Trigger Warnings: Boundaries and Empathy

TW: suicide attempts, suicide

 I was going to write a follow-up post to my hospital stay, instead, I had a triggering experience in my psychology class so, I'm going to discuss triggers. When the professor talked about suicide without any warning on  Sunday morning, I decided I needed to share my thoughts and try to explain why the first line on this blog post is incredibly important to me, and most people. Somehow society has decided that giving a trigger warning is weak and makes you a "snowflake". First of all yes I am unique, and there is no one else like me, so yea a snowflake. Secondly knowing your boundaries and understanding that others go through things you don't understand and trying not to hurt others, or push others to hurt themselves makes you empathetic, not weak. The first thought that might come up when you push back on trigger warnings, is how could words that are spoken or written trigger an emotional response they are just words? That is of course not true as the words are shared to connect to people either to educate or to evoke an emotional response and create dialogue. Words have power people wouldn't use them if they didn't. When the teacher mentioned suicide attempts and thoughts this morning she wasn't trying to hurt anyone, yet I, as someone who struggles with suicidal thoughts, ideations, and sometimes even attempts got thrown off my mental seat. Talking about suicide with no thought to the fact that others may be going through struggles with it and no warning creates a space of fear, I had no idea what she was going to bring up next. The way the students were answering her questions about suicide.  And the discussion brought to the surface many of the same thoughts and emotions I went through. Can I handle it, today yes, but I felt bad about maybe needing to leave class as it was a shock I wasn't expecting, but I didn't want to leave. Secondly, I didn't want to bring up my issues in the middle of a zoom lecture to the whole class. I speak about suicide and a pipe dream I have is to write a book about it, but that happens when I am in charge of choosing to think, speak and write about suicide when I am in the mental space, where it doesn't harm my mental health and spiral me to a dark space. This morning I had enough mental energy to acknowledge that what was being said was triggering, take myself mentally out of the class and take my mind off of the thoughts by playing a game and then doing some cleaning after class. Had this discussion been thrown at me on Friday night the situation might have ended with me ideating about suicide and sliding down the path of suicide itself. This idea that society has internalized about having emotions and sharing them and being impacted by others is a huge part of the breakdown in our society. Our words have an impact we are the only species with the gift of spoken language (technically, not going down that route right now) and the use of language for connection or dissent is on us. Emotions and mental struggles are not unique to me, the choice I have made to share more has shown that to me with the number of people that reach out. I have lost people to suicide and have lost myself and refound myself through suicidal thoughts and attempts. That idea is for another day.  The importance of empathy for others and the choice of words is for today. Your words have power, and you already know that as you use them to help others, to connect, to hurt others intentionally or not. Trigger warnings are mental boundaries for people, they give me and you the choice to check in with yourself to see if you are mentally up for the discussion. Having and knowing your boundaries and understanding that everyone has mental and emotional boundaries, and that doesn't make anyone weak. Use trigger warnings even if you still don't understand the meaning of it as it can save many lives, and each life is invaluable to this world.

Psychiactric Hospital series: Part 1- The first days: Restarting the Race

Leaving the hospital is like being pushed off the dock on the start line of a rowing race. You use short, fast strokes to come to your balance and come to race speed, and only then do you slow down and lengthen your strokes for the duration of the race. Before the race starts, you know you have the skills and abilities to compete you have done the same things a thousand times in practice. Yet the nerves and pressure of the actual race change your initial response till you find the inner place of knowing your abilities and trusting that you can handle it. The first day and week out of the psychiatric hospital are the start of the race. Pushing open the door out of the hospital is adrenaline inducing, similar to the start of the race.  With that comes returns of the pressures of the race of the outside world-of life. The first afternoon when you get out, there is both this excitement of being out of the hospital and having your own space and being able to sleep in a completely dark room (#roomates, a story for another time, maybe.) Of course, you also get to choose what you want to eat for meals, which is a double-edged sword. While sometimes or even a lot of times the hospital food wasn't overly impressive, you were served three meals a day, without you having to do any thinking, shopping, and cooking. While I sometimes find cooking relaxing, the recreation of all the hospital structure immediately feels overwhelming, that hopefully turns into a small burn and then completely off, but being in a global pandemic doesn't help the process. One thing that came up right was having to organize my medications and set up timers to take my meds on time. In the hospital, we are given our medications at specific times without you having to do any thinking or preparation. You almost don't notice it anymore as you get used to the schedule of the hospital, but especially with the addition of an evening medication for me created an extra thing to remember that I struggled with for the first few days. Another internal struggle that arose in the first days out was the internal pull to two sides.  One to go back to the bubble of coloring and audiobooks in the hospital and the other side wanted to organize and get back to doing all the things I was doing beforehand. The balancing act is to keep rowing and change my behaviors as needed, as dictated by the race and my internal abilities. The art is understanding what my mental capabilities are each day if it's a day for a sprint or trying to keep rowing the race no matter how slow your strokes become. The first days pass in a blur like the start of the race sometimes, with the focus completely on finding the internal and external balance to rowing the race of life.

