What if you gave a party and nobody came?

Rabbi Without a Cause has a post up about birthday parties and I have not been able to stop thinking about my experiences with them.

I have already had my birthday for 2007. That narrows it down, doesn't it?

My next birthday is a big one for me. I would love to have a party. A big party. Maybe even a surprise party. But I am really, really scared about that.

Growing up, there was not a single birthday I remember--and I have a very good memory--that wasn't upstaged by a sibling. Usually a male sibling, for whatever that's worth. Extended family would come and ask me about school or whatever was new in my life, and I always had something going on that I was very excited about, and they'd be all ears until any of said siblings walked in the room. You could see all eyes turn to said sibling and I would be forgotten. Not for just a few seconds or minutes. For the whole rest of the evening. And it was my birthday party.

My sixteenth birthday I was certain everyone was planning a suprise party. None of my friends at school said anything and every previous year they had giftwrapped my locker door. This year nothing, so I was sure something was afoot. Some previous years my mom would offer to make me a special breakfast on my birthday. This year she'd stayed up late and slept in. My friends and I usually hung out for a while after school. This year they all had to go home right away.

I went home laughing with joy that I'd figured it out and when I would get home all my friends and family would be there and it would be a dream come true.

I got home and silence. My mom was at the grocery store. Siblings were at their various other commitments. I waited. And waited.

My father came home from work. My mom asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner.

There was no party. The surprise was on me; when I asked my school friends the next day, they had all forgotten it was my birthday.

As an adult I have tried a few times to host a party. Free food, free cake, no gifts expected, a fun time for all. One year I invited everyone I knew at the time, sending out a couple dozen invitations. No one called to RSVP. No one showed up.

So I am wary about having another party, or asking for one. Because with my wacky brain chemistry the way it already is, this is the sort of repeated experience that fuels the belief that no one cares.

To my husband, a birthday party is just a birthday party, no big deal. To me it is much, much more than that.

Rivka FAQ

Questions:

• A note on anonymity
• What kind of shul do you go to?
• How observant are you?
• If your maternal great-grandmother was Jewish, why did you have to convert?
• How did your mom take that?
• How did this discovery change your extended family?
• How did you deal halachically with your father's death?
• Is there any chance of starting a support group with other women in your shul?
• What is your creative pursuit?
• What do you mean you think (your finding Psalm 55) was/wasn't random?
• Do you believe G-d has an active role in our lives?
• What can we do to help?

I need to repeat one of my statements from my first post about who I am and why I'm blogging:

This is an anonymous blog. It needs to be such, or I would lose the ability to share my truth, whether anyone else wants to read it or not. Please do not spend time trying to figure out who I am. It will do none of us any good.

There is some information I cannot share, even though it may seem like it wouldn't risk anonymity. To those who don't know me, it wouldn't affect my anonymity at all. To those who might know me and happen across this blog, it would absolutely be a risk. And what I say on this blog about what's going on inside of me must be anonymous, especially from those who know me. The only people in the world I've told that I'm keeping this blog are my husband and my counselor. I don't plan to change that.

I know from reading other anonymous blogs, in particular ones that deal with issues so many of us face, there is a tendency to wonder, "Is she like me?"

There is also a tendency to ask, "How can I help you make this easier?"

In this post, I want to address those and related questions.

1. What kind of shul do you go to? / How observant are you?

I go to a small/medium size shul with only one rabbi in a medium/large size city. I don't want to answer the "what sort of Jew are you?" question because it could change how you see me. If I get into that, no matter who sees me, I'm either going to be too frum or too liberal. Nothing is going to change the fact that being an adult Jew with a family and an emotional disorder has some challenges.

2. If your maternal great-grandmother was Jewish, why did you have to convert?

I didn't have anything other than half a dozen stories that sounded suspiciously Jewish that my grandmother had shared years earlier about her early childhood when I approached my rabbi for conversion. All I knew was that from my earliest memories, I didn't belong. I hated church, and I was starving for a religious expression that fit. It wasn't enough to just be "spiritual." I found my way to Judaism as a teenager and never went back. A few years after my conversion, my mom finally went through some of the photographs and papers passed along when my grandmother (aleha hashalom) died. We found a series of letters between my great-grandmother and her brother from 1910-1925 that left no doubts about their being Jewish.

3. How did your mom take that? / How did this discovery change your extended family?

My mom still doesn't accept it. She says she doesn't acknowledge Jewish law. She was raised a Christian and that's all there is to it. I went through some very difficult times with extended family because they were certain I was putting my soul in jeapordy, rejecting eternal life, by embracing Judaism. I was equally certain that I was finally bringing my soul home. Due in large part to my being Jewish, I have almost no contact with my extended family. It was their choice. If I wasn't going to join them for Christmas and Easter, I wasn't invited any other time. It was worth the sacrifice. I don't regret my choices for a second.

4. If your father wasn't Jewish and your mother identifies as a Christian, how did you deal halachically with your father's death? / You've stated elsewhere that your father was cremated; how do you deal with that?

It was very, very hard. One of the hardest experiences I've ever had. And even at almost three years ago, it's still too fresh, too raw to talk about in any detail. Sitting shiva with almost no support beyond my rabbi and a few friends, no funeral, no grave to visit, and being verbally attacked in public about being Jewish when I went to his memorial service (in a church), it was a very dark time.

