What Derech?

It's a good thing this blog has no readers, because I should be able to speak freely here.

Well, lots of things have happened in the past few months that set off a serious bout of depression and anxiety in me. It probably started when my uncle died, then I lost both my jobs, then I was raped by someone supposedly hiring me for a job, then my grandmother died, and in the interim I had several respiratory infections, a bladder infection, I injured my back from falling down stairs after being drugged and raped, and to top it all off, my cat died last week.

Actually, it gets better.

My jadedness towards life had become so bad that I started to slowly abandon Orthodox Judaism but keep up the image of it. I know I was rejected by the seminary I applied to because I don't "fit in" and that has also contributed to my having left the derech. But as someone once said, it's best not to go too far. I still believe, but I'm so depressed keeping mitzvot has no pleasure any more. Though in more recent times I have begun to question everything including my belief in Hashem. It frightens me when things get bad and even my emuna is shaken.

And it gets even better...

So, part of my off-the-derechness was completely ignoring the Omer restrictions and breaking Shabbat in private (I hate openly breaking Shabbat, as hypocritical as that sounds). I would go out and party every week, and self-medicate with booze and other unmentionables.

I think somewhere along the way I damaged several interpersonal relationships and now people are ignoring and avoiding me. I know I've pissed off a number of people and they just want nothing to do with me. It hurts because I know that no matter the circumstances, the spoken word is like the spent arrow and never comes back.

So I won't be going to Israel this year, and I'm unsure where I fit into Orthodoxy any more, if it all. For reasons I can't get into, I just don't believe that within the Orthodox framework I will ever meet someone who loves me for who I am.

I'm too damaged.