Cerebral Palsy and I- My longest relationship

 Cerebral Palsy and I go way back since I was two years old and diagnosed. The diagnosis story is one for another time.  It has been a rocky road, and while we are on better terms twenty-three years in, we still have plenty of tiffs. Preschool was a shining light in my childhood as I went to a school for children with disabilities that was in the same space as my physical and occupational therapy. We sometimes did occupational and physical therapy together, and we all had private sessions as well.  We didn't feel different as even though we had different severities of Cerebral Palsy,  we all got each other on a deep level. I spent the rest of my childhood pretty angry and felt emotionally isolated.  I switched schools for kindergarten to a class with no other disabled children, so having CP and wanting to fit in was made pretty much impossible. I was the only one with a physical disability and, my differences came up in a few ways wearing leg braces, doing constant physical and occupational therapy.  The biggest difference showed up during, my surgery which required me to relearn how to walk and miss plenty of class, and even when I came back it was in an even weirder wheelchair and needing plenty of adaptations. These needs take a lot of time and cut into building social relationships, so CP and I were on our own. Leg braces were a major part of my childhood, sometimes they made me feel like a robot/alien from another planet, while every once in a while, wearing them made me feel strong and powerful. I never really accepted Cerebral Palsy as my life long partner for a long time, much more of the time I spent annoyed and upset CP took up time in my life and the chronic pain and spasticity it brought along with it. I'm not exactly sure at what exact moment I started reevaluating my relationship with CP. But, I realized at some point that hating my body and disability full time was taking up a lot of mental energy and making my life with CP worse than it needed to be. It is a process, and it is slow going for me. I evaluated what Cerebral Palsy had given me, both good and bad, and also just worked on acceptance. I think that acceptance is an idea that living with a disability makes harder, as in a way, because of my disability,  I spend or at least used to spend a lot of time, fighting what society accepted as what I should be able to do. Between if it was a doctor who told my parents when I was two, that I'd never walk or talk or just society's assumption of what disabled people can achieve. I never wanted to give in and wanted to fight everyone on what I was able to achieve.  I believe that also led me to fight my cerebral palsy and many times, I  didn't listen to the internal messages it would tell me regarding pain, including other bodily messages. Cerebral Palsy and I together actually achieved many things that I would never have dreamed up as a kid.  Even though I get super annoying hand spasms while writing notes or while rowing and chronic pain can sometimes leave me in bed all day, I have come to love what CP has taught me and continues to teach me. This by no means I don't have plenty of internal struggles with Cerebral Palsy. I still struggle with issues about body- acceptance that arise with different topics that come up in life some expected some not. With all that being said, I have come to a point in my life that usually rather than getting or staying upset,  I can sit with my CP and figure out the crux of the issue so together we can grow and build the world I want around me. Cerebral Palsy and I are forever going to be together, and hopefully, I can use what our relationship brings me to help others and bring change to the world.

Rowing Back to Myself

I wasn't planning on getting on the rowing machine today. But, after basketball practice, I felt like I still had some cardio energy to use up so,  I went to the gym thinking I was going to handcycle as my legs are shot from all the physical therapy this morning. Yet I saw the rowing machine first, and couldn't stop the pull within one minute I was back in position. I wouldn't classify my relationship with the rowing machine as a love-hate one, just somewhat complicated.  I think my relationship with rowing in Israel and the old memories it brings up is one I have yet to fully process. But, I felt the urge to row instead of using a handcycle. I decided to sit and try and go with the flow of my body.

The numbers flash on the screen with my first pull, but for the first time, they dont start millions of calculations in my brain. Numbers mean a lot in rowing, especially competitively. They are one of the main measuring tools used to check how you are raising your skill and power, as the race is who can race the fastest to the finish line. The type of number differs between stroke rate, Five-hundred-meter average, power levels, and more but, it's all numbers on a screen. Numbers used to mean everything to me. I would constantly compare my times with others.  In the early days, it was against another teammate whom I was competing for a spot on the international team. During that time, it was also with the numbers on the scale, but that's for another post. Then in Florida, regardless of how much my coaches tried to help me make it just about my personal growth, I could rattle off last year's world championship times, and the standing world records for my divisions at any moment's notice. Towards the end of my stay in Florida, Coach Katie's words about rowing for myself, making personal goals and achieving them, while enjoying the process started to permeate my brain.  But, they stayed in my Florida rowing box and never made it to the Israel rowing box in my mind.

     Today, the numbers still sat on the screen in front of my face.  But, for once, if not the first time since Florida, they were that just numbers on the screen. I didn't try to speed up to get back to a pace I did when training four years ago, and didn't get upset when the numbers went up and down. The numbers were there, yet I listened to my body and enjoyed every pull and alternating types of pulls and just giving myself space to enjoy the rowing movement. Not letting myself fall into the need to hit a certain distance, or taking dreams so far in one practice, like trying to row a 5k and in my mind going all the way to international competitions. It was so different as many a time I've tried to come back to row on the machine that I miss so much. I miss rowing a lot, the power, and the release of the monotonous movement, the water, the breathing technique it requires me to use. Rowing takes me to a different place in my head. When I've tried to come back in the past, I would go to the box in my mind of competition with my old self, and where I used to be when I rowed all the time, this time I was able to stay in the moment and just row.

The first time I rowed it was on a rowing machine, my mom and I came to meet the rowing coach, he pulled the rowing machine out and set it up so I could see the water.  He showed me how the rowing motion, and then I was just supposed to try it for a few minutes. Two minutes in and I'm hooked and say I don't ever want to get off. Twenty-five minutes later, and the coach is like you should probably stop, you will be sore tomorrow even if it doesn't hurt now. There is something about the monotonous movement that calms me, my deep inner self. Maybe it's like swinging on a swing, the back and forth is so balancing outside and inside. Many moments and interactions happened after that moment, both good, bad, and ugly.  But, the rowing machine and I always had this first version of inner calm, that I found when rowing before politics, nasty comments, and after internalizing it all, had poisoned rowing in Israel for me.

