Abacaxi Mamão

1. That God speaks to me through the text of the Torah.
2. That the Rabbis who wrote the Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud were creative geniuses to whom I am eternally grateful.
3. That worthwhile relationships require hard work.
4. That children are both amazing and impossible, often at the same time. 
5. Taking care of children, teaching them, and raising them to become respectable, responsible adults requires untold sums of patience, hard and boring work, inspiration, and perspiration. (This is true even for proponents of free-range parenting.)
6. That things (habits, manners, ways of being in the world) that weren't modeled for us as children are more difficult to acquire in adulthood.
7. That human bodies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and that no one shape or size is better than any other shape or size.
8. That the things that we love the most often cause us the most pain: our family, our friends, our romantic relationships, our communities (Jewish or otherwise), our religion... The list goes on. It is very long!
9. That everyone (everyone!) can benefit from both individual and group therapy.
10. That nature is both beautiful and cruel.
11. That the ability to feel deep gratitude is an enormous blessing.
12. That we improve at things through practice.
13. That all of us struggle with things that are often/always/sometimes invisible to others.
14. That time spent outside in nature, standing still in appreciation or meandering while lost in thought, is never wasted.
15. That the myriad, unending series of individual choices that we all make in life are constrained both by things that we understand and know and things that we don't know or understand.
16. That the Torah contains beautiful wisdom and really, really challenging verses.
17. That the Talmud contains beautiful wisdom and really, really challenging pericopes (that's the fancy English word for sugyot).
18. That the Midrash contains beautiful wisdom and really, really challenging passages.
19. That it's normal to go through periods of feeling energized and excited by things (concepts, communities, hobbies, practices) and then distant from and alienated from them. Even bored by them. Things wax and wane. That's how it goes. Sometimes, we push through and continue our practiced commitment to them even during periods of waning interest or outright alienation, and sometimes we don't. And that's okay!
20. That there are multiple authentic ways to practice Judaism and that different ways work for different people. Maybe even for the same person at different times of their life.
21. That racism and sexism (among other -isms) are ubiquitous in the United States today (and probably elsewhere, but that's where I live). They are sometimes insidious and sometimes really blatant and in your face. The impact each one of us every single day.

Labels: childhood, education, Jewish community, life, mental health, teaching

Thought this was interesting.

Labels: links, mental health

Labels: Israel, mental health, Torah (broadly defined)

1. Yay for the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007. It's about time. I am so glad that this made it into the bailout bill. I don't quite get how these two issues are related, but whatever. I guess it's more like they got bundled together with other issues and they were all passed and signed into law as a unit. (8th grade civics was a woefully long time ago.) I am also impressed with the bipartisan nature of this bill and hope that this bodes well for future health care reform in the US.
   
   
2. For a good time see the Rashbam [medieval commentary] on Genesis 24:1, "ברך את אברהם בכל" (Warning: I have an interesting idea of what constitutes a "good time" sometimes. I don't want to get your hopes up--it was more momentarily amusing and interesting enough to share with someone in the beit midrash than a long-lasting "good time.")

Labels: mental health, Torah (broadly defined)

I am taking a break from packing for Israel to tell you to read this. It doesn't surprise me. I only hope that colleges are starting to deal with this problem in a responsible way, through providing adequate (or better!) medical and mental health care, rather than trying to immediately kick anyone out who might have any mental health problems due to liability concerns. During my five years in college (a story for another time, I suppose), I saw the university shift in some positive and some negative ways, both towards more fear of liability but also towards a heartier array of helpful resources for students, and more interest in publicizing those resources.

Anyone who wants to read more on the topic can start with College of the Overwhelmed, by Richard Kadison and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo. I know Richard Kadison and was interviewed for the book.

I was very active in mental health advocacy in college, mostly on behalf of students to deans, advisers, and other university staff. I also worked on reducing stigma in the student population, and served as an informal resource for a lot of students who wanted to seek help for their mental health concerns and didn't know where to turn. I really miss that work. It was the first public speaking that I ever felt comfortable with. I thought that I might make a career out of it at one point, but I didn't get the one job that I applied for in that field, so, instead, I ended up doing something else for the last five years. (I did get an interview, though, which felt promising at the time.)

Part of me still feels drawn to some kind of career in public health/urban planning/environmentalism/anti-domestic violence. I don't know exactly how all of those things intersect in my brain, but they do, in interesting ways. For me, it basically boils down to this: People should live in environments (both macro and micro) that support their full potential as human beings and that allow them to be supportive members of larger communities, while engaging their minds and bodies fully, and in a way that is sustainable in the long term. That's the life that I want to lead and that I want everyone around me to lead. Now, how can we make that happen? I know it's a tall order, but I think it has to do both with how people interact on a micro level and how cities are designed and built on a macro level. Who gets to think and learn and write about this stuff, and how can I sign up?

I worry, sometimes, about getting fully sucked up into the wonderful world of Jewish learning, and setting aside all of these other nascent interests that I have, that have not-very-much to do with gemara or halakhah.

Labels: books/reading, mental health, science/health/environment

As a follow-up to this post from last November, read this.

The short story is:

A Missouri mom was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in the death of a teen who killed herself over a failed Internet romance that turned out to be a hoax.

This 49-year-old woman set up a fake MySpace page, pretending to be a teenage boy, so she could make a thirteen-year-old girl feel loved, with the intention of then turning really mean and hurting the thirteen-year-old emotionally. It wasn't just this woman, but more than one adult and some kids who came up with this. A group of people conspired to make this thirteen-year-old girl miserable, and some of this group were grown adults--parents, with teenagers of their own.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? I don't usually curse on this blog, but I think that this bit is extremely curse-worthy:

The indictment does not allege that Drew sent the final message telling Meier the world would be a better place without her. Instead, it blames her unnamed co-conspirators, who authorities have previously said include a teenage girl.

Emphasis mine.

Labels: mental health

This is still the best thing that I've ever written about Pesach/Passover, so I will, once again, start off by linking to it.

Labels: Jewish holidays, mental health, Pesach

Or while I'm sick. I've been over the flu and back at work for two weeks now, but I'm still totally exhausted much of the time and my throat has been hurting, on and off, also. So I went back to the doctor today. It's probably nothing, but if it isn't nothing, it may be mono. And how wasteful is it to get the kissing disease without any kissing?

