Holy Crow.  I knew I preferred to write over speak, but I did not realize how much I wrote.  I just tried one of those "print your blog" sites out of curiosity.  139 pages over the last 7 months!  Assuming 500 words per page  that works out to 69,500 words sprawled out of my head in random thoughts over 7 months.  That is a bloody novel   Imagine if I actually used my brain for something productive.

I was thinking about it last night as I was sending out some Rosh Hashanah emails.  We lost a lot of "good friends" this year.  People we thought would stand by us through thick and thin dumped us when we were not as much "fun" anymore.  I was shocked to find out how many "lifelong" friends turned their back when friendship became difficult.

Sure there were excuses.

We don't want to hurt you with our baby.
We don't know what to say
We don't know how to deal with someone so upset all of the time
We are tired of walking on eggshells
We were too far away to help
Call us when you feel more stable
Well what are we supposed to do about it
You should never have gotten so attached
I don't know why you are so upset- she wasn't even a real person anyway

and so many others.

Well you know what I have to say to any of you reading and "following from afar"  SCREW YOU.  You heard me.  If you can't be a friend when we need them the most, then I don't want you back if things turn around.

But you know what?  Our real friends found ways to work around it.  They visited or called when their baby was asleep.  They asked what would bother us rather than assuming they knew better than we did.  They got rid of the baby stuff we had on hand.  They arranged for help when I was at my lowest.  They were there with a hug when I needed it, and there with a shoulder when I needed that.

To those who have stood by us, to our friends and neighbours and family both close and far, to those who have answered a call at midnight or later, to those who held me while I cried, did not judge me for getting angry, and sat with me just to keep me company, thank you.  To those who called Jason, who offered to help in real ways to make life just a little bit easier, who called regularly, who sent kind emails or brought books or forced me out of the house.  Thank you for being real friends.

To the rest of you, just bugger off.

Tonight, for those of us of Eastern European decent, starts selichot.  A time period before Rosh Hashana where we are able to come close to God and beg forgiveness for the our sins of the past year.  Now, I am certainly not going to play the martyr and say I have nothing to apologize for.  I know I have hurt people.  Torn into people when I am in a bad mood.  Not been the best parent or the best daughter.  Certainly not the best sister and Definitly not the best wife.  Lord knows I have people to whom I need to apologize for horrible things I have said, done, inspired or any other pain I might have caused.

The call of the shofar throughout the month is supposed tot call me to do teshuva- to beg forgiveness for my wrongs both against man and against God.  Man?  Sure.  Each of the people who I can think of that I hurt will hear from me.  I offer a general if I have hurt you please let me know.  But you know what?  That call, the call I only heard once this year and that was by accident, that call to return to God is being ignored.

That I should have to stand before God and beg forgiveness for having my life destroyed?  Last year at this time I was happy.  I had no idea I was pregnant.  I was happy with Jason and Channah.  I was HAPPY damn it.  I loved where I was living.  I loved my life.  I had friends all the time.  I was working.  I WAS HAPPY.  He has to apologize.  He stole.  He hurt me.  No "father" would kill his own grand daughter is such a terrible way.  No  "father" would alienate his daughter so deliberately and so far that she would rather die than live under his roof.  No "Shepard" would willingly chase his flock up into the mountains.  How can I be such a hypocrite as to go into shul and sing his praises when the only thing I want to do is die to get away from him?

I should now have to stand in front of this God, this God who took my life that was fully devoted to him and turned it upside down?  I have no apology for him.  I have no emotional fortitude to stand in front of him and say I am sorry for spending every minute since February 28th cursing him and his name and wishing that I had never spent my life devoted to him.  I HATE this God that I have come to know.  He is not a God of mercy or of love or of any of the other qualities we give to him.  He is a God of pain and suffering.  A God who does not care who he hurts while he has his fun and changes the game as he goes along so no one but him can compete.  The truth is, I detest the God I have come to see this year.   The one who picks and chooses who he showers with love and praise and who he destroys from the inside out.

You will certainly not find me in shul this year.  Not for shofar.  Not for ne'ilah.  Not for community and not for my daughter who is not even old enough for her own seat.  Try the park.  No, better yet, try my bed.  That is where I spend most of my time these days.  The depression is getting worse.  I am so lonely most of the time it causes physical pain.  I didn't even know that was possible.  My heart is torn in two and my soul is damaged forever.  But you know what?  I don't friggen' care.  I did.  But I've stopped.  It's just not worth it.