Five years later, and maybe I'm healing. Because when I get on the machine and row, it's not about proving to someone that I am better than someone else, that my body doesn't contradict my results. It is about me loving the monotony of the row and the body that is giving me internal calm. And with that, loving my body enough to listen to it. Even though  I wanted to keep rowing till tomorrow, I listened to my body when it's tired, honoring it, and loving it. Throughout the row and all the passing time, I have removed many of the old hurtful voices that used to show up in my head, when I would try to come back and row.

This moment tonight is a lightening moment. One that I feel like I'm finally taking some trash out of my brain. Especially since my next thought wasn't, I need to compete in 5k indoor races around the world.  Rather it was just this rowing movement feels amazing, feels like a mental home, so I'm going to do it healthily for me and no one else.  Row,release,breathe,repeat.

Ownership of my Wrists

Unchaining My Wrists

TW: Rape,assault,cutting 

My wrists. they came up briefly in my a few of my Pride series posts and they have been a point of contention for me my entire life. This is an intense post one I've felt bubbling but have been struggling to write and talk about since I found this sketch and got the tattoo on my wrist. I haven't owned my wrists for years. How can I say that? They are part of your body, you own your entire body. First of all, to that, I'll say you have never lived in a disabled body before, but that's a topic for another post. Secondly, I'm pretty sure most people who have been through any type of assault, will tell you taking back ownership of your body is one of the hardest struggles long after the incident. 

The first time I felt like I didn't own my wrists I was probably three years old, having cerebral palsy meant I wore leg braces since I was two or three until 9th grade. I got these braces made, probably once a year and that required being casted as a mold for the braces. Which also meant as someone who is partly claustrophobic and hating to feel confined, but I was too young to explain how the process made me feel inside, I would just try to pull or push the casts off my legs, so the caster had my mom hold my wrists and lay me on my back. I think it took me two or three years of this process so by the time I was eight years old I knew to just lay on my back and wear my internal wrist chains. These chains laid dormant for years,or so I thought. But thinking back to when I started hurting myself I never touched my wrists, whether it was pinching, slapping, digging in nails, cutting, burning lightly. Many people assumed I wasn't hurting myself since they couldn't see the results. Especially since society has mostly decided the only place people assume self-harm cutting happens is on the wrists. I really never thought about that at that point in time but most of this self-understanding came sitting on my psychologist's couch many years later talking about tattoos. 

This lack of ownership of my wrists continued when I was assaulted by a healer when I was six, I had already learned just to be quiet and let my wrists chain themselves to the table. This continued when I dated a guy and was used to just being quiet so when I even bothered to say no it was easier to just be quiet, when he grasped my wrists, they weren't mine to ask back for anyway. 

Finally, I started taking my body back for myself, but even my first tattoo there was discussion about getting it done on my wrist but decided on the forearm instead, for a variety of reasons, but an unconscious one, was that I still didn't feel like I owned my wrists. It took years of therapy, coming out of the closet, and learning to own the rest of my body to realize I didn't feel like I owned my wrists. Giving an explanation of the internal turmoil that happened anytime someone grabbed my wrists, and sometimes even my hands. This tattoo thought process was faster than some others I had planned, but I think that also explains where I was emotionally and mentally processing some of the old moldy boxes in the recesses of my mind. This sketch of a cracked heart growing new flowers of life came up in a tattoo giveaway, I didn't win, but the sketch entered my brain and found a spot next to the semi-opened up box of pain, and the growth coming from it. The sketch nestled itself into the box and helped empty it out a bit more, and then sitting on the couch again, I realized that the perfect place for this was on my wrist. Taking back ownership of my wrists one step at a time. 

Musty boxes of my Mind

     I lock myself in the living room of my mind in the middle of the musty and rusted untouched boxes. The untouched boxes I don't want to touch but want to take them out to the curb. I then somehow still manage to ask myself why I am not able to dream about how I want the living room, forget the whole house of my mind to look like. Pen, paper, and words are tools the cleaner in my mind uses, and it creates a love-hate relationship, and when I run for too long from the pen with excuses it cracks the window to find the air. The air of letting go that comes from putting words on paper, I crave it but don't let myself indulge in opening up the boxes and letting go. Many of these boxes have labels. I have applied some of the labels and others have labeled some as well. These boxes are filled with kicking demons and muffled choking memories. I spend more time judging myself on having these boxes filling up the house, than giving myself the grace and space to unpack, process, and throw out the boxes. Holding myself back from opening up the room and letting light and growth into the room and turn my house into a home full of growth, dreaming, and achieving. I need to love myself and the dream house and world I want to create enough to sit through the painful process of emptying out the musty rotting boxes of pain. I notice this more when I turn away from letting myself write many times its because I'm struggling with processing old baggage that sometimes shows up in the same shabby box or gets a bit renovated for me, and instead of sitting an opening the box I try to just numb my mind and do mindless tasks. I'm trying to change this more so I can get to the place of visualizing, thinking and creating the home and world in my mind and in the world around me that I want.

Pride post #4 My coming out story

I feel like my coming out story isn't finished, and sometimes I wish I could have understood and listened to my own inner voice and let them out of the closet sooner, but I also know that my path and process had to go through all these twists and turns to get out of the closet. This is part four of my pride series and my last one at this point in time. I first wrote all these posts in Pride month-June and I'm sharing them here. Enjoy and let me know what you connect to and any questions.