Anyway, carry on. I might have blogged about all of these things (and LimmudNY) if I weren't so busy sleeping and taking acetaminophen. Also, working my paying job. And, you know, reading the newspaper and Scientific American Mind and stuff. (That and Wired are my current two favorite magazines.)

Science fun

• The Secret to Raising Smart Kids (Scientific American Mind, December 2007)
  
• Bored? (Scientific American Mind, December 2007)
• The Claim: Never Drink Hot Water From the Tap (New York Times, 1/29/08) [My mother always told me this and now I know it's true!]
• Using Music to Lift Depression's Veil (New York Times "Well" blog, 1/24/08)
  

Education fun

• Anybody thinking of graduate school? (The Daily Princetonian)
• Brain Enhancement is Wrong, Right? (New York Times, 3/9/08)
• In Oil-Rich Mideast, Shades of the Ivy League (New York Times, 2/11/08)
• Did I Miss Anything, by Tom Wayman (awesome poem, originally from The Astonishing Weight of the Dead, Vancouver: Polestar, 1994.)
  

Eliot Spitzer...fun? No, power-hungry and delusional.

• How Do These Shits Get Their Wives To Come To The "I Am A Shit" Press Conference Anyway, And Other Marvels (Jezebel)
• The Myth of the Victimless Crime (New York Times op-ed, 3/12/08)
• Spitzer's Downfall Means Free Market Moves Merchandise (Gothamist, 3/12/08)
• What Spitzer Was Doing Before Seeing "Kristen" (Gothamist, 3/11/08)

Random fun (if you consider either sadness or shopping to be fun)

• How Sadness Can Turn You Into a Shopaholic (U.S. News and World Report, 2/11/08)

That's all I've got for now. Stay healthy and far away from germy people!

Labels: links, mental health, New York, science/health/environment

That is, living with someone who has depression. Sharing a life with someone who has depression. Dooce's husband, Jon, writes about it here, and includes discussion of the role that gender differences play in how he deals with his wife's depression. It's great. Everyone should read it. With approximately one quarter¹ of the US population reporting having experienced symptoms sufficient for diagnosing a mental disorder during the past 12 months, you know people with mental disorders or you have one yourself. Either way, this is a good read. (Here are Dooce's archives about her own struggles with depression.)

Speaking of that statistic, did you know that it is official Peace Corps policy not to consider anyone for the Peace Corps who has been in therapy anytime during the twelve months before they apply? What do you think of that?

I think it's kind of crazy. I mean what young, idealistic, save-the-world type hasn't been in therapy sometime over the past twelve months? On the other hand, I can sort of understand them wanting to cover their behinds in terms of liability. I don't imagine it's very easy to get an emergency consult with a therapist in the middle-of-nowhere South America or Africa, and they don't want to risk a potential problem. I think a better way to prevent such problems, though, would be to require, in cases where a Peace Corps applicant has been in therapy sometime over the past year, a letter from a therapist certifying that the applicant has not been clinically mentally ill for the past twelve months. I mean, I can't imagine that anyone who is seriously depressed, manic-depressive, obsessive-compulsive, or suffering from any other mental illness would want to do the Peace Corps, but I could be wrong.

In general, I am very wary of blanket policies that discriminate against people on the basis of treatment received. First of all, having had treatment is not necessary equivalent to being ill or unable to handle stress or hard work. Second of all, such policies have the effect of discouraging people from seeking treatment that they might need, which is horrendous.
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1. Kessler RC, Chiu WT, Demler O, Walters EE. "Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of twelve-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R)." Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005 Jun;62(6):617-27. [I can't believe how long its been since I've used hyperlinked footnotes, or any footnotes at all, here. It can't be a good sign. I must be slipping!]

Labels: mental health

Here I am, discussing happiness again. Do you think speaking of happiness serves as a protective measure against the doldrums of winter? Is this a positive way to handle the fact that I got hailed on, then rained on, then snowed on, then hailed on--all within a few hours, this morning?

Nice try, but this New York Times article ("He’s Happier, She’s Less So"), from late September, made me sad, not happy. It's about the "growing happiness gap between men and women."

I quote:

Mr. Krueger, analyzing time-use studies over the last four decades, has found an even starker pattern. Since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back on activities they find unpleasant. They now work less and relax more.

Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past. Forty years ago, a typical woman spent about 23 hours a week in an activity considered unpleasant, or 40 more minutes than a typical man. Today, with men working less, the gap is 90 minutes.

[snip] What has changed — and what seems to be the most likely explanation for the happiness trends — is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did (including helping their aging parents). They can’t possibly get it all done, and many end up feeling as if they are somehow falling short.

Mr. Krueger’s data, for instance, shows that the average time devoted to dusting has fallen significantly in recent decades. There haven’t been any dust-related technological breakthroughs, so houses are probably just dirtier than they used to be. I imagine that the new American dustiness affects women’s happiness more than men’s.

Yes, I do think that dusty floors and shmutzy counter-tops affect my happiness more than they affect that of my male peers. The level of cleanliness and lack of clutter that I would need, in my apartment, to really be happy with it/my life, is basically unattainable without, say, cleaning a little bit every day. I am currently not willing to do that, even though doing that might increase my happiness. It would also decrease the amount of time that I could devote to eating dinner, blogging, or reading the paper. It's a tough balance.

[snip] A big reason that women reported being happier three decades ago — despite far more discrimination — is probably that they had narrower ambitions, Ms. Stevenson says. Many compared themselves only to other women, rather than to men as well. This doesn’t mean they were better off back then.

But it does show just how incomplete the gender revolution has been. Although women have flooded into the work force, American society hasn’t fully come to grips with the change. The United States still doesn’t have universal preschool, and, in contrast to other industrialized countries, there is no guaranteed paid leave for new parents.

This brief article is but one in a very, very long line of newspaper and magazine articles that reiterates the idea that "No, women really can't have it all."

I have become more and more convinced that this is true. I don't think that this makes me a post-feminist or a non-feminist, or is a backlash against the "women can have it all" ethos of the second wave feminists. It's more of a statement of reality than of idealism, to me.