5. Getting back to depression, is there any chance of starting a support group with other women in your shul?

Probably not. There is a group in the community, not specific to any shul. I went once. It was very much like the situation I found at the Jewish mental health conference I wrote about here. I'm not interested in being part of a group that only wants to complain and play "my disorder is worse than yours." I want to find tangible, practical ways for people in the Jewish community to reach out and help others who need it. Some of the women in our shul are having a hard enough time trying to do the same for their children with severe developmental disorders, without much success. It can only be harder for unseen disorders whose symptoms come and go. Our shul seems to only have success accommodating people with physical disabilities, though I don't think that's through any failure on the rabbi's part. Mostly I think it's people not knowing what to do or being too caught up in their own lives to do what they can.

6. You said you have a creative pursuit that helps you cope, and that you can even sell your creations. What do you create?

I can't go into that. This is one of those things that seems innocuous but isn't. I do have a creative personality and I enjoy participating in all of the arts to the extent that I can.

7. In your post Ha'azina Tefilati, you wrote, "I found my Tehillim and opened to a random page. At least I think it was random." What do you mean you think it was random? Do you believe G-d has an active role in our lives?

I can't speak for G-d, and I can't speak for anyone else. I can only speak my own reality, as I understand it. I did open Tehillim randomly. Obviously, I was going to find a psalm. Maybe I could have opened to any one of a hundred different pages in Tehillim and found something helpful. Viewed one way, it seems almost too coincidental that I should "randomly" open to that page. Maybe I was guided to open it to that page. Maybe that was my answer. I don't know.

I do know that some of my prayers seem to have gone unanswered. Or the answer was no and I could only figure that out eventually because what I asked for never happened. I mentioned that I grew up in a violent home. I don't want to get into details because this isn't a blog about child abuse. I will say that I prayed frequently for the beatings and the cruel words to stop. They didn't until I reached my teens. On a few occasions, it could have been really severe, but things happened that I can't explain, averting a hospital stay or worse. Maybe that was a qualified yes. Maybe I was just lucky.

What I do believe, perhaps because of all of this, is that I have an obligation not only to acknowledge, appreciate, and praise G-d for what I have, but also to ask G-d for what I need. Or what I think I need. And it's my responsibility to accept the answer, whether it's in my favor or not. I think perhaps because I am constantly aware of what G-d has done for me, for others, for all of us, it is ultimately less painful for me to struggle with and accept a "no" from G-d than it is to struggle with a personal rejection from another human being. I don't know why.

People have their own fallibilities, their own problems that affect how they treat others. I'd like to think G-d is beyond all that. I'd like to think that when G-d answers yes or no or something in between, G-d has my ultimate best interests in mind, and the best interests of anyone else involved. So I guess that means yes, I do believe G-d can be involved in our lives. I guess if I believed G-d were distant and remote and our lives were only affected by the laws of nature and physics and other people, then I'd lose faith in the whole concept of prayer.

I mean, maybe prayer is for us and it doesn't matter if anyone is listening or not, but that thought just leaves me feeling so sad and alone. I need to believe G-d cares and hears and acts on G-d's own timetable and if or when G-d deems it appropriate. That doesn't make me angry. It just reminds me that I don't know everything. It isn't up to me.

8. What can we do to help?

• Visit my blog. :)
• Read.
• Leave comments, preferably not anything judgmental or mean.
• Share with others.
• Practice sensitivity.
• Encourage rabbis to be aware of congregants with "invisible pain."
• Be willing to talk about emotional disorders within the Jewish community.
• Be willing to reach out to people in your own community who might need it.
• Brainstorm ways for your own community to keep people from falling through the cracks.

Who am I and why in the world am I blogging?

That's a loaded question, but one I hope to eventually answer through this blog. With G-d's help, I'll find some support on this journey as well.

First of all, this is an anonymous blog. It needs to be such, or I would lose the ability to share my truth, whether anyone else wants to read it or not. Please do not spend time trying to figure out who I am. It will do none of us any good.

Second of all, I am sort of a convert. I say "convert" because I went through a proper conversion over ten years ago, yet some ideas and customs are still unfamiliar. I say "sort of" because my maternal grandmother was born and initially raised Jewish, yet through a convoluted family history involving a mysterious death, betrayal, adoption, and antisemitism, she was later baptized and rasied Christian. She married a Christian, raised her children (including my mother) as Christian, and I was the one who broke the mold, so to speak.

Third, I'm happily married to a Jewish man and have two wonderful children as of this writing. We are trying for a third, praying that G-d will bless us with another child, but it has been almost a year and it's hard to have faith.

Fourth, I am active in my shul and though they drive me to tears sometimes, they are wonderful people.

Fifth and last, I cope or struggle (depending on the day) with what was mis-diagnosed after many years of misdiagnoses as Bipolar II disorder (heavy on the depression, not nearly enough mania), anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Update: as of April 2007, the Bipolar II diagnosis has been scrapped. What doctors had told me were manic episodes were, it turns out, severe anxiety attacks. This explains why antipsychotic meds (used to treat bipolar) turned me into a zombie and I still needed an antidepressant to maintain even basic functionality.

Current diagnosis stands as Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Obsessive-Compulsive Features, Seasonal Affect Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

That's more than enough diagnoses. I'd rather collect coffee cups.

The depression and anxiety have clearly been proven chemical and inherited from my mother's side of the family. The PTSD probably has something to do with being raised in a violent home. All of it impacts my relationship with G-d, not to mention others around me.

I hope and pray, with G-d's help, to find some clarity, direction, support, and guidance.