So you win God.  Lord knows you make the rules so you always do.  I live out my life sad and lonely and miserable.  But I am going tot live it on my terms.  Those do not include worshiping a being who I see as nothing more than a child with nothing better to do but yank the strings on his puppets to put a grand old show for his other toys.

One more thing.  All you people on Imamother, I don't care what you are saying about me behind my back.  I am not there to defend myself and would not come back were my life dependent on it, I was thrown out a long time ago for not following the party line and don't regret it for a minute, but just think how you would feel having buried a child to find out that others were discussing your innermost feelings, your most painful moments and deemed themselves worthy to be judge, jury and executioner all in one.  Think about that and than think which one of us needs to beg forgiveness before any sort of court heavenly or otherwise.  You want to say something, say it here where I can answer you.  Not there behind some stupid anonymous pseudonym cause you are to afraid of what people might think of you.  I put my name on what I believe, why can't you?

This depression is going from bad to worse. I need more help than I am getting. I have not left my room in over 24 hours. I am spiraling into a black space. I am scared.

I have now been almost as long without Gabbi as I was with her and the depression continues to get worse. Lately I only get out of bed if I need to. I hate leaving the house for fear of seeing pregnant women, babies and strollers everywhere. My doctor is moving at turtle speed and does not seem to get how all this plays into my self worth and my depression. I am not going to Shul this set of chagim. If I am an apikoress for hating god so be it, I would rather be an apikoras than a hypocrite.

I really think that my depression is getting worse.  I spend more time thinking of ways I could, in theory, hurt myself, and no matter what time I gete in to bed am tossing and turning until after 5am.  This means that durring the day I am not bothering to get out of bed or get dressed unless I really need to and I end up spending most of the day asleep (even on days I do get up and do stuff I am so exhausted from not sleeping I fall asleep the minute I sit down).  I have tried breaking the cycle with a sleep aid early in the evening but it seems to do absolutly nothing!  I am just so tired all of the time lately.

I have mostly gone back to being really quiet- I only talk to anyone, even Jason and Channah if I absolutely have to.

The truth is, I have been taking less and less of the anti-anxiety medication even during anxiety "attacks", and I think that might mean I need more of the actual anti-depressant to make up for the difference.  Meeting with my phsychaistrist this week to talk it over.  I can hang on until Wednesday especially as I am seeing my therapist on Tuesday.  I made it a month.  I ought to be able to make it 3 days right?

In other news I have been starving all the time, and as such eating all the wrong things.  I had pasta for dinner!  Me, who no longer eats white flour had a bowl of pasta with sauce and cheese.  No wonder I feel sick and bloated.  I wish I could say I secretly have a good reason for being starving but I am pretty sure I don't.  At this rate I do not even think we get to try again until after succot which means I am in for the most miserable set of chagim EVER.  Oh well, not like I had planned to really leave the house much anyway.

I will just hang out here and continue hating my life.

Please note the addition of the new forum to this site. I am pretty sure that I have it set up so only members can read anything other than the description, and so that it is not searchable by search engines.  If you know anyone you feel might benefit from such a place, please feel free to send them a link.

Just a brief summary of where I am in my journey.

I still cry.  A lot.  I am still furious with God for what he took from me.  I still firmly believe that it was my fault for not following my gut reaction earlier that night.  I am still apart from the rest of my world looking in- there is an unseen barrier between me and my husband, and sometimes even between me and my precious, vibrant ALIVE daughter.  She is my only real comfort though.

I am still seeing both my therapist and my psychiatrist.  Still on both anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills.  Still have days where I do not get out of bed or even out of my pajamas.  Basically, if I do not have a reason to get up and out, I don't.

I feel empty inside.  Believe myself to be more orthoprax than orthodox as I am not really sure that I believe in a God who could ridicule me so harshly.  I am going into the chagim with no plans to go to shul.  Before you ask, no tehilim or Iyov does not seem to help either.  Yes I tried talking to a Rabbi or mentor, but neither of them really had the time for me.

Like I said, I cry a lot.  Mostly in the middle of the night, but lets be honest, it can be pretty much whenever. A song can do it.  A kids book.  A family walking.  A green stroller.