Driving down the straight road to the lake for rowing practice in Orlando My regular taxi driver told me I was gay. He said that id never marry a man,  “you’re too strong for them, and you dont like them that way” he said. I awkwardly asked him why he thought so, while in the same breath saying no way, we were like five minutes away and my mind was sort of already at practice, so I didn’t really listen to the second response, but the comment stuck with me. When getting on the boat I mentioned it to my coach and she said dont worry you dont have to figure everything out right away, I said what do I have to figure out, she just smiled. I tried to file it away but I was finally in a safe space mentally and physically and I could start to dig into this. I never officially came out in Florida and honestly, I wasn’t ready to, but that comment in the car from my driver, started unlocking emotional doors deep inside I had committed to not remembering or believing about myself. That started a process of discovery of what that community even was mostly online, I think I might have spoken to a few people on the community college campus I studied at as well. Not all moments on my journey were objectively huge and had immediate viewable results but this story is probably one of the favorites along my journey and that’s because of the people around me, so thank you, Coach Katie, for those words and holding that space even when I had no idea what that space was, and to my driver whose name I can’t remember of course for being honest and being a messenger on my journey.

 My coming out story- I see other peoples posts about their seemingly straightforward coming out stories,and I search to put into a few succinct sentences my process of a lifetime. When I finally pause and stop searching for an elevator pitch for my coming out story and realize that this month of posts, is actually part of the process of putting my internal story into words . This month has been such a process of self introspection,seeing and understanding all the moments,clues and pieces to my puzzle. Its interesting to see that once I finally came to the conclusion that I’m lesbian. Thanks to a wonderful friend who told me “oh you haven’t come out yet?” And of course I was like come out of what? As what? That conversation led to a lot of self introspection and really did give me that aha moment of “oh wow that's what was missing that piece of knowing,and that way of being told in this clear fashion gave me the internal ability to click and understand myself in this new deep way. I didn’t figure all the pieces out then but it was like putting together the corner pieces and a border to the puzzle of a huge part of my identity. The process is still going on so I still don't have an elevator pitch of my coming out story but this month and filling out the puzzle this month with these different stories has been self validating while building up my internal identity.

Gender Identity- I haven't figured this out yet but I do know when I and others use the pronouns they I feel deeply seen and not like I want to grate my skin off. Only after I came out as lesbian did my good friend who helped me see what was already there about me being gay,said one Shabbat afternoon are you comfortable with your gender because you don't fully feel in yourself to me. By this point I knew a bit about myself but this was another key to my soul someone just helped me fit in the lock,unlocking more of my authentic self. This has been much harder process with accepting and sharing this part of myself. I got much more pushback from people who are supposed to be close to me then when I came out,and people who I had misjudged and expected to understand. I have kind of given up a bit on people getting it,which has led to me disappointing myself and kind of giving up on owning it and processing it more. It's so easy to just allow people to keep saying girl/ she etc and I feel like my sexuality takes up so much space and like people are doing me a favor of accepting it that I shouldn't push for people to "get" my gender and pronouns. Yet all this leads to me is having a harder time with myself,like I should just keep dressing like a girl,and respond to she,her etc. But enough of that if you love me enough that you are a part of my life then here I am Samantha Menuha and my pronouns are they/them and I'm proud and love my non-binary self.

Pride series part #3- Representation

        I didn't understand how much representation mattered, and I used to think it was overrated. I believe this had more to do with the fact I didn't know and accept who I was both with my disability and sexuality. I'm not saying that representation doesn't exist-especially in the LGBTQ+ but I never saw it, was exposed to it. Honestly, for years I didn't even know that these identities were a reality. When I finally met someone in my life who is lesbian it opened the world for me, it took me some time to get to the world, but I learned of its existence. Here is the third installment of my pride series, two posts on representation and how it impacted my life.

        I loved watching sports and playing sports way before I understood I was gay. Sports gave me a place to use the abilities I had to move my body as best as possible within my disability, while also giving me an emotional safe haven that just got larger through the years. The first time I went to an adaptive sports camp-and the only time unfortunately I remember it being the first step in loving my body and what it could do.  The older I got and more exposed to watching and following women's leagues and the reality of LGBTQ athletes, it gave me a space in which I already felt comfortable (watching and playing sports) to explore the athletes and their identities and in doing so taking locked away feelings that I felt I was completely alone and just weren't an actual thing and actually seeing how normal it was even if in the circles of society I lived in didn't allow for it. Sports didn't make me gay, they just gave me a space to figure it out and to feel not alone. When I came back from living in Florida for a year for rowing, I was finally starting to acknowledge and process my identity. Before I actually understood how many LGBTQ athletes were in the female leagues and felt that sense of community in a much larger sense I spoke to the only out lesbian athlete I knew, Moran. Her being out actually sparked a really messed up interaction between my mother, an old therapist and me but that's another story, she was willing to sit with me and just give me a space to process and question the journey and the normalcy of it all. While it may seem like a small interaction  I think we met for coffee just twice to discuss the topic, the ability she had to hold space for me, and answer questions but also just to reassure me that I was far from alone on my journey and that things do get easier. The WNBA became a safe haven for me, I remember it was Elena Delle Donne who was the first athlete I found, because of her sister with cerebral palsy, and then seeing pictures of her wedding, it became something that was real. Somehow just knowing how many queer women in the WNBA and in soccer, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapino, and others, I didn't feel crazy anymore. Writing this out I actually remember an interaction I had in 5th grade when I wanted to play sports with the boys from my class on the grass and an older boy yelled out “why do you want to play sports with us, you gay or something?” I didn't understand at the moment what he meant and the recess monitor didn't let me go into the yard anyway. Could I love sports and be super involved and not be gay, yea sure, did sports make me gay, no I was born this way, sports just gave me a space to feel safe and not alone.

