My Irreconcilable Differences

Personal blog to express some pretty deep-seated feelings of never fitting in anywhere

[nowhere-i-fit]

I really feel like if you all knew who I was, you wouldn't care anymore

[nowhere-i-fit]

I know that my parents should have done better to understand me as an autistic person, but I also feel like I feel like they really couldn't.

The question that I fixate on constantly is:

"It's 1997, and you are a housewife living in a rural part of California. You get a call on the phone. It's from the faculty running the preschool attached to the church you go to. They say your child is getting kicked out of the program because they threw a fit over another kid not sharing one of the toys with them in a way that was so egregious and disruptive, it was considered unacceptable.

You don't really know what autism is, because you are living in a rural area in the 90s.

What are you supposed to do about that? "

The answer was to negotiate to put me back in. I was put back into the preschool program. However, every day before I was dropped off, my mother would have me go over a list of roughly 20 things I wasn't supposed to do at school. Much of the rules consisted of me not acting out. This lasted from when I was 3 to 5 years old. Even then, it wasn't good enough. I couldn't learn those lessons well, the faculty threatened to hold me back because I was still seen as too immature for kindergarten

[nowhere-i-fit]

There was a post I saw on here about if you cannot love yourself, you should start by learning to love being myself. The thing is, how do I even manage to do that? The biggest takeaway I was given growing up as autistic is that I really shouldn't.

[nowhere-i-fit]

I just wanted to say that I've been seeing all the responses to my post and I'm incredibly overwhelmed by all how supportive everyone has been. It's reassuring to know how many people understand and relate. I've been involved with my local Jewish community for several years now but every so often, especially now with things going on in the world and in my personal life, I've felt so lost.

I'm glad to know that it's all enough. I'm incredibly thankful ❤️

[nowhere-i-fit]

I'm Jewish, but I don't really post about it much because I feel like will never be qualified to ever make any meaningful input.

I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.

I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.

I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.

I'm just a shoddy, piecemeal imitation of a Jew, my identity just cobbled together with garbage and scraps. I shouldn't here because I'm just an incomprehensible mess that brings no value to the Jewish community

[shofarsogood]

Don't feel bad. Plenty of Jews weren't raised in our culture and discover it later in life. You can talk to a rabbi about your situation and how you want to connect to the community. Just email your closest synagogue and start talking about how you could join. Most rabbis love helping people to reconnect with Judaism.

You deserve to feel comfortable in Judaism if you want to. You may need to take classes to catch up on the prayers and stuff but you can still do it.

Please don't feel like this is a closed door forever. I promise it's not.

[biglawbear]

I was disconnected from my Jewishness for all long it was 20 years since I set foot in a synagogue. I never made bar mitzvah. I also felt like I was starting from zero. It's only been two years since I joined a shul and I've made a ton of friends and reconnected in ways I never thought possible.

My rabbi said, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. It doesn't matter how long it's been or how disconnected you feel. You're still a Jew!.

I suggest going to a couple different synagogues for Friday night services and talking to a couple different rabbis if you're able to see where you vibe. There's a lot of variety in communities!

[weemietime]

Im gonna be real this is an extremely normal experience for a lot of Jews. I dont mean to invalidate your experience or sound dismissive or say its no big deal.

but your baseline of "I dont know anything about Judaism and it was stolen from me before I ever had the opportunity to learn anything about my culture and ergo I cannot relate to other Jews"

is actually unfortunately.... a common Jewish baseline. Our culture has been decimated repeatedly, subjected to colonization, expulsion, violence, genocide, diaspora, conversion, assimilation, exile, etc etc.

Which means a much higher proportion of Jews have exactly these experiences, which means u are in good company! To the point that we have many words in our culture to describe Jews who later return to fuller observation or desire to learn more about their heritage.

You feel like a piecemeal imitation of a Jew while sharing a fairly ordinary Jewish experience with many other Jews who can and will relate to you <3

[nowhere-i-fit]

Thank you to everyone who's reached out to this post. It's incredibly reassuring to see how many people relate to my experience. It's really easy for me to feel lost and like I'm never doing enough, but I'm not going to give up ❤️

[nowhere-i-fit]

[nowhere-i-fit]

I'm Jewish, but I don't really post about it much because I feel like will never be qualified to ever make any meaningful input.