I think I first started feeling this way when I was 18 and spending a year studying in Israel, comparing my experiences in yeshiva to those of my male peers. Expectations of and by women in terms of Jewish learning and so many other things are different than expectations of and by men, and these differences, as far as I can tell, are almost exclusively to women's disadvantage.

Perhaps I will write more on this at another time.

Labels: gender, mental health, Torah (broadly defined)

I haven't had time to read this article from this past Tuesday's Science Times ("Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist") yet, but I want to. That has to count for something, right?

I may have thoughts to share after I read it. I just wanted to post it here for now as a placeholder. If I don't post this publicly, I will probably forget about it for months and months, as so often happens to very short draft posts.

Carry on.

Labels: mental health

I believe that money can't buy happiness ("All They Are Saying Is Give Happiness a Chance," NYT, Nov. 12, 2007), but I also think that some of the things that do lend themselves to happiness--free time, time to spend with family and friends, less stress--are difficult to come by if you are working two jobs or many, many hours at one job to make enough money to feed, clothe, and house you and your dependents. This just means that you need a certain degree of financial stability to have happiness. Once you have that financial stability, I would tend to agree that more money won't make you happier. I have never been of the opinion that having a lot of money would make me happier, since the things that bring me the most pleasure are almost never expensive.

The way that little things affect our happiness was very interesting to me--finding a dime on a photocopy machine? That would make me happy! So do things like helping random strangers (or being helped by them--when someone points out that I've dropped something, for example), taking a walk on a nice day, seeing a funny movie, having a really great discussion with a friend, having the time and being in the right mind frame to appreciate live music (it's not enough to hear it when I'm rushed or stressed out or worried about the expense). Sometimes I am surprised by how much the little things make a difference.

Conversely, it doesn't take much to make a bad day. Usually, the kinds of things that make my day bad are interactions I have with other people I know or frustrations with my own inability to be the person I want to be--things that are rather expected and seem kind of mundane--while the kinds of things that make my day good seem more random, like seeing something startingly beautiful in Central Park or helping random strangers or being helped by random strangers. I'm not sure what, exactly, this says about me.

I often think of how I should find a way to integrate more of the happiness-creating things into my life. I don't think it would be that hard, but it does take some focus, planning, and intentionality, whereas my modus operandi seems to be more along the lines of frenzied flying by the seat of my pants. Some part of me thinks that moments planned to promote happiness would be less satisfying than random rays of happiness bursting through the clouds of work and stress and errands and housekeeping. (Interminable! Will I ever get used to the idea that to keep myself fed and clothed and satisfied I will need to shop and launder and sweep, week after week after week forever? I would very much like for these things to take care of themselves. I suppose that is where having more money would come into play and possibly make me happier.)

Labels: life, mental health

This made me very sad, as well as somewhat infuriated.

I can't believe that a parent would conspire to create a fake teenage boy on MySpace to spy on a 13-year-old neighborhood girl to see what the girl was saying about her child, and then withdraw the affection of the teenage boy. It's sick. Just sick. And cruel.

In pre-MySpace days, when I was seventeen, a boy I had met in real life suddenly withdrew his affection towards me, and I remember how traumatic it was. I remember feeling both worthless for not managing to hang onto his affection and intensely foolish for having believed in it in the first place. I would not want to relive those days for anything. I only got through them by writing bad poetry and filling pages of my journal. I only draw the comparison to underline my feelings that any adult who purposely puts an adolescent girl through this kind of hell is in a class with the worst kind of human being.

Update: Here is New York Times ("A Hoax Turned Fatal Draws Anger but No Charges") coverage of the story from November 28. And here is a November 29 post on Judith Warner's blog about the same tragic incident.

Labels: childhood, mental health

It seems like I might be a prime candidate for learning to dream lucidly, as per this article ("Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking") from today's New York Times. The idea of being able to control my dreams without waking up from them is exciting, as is the idea of being able to have only nice dreams, and no nasty ones.

For almost as long as I can remember, I have had vivid, narrative-heavy dreams that I often remember in great detail when I wake up. There is often a story in which I figure prominently. It's usually clear what made me dream that particular dream that night, since real life, in one form or another, pops up. I have a lot of anxiety dreams, or at least those are the ones that I remember most clearly. Sometimes I just have nice dreams that I don't want to wake up from, but I am usually happy to wake up from my dreams to find myself in bed, with my life intact.

Often, strange things happen in the dream and I therefore understand that it must be a dream. Once, when I was in junior high, when I had a dream that I was running away from the Nazis with my little sister, I realized that it was a dream and promised her that it was a dream. I told her that I would prove it to her by pinching myself and waking up. I did, and I did. (Aside: I wonder how common it is for Jewish children who are learning about the Holocaust in school to have dreams that they are being chased by Nazis or otherwise personally experiencing elements of the Holocaust.) More recently, I was being chased by a miniature rhinoceros in a dream, and I thought to myself, "That's ridiculous. There is no such thing as a miniature rhinoceros and if there was it certainly wouldn't be chasing me," and then I made myself wake up, since I was tired of running away from a miniature rhinoceros. (It looked just like this, which is courtesy of someone's imagination and Photoshop.) A British-style red phone booth also appeared in the dream, and I don't remember what else.

Most recently (over Rosh Hashanah and right afterwards), I had three anxiety dreams. In one, I was walking through the halls of my high school when a song started playing over the PA system. I don't remember the specifics, but I think that the song, which was about me, was broadcasting my lack of athletic ability and general nerdiness. I somehow knew who was behind it (two boys, both of whom exist in real life, although one of whom had my brother's initials instead of his own in the dream--sorry, bro'). I went over to one of them and said, "Seriously, this is the best thing you can think of doing with your time?" and then I walked away, disdainfully. I felt sort of empowered through the dream, like other people could waste their time trying to make my life miserable if they wanted to, but I was having none of it and furthermore, I had better things to do with my time. Sad? Maybe. I'm glad I'm done with high school, that's for sure.

In the second dream, I was going to a wedding, but I was doing something else first, so rather than wear nice clothing all day, I wore very casual clothing (jeans and sneakers) and put my wedding clothing in a backpack. When I arrived at the wedding hall, the skirt that I was going to wear was impossibly wrinkled and I had entirely forgotten to bring nice shoes. So I had to wear a wrinkled skirt and white sneakers to the wedding, and it was very embarrassing. That was a fairly short dream.