       NANOWRIMO posted these pictures of books on pride flags, and it reminded me what I wish I had access to as a child and even as a young adult, books that made me feel not alone. Books that put into words and stories of a world which growing up I didn't even know existed. There are books for young adults and I had a computer with internet as a teen but I didn't have any internal vocabulary for which to search and realize I wasn't alone. Later on, there was an internal process that happened once I found lgbtq+ literature of different types, ones that helped me process and understand feelings. Different books became manuals and personal Bible's to my coming out story and life. The latest one that has turned into a personal bible with pages of handwritten notes on the book is Untamed by Glennon Doyle, her process of coming out later in life made me feel so seen and that I wasn't behind in life, along with just so many life lessons and words to live by. Words have the power to make others feel seen and I hope my writing can be that for someone else.

Pride Series part #2- Self love

Self-love has been such a long and arduous journey for me, and I have yet to get to a place I think of full self-love, but I am also not sure a place like that exists. I do know that on my journey of coming out and accepting my inner pride has many different facets and these different moments and facets of my journey build me into the puzzle that I am. Here is part two of my pride series,self-love.

Haircuts: the first time I cut my hair short I was actually super nervous, I was in Pittsburgh and moving to Florida the next day and I was speaking to a friend Mushky and I had kinda wanted to go short “to make showers faster and easier" but didn't understand to what extent it was something deeper. I remember some of the first responses I got from family friends they were all similar wording "it makes you look gay". Of course, this was my start of the journey in Florida and really had no idea what that even meant and didn't really get the anger and disappointment conveyed in the statement. I did notice that along with the physical weight that was removed from my head there was a mental and emotional change I felt when looking in the mirror. I started feeling calmer looking in the mirror and I actually started to like looking in the mirror. I've always had different body issues from my disability, chronic pain, and other issues, and cutting my hair short really helped me feel like me. The evolution of the cuts from the first one in Pittsburgh and the few in Florida, to the one with my grandmother. I came back to Israel and grew my hair out again thinking I needed to, to look a certain way for a very close friend's wedding, while I felt more like myself with my short hair but I still felt like I owed family and friends a certain version of me. After the wedding and cutting it all off again,I also finally came out and went on a more extreme shave, shape, and color journey searching for my hair to explain to the internal me who I was. Don't get me wrong I loved every haircut for the different lessons I learned during the time period in my life that I had that haircut. It sounds cliche even to my own ears to say this latest haircut I got this past Sunday is my favorite, but that of course is true but more so to do with where I'm at mentally with internal self-love and acceptance. And yes, I love the fact that my hair so clearly states to society a part of who I am, I use a wheelchair and that tells society what other community I'm part of and I love that my hair, another part of me conveys me to the world.


Body image and acceptance. TW: binge-eating disorder. I had a magical moment with myself in the mirror when for the first time ever I looked up and I automatically smiled at myself and felt at home in my body. I'm pretty sure that has never happened before. There was a calm in the smile, I didn't rush to complain to myself about the fat around my face or other rolls and imperfections. What does this have to do with pride month? I have struggled with a binge eating disorder for many years, and I got inpatient treatment now three years ago, while I worked on changing my habits, I still continuously felt like I needed to fill this black hole of self-loathing and I was still fighting myself on my sexuality. Now I have been working on recovery from my eating disorder and it's going hand in hand with learning to love all the aspects of myself. While I already accepted my disability at about 21 I've seen the more I embrace and love my body and sexuality and all aspects of my body, I'm not constantly trying to hurt my body to get it "inline" with social demands and rather my own self-love. I noticed this change when I decided to weigh myself at my sports center, it had been over two months and I try to just keep up with my weight, non obsessively of course. For once when I stood on the scale I didn't feel like I was checking my worth and if I could love myself, I already did and I didn't have the panicked thoughts of should've eaten less the past week. Tallying the number, I've managed to lose 25 pounds over the past 7 months. While the first thought that came back eating disorder style was "is that enough? How much are you supposed to lose?" But the powerful prideful inner warrior shot back with "that's great have you seen what your life has been these past several months, you're doing this in a healthy way, and you aren't losing weight to convince yourself to love who you are." That pride and power that my inner warrior has found has been a lot to do with removing lots of internal shame regarding my sexuality and how my body looks and wishing parts of it were not there. Removing those layers of shame, some of which are still there for sure have given me so much internal peace without needing to focus on a number on the scale for self-love. I love my body, my disability, my sexuality, and ultimately myself all the parts of me. Here's to learning to deeply love all of yourself the changes are magical.

