sleeping on Sister’s sofa even though they have a night nurse with them at the moment?” (No, and I wouldn’t be that happy sleeping in a house with an eight week old baby even without the nurse) and “Would you be happy sharing a room with Dad in the guest house while Mum sleeps on the sofa?” (No, because if I’m going to the family meal, I need alone time afterwards, not time with Dad). Other suggestions were sleeping in Nephew’s room (and presumably being woken every couple of hours when he needs feeding or changing) or staying with brother-in-law’s uncle and aunt who live down the road (no. Just, no). So it looks like my parents are going, but I’m staying home, which I’m sort of relieved about, but also sort of a sad about, as well as irrationally guilty, like I’ve made all these problems myself to sabotage things. I just hope no one falls out with me over this. Just think, we have only thirteen short years to sort out bar mitzvah arrangements…

E can’t understand why everyone in my family is making such a big thing out of this. I think her family is a LOT less sentimental about these little life-cycle events than my family is. I guess I was told from a young age that life-cycle things, and even anniversaries of life-cycle things (good and bad) are hugely important. For example, while many Jews observe the yortzeit, the anniversary on the Hebrew calendar, of a death, my parents, while not exactly observing them, are very aware of the English calendar dates, as well as the death dates of other, less close, relatives and I think even the anniversaries of things like dates when people went into hospital, which is morbid, in my opinion. Dad was really excited when it looked like Nephew might be born on the date of my paternal grandparents’ wedding anniversary, which I didn’t understand at all. To be honest, I think my natural inclinations are closer to E and her family on this.

The other thing stressing me is that a few things in the last few days have made me conscious that my parents are at an age where they are going to get ill a lot. There’s nothing serious going on, but a few minor (at the moment) things have made me realise this. It’s three years since Mum was diagnosed with cancer and eight or nine months since her heart attack, and either of those things could easily reappear. I feel that at the age of forty (nearly), I should be in a position where I can look after my parents and I’m really not, either financially or practically. They’re still looking after me. And E isn’t even going to be in the same country as her parents, and she’s an only child. So it’s vaguely scary stuff.

***

I spoke to my rabbi mentor about some of these things and also about some of my thoughts about other people judging me religiously. We spoke a bit about other people probably not being that judgmental, and it not really mattering what they think anyway. I feel like it’s going to take some time for me to internalise this, especially as I feel I have objective proof from past experience that some people in the frum (religious Jewish) world are judgmental and not inclined to view me favourably, although you could ask why I would want to please people who have no real connection to me and who seem predisposed to be unpleasant to others.

This ties in a bit with what I was talking to my therapist about regarding unmasking, so I may bring this up with her too.

Other than that, I went for a walk (I decided I had too much to do to go for a run) and did some proofreading (unpaid, to try to get a review) and a bit of Torah study (I lost track of how much). I feel annoyed that I didn’t do much else, particularly as I really need to dust my room and would  have liked some time to work on my novel, although realistically that’s going to go on the backburner for the next few months.

The Visa

The good news: E’s visa has arrived! So now we can plan the wedding in earnest. It will be a while before she can even come of the UK, as she needs to work out what she’s shipping here, what will stay with her parents and what will be sold/given away/thrown away. It’s a bit frustrating, as I was focused on this stage for so long that I almost forgot there was a long way to go afterwards and that she wouldn’t be able to get here for a while. At least now we can begin to move things on.

Otherwise, it’s not been a great couple of days. I was exhausted yesterday. I still made it to shul (synagogue), but felt really tired afterwards. I did more than an hour of Torah study after dinner, but, once I’d also included time thinking about the implications of what I was reading, I didn’t have long to read for fun before feeling too tired and having to go to bed.

I don’t think I slept well and I woke up exhausted again, after dreaming that the next episodes of Doctor Who were really amazing (which I do not currently expect it to be, given the return of David Tennant, Catherine Tate and Russell T Davies). I managed to avoid sleeping in the afternoon, but did lie down for forty minutes and felt like I struggled to do much Torah study, although I think I actually did a reasonable amount.

I struggled a lot with feeling religiously inadequate over Shabbat (the Sabbath). I won’t go into the whole train of thought. I realised a lot of it is related to how other people see me, which is probably due to autism and social anxiety as much as how religious I actually am. I know that it doesn’t matter what other people think, even if they are important rabbis, but I find it does still matter to me.

After Shabbat was over, I found the text E had sent me about the visa and sent out some texts and emails about that. I was feeling tired and surprisingly a bit low, which I think is primarily exhaustion, and I just wanted to vegetate in front of the TV. I ended up watching GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan’s debut James Bond adventure. It has a slightly uncertain tone as the film makers tried to work out where James Bond fitted in a post-Cold War, post-feminism world. Nice character parts for a young-looking Robbie Coltrane and Joe Don Baker (still being typecast as eccentric CIA agents a decade after classic BBC eco-thriller Edge of Darkness).

As for baby blessing news, it continues to get more and more complicated. Watch this space. The uncertainty is stressing me out, as are some health concerns my parents have (both have separate concerns). I don’t want to go into details, but it’s confusing and potentially worrying and I don’t know what to feel right now.

Sex, Friends, Books (No, the Genie Didn’t Give Me Three Wishes)

I had my last chatan (bridgegroom i.e. marriage) class last night. I think there might be another one closer to the wedding (no, still no news on the visa). I learnt more than in the previous one, although I still struggled to work out if I was expected to say anything and if so, what. I did wonder what someone who isn’t already committed to observing at least some of the laws of taharat mishpacha (family purity) would make of it, particularly if they were already having sex with their fiancée, as, realistically, many couples getting married through the United Synagogue would be. I don’t know whether taharat mishpacha contributes to keeping marriages fresh the way that it’s often claimed. Probably it sometimes does, but not always. I’m committed to the idea for religious reasons, regardless of any other benefits. I am, as a rule, sceptical of the idea of non-religious benefits from mitzvot (commandments) such as the purported (and mostly spurious) health benefits of kashrut (the dietary laws). Inasmuch as I see non-religious benefit in taharat mishpacha, it’s to stop men pestering their wives for sex when they’re on their period. I guess my view is different to most people’s anyway; if you’ve been celibate until the age of thirty-nine, abstaining from sex for two weeks a month doesn’t seem particularly daunting. It’s the being able to have sex for two weeks a month bit that is novel.

***

This morning neither of my alarms went off, for some reason, so I overslept by quarter of an hour, although I hurried and got to work on time. Work was busy again as it’s the time of year when most people pay their membership fees. I went to the bank and paid in fifty cheques to the astonishment of the clerk until she realised we are a charity, not a business, although we’re not a typical charity (“communal organisation” would probably be a better term), hence the membership fees.

