Keeping Shabbos As a Trauma Survivor. Spoiler: I Gave Up

Shabbos, the weekly Jewish holiday, should be a day of rest. But for survivors, it can be just the opposite.

I was going to write this as an inspiration piece, full of encouragement of how you can keep going and keep Shabbos even when the going is really rough. (Haha, as if.) But then, I thought, to hell with that. Let's be real. 

Keeping Shabbos as a trauma survivor is hell. Plain and simple. Majority of my coping mechanisms are melacha (which is the term for forbidden work on Shabbos), so I can't cope with the tremendous amount of anxiety I feel. Listening to music? Nope. Putting on lotion? Nada. Calling a friend? Can't do that either. Cutting myself? Just kidding. Don't do that anymore. Plus, all of my major traumas happened on Shabbos, so that doesn't help things much. Even just thinking of the day gets me jittery. As a child, I was molested by a predator in the neighborhood who attended the same Shul (synagogue) as my family. He also happens to be a huge donor, which explains why he is still out and about and around children. *shudder* That also is why he was able to hurt the Rabbi's own children and still nothing was done!! Messed up, right? I know. That is why I do not have the distraction of going to a house of worship. The last time I tried that, I landed myself in the adolescent psych ward for being suicidal. Which, by the way, is so different than everyone imagines. I can write numerous books about it, even though I was there literally only a week. (The psych ward, not the suicidal part. I was suicidal much longer than a week. LOL.) Admittedly, that was a cathartic and helpful experience in the long run, but I do not believe in putting myself into that awful crisis state voluntarily. So no Shul for me. 

Basically, I tried my best for as long as I could, but keeping Shabbos is a no-go for me. Outwardly, I still do. I come to family meals and don't break it publicly, but in private I do everything that I need to do to maintain my sanity. The first time I broke it on purpose, I literally broke something. I broke my mom's razor from the bathroom because I was dead-set on cutting myself (bad old habits die hard, but hey- I'm 249 days clean now!). But at the last minute I decided that if I'm already breaking Shabbos, I may as well do something that won't potentially kill me. So I listened to music instead, and stayed clean. Yippee for me. One more day clean. Day in the life of a trauma survivor. 

Also- if you've read my previous post (you can check that out here), you'll know that I don't drink anymore. And being that Shabbos is a known day of drinking, especially in my Russian family, I have a really hard time. I don't drink from Kiddush, and if I do have to make it, it'll be on grape juice. Yeah, my sorry alcoholic ass has to deal with grape juice. But that's better than drinking and not dealing with all of my problems, and having them all bite me in the butt later, when I wake up from my poor choices. Which, again, is why I no longer drink. Even though I really want to. Ugh! My one hope is that one day, I'll stop romanticizing my alcohol days and buy a car. Kidding about the car. But I do have my permit test appointment scheduled, finally! It's in June, which was the first appointment I could get, but it's still something in this covid era, so I should stop complaining.

Anyway, so my brain-foggy, sleep-deprived self got side-tracked. 

The strange part is that even though I repeatedly tell myself that what I'm doing is okay, whether because I don't believe that this is what God wants of me, or whether because it's for the sake of my well-being and sanity, I still can't seem to shake this anxious feeling. I tend to get very nervous about the "desecration" of the Shabbos, pushing aside this paranoid feeling that I'll be struck down momentarily for what I'm doing. I guess it's the lingering guilt that I've been brought up with. Oh well. What would we do without Jewish guilt?!

A lot, actually. 

So, for all the survivors fighting the good fight, I'm here with you. For all those anxiety-filled nights, clutching your phone (or knife), and for the long, depressing days, just keep me in mind, destroying my mom's razor. Which I didn't even use in the end. Wow, I never thought about the fact that I destroyed her razor for nothing. Back to what I was saying: I'm here with you for this ride, and push away the guilt and obsessions, and know that prioritizing your health is the best service you can give to God.