Clothing- Clothing has been the silent but deadly hurdle I keep putting in front of myself claiming I have good excuses for why I don’t let myself dress in a way that feels authentic to myself. My inspiration board on Pinterest is filled with outfits I wish I’d let myself wear, and then my fearful mind unrolls the laundry list of excuses as to why I don’t need to be myself completely.  Pain, physical pain my brain's biggest hurdle it sets up first on the race to being myself is chronic pain even before the disability. The formal androgynous looks you want to wear, the jackets,button-downs, and pants they will enhance your chronic pain. I have internalized this so deeply I don’t even consciously think about it most of the time, but when I have a day I am internally struggling with my sexuality and gender, instead of wearing the few plaid shirts and jeans I feel express myself I wear shift dresses and disappear in the fabric. Another hurdle my brain sets up is about waste. Why waste the clothes you have, why get rid of them, when you need new clothes when you lose weight you can get new clothes. Why waste the money and space buying new and keeping or getting rid of the old. The sister hurdle to this is definitely how my mother reacted when she asked me if I wanted any clothes from a consignment shop and I asked for a men's suit jacket and some dress shirts. The silence suffocated ever feeling comfortable in clothes I internally am screaming to wear. This only enhanced the silence I had told myself that after graduating high school and wearing uniform shirts which were buttoned down and unflattering that I would never wear button-downs again. I didn’t even realize how much this was bothering me until this month of writing posts and there was this huge internal block I couldn't figure out.I’m yelling I am my authentic self to the world but every time I do laundry or open my closet to get dressed every morning, except for a few button-down shirts and jeans the swaths of fabric I suffocate my identity in, choking me.  I haven’t worked out this fear and even thinking about getting rid of all the clothes I hate wearing freaks me out, here's to doing things that scare you, so maybe this summer an actual closet purge will happen, and I’ll let myself shine proudly. I'm not sure why accepting and embracing this part of expressing my gender and identity is so hard. But, here's to doing things that scare you, so maybe this summer an actual closet purge will happen, and I’ll let myself shine in my skin and clothe it proudly.

Pride series: Part #1 Religion

I wasn't planning on writing these posts. My plan for pride month was to finally put my full authentic self out into the world by going to the pride parades and posting pictures. Then the pandemic hit and everything was rightfully canceled, so instead, I decided to share my authentic self with others the best way I know, through words. I wanted the first of the pride series on my blog to be about my struggles with religion and my lgbtq+ identity as religion was one of the biggest forms of my struggle with understanding and accepting my true self. I left each post on its own while putting it in an order to hopefully create a narrative. This is very much my first draft and what feels like my first layers of expressing my internal turmoil that I have come to understand more. These posts were originally Instagram posts, during June which is Pride month, where I tried to process and share my journey. I collected them in a series to share on my blog in four parts. I would love to hear feedback and dialogue on these. There is both darkness and light as life is always comprised of both. I hope this can help someone feel ok in their own skin, and create dialogue for people outside of the lgbtq+ community. 

Religion and I struggled before I figured out I was gay. I lost most of my belief back in fourth grade and it just kept dwindling over the years. In 10th grade I was living in a girl's dorm in a religious girl's high school it was a very religious environment. I couldn't label and understand forget to embrace the emotions. So I turned to texts and friends and spent my time learning whatever with whomever. When close friends asked me what was wrong and I couldn't put my fingers on it the response understandably to cut out the few guy friends I had. It didn't solve anything, how could it solve an issue I couldn't even figure out. I gave up trying to "pray-rather learn the gay away" without even fully understanding I was trying to do that. I did this again in seminary trying to somehow learn something that would explain away my feelings. I kept searching for something to explain away my feelings. I kept searching for something in religion, that I was taught was all-knowing, and the truth for something to explain what I didn't have words to explain to myself. Once I was given the external vocabulary and the internal unlocking a lot of my favorite internal anger against religion and God dissipated. I haven't fully figured out my relationship with God and religion but is my honest and true self has made it possible to come back to sit at the table with God in my own way. This is a long term struggle that I have not fully figured out in any way but I am in conversation with God, it looks different every day but bringing my authentic self to the table has been empowering and given a chance for an authentic relationship with God and the universe.

Weddings - weddings are a big part of Judaism especially for women and girls it is one of the biggest milestones you are conditioned to want and to have as your goal. I remember when I was 8 I dressed up as a bride for Purim. A family member sewed me a dress and I had fake flowers and a veil. Luckily in the community, it's super normal so no-one asked me about a groom but I remember seeing other girls my age also dressing up as brides and thinking I want that. Of course, I thought that I was just thinking about their dress or veil not realizing the deeper thoughts till thinking about it now. After graduating from high school in my religious school with a grade of 150 girls, weddings naturally were the next milestone. I had gone to a decent amount of weddings during high school of family friends and older friends and there always was this internal feeling of uncomfortable and struggling to just be happy at the weddings, I always felt I didn't belong and I wasn't very outwardly religious and didn't believe in their version of God so I thought it was just from religious conflicts. I remember always looking down the aisle waiting for my friend to come down, and I could imagine myself walking down the aisle, but there was never a clear picture of the “man of my dreams” waiting at the end of the aisle, it was always blurry and blank. Then with the help of a few statements from my good friend, enough of my internal feelings, emotions, and thoughts came together and I came out of the closet to myself. I remember going to the first wedding after I came out, and having a very powerful moment waiting for the couple to walk down the aisle, and looking at the canopy and being able to envision my own wedding and being under that canopy with the woman of my dreams. The joy and emotions I was able to express with my friends absolutely came from that internal level of peace and now I love going to weddings, I can feel part and connected even if I want something different than what is shown, I have found that internal compass, and it feels amazing. Finding my authentic self made sharing in others joy so much more authentic.