I came home and intended to spend some time unwinding without screens, but went online instead. Big mistake. After a while, I felt ill from too much screen time, which was my fault, and from not eating which was not my fault, as dinner was very late. I hope E’s visa comes soon so we can set up home together; like me, but unlike my parents, she prefers to eat dinner early.

I would have liked to do some more Torah study or novel work after dinner, but felt too exhausted. I’d like to read some more of Dune before bed (I’m about three-quarters of the way through now), but don’t know if I’ll have the energy/brainpower. I’d rather not push myself too hard and burn out tomorrow, although it may be too late for that by now.

***

In therapy we touched on a subject that I’ve discussed a bit with E, about the fact that I mask my autism (as a general rule, masking in autistics tends to result in burnout in the end). I try to be what people expect me to be, to do what is “normal” or “right” rather than – well, I don’t actually know. I can’t really say “rather than what I want to do,” as I don’t actually know what I would do without masking, because I’ve been doing it from a very young age, maybe four or five, but more so from adolescence.

I don’t really know what I would like to do or who I really think I am. I remember Ashley saying a while back to imagine how I would behave if I was on a desert island just with E. It’s hard to tell, as I’m not terribly imaginative in that way. I probably wouldn’t be that different from how I am with E now, but it’s hard to map that on to interactions with other people. I would probably be a bit freer to voice opinions, including controversial ones, to make jokes or explain things to people.

***

The flipside of this is the online autism forum, where I’m beginning to wonder if people are deliberately not “talking” to me. Other people seem to have conversations, but that rarely happens to me. There’s a core of people who seem to connect and refer back and forth to each other and I can’t seem to get “in” to the group. Possibly they comment a lot more than I do, I’m not sure, so maybe it’s a visibility thing. I try to only say things if it’s going to be helpful or incisive, I don’t just joke around. And, as I mentioned the other day, I tried to “friend” someone on there, but he didn’t respond and I don’t know if he didn’t see it or didn’t want the contact.

The worst thing is, because I’ve mentioned being an Orthodox Jew a number of times, I wonder if that’s why people aren’t responding, not so much from antisemitism, but because they have an image of Orthodox Jews being judgmental, ascetic, humourless, and who knows what else. In a word, “Other.”

Probably I should stay away from there. I feel I’m on the forum and the Orthodox Conundrum Facebook group too much at the moment, trying to get noticed, in a “I want to be friendly and talk to people” way, not an ego way, but I don’t think it’s really working. I look forward to E being here; hopefully I won’t need to feed my social needs in this unhealthy way when we can interact normally like most couples instead of through WhatsApp texts and limited Skype time.

***

I found a substack by someone who experienced child abuse in the Jewish community. I am not sure whether to follow it. I don’t know why I have this fascination with abuse survivors. Is it because I dated one? I suspect not. I think I became more aware through being in group therapy-type spaces (support groups etc.). It made me realise how many survivors are out there, and how invisible they are unless they tell you what happened to them.

I worry that it’s some kind of morbid emotional vampirism, as I’ve mentioned before. I think a more likely reason is that for decades, I’ve been aware of myself on the margins of the frum community because of neurodivergence and mental illness. Somewhere along the line, I got interested in other people on the margins of the frum world, and abuse survivors are about the most marginal people there, often actively thrown out by people who don’t want to believe that abuse happens in the community, and that it’s often the most powerful, influential or “religious” people who perpetrate it. Hence, I am more interested in survivors from frum backgrounds. What I have experienced isn’t anything like what they have experienced, but I see some similarities about feeling unwanted in the community, feeling anger at being marginalised, wanting to fit in, but not knowing how, feeling shame just for being who you are…

“Tali Steine” writes: “My light speaks to me, enveloping me with goodness, with beauty, with love. You aren’t bad or worthless, she says. This wasn’t your fault… You don’t have to carry this shame.” I feel if she can tell herself this, then I should be able to tell myself. But somehow I can’t. I feel, “If I suffered as much as she did, I could say it wasn’t my fault, because it would clearly be disproportionate to anything I might have done, but I haven’t, so maybe it is my fault.”

I’m still not sure what to do about the substack.

***

I’m a bit stressed at all the books on my To Read shelf, particularly those in series. Herewith, a list of book series I’m in the middle of at the moment. To qualify, it has to be a series where there is reasonable continuity beyond one recurring character and I have to want to read the whole series; I’d like to read all of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot stories, and all of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey stories, but the links between stories in these series are slight and the series are long enough that I doubt I’ll read all of them (I think Christie wrote something like seventy-nine mystery/thriller stories, plus half a dozen pseudonymous romances and a couple of memoirs).

James Bond: I figure these just about have enough continuity to qualify. I’m reading them in a completely random order, for various reasons. I’ve got about two thirds of the way through the series in two years or so, so I guess I like them… I currently have copies of Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me on my To Read shelf, then there are another three to read after that. In recent years, a bunch of people have written other James Bond books, but at the moment I only plan on reading Ian Fleming’s ones.

Dune: I just started this a few weeks ago, but I do want to see how it plays out, even though it consists of two trilogies (or one hexalogy) of very long books.

Harry Potter: I’ve read the first two and I have most of the others and I will read them, but I’m not in a huge hurry, as I felt the first two were a bit over-rated. On the other hand, I like the word “Azkaban,” so I’ll probably read book three sooner rather than later.

A Wrinkle in Time: I’m not sure what the overarching title for this is, so I’ve just gone with the title of the first one. I read it a couple of months ago. It was OK, but I’m not sure whether I’ll read the others. As with Harry Potter, it seems to clearly be a children’s series and I wonder a bit why so many adults read it.

Robot/Galactic Empire/Foundation: in the 1940s (I think; I’m too tired to check), Isaac Asimov wrote three science fiction short story series, collected into books: the Robot, Galactic Empire and Foundation series. The three series were totally unconnected (technically, you could argue that he originally wrote two very different series of a robot stories, some short stories and longer murder mysteries with a human and robot detective team) [EDIT: Wikipedia tells me that there were light connections between the Galactic Empire and Foundation stories from the start]. Then he stopped writing them for decades, but in the 1980s, he went back and expanded the Robot and Foundation stories and tried to join them together, with the Galactic Empire stories in the middle, into one big future history sequence.