In the third dream, I was back in college. I was almost done. I only needed to take four more classes. There was one class that I had tried to take many times in college, but the professor always gave a lot of reading right at the beginning, and he expected students to be able to answer questions about the reading in class. (He called on students without asking for volunteers--sadistic!) I was always behind by the second week of class and I was never able to catch up, so I kept dropping the class rather than continuing and being hopelessly lost. Finally, it was my last semester of college, and I was bound and determined to take this class, which was a biology/neurology class of some kind, but with no prerequisites. Just a lot of reading. I went the first day, and when the pile of photocopied readings landed with a thump on my desk, dread washed over me. I could almost feel the color draining from my face in the dream, that's how intense it was. There was no way that I was going to be able to do all of this reading that week (or any week), and I didn't know what to do. I really wanted to take the class, it was so interesting, but I couldn't do the reading. In real life, of course, I would have taken the class pass-fail or audited it (and then stopped showing up halfway through, because what full-time student actually attends lectures for an entire semester for a class for which they receive no credit?). However, these options did not exist in the dream. I woke up feeling kind of trapped, as I often felt in college as I got further and further behind on work as the fall semester progressed.

I used to have anxiety dreams about school all the time. In a classic one from high school, I showed up for class and realized that I had forgotten that we had a test. (That actually happened to me once in college. Luckily, there were three midterm exams and the lowest score was dropped, so I got to drop my 36% and keep my 89% and 92% grades! The teaching assistant told me that it was the most improvement between midterms that he'd ever seen!) The high school unprepared-for-test dream involved my Navi [Prophets] class, which is kind of funny, since, with the exception of my senior year of high school when I skipped Navi class to take naps and work on the school paper, those tests were not that difficult. (It's okay. I studied at the end of the semester and aced the final. I still don't know those long names of the prophet Isaiah's symbolic sons, though.)

However, I don't think I've ever had an anxiety dream about college, and her I am, five years out, having one! I am an anxious person (can you tell?), and both college and high school had their anxious moments, but in high school it was more stomach-churning anxiety about whether I would get a B+ or an A- and in college it was more about would I pass my classes or not, or if I would finish my senior thesis on time. College also involved far more tense personality conflicts/run-ins with teaching assistants. (It was more with them than with professors.) (With one exception, I passed my classes and I finished my 116 page honors thesis with minutes to spare! Multiple minutes!) Either way, I don't appreciate such dreams at all. If I'm not in school, I shouldn't have to be anxious about school.

So, why all the dreams? What do they mean?

I haven't felt more anxious than usual lately, unless you consider the thought of facing your Creator and being judged to be anxiety-producing. Truth be told, that thought hasn't been going through my mind very much, either. This season has been much more about me hanging in there and sort of wistfully yearning for God's presence from afar than any sort of spiritual or liturgical heavy-lifting. (There are some lovely selichot [penitential prayers] that express this long/yearning aspect of the High Holidays very nicely.) For the past few years, I have been really into the whole repentance thing, and have made major personal strides during this time of year, but this year, it's all I can do to keep unpacking my apartment, eating, sleeping, and keep my head above water at work.

I hope God understands and has a better year in mind for me for 5768. 5766 and 5767 sure were doozies. In addition to the stuff y'all know about, like my cousin dying, me falling into the subway, my grandmother dying, and my somewhat-more-stressful-than-normal move, a close relative was diagnosed with cancer (is currently recovering from surgery with a sparklingly good prognosis--yay for that!), and I was diagnosed with a chronic illness in early May that is uncomfortable and inconvenient, but as far as I understand, not really dangerous, due to my good fortune at having health insurance that covers things like doctor's visits and prescription drugs that keep it under control. Still, it takes some amount of time and energy to manage, and I haven't been great at that given, oh, everything else that's happened since early May, so it's gotten worse. Also, I broke my toe in January, which, compared to all of this stuff, is so laughably minor as to be almost entirely inconsequential.

Here's to a better 5768 for everyone! (If your 5767 was already quite nice, may your 5768 be even more fabulous!)

Labels: life, links, mental health, science/health/environment

1. Schizophrenic law professor: Fascinating, scary, and inspiring. Read it here.
   
   
2. Paleolithic diets: This post by Jo, but even more so, the ensuing comments, especially Jody's, fascinated me. Really, Jody's comments almost made me want to go back to school. So, leaving aside PCOS/insulin-resistant people, are carbs like poison for us because paleolithic people didn't have access to a lot of them? Or have our digestive tracts evolved to be carb-happy in the past 10,000 years, since agriculture began?
   
   
3. Loss of faith: Cecily's post is beautiful, and who among us can't identify with it? What I identified with most strongly is jealousy towards people who have faith. Cecily writes: "And I realized that I envied them all that simple trust and faith--I miss it." Emuna peshuta--simple faith. I don't know if I ever had that kind of faith--I remember always having questions. But sometimes, it would be nice to believe that we are cradled in God's hands, wouldn't it? I really loved this paragraph, also:

I don't like feeling this way; I was much happier when I really felt like I was cradled in God's hand, safe and cared for. Shit, who wouldn't? But I feel now that if there is a personal God (personal to me, that is) he or she is kind of an asshole, and full of arbitrary moods and inclinations. A God like that is impossible to trust. It's like trusting an abusive parent. Seductive, compelling, and impossible.

I also identify with Cecily's writing about acting as if one has faith.

* * * * *

I realize that I never updated my reading public about the apartment situation.

So, I moved in last Wednesday, August 22! It was exhausting, even though I didn't lift a thing. (Well, I rearranged boxes and furniture after the movers had gone, but they put most of it where it belonged.)

There is so much to do in a new apartment, as opposed to someone else's pre-existing apartment that's already all set up. The last time I moved into a previously-vacant apartment was August 2002. A week later, I'm still eating off of paper and living out of suitcases, which sucks. But I do have: window shades (well, one didn't fit and the other is falling down and both need some modification, but at least no one can see in at night), a working toilet-paper-roll-holder, a properly-tipped super and super's brother, a place to put my shampoo in the shower, a brand new dead bolt lock for the front door, healthy food (yogurt, cheese, fruit, milk, hummus) in the fridge, and a thoroughly cleaned-out closet with clothes hanging up in it. I also have a kitchen sink that leaks a medium amount and a bathroom sink that leaks a small amount, which have taken up an extraordinary amount of my time.