Internal safe space part #1- (TW: suicidal thoughts) NOT SAFE- Building an internal safe space has been one of the hardest things about coming out and looking back over the very long process it took has been quite intense and remembering how much I already knew but didn't even have a space inside myself to hear the voices in my head has been painful and healing at the same time. 10th grade was one of the best and worst years of my life. The best I was finally out of Ramat Bet Shemesh living in a dorm of international religious girls, on a school campus I actually wanted to go to. I had made friends both in my class and the dorms but, it was also one of the hardest years of my life. I remember it being one of the first times I was in a safe enough space to feel those internal confusing thoughts yet I didn't understand what the crushes and attraction meant. I remember trying to talk to a close friend but not even having the right words all I had was so much confusion and pain, a good Jewish girl like her thought it was boy trouble since I was friends with a barn hand from where I used to ride and we were in touch. So I used the tool I had been using all year, religion, and clinging closer to some version of God that would get rid of my internal strife if I stopped talking to boys. Unfortunately, that didn't solve any problems it just made me feel more isolated and confused, to the point where one night I was leaning out the window and looking down at the ground, analyzing that I wouldn’t die from the jump but maybe it would still get rid of the internal confusion and self-hatred from that confusion. I would look out into the night through those big windows often but that was one of my most intense times I felt the only way to fix whatever was broken inside, was to break my outside. Luckily (yes now I can look back and say luckily) a friend came into the room and asked if I wanted to learn some Torah thought and since that was the only tool I had I used it and kept hoping it would fix what I couldn’t inside. I didn't find my internal safe space to even find the words to portray my feelings of homosexuality or even really know it existed for years, but this is just part one of not having an internal safe space to even learn and think about the letters LGBTQ+.

Internal safe spaces NOT SAFE part 2. In the summer between 10th and 11th grade I found the now-defunct women's wheelchair basketball team, it was an important addition to my physical therapy but also brought to light how I was not in an emotionally safe space to talk about being lesbian. My mother has always been quite into matchmaking so on the way back from picking me up from the train station when I came back from practice in tel Aviv, one afternoon she asked about the captain of the team Moran, and if she was single. I was so naive and didn't think I needed to filter my response (also I've only in the past four years learned to filter better) so I just responded "um, she's not single her wife even comes to practice. You might have even met her " Luckily I had enough of a filter to not tell her, that her wife was one of the organizers. The slice of silence that returned is still burned in my mind I can tell you exactly where the thirty-second interaction happened. The interaction between us ended then and I naively once again thought that would be the end of the conversation. Instead at my next therapy session my religious therapist (which I then dropped two months later) asked me how I knew what gay was and if I was fine with people who were gay, and in the same breath if I was gay. Feeling cornered without missing a beat I responded "I'm fine with gay people but don't worry I'm not gay" I remember her asking how I knew what gay was and to be honest I don't know if I actually knew I just saw them together and knew they were together, but I really don't think I really had enough information to understand. I just mostly remember how cornered and how quickly that therapist's office turned from being a safe space to a surrogate parent interrogation space. I still feel that pain of being cornered and having no safe space, and recounting these events makes me super impressed with myself to still be alive and actually understand, accept, love and share my authentic self with the world as there were many years of suicidal thoughts and wanting to be out of this unsafe confusing world, especially when the people supposed to make it safe, made it unsafe.

Why do I hate the question why?

     This post came up listening to a podcast about personal branding, and growth of a business and one of the most important aspects of building your personal brand and business is "why". Why are you creating this? They described the "why" as such a normal question that didn't usually make people feel an urge to run away from the question "why". The first feeling I had was "well, I'm sure I can figure my business out without it, I know what I want." Sitting with the word "why" was so uncomfortable. Searching for my "why" made my skin crawl and made me want to use old unhealthy coping mechanisms to get rid of the feelings. So the blog post on "why" sat on a scrap of paper for a while until I felt like I was choking with emotion every time I saw the paper and finally had the strength to dive down this uncomfortable place and process while I write.
      I thought back to my time in the religious formal education system especially through middle school and high school, and the lack of ability to ask why. The automatic response was "that is the way it is, don't question the truth" the anger that was the automatic emotional response shared with at some point got engrained, and I tried to train myself to stop asking. This goes even further back to childhood especially with religious rituals the question of why wasn't appreciated as the answers weren't necessarily known or were to be shared, rather shut down as this is what we do. I had been trained for so long to never ask the question "why",I tried very hard to follow the training although, I never did a great job at keeping my mouth shut. The reactions varied depending on what I was questioning. As soon as I write this, of course, the thought that comes to mind, is well don't blame other people for your problems or your actions. And while this is true, actions, reactions, and specific instances do create imprints on me. It's then my job to process the emotions and actions, and this, of course, takes time in order to have the emotional capacity to go back and process. But yes each person's actions and reactions have an impact on someone else and that's normal to accept within boundaries.
      One story that stands in my mind specifically happened when I was in 12th grade. It was the beginning of the year and the class that was being given was called "Bayit Yehudi"-Jewish home. I'm not sure what we were meant to be learning but the first lesson the teacher started out by saying everyone needs to figure out what subject they want to learn to teach, in the teachers' seminary that was run and owned by the same people who owned my high school  (drama for another time). My immediate reaction was to blurt out that I have no interest in being a teacher and there are so many different jobs out there, and not everyone is meant to be a teacher, even the rabbi they claimed was their inspiration for the school specifically wrote about individual talents and using them in many of his writings. The continuation of the outburst included pointing out many of my friends in the class and how they had so many talents and career options more suited to them, at that point the teacher had really had enough, she had already told me to go to the principal's office, now told me I was not welcome back in this class for the rest of the year. Now the first emotion I thought I felt at that moment was elation, "great I get a free period every week for the entire year, chilling on the grass outside for an extra hour a week sounds great." That emotion subsided quickly as I slammed the front door on the school building and went to sit down on the grass outside, surpassing the useless visit with the principal who would have nothing to say that I felt was worth listening to. Sitting down with my back against a tree the next feeling that washed over was one of abandonment and feeling completely alone, none of my friends had backed me up in class, they all stayed silent as I ranted. Now logically this makes sense they were and most still are part of that community and talking back would be committing community suicide. Just thinking back on this memory brings back up so many feelings of anger and being suppressed into the cookie-cutter image of how I was supposed to behave and what the next steps in my life were supposed to be. It also brought up the feeling of how they used the religious icon of a very important rabbi, especially in their circle when they wanted to force us to come to school specifically the day before a big exam to pray even when legally the students are supposed to have the day off to study at home. Yet they refused to acknowledge what that same rabbi actually said about unique individual talents, the hypocrisy made me crazy, even though it was far from the first time this happened, this one hit especially deep. Evidence to that fact as these same emotions are actually bubbling up in me right now as I write this seven years later.
    There were a few people in my life who let me question why and I am forever indebted to those two for giving me the space to start re-learning to use the question of why. The crazy thing is I actually love questioning as to why things are, for a while I wanted to go into research about different things all of course based on things that I questioned, and then internally had already learned how to shut down my voice of why, almost automatically never questioning the reaction and action. So here's to learning to listen to myself say why, and follow the rabbit hole down a healthy path of self exploration.