I’ve read the Robot and Foundation series and I keep thinking I should read the Galactic Empire books (there are only three novels and a short story), but I’ve never been that enthused by the concept. The Galactic Empire was the only series he didn’t later expand to make the connections clearer and I feel it will be disconnected and galactic empires don’t really grab my attention, unlike the premises of the Robot and Foundation series. But I also feel I should read them while re-reading the other books, as a lot of the connections between the books and the overarching narrative went over my head on first reading (I’m not actually sure what the best reading order is: internal or external chronology). I should also say that, as an end to this massive series of about fifteen books over five decades, Foundation and Earth was really weird. Not exactly bad, but weird, with a strange “The end… or is it?” moment just when it seemed finished that makes me feel vaguely negative about the whole sequence. On the other hand, Asimov is a light read, so I could probably get through fifteen of his books in the time taken to read the six Dune novels.

Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy: technically, I haven’t started this yet, but I got the first two volumes from the free book box a few weeks ago and I’d like to read them, but I feel I ought to make progress on some of the other series first.

Richard J. Evans’ Third Reich trilogy (I didn’t say this was only for fiction series!): I still have the third book in this series to read, The Third Reich at War but I know it will be the hardest, given that it deals with the bloodiest war in human history and is permeated by the Holocaust (the Holocaust has its own chapter, but Evans says in the introduction that it’s really present in every chapter because it was so tied to the Nazi war aims and conduct). I actually have a big book on the Soviet Union to read afterwards, because I told myself to concentrate on one totalitarian dictatorship at a time! Thankfully, that’s a one-volume history.

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

I have heard that we have a fixed amount of self-control. You can practise self-control to increase the amount you have over time, but at any moment there are limits to how much is open to you (I wonder if this is still considered valid or if it’s one of those social psychology findings that’s been found to be unrepeatable).

I feel like I’ve been struggling with self-control for the last few months, in terms of eating more junk (not a huge amount, but I really would like to lose some weight, even if my weight gain was from medication) and going to bed later. Probably buying books too. I think I’m using up all my self-control waiting for E’s visa to arrive and lose control on other areas. Have I mentioned that I miss E?

***

I’ve been in my job for over two years and I still can’t use the phones properly. When someone calls, the call automatically goes through to the phone on J’s desk. Only if he’s using that does the phone on my desk ring. This means that if the phone rings while he’s out, I have to hurry over to his desk, answer the phone and then often transfer it back to my phone so I can do stuff on my computer for the caller. Except, as happened today, I still can’t get the hang of how to transfer calls. I cut someone off twice; the third time, she gave me her number and asked me to call her back, which was embarrassing.

My phone doesn’t work properly anyway and we were going to experiment with moving the phones around. I’m in without J next Tuesday, so I might play around with them, but I’m worried we’ll end up with my phone as the default and I’ll have to take all the calls. I guess it will be good exposure therapy for my phone anxiety, but most of the calls are for J and I worry I would cut them off transferring to him.

***

I led Ma’ariv (Evening Prayers) in shul (synagogue) today. I didn’t really shake, but I was glad we were in the small Beit HaMidrash and not the larger main shul so I didn’t have to project my voice.

***

I feel that I’m being drawn slowly towards autism activism in the frum (religious Jewish) community without knowing what to do or how to do it and without feeling that I have the time, energy or skill-set to do it. I also feel the word “activist” is overused. Every journalist, writer, artist, musician and academic claims to be an “activist” these days. As they said on the Deep Meaningful Conversations podcast I listened to the other day about Sarah Schinerer, sharing something on social media does not make you an activist!

Dare I say it, I think the world might be in a better shape if there were fewer people being active and more being still and thinking. Don’t just do something, stand there.

***

I was thinking a bit about spirituality and alexithymia (inability to recognise or understand one’s own emotions, which I have). I struggle to define, understand or experience spirituality. Maybe it’s a nebulous, abstract concept that many autistics would struggle with. Maybe it’s because I didn’t go to yeshivah (rabbinical seminary) and meet super-spiritual religious leaders who could give me experiential proof of it. Or maybe alexithymia stops me recognising when I experience spirituality or simchah (joy) e.g. simchah shel mitzvah (the joy of performing a religious commandment) or simchah shel Yom Tov (the joy of a festival). I feel my religious life is performed without joy, yet it doesn’t exactly feel “joyless” in a painful way, so maybe I’m feeling something I can’t recognise.

It doesn’t help that the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world sees spirituality in withdrawal from the wider world, while Modern Orthodoxy sees spirituality in bringing Jewish values to the wider world. I prefer the latter, but perhaps this is harder to notice and feel; it’s certainly in many ways harder to do. (This is the fundamental internal conflict of the Jewish people, the conflict between Leah and Rachel, which is later the conflict between Yosef and Yehudah (Joseph and Judah) and then between the Southern Kingdom of Yehudah and Northern Kingdom of Yisrael (Israel), but I don’t have time to elaborate.)

***

On the autism forum, someone asked who or what we identify with. Almost everyone who responded put animals or nature, then the marginalised and disadvantaged. Most people responding felt that they struggled to connect with most other human beings.

I think my response will not be popular:

The short answer is “Almost no one.” The longer answer:

As Franz Kafka said, “I have hardly anything in common with myself”.

1. My wife. She is genuinely the only person who really “gets” me and is on the same wavelength, so I can unmask with her.
2. Intellectuals, particularly ones who are dead, eccentric and/or Jewish, most especially those who were probably neurodiverse or mentally ill.
3. Lonely people. I would say “marginalised” etc., but it sounds awkward.
4. Children (but only quiet, well-behaved ones).
5. I do genuinely try to care about everyone and feel obligation to care for them.

I don’t feel any connection with animals. They often frighten me. I find them unpredictable, especially dogs. I didn’t have any pets (except fish) as a child, plus I’ve been attacked by dogs and by a duck and twice had apples stolen from my hands from goats, so maybe that’s it.

I should really have put “Other Jews” in there before “everyone,” but I didn’t want to get into an argument about whether it’s OK to care about some people more than others (Judaism says it’s human nature to extend compassion outwards from the family to the community to the nation to the world, but lots of people would disagree).

I suspect there is a part of me that wants not to fit in, that looks for difference and existential incomprehension instead of finding common ground. I never feel more Jewish than when with non-Jews or less autistic than when with other autistics. I need to find a way to move past this if I want to make close friends.

***

Ugh, I’ve been online too long and now it’s midnight and I’m exhausted (QED regarding staying up late due to poor self-control). It will be good when E comes to the UK and at least some of my life can move offline.