I had hoped going home to see my family would help.  It didn't.  I had no reason to really think it should.  No matter how much other people may love me they can't fill the emptiness in my heart.  I think they knew that too.

While I was home I had all sorts of people talk to me about looking at my brachot (I do- that still does not ease the pain of the loss or the lighten the burden of guilt I am left with.)

They talked about moving on- not even halacha prescribes a set period of mourning for a child- how can a person who has never been there?  At the time it had only been 5 months since some man, who I will never know, buried my little girl in some place I never know.  5 months- less time than I had known her for and I should already move on?

The inside of my head is hell. I  hate myself.  Nothing ever completely breaks through the darkness that surrounds me.  It is always there like a thin surface keeping me from the rest of reality.  I think that is what the drugs are supposed to take care of.  I guess they are not working quite the way they should be.  I am using less and less of the anti-anxiety, but I suspect I need a higher dose of the anti depressant.  The level of tears is going up weekly.

This "breast cancer awareness" meme going around face book "I'm __ weeks and craving ___ ." Is driving me insane.  As someone who has had both a breast cancer scare and who has dealt with stillbirth and infertility I can promise you that one did not make me more aware of the other.  Who the heck comes up with these things.  I am not sure who came up with this bright idea, but seeing half the woman on my friend's list posting about being pregnant when I would kill for it is just about more than I can handle.

For a long time now I have felt literally subhuan because of the way that I look.  Try as I might to accept the Health at any size position and to love myself for who I am, I just have not been able to believe that anyone ever saw me as anything other than a fat slob who, on occasion, might be able to put together a decent wardrobe.

So I don't know what to make of a recent story.

Not to long ago I was at a party for someone I love.  I took the same level of care with my clothing and makeup as I would for any formal, special event.  I even put in my contacts.

As a part of the party the guests were asked to provide the entertainment.  Not being one for singing or dancing, I went with what I know- I wrote.  I wrote a poem using jewelery as a metaphor for the sparking guest of honour.  Even I will admit that I thought the poem was pretty good, but I figured it would end at that.

I come from a family of beautiful people, and generally prefer to hide in the background as much as possible, so as soon as I was finished I gave the guest of honour a hug and sat back down at my table.

Shortly thereafter another guest, one who I would consider among the most beautiful of the beautiful people and I were chatting.  "You know," she said to me "when you were standing up there reading that poem with the light on you, I realized I must have never really looked at you before.  You have such a beautiful face".

And there is it folks.  I got the exact same comment a few days later from someone else.  Because of who the comments came from I am taking them as genuine complements, but the truth is that the line "you have such a beautiful face" just makes my head scream "if only you would lose the weight."

So now I am trying to figure out what was different that night.

Was it that I have lost a fair bit of weight in the last 6 months?  I would guess so except no one except one aunt seemed to notice that I was "a shadow of my former self".  In fact, there were a number of times I was reminded of exactly what I looked like and what I "should" be doing about it.

Was it just that normally I hide behind my glasses and everyone around me and this is one of the only times I stood there on my own apart from everyone else- I would love to believe it and am really trying- but wasn't that also true on my wedding day?  No one said anything then.  Was it that I was speaking from my heart to someone I truly love?  Also would have been true on my wedding day.

So why now?  Why now when I feel worse about myself than I ever have in my entire life.  I feel ugly and sad and broken.  The compliment was amazing- made me feel like flying for a little while- but the more I go through time as a sadder me, the more people seem to be attracted to me than they ever were to the happy me.  I see it everywhere I turn.  People are more helpful.  More polite.

Are they trying to help me feel better about myself in their own way?  Or just being honest that something really looked different that night.  I wore the exact same outfit to shul that week with nothing remarkable happening.

Every time I say something along any of these lines I get told how beautiful I am on the inside.  Another line that starts my brain screaming "but that outside- YIKES!"

On the other hand, if I am so beautiful on the inside, than why do I always feel so ugly and shamed.  Clearly God decided I was not worthy of any sort of beauty, for me or for the life that was inside of me.

Maybe I should just learn to make everything match and turn my insides ugly as well.  At least then you can tell at a glance what I am.

A comment a friend made on my last post made me realize something.  I am living my life as an orthodox Jew, believing in God and abiding by his rules, but I in no way trust him to look out for my best interests.  Seriously, in no way.