Question: Is it possible, from the third floor, that I hear/feel the subway moving? I think I can hear the subway from my bathroom. It's kind of weird.

It may be a little bit longer before substantive posts resume. Enjoy these links in the meantime!

Labels: history, links, mental health, science/health/environment

See previous post (and post from last March) for background.

American Psychiatric Association. “Authorities Should Increase Vigilance for Sibling Abuse,” Psychiatric News, October 2, 1998.

Asherman, Lee I. And Ellen J. Safier. "Sibling Incest: A Consquence of Individual and Family Dysfunction." Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. Summer 1990. 54(3). 311-322.

Ferrer, Millie and Sara McCrea. “Sibling Rivalry.” Document FCS 2132, one of a series of the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, June 1999. [The 1999 version is no longer available online, because it was reviewed and updated in June 2002, after I wrote this paper. See the 2002 version at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HE/HE11000.pdf.]

Frazier, Billie H and Kathleen C. Hayes. "Selected Resources on Sibling Abuse: An Annotated Bibliography for Researchers, Educators, and Consumers." University of Maryland, CES. October 1994, http://www.cyfernet.org/research/sibabuse.html.

Gelles, Richard J. Intimate Violence in Families. 3^rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 1997.

Green, Arthur S. "Child Abuse by Siblings." Child Abuse and Neglect. 1984. 8: 311-317.

Iowa State University, "Understanding Abuse: Sibling Abuse," University Extension: Ames, Iowa, Reprinted October 1994, http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1478X8.pdf.

Kiegelmann, Mechthild. Coming to terms: a qualitative study of six women's experiences of breaking the silence about brother-sister incest. Thesis (Ed. D.)--Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1997.

Kiegelmann, Mechthild. More than just playing doctor: a review of psychological literature on women's experiences on [i.e. of] brother-sister incest. Qualifying paper--Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1995.

Kochakian, Mary Jo. "How to Spot and Deal with Sibling Abuse." Palm Beach Post. October 22, 1992, Section: Accent, pg. 3D.

Pfouts, J.J., J.H. Schopler, and H.D. Henley, "Forgotten Victims of Family Violence." Social Work. July 1982. 27(4). 367-368.

Rayment, Susan and Nicole Owen. "Working With Individuals and Families Where Sibling Incest has Occurred: The Dynamics, Dilemmas and Practice Implications." A paper presented at the Children and Crime: Victims and Offenders Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology, Brisbane, June 17-18 1999, http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/children/owen.pdf.

Snyder, Howard. "Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics: A Statistical Report Using Data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System." National Center for Juvenile Justice. July 2000. NCJ 182990.

Steinmetz, S.J. "A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sibling Violence," International Journal of Family Psychiatry. 1981. 2 (3/4): 337-351.

Strauss, Murray A. and Richard J. Gelles, eds. Family Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8, 145 Families. New Brunswick, NY: Transaction Publishers, 1990.

University of Michigan Medical School, "Sibling Abuse." Your Child: Development and Behavior Resources: A Guide to Information and Support for Parents, http://

Wiehe, Vernon R. Sibling abuse: hidden physical, emotional, and sexual trauma. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, c 1997.

These are the sources that I found useful when writing my paper in 2002. It looks like there is a much more extensive bibliography here.

Labels: books/reading, mental health

I wrote a post about sibling abuse in early March 2006, just over a year ago. It was precipitated by a New York Times article on the same topic and assisted by the fact that I had written a paper about sibling abuse when I was a senior in college. The paper was for a Women's Studies class called "Women, Violence, and the Law," and it was one of the best that I wrote in college.

Since last March, it seems like not a week has gone by that someone hasn't reached by blog by Googling "sibling abuse" (currently the 28th hit), "sibling abuse statistics" (currently the 5th hit) or "sibling abuse blog" (currently the 3rd hit). This regularity indicates that interest in this topic is likely to continue, so I wanted to offer something real to people who come here looking for information. I feel like it's a waste to have done all this research and then not share it with people other than my professor. (Note: I think I wanted to be her at one time. She was a great teacher and a cool person on many different levels.)

I've been tempted to share my whole paper here, but part of me doesn't want to because I think I had some original ideas that I might actually want to use for something someday. What, I'm not sure, but something besides this blog. To compromise, I'm sharing some of the research and statistics that I uncovered, but none of my creative thought.

This is essentially the first half of the paper.

Children and Violence

• In 1998, 20.5% of all violent crimes were committed against children under the age of 18.¹
• From 1976 through 2000, more nonfatal acts of violence were committed against minors than any other age group.²
• Approximately fifteen percent of all violent crime is committed by children.³
  

Children and Sexual Assault

• Two-thirds of the victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement agencies from 1991 through 1996 were under the age of eighteen; of those, more than half were under the age of twelve.
• Fourteen percent of all victims of sexual assault reported to the authorities were under the age of six.⁴

Sibling Abuse: Definitions

• Only one book had been written about sibling abuse before 2002.⁵
• "Sibling abuse is defined as a narrowly as a situation in which one sibling hits, bites, or physically tortures a sibling⁶ or as broadly as hitting, biting, slapping, shoving and punching; tickling to excess;…injurious or life-threatening behavior such as choking or being shot with a BB gun…teasing, name-calling, belittling, ridiculing, intimidating, annoying, and provoking. Children also destroy personal possessions or torture and kill pets to get an emotional response from their victim….unwanted touching, indecent exposure, attempted penetration, intercourse, rape, or sodomy between siblings."⁷

Sibling Abuse: Prevalence

• According to one 1994 document, 3% of children are "dangerously violent" towards a sibling. This excludes "slaps, pushes, kicks, bites, and punches" which are much more prevalent. When these lesser forms of violence are included, "more than 36 million individual acts of sibling aggression [occur] each year." The author concluded that "it appears that sibling abuse is the most common and the most overlooked form of family violence."⁸
• The percentage of siblings who abuse each other varies depending on the study, but all agree that it is quite common. According to a project of the Iowa State University Extension, "As many as 53 of every 100 children abuse a brother or sister."⁹
  