First Drafts

I had a dull day at work without J, who is on annual leave (I’d say holiday, but he’s at home, using up unused holiday days before they expire on 31 January). I had to make a phone call which I handled badly, or at least not as well as I would have liked. Other than that, it was mostly sorting old papers again, but at least I’m making some progress with it, however slight. Tomorrow I need to go to the bank before the end of the month, which is usually the highlight of my working month, except in January when I usually go multiple times as people send so many membership fee cheques in (some people still write cheques, particularly as our members tend towards the elderly and technophobe).

After waiting fifteen minutes and having the rabbi make some phone calls, we got a minyan (prayer quorum) for Minchah (Afternoon Prayers), but someone had to leave at the end so we couldn’t daven Ma’ariv (say Evening Prayers) and had to do that at home instead. It’s hardly the worst problem ever, but it was frustrating. The minyan is usually made up of people who work in offices locally, as there isn’t much of a local Jewish population, and at the moment many people are on holiday.

***

As usual, I read a Torah study book on the Tube in to work, but I skimmed How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by science fiction author Orson Scott Card at lunch and on the way home. A lot of it is intuitive, or related to types of science fiction I have no intention of writing (at the moment), and much of the rest I suspect I picked up from another book he wrote about writing technique. I’ve never been sure how much you can teach writing, or any art. I guess there’s a part which is technique, which can probably be taught as a craft, and another part that is raw talent that has to be honed by actually writing, if you’re lucky enough to have it.

One thing that did interest me was the idea that you might need to do a first draft to try out ideas and then rewrite it into something completely different. This was shocking to me, as my English teacher at school used to insist that a first draft was 99% of the final product. Talking of a “rough draft” was even worse, and anyone saying that to him would be told, “Rough is what the doggie says.” Similarly, Steven Moffat, the greatest of the Doctor Who new series writers and showrunners (in my humble, but controversial, opinion) says that a first draft is most of the work; the subsequent drafts are just polish. And who am I to argue with the author of Blink and Heaven Sent?

It’s a strange concept for me to get my head around: a draft that I go into knowing very little of it will survive into later drafts is just not how I have written up until now (although part of me wants to perform a drastic re-write on my first novel one day). I can see that it makes sense for science fiction or fantasy in a way that it might not with more realistic fiction. With these genres, as well as the usual plot and characterisation common to all fiction, there’s a lot of literal world-building to test, finding rules for an environment and for pseudo-science or magic that are consistent and don’t cheat the reader or make things too easy for the hero. I can see it might be easier doing that on paper than in your head, but it is a paradigm shift for me, even if I was already tentatively going down that path.

A related question is research. I want my book to involve virtual reality (like Meta), but realise I know very little about actual contemporary virtual reality to extrapolate from. My instinct is to search bookshops for non-fiction about it as well as famous science fiction books like Neuromancer and other classics from the cyberpunk sub-genre (I’ve read the seminar cyberpunk short story Johnny Mnemonic. But don’t mention The Matrix or I’ll scream. It’s an over-rated pile of Philip K. Dick fanfic). But maybe it’s better to just write at this stage and look at other people’s thoughts (real-world and fiction) after I’ve got something down on paper. That will also save my bank balance and give me more time to read the BIG PILE OF OTHER BOOKS I’ve acquired lately.

***

The baby blessing has come up again. This is the family event Sister and Brother-in-Law are planning for next month, with attendance at their shul (synagogue), at the communal refreshments afterwards and two big family meals, a week before another family/social event my parents are planning for Dad’s seventieth birthday. This has made me anxious on multiple levels, some religious, some autism- and mental health-related.

The latest issue is that the hotel where we would have to stay has electronic locks, which would be problematic on Shabbat (the Sabbath) when electricity can’t be used. When I was in New York, the staff at the hotel I stayed at were used to religious Jews asking (or more usually hinting, as it’s not really permitted to ask non-Jews to perform work on Shabbat) to have doors opened for them, but this might not be the case here and they might see it as suspicious behaviour.

Even beside that, I still feel deeply negative and anxious about the whole thing, doubly so as I feel I have no right to express my discomfort, whether from religious or autistic/socially anxious reasons, even though I worry what kind of state I will be in by the end of January if I go through all this, which I feel is a legitimate worry and not me being difficult.

Then there is the fact that, at the moment, it looks like I would have to go through these events without E, which just feels so painful now and I don’t know how much anyone in my family understands that.

***

I was thinking today about not achieving the level of halakhic (Jewish law)observance that I wanted or expected I would have by now. This is partly because E and I are now growing together and religious growth needs to be at a pace that both of us can bear, and I’m OK with that, but, even beyond that, I have been relying on leniencies in some areas or relaxing my standards for a while now, as I’ve mentioned before. As I said the other day, I think it’s hard being frum (Jewishly observant) with mental health issues, neurodiversity, less frum relatives and without feeling integrated into a supportive community, let alone juggling all of these. I hate to use ‘privilege’ language, but I increasingly feel that being fully halakhically observant is a privilege. It’s not something all Jews can attain, even if they want to, but as a community we are not accepting of that.

As I thought about it, I realised that I am disabled, but for twenty years I was trying to be frum without knowing I was disabled, not knowing that there were legitimate leniencies I could rely on (sometimes I knew I could rely on things because of depression or living with less frum parents, but I did not know about autism). It’s a strange situation to be in, to become retroactively aware that you were disabled all your life. I doubt it happens to many people; I would think usually disability announces itself very clearly! It’s something I haven’t really come to terms with.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, beyond my reiterated desire to say something to other frum people about this, but not knowing what I want to say or who I want to say it to or how I want to say it and being afraid of the reaction I would get for essentially justifying my non-observance of halakhah.

Autism (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) vs. Asperger’s Syndrome

I woke up late, feeling very tired again. I hope I get my sleep disorder diagnosis soon. I had a dream where I was listing missing Doctor Who episodes. My unconscious did pretty well (albeit only getting halfway through the list before going onto something else), but missed The Celestial Toymaker, possibly because it’s over-rated rubbish (one of my least favourite original series stories). Mind you, I think I also missed The Smugglers, which I’m quite fond of, so maybe it was just my unconscious not focusing.

I feel down today. Some of it is the winter, and knowing I’ve got another two months or more before the days start getting noticeably longer and the weather improves. But a lot of it is missing E and not even knowing when we will be together again. I think we would both find it easier if we knew when we will be in the same country, and when we will get married, but not knowing makes it harder.

I set up a profile on a particular freelance work site for work as a proofreader and copy editor. To set up a profile in the writing and translation area, I was presented with a load of tick boxes and told to tick a minimum of two boxes. The only relevant one was for proofreading and editing (one box). In the end I had to tick “Other” just to be allowed to move on, because I don’t want to do copywriting, write press releases and so on. I don’t know why they want you to tick at least two boxes.