It was God who decided it was in my best interest to take my Gabbi from me.  After all the love and all the work I put into that pregnancy, it twas God who decided to send me hell on Earth and a nervous breakown.  Sure it was also God who sent me a fabulous community after the fact, but I would rather live in a neighbourhood filled with thugs and drug dealers with my baby in my arms than in this fabulous area with my baby in my heart.

I now go out of my way to plan everything down to the tiniest detail- checkig and double checking everything two, three, even  four times.  I have started making packing lists months in advance- sure God can still destroy my plans, and in many ways I expect him to, but I can no longer trust him to look after things for me so that they will all work out in the end.

It is funny, living in Toronto we always assumed nothing would work out, but since we made aliya we have to accept with ease the idea that God is in charge and it will all work out in the end.  It is amazing how easily and quickly I through that idea out of the window.  Almost 3 years of learning to trust God's hands out the window in a single missed heartbeat.

I will never, never NEVER forgive God for what he took from me.  We learn in various places that for stealing the punishment is to pay double, quadruple or even quintuple times the amount stolen in payback and so far as I can tell GOD OWES ME for what he stole.  God should be found guilty in beit din shel malah and forced to repay what he stole from me.  Until such time he should be considered a rasha who does not follow his own rules.

About a rasha one can speak lashon harah, he ccan be banned from the kehillah, and one need not associate with him.

But I like my life.  Other than the constant pain in my heart and in my soul it is comfortable.  So I continue to abide by his rules and pretend that I believe in a God of kindness and love and fairness.  A God who listens and loves his children like a father.  Who hands out reward and punishment with equal fairness- but in my heart, the same heart that pains for eyes I never saw open, for hands I never got to hold, for diapers I never got to change, while I continue to believe he created the universe and controls every minute aspect of it, I do not believe he has, for even a single moment, my best interest in mind.

I live by his codes and I follow his rules, but like an abused child who listens out of fear and not love, I hate the God I have come to believe in.  And no one who ha snot been in my position, no one who has B"H never had to sign chevra kadisha papers for a child, who has had to go through life not knowing where their child would spend their days until mashiach arrives, who ever got to hug each of their children and watch them grow into beautiful, beautiful people, can even think to  tell me otherwise.

God is a big boy.  He does not need anyone to protect him or speak for him.  As for me, I am much smaller and yet still stand on my own two feet and speak for myself.  And I am saying, Until God pays up what he owes, he can put tme in whatever book he likes, he is on my !@#$

Well, I am back from my summer vacation.  My daughter is back in school full time.  I have a few weeks until the chagim.  All of my friends are pregnant.  And with nothing set to do most of the time I just find my mind wandering to how busy my hands "should" be if I had a happy, healthy 6 month old.  She would be smiling by now.  Rolling.  Maybe laughing or making other noises.  I should have something taking all my extra time and mental strength.

Not that summer was not great or that I do not recognize Channah and Jason for the wonderful brachot that they are.  That is another issue entirely.  I just can't help but think about how excited I was to be a full time eema again come this September even once Channah was back in school.  I remember last simchat torah thinking how happy Jason would be dancing with a baby this year, and the whole thing just makes me so sad that all my dreams from a year ago have turned to garbage- not worth the mental energy I spent on them; or worse yet making me sadder for having had them.

I try not to think about it it, but everything reminds me.  Pregnant women.  Small Children.  Siblings playing.  I was okay and holding it together relatively well while I was forced to be dealing with a million other little details of being sick, than going away, and keeping a 7 year old busy over the summer.  But now I am at loose ends.  Piano lessons do not start again really until after the chagim.  I also will not have a lot of work in the studio until then and with the current price of precious metals I am not really going to play for fun.

I am working on slowly cleaning up and out our apartment, but most of those are jobs that leave me lots of time to think.  How much brain power does polishing silver or folding linens really need?

Truth is, I just want to get in to bed and stay there.  No real reason to get up it seems.

Not planning on getting a ticket for shul this yom tov.  Seems silly to go to talk to someone you hate- or worse yet might not believe in at all.  Right now I am working under the title "Orthoprax"- I do everything I have to, but don't really believe God, if he exists, cares one way or the other.

Meantime we are moving forward with trying again.  But my confidence in that is about as high as my confidence in myself.  I hate the inside of my head.