• According to other studies, 80% of children have hit a brother or sister, and more than 50% have engaged in extremely violent behavior against siblings.¹⁰
  
• A survey of twelve-year-old students found that of those who had siblings living at home, 10% were beaten up by their siblings and 4% said that siblings had either threatened them with, actually used, a gun or knife against them.¹¹
  
• Two-thirds of American children between the ages of fifteen and seventeen "assault a sibling at least once during a year, and in over a third of these cases, the assault involved an act with a relatively high probability of causing injury (kicking, punching, biting, choking, or attacking with a knife or gun)."¹²
  
• A news release from the American Psychological Association notes that 65% of participants in one study reported having experienced "very severe physical abuse, such as being kicked, bitten, hit with a fist or choked at the hands of their siblings." Seventeen percent of respondents had been injured by a sibling, four percent seriously enough to have seen a physician as a result. Despite this, only twenty one percent of respondents felt that they had been physically abused by a sibling, although thirty two percent reported having been emotionally abused as a child.¹³
• Some might say that such behavior is so common that it is not to be considered violent at all.¹⁴ Perhaps one reason that more people report having suffered emotional abuse rather than physical abuse is because siblings tussling on the floor, or a brother chasing his sister around the house, are common images that we all accept as part of our childhoods.
  
• When violent sibling rivalry becomes incestuous or homicidal, few would still characterize that behavior as normal. In addition to the studies cited above, studies have established that sibling incest is more prevalent than parent-child incest or than any other kind of child sexual abuse.¹⁵
  
• An even scarier statistic is that 10% of all murders in families occur between siblings, and that 1.5% of all murder victims are murdered by their siblings.¹⁶
• Even in the case of sibling incest, which might seem more obviously abnormal, "there are no universally accepted criteria that distinguish abusive sexual contact from normal sexual exploration among children."¹⁷

Sibling Abuse: Indicators and Risk Factors

• Specific indicators of sibling abuse that differentiate it from normal sibling rivalry
  
  • the age difference between children
  • the frequency and duration of the abuse
  • power dynamics in the family generally and between specific siblings
  • physical size difference between siblings
  • the same child always perpetrating the abuse or being abused
  • coercive techniques employed by the abusive child.¹⁸
• Fairly well-established risk factors for sibling abuse:¹⁹
  
  • Many people feel that emotional and physical inaccessibility of parents is a serious risk factor. Such parents are not affectionate with their children, are uninvolved in their children's day-to-day lives, and do not interfere when violence erupts.²⁰
    
  • Some suggest that either parental over-involvement or parental neglect can be risk factors.²¹
    
  • Some feel that poor parenting leading to emotional dysfunction and "children's competition for a limited amount of parental attention and finite family resources" are the main causes of high levels of sibling aggression, leading to sibling abuse.²²
    
  • Others blame parents who increase the competition between their children by "playing favorites," labeling, comparing, or excluding certain children.²³
    
  • Other risk factors include families that tend to be secretive and socially isolated, that do not "encourage open communication either inside the family or with persons outside the family" and "family communications that include a double message toward sexuality."²⁴
• Boys perpetrate sibling abuse more often than girls. According to two separate studies, "[b]oys display more assaultive behavior towards siblings than girls"²⁵ and "families with sons only consistently have more sibling violence than families with daughters only."²⁶
  
• One study reported that "[g]irls were more likely than boys to be abused by siblings, especially girls with older brothers."²⁷
• Data indicates that "sibling violence is initiated primarily by brothers," although "the support [for this] is not as overwhelming as one might expect….At all ages girls were less violent than boys, but the difference was relatively small."²⁸

Sibling Abuse: Long-term Effects

• All evidence discounts the idea that sibling abuse is innocuous and that children "bounce back" from such abuse. There are many serious long-term effects of sibling abuse to the abused sibling. They include low self-esteem, repeat victimization at the hands of another abuser (often an intimate partner), major depression, sexual dysfunction, and the inability to become intimate with or trust people later in life.²⁹
• Some victims of child abuse have flashbacks for years afterwards, or exhibit other symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In addition, "alcohol, drug, and eating disorders…have been linked to sibling abuse in childhood."³⁰

The one editorial comment from the paper that I will include is this:

Many of the reasons given for the lack of action in stopping sibling abuse are eerily similar to the excuses that used to be made, and sometimes continue to be made, about the impossibility of stopping spousal abuse. One of the more horrifying ones is the idea that it is "normal" or "okay" for a sibling (or husband) to physically or emotionally abuse another (or wife). Many parents feel that violent relationships between siblings are normal regardless of the patterns that may recur or the suffering of one child at the hands of another. Many parents feel that it is a mistake to intervene and that getting beaten up is, so to speak, just a part of growing up.

Clearly, I do not share these beliefs.

The rest of my paper dealt with some legal issues surrounding sibling abuse, and possible legal approaches towards stopping this horror. It was really interesting. Writing it made me buy some PSAT books and even take a practice test or two. It didn't make me apply to law school, though.

I have an extensive bibliography, too, which I will post separately. The bibliography will help you understand the footnotes, below. Also, I'm sure that more up-to-date research exists, but since I am no longer in school, I don't have the luxury of pursuing it. Also, I apologize for some of the wacky citations. Since I am no longer in school, I no longer have to worry about proper form, so some of the citations are APA style and some aren't. Also, I cut and pasted a bunch to pull this out of a long paper, and in some cases, added Internet-based sources for things that I may have found elsewhere, so it's a bit of a hodge-podge. I think it's all there, though, and all of the footnotes should, please God, work.

I also have to apologize for some of the shoddiness of the academic work. I wrote this paper while I was writing my senior thesis, and so this background part, presented here, got especially short shrift. It looks like I did a lot of citing secondary sources that cite primary sources, rather than going straight to the primary source. I am fully aware that this is never a good way to go.

______________________________________
Note that a lot of these links are PDFs, so don't click unless you want to start downloading a PDF.