I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.

I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.

I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.

I'm just a shoddy, piecemeal imitation of a Jew, my identity just cobbled together with garbage and scraps. I shouldn't here because I'm just an incomprehensible mess that brings no value to the Jewish community

[nowhere-i-fit]

Awesome. I just deleted a post that was really difficult to write because I wanted to edit it. Now I have to write it all over again 🫠🫠

[nowhere-i-fit]

I feel like the jumblr ask/opinion blogs have been consistently deleting or ignoring my asks and I really, really don't know what I'm doing wrong

[nowhere-i-fit]

Like, I thought that what I was sending was following the rules, that I was being on topic and respectful, and that they were understandable, but I guess they're not? I wish I knew what I was doing wrong... Is it because I still don't understand being Jewish after all this time I've been trying to connect with my own roots? Do people think I'm fake and stupid?

[nowhere-i-fit]

I feel like the jumblr ask/opinion blogs have been consistently deleting or ignoring my asks and I really, really don't know what I'm doing wrong

[nowhere-i-fit]

I feel so alone in every facet in my life. In my personal relationships, online, in my local Jewish community, on jumblr, anywhere I try to be. I try so desperately to reach out to seek out others, especially when I feel like this, but I flounder and fall because no one seems to want to reach back. I just want to be worth being around, but I don't think I ever will no matter how hard I try.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

No citizens of any country are somehow inherently bad or evil because of their government. Full stop. That includes Russian citizens, Israeli citizens, Palestinian citizens, Chinese citizens, Iranian citizens, North Korean citizens, etc.

Everyone in this world is just living their lives, each with their own complex needs and desires and interests and emotions. They all have hobbies and friends and families and favorite foods. They all have their own motivations and varying political opinions and views on their governments. They all weigh the risks of standing out or speaking up and they all make their own decisions about that.

They all fear the same in times of danger. They all feel grief and pain and terror the same. They all love and hate and bleed the same.

They are people. They are no different from anyone else, they are not monsters or caricatures or nameless bodies in videos. Complexity and humanity are not exclusive to your country, to people like you.

[nowhere-i-fit]

I feel so alone in every facet in my life. In my personal relationships, online, in my local Jewish community, on jumblr, anywhere I try to be. I try so desperately to reach out to seek out others, especially when I feel like this, but I flounder and fall because no one seems to want to reach back. I just want to be worth being around, but I don't think I ever will no matter how hard I try.

[nowhere-i-fit]

I feel like the only thing I'm exceptional at as an autistic is how to make a scene and being a complete chore for everyone around me to deal with

[dragon-in-a-fez]

you can believe victims about what they experienced and also not want to torch the lives of the people they've accused without proof. that is a space you can walk in and usually it's not even that hard. I say this as a survivor of domestic violence. "believe victims" doesn't mean get torches and pitchforks any more than "innocent until proven guilty" means victims are lying. please please learn this "believe victims" isn't about the perpetrators it's about the victims

[luckyladylily]

Considering how it is incredibly well know that a default distrust and hatred of masculinity led to radical feminism and trans exclusionary radical feminsts, a group that is incredibly violent and hateful to trans women, I find it fascinating (read: Incredibly short sighted and foolish) how many trans women are openly embracing that kind of rhetoric. They seem to alternate between "fuck terfs!" and "I really vibe with the idea that masculinity is inherently evil and corrupts everything it touches"

You get the feeling that to some trans women the problem is not that terfs are bigots, but that they target trans women specifically.

[resisteverything]

Fascinating how so many of them have rejected bioessentialism to instead sort of gendered soul essentialism where a trans dude is the same as a cis man due to an evil male soul, but in a way that is still bioessentialist because somehow trans dude having biologically female parts is a moral failing because you have an evil male soul and therefore aren’t supposed to be affected by systemic misogyny, that’s something that’s supposed to happen to trans women because they have good female souls and therefore are incapable of misogyny because no woman has ever been sexist before.

[jewish-vents]

I'm neurodivergent, and being misunderstood is a huge trigger for me. But to be jewish is to be misunderstood. And gaslit. I don't know how to cope with it. I kept trying to argue for myself but it makes people misunderstand me more. I either have to put up with being misunderstood (which feels like peeling my skin off) or digging the hole deeper. *cries*

.