It was getting dark, so I stopped in the middle of setting up my profile and went for a run. I had to stop after thirty minutes (I usually aim for forty-five) as I was feeling shaky and faint. I did a bit under 4k, which I guess isn’t awful, even if my pace was. I do need to run more than once a month, but it’s hard with UK winter weather and daylight hours, my inability to get up in mornings and my tendency to get exercise headaches, plus lately I’ve been busy on Sundays, which is my main day for running. When I got home I ate a load of salty food, which seemed to help with the shakiness, but I felt too shaky to do any cool down exercises for ten minutes or so, so I’ll probably ache all over tomorrow. The shakiness went a bit, but not completely, and I got a bit of a headache. I took some tablets and eventually felt well enough to cook dinner (pasta with sauce from a jar), but spent the evening watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife as I didn’t feel well enough to finish the proofreading profile or do any Torah study or anything productive.

I’m not sure what is wrong with me. It’s possibly some kind of autistic interoception issue (difficulty understanding the messages my body is sending me), which I didn’t think was a problem I have, but actually might be one. It would explain why I let myself get dehydrated a lot when I was a child, until I learnt to drink even if I didn’t feel thirsty, likewise for eating. Maybe interoception issues would explain why I often feel vaguely shaky or vaguely faint without really being able to identify clear symptoms or causes. Interoception issues might also explain why I also think I’m really hungry late at night when I’m probably not.

I haven’t done any Torah study today. I’d like to do some, but it’s late and I still don’t feel 100%. I might see if I can find a short article to read for five or ten minutes as I don’t really feel up to reading much else.

***

There’s a post on one of the Jewish autistic Facebook groups I’m on about an argument on a crafting FB group where someone used the term “Asperger’s” as in Asperger’s Syndrome. Apparently some autistic people on the group complained about the term as Hans Asperger was Nazi and things spiralled out of control from there with a lot of anger. I don’t know why the internet is so good at bringing out the anger in people. Some of it is the anonymity, but I feel there’s more to it than that. I feel people often say offensive things through ignorance rather than malice, but then other people respond in a way that makes them feel attacked in public and it escalates from there. Sometimes I think people would better respond in a tactful private message rather than posting a “You’re ABLEIST” public comment.

That said, I really have no idea why the person reporting this on the autism group spelt “Nazis” as “N4zis”, supposedly “to avoid triggering people”. Does substituting one letter make such a difference? And do people really get that triggered by seeing the word Nazi? I’m Jewish and easily upset and I don’t get triggered. Although I think the cases where trigger warnings are helpful are fairly limited.

Although the anger of this post turned me off, I thought it was a good prompt to explain why I still use “Asperger’s” as a tag, even though I know Asperger cooperated with the Nazi euthanasia plan for the mentally ill. Partly it’s that “Asperger’s” is on my diagnosis report from the NHS. I know DSM-5 (psychiatric diagnostic manual) has switched to “autism” for all autism spectrum disorders, but the NHS isn’t using DSM-5 (I can’t remember what they’re using). I thought it was strange when I got it, but that’s the NHS. From the autism forum (which is mostly UK-based), it seems that, depending where you live in the UK, you can actually get different diagnoses. Some places give “autistic spectrum disorder” with no further details, while others specify a level of severity, and some places are still using “Asperger’s”.

In addition, I felt that “Asperger’s” would be better for finding people searching for high-functioning autism blogs via WordPress, but that does not really appear to have been the case. Also, when I previously contemplated stopping using “Asperger’s,” I felt I wanted something to distinguish me from people with more severe autism. However, I no longer see such a big difference between myself and people with more severe autism. We all struggle to function in a noisy, busy, social world. It’s true that I can talk, and do (some) paid work and have a wife, but I still struggle a lot and I feel that at the moment. So I’m thinking of stopping using or even deleting the Asperger’s tag. I’d like to merge the Asperger’s tag with the autism one, but I don’t think WordPress will let me do that. I probably will stop using the tag, although I don’t know if I’ll delete it.

***

Ghostbusters: Afterlife was the Ghostbusters sequel released last year after being delayed by COVID. I didn’t see it in the cinema, as I was still nervous about going to the cinema for COVID reasons (I actually still haven’t been to the cinema since COVID although I was hardly a frequent cinema goer before then).

It’s a slightly strange film, reverent towards the original film, if anything excessively so, as it struggles to find its own voice, but, like Ghostbusters II, it somehow missing the fact that the original film was a comedy. There are a few jokes, but it’s really a fantasy/adventure story, and a somewhat slow one, particularly compared with the original.

I’m not sure who the audience was meant to be. The huge connection to the original film suggests it’s aimed at die-hard fans, but the adolescent main characters suggest a younger audience that wouldn’t be expected to know a film from 1984.This is further undermined by the 12 certificate, which would prevent pre-teens watching. The main character, Phoebe, is twelve; children and teenagers tend only to identify with characters their age or older, so that’s pretty much ruling out a teenage audience too. I did like Phoebe and wondered if she was supposed to be autistic, although geeky characters in fiction tend to read as autistic generally, or at least are open to that reading.

Overall it was a decent film and I probably will watch it again at some point, as I think some plot points, and probably some in-jokes, escaped me, but it’s not as good as the original film.

Bumper Last Night of Chanukah Post!!!!

My mood slumped last night and didn’t really rise all day, at least not until I Skyped E. I went to bed late last night as I was reading Quantum of Solace, a James Bond short story that isn’t really about James Bond. It’s a story told to him by someone else, a story that has nothing to do with spies or anything usually associated with James Bond. I thought it was still quite engaging; I think Ian Fleming is under-rated as a write, like many successful authors of “pulp” fiction.

Despite that, I got up early this morning (about 9.30am – early for me, anyway), mostly because I woke up early and felt hungry. I even stayed awake, although I went back to bed for a few minutes after breakfast. It was a struggle to daven even an abbreviated Shacharit and Musaf (say Morning Prayers), as I felt so tired.

That said, I think I woke early because I woke struggling to breathe again. I’m still waiting for the results of my sleep study to see if I have sleep apnoea. I might have to wait another two months for the results! I believe the results can be downloaded as soon as the sensors are returned to the hospital; the huge delay is in getting the personnel to interpret said results. All E and I seem to be doing these days is waiting…

I went for a longish walk for an hour. This helped my mood a little, but not totally.