Labels: mental health

I'm at a food conference, blogging off the rec room where a Chanukah sing-along is taking place. This conference is mostly about big issues surrounding food, like sustainability, the scourge of big agri-business, local vs. imported food, pesticide use, the importance of composting, and...Jewish farming.¹ There are the usual normal varieties of hippiness here, but I was also surprised by how many meat-eaters showed up.² Of course, I also spotted a fair number of knitted wool caps, environmentally-friendly shoes, hand-made bags, flowy clothing, dreadlocks... I haven't been around this many fruity, crunchy Jews in awhile. It's nice to be back in that environment! I've missed it!

I wasn't incredibly excited about attending this conference, partly because I like to use Shabbat to decompress/unwind, and I'm not great at decompressing/unwinding in large groups. I travel a lot to see friends and family, but if I'm not going to see friends and family, or some exotic locale, I'd just as soon hole up in my apartment. That was sort of a minor consideration, though, and was more than balanced by the enticement of a weekend out in the woods of Connecticut, far away from the grime and noise of Manhattan. I love being in the woods, and so far in two and a half days here, I've been up the "mountain" (read: hill) into the woods alone twice. Heavenly. Truly. It was so quiet.³

The main reason I wasn't overly excited about attending this conference, though, is sort of embarrassing. It's that I feel like sustainability, the precarious position of the small family farm, and attempting to eat exclusively local, seasonal produce is more than I can handle. Like all of the major challenges facing our world these days (Darfur, AIDS in Africa, access to safe abortions in the US), I often take the approach of avoiding educating myself about these things, because then I would feel terribly guilty about not doing more about them. As long as I don't know, I feel complacent in my inaction. And I didn't particularly want to spend 72 hours in a place where I would be unable to remain ignorant!

I doubt that educating myself about the world's problems would empower me to go out there and change the world. There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, and I seem to have enough trouble doing the things that I need to do to take care of myself, never mind saving the rest of humanity. I subscribe to the belief that one must take care of oneself before taking care of others, and I don't really feel like I have the "taking care of oneself" bit down as solidly as I'd like. That's not to say that I don't make it through life intact--I do, and more, just not always with daily exercise, eight hours of sleep a night, and three square meals a day (with five servings of fruits and vegetables, grams and grams of fiber, and only spare amounts of fat). So, I am just somewhat-embarrassingly content to bury my head in the sand about these enormous, monstrous problems facing humanity, until the day arrives when I feel like I have the capacity to do something about them. I do reach out to the world around me and try to make a difference, but only in doing a few small things that I feel are within my capacity.⁴ It's these big things that intimidate me into intentional ignorance.

But something interesting happened to me here. I watched a film on Thursday night about the apple farming situation in Wenatchee, Washington, called Broken Limbs. The first half of the movie was predictably depressing, about how big agri-business is buying up all the small farms, and how you have to be able to produce x bushels of apples in y amount of time to even talk to the big grocery store chains, and how the small farmers are chopping down their apple trees because they can't afford to pick the apples, and, God, it's depressing! But what are you going to do? Who can blame Safeway or Kroeger's for buying their apples from the cheapest source, which is, by economic necessity, going to be the humongous farms who have big packing plants and ship and market their own apples? It just seems to be the way of capitalism, and what can you really do about the small farms? Convince Americans to pay more for their apples? Not bloody likely.

The second half of the film turned things around, though, especially towards the very end. The film described a new model for eating, where people think about what goes into their mouths and care about who grew it and where it came from. This new model for eating might be called mindful eating.

I was turned onto the general idea of mindfulness when I was a junior in college. It was presented to me as a way to reduce stress and anxiety, but it had the ancillary benefit of making me enjoy and appreciate life more. Like meditation, it is something that I know from experience is good and helpful for me, but isn't something I currently integrate into my life on a daily basis. It requires a certain, well, calmness and present-ness that I often don't achieve. Saying brachot (blessings) before and after eating promotes mindfulness to some extent, and I love the brachot connected to eating for that reason.

This movie and other things that I've heard over this weekend have shown me a way that I can
make a small difference in a big problem while also doing those things that promote the self-care that I'm still working on. One of the problems with eating, for me and I daresay for much of this country, is that we eat without thinking. Even those of us who say brachot often glance at the food, mutter the appropriate incantation, and then shove it in, chewing it while reading the paper, making lunch for the day, finding our gloves, and taking out the trash. And that's on a good day! A bad day finds me eating for emotional reasons, and that kind of eating happens completely without tasting what I'm eating. (And, hey, to be honest, it usually happens with trans-fat-laden highly-sugared foods that were imported from a great distance.)

What would happen if I adopted the spiritual practice of noticing what I'm eating, how it tastes, and how it makes me feel? Through reclaiming daily prayer, I've already shown myself that I can make a decision and stick with it. That doesn't mean that any particular day unfolds in the exactly ideal way. It just means that I've set a new standard for how I would like things to be, and if I don't reach that standard today, well, there's always tomorrow.

So what if I started practicing mindful eating, not as a way to combat the monstrous problems of how food is produced and distributed in this country, but as a way to reconnect to food in an entirely positive way, in a way that promotes the multi-sensory enjoyment of food, rather than my sometimes haphazard way of eating that leans more towards cramming it down because God I'm hungry and I've forgotten to eat lunch today and whew my blood sugar has crashed and I'm irritable and shaky and it's already 3 pm and I'd better eat lunch now so that I'm hungry for dinner at a reasonable hour and don't bypass dinner and head straight for the junk food? (Okay, most days don't look like that, but I wish no days did.)

What if I made deriving pleasure and experiencing wonder the goal of at least one of my three daily meals? How might that change my buying habits? I know that I value the bread I buy from the man who sells (kosher, parve, pas Yisroel) bread at the local farmer's market over the bread that I buy pre-packaged in the grocery store. I enjoy its taste more and I take more care not to waste it by letting it mold before I can eat it. It means more to me when I know that I can shoot the breeze with the man who has some hand in its production and delivery. I guess it's a little bit more expensive than grocery store bread, but that price is worth the additional pleasure I get out of talking to the bread man, and the convenience of being able to pick it up at the farmer's market that's down the street from my apartment. Also, it tastes better! So fresh and soft on the inside, so deliciously crispily crusted on the outside! I don't see myself switching over to all organic, all local produce any time soon, but if I articulate a goal of appreciating the sight, sound, taste, and smell of all of my food, then I might move in that direction not out of fear of the world coming to an end, but out of self-love and self-care.