I didn’t do much else. I spent far too long messing about on the Orthodox Conundrum Facebook page (see below). I’m enjoying being on there, slightly more than my annoyance at how awful FB is nowadays, but I’m not sure that I’ll achieve any of my aims for joining the group, such as making frum (religious Jewish) friends, becoming more integrated to the frum community or starting a conversation about the place of the mentally ill and neurodivergent in the frum community (again, see below).

I did spend a little time working on my novel plan, even though I said I wouldn’t, because apparently I really can’t keep away from it (see below). It looked better than I thought it would, although there’s still a lot to do.

***

It’s really hard being away from E, especially not knowing when we’ll be together, let alone when we’ll get married. I read an article on a Jewish site (that will go unlinked, as I’m going to criticise it) about the laws of taharat mishpachah in Judaism (essentially, not having sex when the woman is having her period and for a while afterwards). The author repeated the standard frum line about this preventing divorce. Which it may do, as I think the divorce rate in the frum community is still lower than in the secular world, but it’s clearly not a panacea, as divorce is still a very real thing in the frum world. The type of married people (not just Jewish ones) who write essays about relationship breakdown seem to think that there’s one simple mistake that all divorced couples make that dooms their relationship and other people can easily avoid it, and I really don’t think there is. That’s what makes it scary.

That said, the thing that really annoyed me was where the article stated that newlyweds are “young and carefree, with no grey hairs or wrinkles.” Although aimed at less frum people, the article seemed to be based on the idea that everyone marries young and no one has any life problems until they have children. Um, maybe you were, but E and I are in our late thirties and come with suitcase loads of “baggage”! But we love each other despite this (actually, E doesn’t have wrinkles, although I do).

In the wake of this, I did think of posting something about conformity in the Jewish community on the Orthodox Conundrum Facebook group, perhaps based on the thing I wrote here a few days ago about the difficulty of being frum if you’re mentally ill, neurodivergent, poor, etc., but I held back because it was too long, unfocused and ranty and because I didn’t know what response I even wanted (cf. my discussion with JYP in the comments to that post). The OC group does show care about some marginalised groups in the Orthodox world, such as abuse survivors, LGBT Jews and agunot, as well as about women’s rights in the Orthodox world in general, but I haven’t really found a way of starting a conversation about mental illness or neurodivergence there. I searched for older threads about mental illness and they tended to be focused on issues like rabbis answering mental illness-related questions badly rather than integrating the mentally ill or neurodivergent into the community.

***

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing at the moment instead of actually writing, as I’m on a break to try to calm down about it. I felt a kind of urgency about writing as I wanted to get something published and try to build a career as a writer to help support E and our potential children. This is clearly not happening, as we will be married long before I get anything published, particularly as I’ve stopped sending out my first novel to agents, as I’m not sure whether I want to rewrite it. I do want to get set up as a freelance proofreader in the next few weeks, as that seems a more practical way to earn money.

I am slightly ashamed to admit that I do still feel the need to prove myself with writing, to show I’m as good as all my school and university peers who went on to good jobs (or any jobs, really), not to mention the other writers and newspaper columnists who I read and think, “I could do better than that,” although I probably can’t. Spite and envy probably isn’t a good reason to do anything, let alone to make art.

I probably will keep writing as a hobby/psychological need. It’s hard to work out how to balance it with religious obligations and family obligations. E supports my writing more than I do and wants me to keep writing despite family obligations, but the frum world doesn’t really see writing or creativity generally as an important activity. I don’t think I can justify my writing on the grounds of supplying an important need to the frum/Jewish community or increasing Jewish visibility in the wider world, as I really don’t think I’ll get published. It’s just something I need to do.

I used to get annoyed with the Hevria people for prioritising writing and creativity over religious obligations, but maybe they were right. Maybe you need to be ruthless about family and community to get published. Then again, I think Mattue Roth was the only Hevrian who actually got any fiction published professionally.

 I’ve mentioned before that David Bowie said the worst thing God can do to you is make you an artist, but a mediocre artist. I feel that’s true of me. I have basic writing skills, but I lack imagination, unsurprisingly, as that seems to be common with alexithymia (difficulty understanding my own emotions).

As I said above, I did do some work on the novel plan today, which was good, and I do feel very drawn to writing it, but I am struggling a bit with where the novel is going and what to write, while feeling that I need very much to write.

***

Books: if I’m not writing them, I’m reading them (which is not a bad thing).

I finished re-reading Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. It was a good 90s fandom nostalgia trip, but other books came out later and went further than it did. I also tried to put my pile of new Doctor Who novelisations away. These were the books I felt a little guilty about, as I was pleased to add them to my collection for free, but wasn’t likely to read/re-read them in the near future, and wasn’t sure if I should have accepted them.

My bedroom is hardly minimalist. It’s got four bookcases (three big and one not so big), one packed full with DVDs, most lying on their side, warehouse-style, so I can fit more on the shelves. The other three are full of books (and some CDs), many of them also lying on their side. (I also have books in a couple of cupboards and a bookcase full downstairs too.) There are also several piles of books on top of one of the bookcases, containing over 150 Doctor Who books (fiction, as the non-fiction is on another shelf) along with a couple of other TV/film tie-in books. I have about 1,300 books in total. Yes, E is right that I should get rid of some. It’s hard! I might donate some non-fiction books I’m never likely to read to the charity shop in a week or so, although I don’t know who will buy books on Medieval Scotland.

I went to add the new books to the pile on top of the bookcase. I hadn’t realised how far the case has come forward from the wall with the weight of all the books on it and one of the books fell down the back. It was Doctor Who – The Daleks, the novelisation of the first Dalek story, which I disliked as a child because it departed from the TV series in its depiction of the events of the first ever TV episode (which isn’t even part of the Dalek story on screen), but which now, in the age of DVD, seems significant for precisely that reason, for being an entirely new take on the events of the TV story.

I’m not sure how to get the book back from the black hole behind the bookcase. I quickly decided that I wasn’t going to take the hundreds of books off the bookcase (not to mention wargaming models) to move it out, especially as it’s the middle bookcase and I might have to move one or two others too to get to it! So the book will sit there in the black hole for now.

I noticed a while back the bookcases wobble a bit, and I am vaguely worried about them falling on me one day. I guess I just have to hope that when E and I move somewhere of our own, we have enough space that taking a reasonable chunk of my books is a good idea and that I can move the bookcase then. I think we’re unlikely to be able to afford a place big enough to hold all my books along with those E brings over from the US.