Rabbi Steve Greenberg spoke at the conference, representing the "normal" people who don't manage to cook their own dinners most nights (opting for microwaving veggie burgers instead), who head for the Haagen Dazs after a long day, who aren't quite on the "organic or bust!" bandwagon. He spoke about how change that comes from fear or anxiety isn't really sustainable, and that the only change that can be sustained comes from:

1. expanding our desire to figure out what we really want
   
2. experiencing gratitude
3. seeking joy

I want to blog more about desire, gratitude, and joy, but there's a line for the computers so I'll have to sign off now and blog more about this later. It was moving and applied to all areas of my life, not just the mindful eating that I'm thinking of integrating into my life to the extent that I can. (How's that for a qualified statement?) Starting small has worked for me in the past, and maybe it can work for me on this issue also.

-----------------------------------
1. Yes, Jewish farming. I'm actually finding the whole concept of Jewish farming to be more inspiring than I had expected. I've heard several Jewish farmers speak from the heart this weekend, and it was great.
2. Even some real meat-eaters. Not like me, who eats meat maybe 2-4 times a month, and that's almost always chicken. I eat beef maybe once a month, if that.
3. In answers to Heschel's questions as quoted in the previous post ("Many are the opportunities for public speech; where are the occasions for inner silence? It is easy to find people who will teach us how to be eloquent; but who will teach us to be still?"), I often feel that the occasions for inner silence occur mostly in the woods or the desert. I learn how to be still most when I can stand still and hear only birds, running water, or the rustling of the wind in the trees. Learning to use the woods as a place to quiet my mind and still my sometimes crashing, racing thoughts has been one of my greatest lessons over the past year.
4. Like visiting residents at the nursing home, using real dishes instead of paper, recycling, walking everywhere humanly possible (rather than, say, taking public transport and then running on a machine at the gym), and attending the occasional Darfur rally.

Categories: life

Labels: life, mental health, science/health/environment

For those who are following this story, an e-mail that I got from Laura Freiman last Friday.

To All Safe Space Participants:

[snip]

As a result of the discussions, many wonderful ideas were generated. We do not intend for all of these ideas to remain as only ideas; but rather, to find ways to implement at least some of them. Though we cannot guarantee that all of these ideas will come to fruition, we plan to take the following list to various shuls and support organizations on the Upper West Side and discuss ways to empower the synagogues and the community to implement them.

[snip]

Ideas Generated from the SAFE SPACES Program:

1. Monthly Safe Spaces Discussion Groups on Various Mental Health Topics
2. Regular Guest Speakers on Various Mental Health Topics
3. Mental Health Referral Lists Available at All Shuls and Shul Websites (This is already being implemented!)
4. Regular Orientation to Jewish New York Seminars for Newcomers to the West Side
5. Weekly Host Families/Singles for Shabbat Meals
6. Dating Support Groups and/or Hotline
7. Women Group Activities/Empowerment Seminars
8. Male Group Activities
9. Upper West Side Mental Health Professionals Meetings/Collaboration

Have a Good Shabbos!

Laura Freiman, LCSW
Clinical Director
Social and Organizational Leadership Training
Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future
212-960-5400 Ext. 6170

Ideas 1, 2, and 3 seem the most crucial and are of the greatest interest to me, as someone who wants to raise awareness of mental health issues everywhere, including within the Orthodox Jewish community. I support them wholeheartedly and would be happy to contribute time and energy to helping make them happen.

Ideas 4, 5, and 6 seem like fine ideas, but they don't particularly speak to me. I don't think I would have, or would, utilize them. I am very uncomfortable accepting these sort of hospitality invitations, even if the alternative is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at home alone for one or both Shabbat meals. (It doesn't happen too often these days, but these was a time when it happened a lot. And maybe peanut butter and jelly is a bit of an exageration. I often bought fancy feta cheese sandwiches or got some sort of chickeny take-out thing.)

Idea 9, I'm not sure about. What would they meet about? What would they talk about? What would they collaborate on? Would confidentiality be assured? I wouldn't want people to be afraid of, for example, their therapist talking to their boyfriend's therapist behind their back. I would we wary of anything that has the potential to make people afraid of therapy. The Orthodox Upper West Side community is already incestuous enough as it is, with people dating their friends' exes and worse.

Ideas 7 and 8: I am very interested in why people want sex-segregated activities in an Orthodox Jewish community. I'm not being facetious--I really am interested. Is it because with all of the pressure to wed (at least according to the New York Sun), there is no more room for women-only and men-only activities? Do women not do things with their women friends, and men not do things with their men friends, because they see that as a lost opportunity to date and "meet someone"? What's morning minyan at OZ if not a male group activity? Is the fact that the women's group activities are combined with empowerment seminars, but the men's are not, because men already feel empowered? (There was a time when I would have thought it insane to question the empowerment of men, but lately, I've realized that it's probably pretty damn confusing to be a man these days, much as it can be to be a woman.) What would we be empowering women to do?

These questions are the exact intersection of so many things that interest me--gender issues, mental health issues, and the wild and wacky world of Orthodox Jewry. (The last interests me the least, although the intersection of all three interests me greatly.)

More questions: What does it mean to be an accomplished, professional woman in your 20s or 30s, living in a community where the popular wisdom is that men are looking for women who excel at cooking and cleaning? I have been told that women are inherently more suited to housework (sweeping, laundry, dish-doing) than men, that women naturally enjoy cooking more than men, and all manner of related poppycock. What does it mean to be reaping the benefits of the feminist movement(s) but to live in a community where being known as a "feminist" can quash your dating life before it takes off? (There are apparently still people around who think that feminist means lesbian. Go figure.) Nevermind the way that Orthodox Judaism can drive you, as a woman, right into the ground in other ways if you aren't vigilant, what with rabbinic assumptions about women and a halachic system created by men, from an exclusively male perspective. (Once in awhile they stopped to consider the point of view of women, but that seems to have been the exception, not the norm.)

I think that's it. Any answers you have would be appreciated. I think it would be great to meet to discuss these issues, so that's my Idea 10 for the list--discuss gender issues in the Orthodox community on the Upper West Side. (Not sure it would go anywhere or do anything, but it would definitely interest me.)

Labels: gender, mental health