***

My parents bought me an extra Chanukah present, even though I said they didn’t need to: A Fire Burns in Kotsk: A Tale of Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland by Menashe Unger. Even though I own every English language book I can find about the Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk), I’ve put off buying this for years because (a) it’s expensive (about £30) and (b) it’s a weird book, sitting on the boundary between history and historical fiction, presenting itself as the true story of the Kotzker Rebbe and his Hasidim, but also written in novelistic style with (presumably) invented dialogue. I’m not quite sure what to make of it and probably won’t be until I’ve read it (if then). At least it’s something to read on the way home from work while I’m reading The Great Dune Trilogy, which is too big and heavy to take to work.

***

Contemplating all this stuff (low mood, not fitting into society, struggling to sell my writing, lack of imagination), I’m having one of my “I hate being autistic” days. I think I get fewer of these than I did a couple of months ago, but I’m still not at peace with myself, and I still see ASD as a bad hand I’ve been dealt, albeit one I want to play as well as I can, and admitting that it’s better than some other people’s cards. It frustrates me enormously that so-called “high functioning” autism means I can write literary fiction, read in a dead language, read and understand (at least partially) twelfth century Jewish rationalist philosophy… and still screw up basic stuff like editing  an invoice template at work (why? This is like proofreading; I should be good at it, unless it’s the pressure of masking in the office), speaking on the phone (or at all), doing tasks in the right order, promoting my writing, networking, etc., etc., etc.

It doesn’t help that I have a lack of mentors or guides to help me integrate into the frum world or for raising the profile of my writing. It’s sad, because I do feel I have stuff to say to the frum world and the wider world, but I don’t know how to say it because of my autism, while people who might know how to help me say it don’t know that I have anything to say.

I did just dig out an email from my parents’ friends’ son-in-law from an earlier attempt to set myself up as a proofreader. He is a freelance proofreader and said to persevere as work is out there. He also said YOU HAVE TO NETWORK!!!!!!!! (I put it in capitals because that’s how scary it is.) That email was pre-COVID, though, so I don’t know if it is still true.

***

I saw the Doctor Who trailer. I wasn’t impressed, but I didn’t expect to be. David Tennant + Catherine Tate + Russell T Davies = pretty much my least favourite Doctor/companion/showrunner combination.

Fast Running Out of Spoons

I stayed up late again last night. Everything was late as a result of going to Sister and Brother-in-Law’s, then eating with my parents, plus, I admit, procrastinating online, then trying to do more Torah study. I watched an episode of Do Not Adjust Your Set late at night to try to get some downtime, but also ended up staying up late thinking about Nephew, and then about Hitler (the chain of thought was complicated, but basically involved thoughts that have troubled me for years about whether Hitler was a cute baby, and at what point Hitler became evil (is there a precise moment, like when Macbeth decides to kill Duncan? It seems doubtful) and then onto whether I had ever seen pictures of Hitler smiling and whether this was a deliberate propaganda decision to make him look aloof and imposing). This ended in me flicking through history books around midnight, trying to find photos of Hitler smiling, which in retrospect was not the best time management.

I woke up missing E. I know I say this a lot, but I miss her so much. It’s hard not knowing when we can be together again, or when the wedding will be. The visa shows no signs of coming, but I am still hoping for a Chanukah miracle, unlikely though it seems. I waited so long to find someone who loved me, and it’s frustrating that now we’re waiting indefinitely due to immigration bureaucracy.

I had to rush a bit to bring the Tesco grocery delivery in, but still ended up doing so in my pyjamas. I do this most weeks, so the delivery guy probably thinks I never get dressed. I felt a bit ill afterwards, headrush/low blood pressurey. I do feel stressed and un-relaxed at the moment; as I said last night, I’m doing extra peopling and getting less autistic recovery time this week and that probably contributes. I’m not really looking forward to work tomorrow, and then, because of the bank holidays, I’ll be working consecutive days next week, so that will be hard too. I feel like as Chanukah goes on, I’m running more and more out of spoons, with no way of recharging (a mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean).

I wanted to go back to bed after bringing the groceries in, but had to quickly daven (pray) before it got too late for Shacharit (Morning Prayers) and then to stay up to be around for the cleaner. I actually went to bed for forty-five minutes after the cleaner came, at lunchtime. I don’t think I slept, I just lay there with my eyes shut, but I felt a bit better afterwards.

I think I’m suffering some autistic exhaustion from the peopling and lack of recovery time. I was more sensitive than usual to the noise of the cleaner hoovering, which is a good sign that my autistic sensitivities are heightened, which usually accompanies autistic exhaustion.

Because I was feeling exhausted, I thought it was a good time to finally watch a YouTube video I bookmarked ages ago of an autistic scientist (an scientist who is autistic who also researches autism) talking about autistic burnout (even though autistic exhaustion and autistic burnout are not the same thing). The presentation is here and the slides for the presentation can be found here.

There was an interesting flow diagram showing that burnout can be triggered by a collapse in energy or a decrease in ability to mask (appear non-autistic) in situations, but it can also be triggered by a growth in ability to cope and mask which leads to further expectations being put on the autistic person by the outside world beyond the person’s ability to cope. You can get to a point where you can’t mask any more because you haven’t got the internal resources, but if you try to step back, you lose the external resources from your job or non-autistic support network because you aren’t doing what you’re expected to be doing. This all resonated; I feel that I’ve burned out for both reasons in the past.

The presenter spoke about the role masking plays in this, in feeling that you need to be “better” (more functional, less autistic) than you are and compared it with other areas where people have to mask. My mind went to LGBT people masking in traditional religious communities, which I guess shows where my mind is on this, but she actually compared with doctors who have to mask their emotions at work and appear unmoved by the suffering they see and how this can lead to high levels of depression and suicidality.

There was a lot about other people having realistic expectations for the autistic person, particularly at work and regarding socialising. This is very true, but it’s hard to manage other people’s expectations. I find it hard enough to manage my own expectations. The presenter also wanted reduced expectations NOT to lead to thoughts that autistic people can’t achieve work/life goals. Rather, they should be allowed to have goals, but not expected to achieve them in the same way as allistic (non-autistic) people. It occurred to me that this is difficult generally, and very hard in a conformist environment like the Orthodox Jewish community.

The presenter spoke about trying to get a job in alignment to a special interest, which I’ve found incredibly difficult. It’s good if you can get it, but I doubt that many people with “niche” interests achieve it (as opposed to those who like numbers or computers).

I find it can be offputting, seeing autistic people who succeed in their careers, particularly if autism-related, while I’m struggling so much in employment. There probably is survivorship bias in autistic advocates and patient experts being drawn disproportionately from the most successful autistics, on the grounds that only those people who are coping well have the wherewithal to engage in advocacy or to become professionals in the autism field. On the autism forum, where the barriers to entry are lower, there seem to be lots of people who are not coping well at all, although there are some fairly successful ones too.

I didn’t do much else. I felt too bad. I really wanted to move forward with setting myself up as a freelance proof-reader so I can start that in the new year (I figured no one is going to be looking for a proof-reader right before Christmas), but I didn’t do anything for it. I didn’t do any novel work, even though I have ideas to add to my unfinished plan. I studied The Guide for the Perplexed for fifteen minutes or so, but struggled to get anywhere with it in this state.

The only other thing I did was to go for a walk and picked up the first two of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell books from the free bookcase. I haven’t read these as I was put off by the length and also by the fact that I read an early novel by Mantel, Fludd, for a book club I was in years ago and wasn’t overly impressed, for aesthetic reasons, although it also annoyed me as yet another book where someone losing their faith is presented as an unambiguously good thing, although at least the religion here isn’t abusive. However, I felt I should give her a second chance with a later book, where her style might have matured. I should really donate some more books to the bookcase, although two of those I donated a while back are still there. Some of the books in the case were badly water damaged from the recent weather, which made me a little sad, and makes me think I shouldn’t donate anything until the weather improves and/or more books are taken so that the ones I donate will be within both plastic boxes (a box within a box) and not on top of the inner box, more exposed to the elements.

Monotropic Learning, Being Frum and More

It’s been hard to do anything today. I guess the weather being awful doesn’t help. It’s been raining here. The snow is melting a bit, but the rain water is probably going to freeze over tonight making the pavements even more icy and dangerous tomorrow. And, of course, it gets dark at about 3.30pm.

I feel like I miss E more every day, and it feels wrong to be doing Chanukah without her tonight. It’s also hard to do it without my sister and brother-in-law, who are still too overwhelmed with their new baby to come out. We might go there later in the week. It’s so easy to get stuck thinking this is how it will always be. When I was in New York with E, it felt like we would get married and be together soon, but living with my parents makes it feel like the next forty years will be like the last forty (almost). It’s hard to believe things can change sometimes, especially when it feels like I’ve been dealing with the same issues all my adult life. This is not entirely true, as I am not really dealing with depression now, but I have been dealing with autism the whole time, even if I didn’t know it.

I didn’t do much today other than Torah study and getting ready for Chanukah (which did not take long). As a child, I would wait excitedly for Chanukah. As an adult, it lost some of its sparkle, but when my religious OCD was bad, it was a still point, a festival where the religious obligations could be fulfilled at home (so no social anxiety), with little halakhic (Jewish legal) complexity that might trigger the OCD. This year it just feels like I want to get on with it so that E can get her visa and come to the UK. We’re hoping for a Chanukah miracle, but we’re running out of time for that.

I guess I feel kind of down today (actually, really quite down) and not sure what to do with my time today. Maybe I do need fiction writing in my life, if only as a focus for my energies. I feel kind of stuck with that, though. Part of my mind wants to solve plot problems and part wants to stay away for now. So far I’m staying away.

***

I’ve been thinking about this image (by Rit Rajarshi) for the last few days, from a Wikipedia article on monotropic learning, referring to the way monotropic autistic minds fixate on one topic intensely, while polytropic allistic (non-autistic) minds can focus on many things at once or quickly switch topics.

The picture is interesting, as it seems to show that the monotropic mind can focus on many aspects of one subject or many topics branching off from it. I have a wide general knowledge, but tend to link subjects to one another in my head. A lot of what I have learnt, I have learnt directly or indirectly from Doctor Who or Doctor Who fandom. Admittedly Doctor Who was (possibly still is, I find it hard to tell) an unusually literate programme, and certainly 1990s fandom was highly literate and intelligent, but beyond this, I can pick up information and access it faster if it somehow links to Doctor Who (although Judaism seems to be on a separate circuit, as there is very little overlap between the two).

I do not know how to turn this to financial advantage the way some autistic people can.

***

I feel that in order to really live a frum (Jewishly observant) life, you need to be: (1) reasonably well-off financially, (2) physically healthy, (3) mentally healthy, (4) neurotypical, (5) have a frum family and (6) be accepted into a frum community.

The frum community does help people who are poor and who have a short-term physical health issue. It is much, much worse at supporting people who have ongoing physical health issues, mental health issues or neurodiversity. It is not great at reaching out to people who do not have frum family or who do are not well-integrated into an Orthodox community. Sadly, many ba’alei teshuvah (non-religious people who become religious) end up cutting themselves off from their family for various reasons, sometimes because they find it easier than dealing with less religious relations.

I would like to post this on the Orthodox Conundrum group, but I’m scared of the reaction I’ll get. I really don’t mean it to be a “privilege-attacking” or victimhood post, just to signpost what I think is a real issue, but I’m not sure that’s how it will be taken.

***

I mentioned the other day that, when I went for a blood test, I got a stabbing pain in my forearm, a couple of inches below where the needle went in. Over the last few days, I have had some discomfort there at times, although it’s hard to work out when (I think it’s certain movements or positions, but I haven’t worked out which ones). I am getting vaguely worried about it (as my Mum said, it seems to be on the vein), but it seems silly to go to the doctor over slight and vague feelings.

***

I got some more books! For Chanukah, from E I got A Guide for the Jewish Undecided: A Philosopher Makes the Case for Orthodox Judaism by Rabbi Dr Samuel Lebens (who wrote The Principles of Judaism which I read a few months ago. A Guide for the Jewish Undecided is supposed to be a more accessible book to the lay reader, although from glancing inside it, I’m not sure how much that’s the case). From my parents, I got Isaiah: Prophet of Righteousness and Justice by Yoel Bin-Nun and Binyamin Lau, from the Koren Maggid Tanakh series. I also got some Doctor Who socks from my in-laws! (It’s still slightly weird to think that I have in-laws, especially considering how little time I’ve spent with them.)

Coincidentally, I also received some Doctor Who novelisations from my parents’ friends. These are more books that belonged to their son who died a few months ago. I feel vaguely uncomfortable about this, like I’m profiting from his death. Maybe it feels like that because these are books that I’m adding to my collection of Doctor Who novelisations, rather than books I’m in a hurry to read (I have read some of them before, years ago).

Unethical Spam?

No time to blog properly today, but I had to note that I got a spammy email from eBay telling me I could “sell past loves for extra cash”. I’m totally monogamous, but the thought of selling ex-girlfriends into slavery on eBay to raise money strikes me as a tad unethical. Possibly that’s not what they meant?

(Seriously, I don’t think I loved any of my exes, certainly not the way I love E. Awwwww.)