Giving Grace

I am hard on myself. Regardless of how much I'm going through and how much I still achieve, I'm notorious for getting upset at myself when I'm having a mentally down day, and continuing the spiral downwards. During this time, while having so much of it thanks to the global pandemic, it has given me plenty of chances to practice giving myself the space of grace to be in the dark rather than getting angry at myself for not being in the productive state. Grace is something that really doesn't come easily or naturally to me, be it as a reaction to some of partially how I was raised, I feel sometimes with too much grace, and trying to remove anything that was uncomfortable and made my life harder at the specific moment in time. I remember even when I was very young my reaction to that was to work harder and to push harder to get to that uncomfortable place of pain and growth since it wasn't the norm, rather something I craved. While I do find it hard to give myself the grace space, I find when I do I can actually get back to what I want to get done faster. Sometimes it's coloring for five or ten minutes, sometimes it's going outside and just soaking in some nature. I don't know if anyone is into not giving grace like me, I started noticing that even though I love seeing flowers around where I was going, I literally wouldn't stop to smell the roses.  Until I started having this excessive amount of "free" time when I could and would finally listen to the voice telling me to keep moving and then shoving it out and started giving myself the grace to slow down and actually stop and enjoy the flowers around me. Actually stopping and appreciating the shape, color, and individuality of each flower. I even started letting myself photograph the flowers and try to snapshot that grace I felt for myself in the photo. This grace that I have found in slowing down and enjoying the flowers and photographing the moment, I'm trying to bottle the grace and use it when I get down and hard on myself and give myself the feeling of smelling the flowers and inhale some grace.

Internal Expresssion Restrictions

Sometimes I dont notice how restricting I am of self-love, and giving myself the space to be. Especially in the creative areas of my being. Over my time in the eating disorder clinic, I learned many of my restriction habits and signals and worked on the regulation of those habits with food, but not with creativity and other ways I restrict myself for an illusion of control. This came to a head as these past few days have been some of the hardest in the past month of the pandemic and pretty much complete isolation. I was in such a funk that even after my two planned workouts, a shower and a good meal, I was still just so stuck, mentally with both feeling so much and feeling nothing at all (that specific mental space I will elaborate on another time). I knew this had to do with feeling like I had no way to export and process the mess that was just a pressure cooker inside my mind but didn't really know how to relieve the pressure in a healthy way. Luckily in all my mindless scrolling of Instagram, I happened upon a good friend (basically a sister) post discussing the creative block along with a coloring book mid color. This reminded me I actually had a coloring book and inspired me to take it off the shelf. Of course, I struggled with the classic thought I have "Don't waste the coloring book you dont have so many, and this one is special you bought it your last week in Florida." My thoughts seem to not be my friend most of the time, but I managed to walk myself out of that ditch with "Yea, its special so use it in a special time, and also you can buy more coloring books, they aren't exclusive to America, and also there is Amazon you know." Finally, I opened the book up to where I had last stashed the pencils and realized it was a very unfinished picture from the one night I stayed up as late as they let me in the psychiatric ward coloring. This brought a different wave of emotions-the first one was shame. "Am I in such a bad place like when I was in the psychiatric ward that I need to color?" My immediate response to that thought was "seriously? just because you colored when you were in a bad state in the hospital, it doesn't mean you are in the same place. You can be in different places and still color to relax and calm your mind." So after running a mental marathon with myself over a coloring book and some colored pencils, I opened it up to a new design and started. I put on some background music- classical cello has been my go-to for a while (it makes me miss my days of cello, but also puts me in a calm space, another post another time). I colored for a while and could just feel my mind release-I mean I haven't been able to write anything for weeks and have been actually trying, it's not perfect and my mind sent other thoughts, but I was able to just fall into the soothing rhythmic colors and lines and tried to relax into the experience. Funnily enough, I chose a picture of a bird to color in and the picture I started to color in the hospital was of fish, so probably another post to analyze another time.  For now, I am just going to try and hold space for myself and not overrun my mind with thoughts and when I get overrun, then let them out.

Impromptu Photoshoots

Up until this past year I pretty much hated being in pictures and refused to take pictures of myself. I have always wanted to wait until I liked (forget loved) what I saw in the mirror, I want to be skinnier and have a more defined muscular physique. What I refused to acknowledge was the reason I hated taking and being in photographs was the lack of self-acceptance and self-love rather than how I fit in the frame. Do I want to be healthier and fitter? Absolutely! But I'd also like to have memories along that journey and enjoy the fun things I do during this time still creating memories. Another classic anxious thought that runs rampant in my mind especially during my travels is that everyone-or at least someone is watching me take these photos, and seeing me be out of my comfort zone. I have this somewhat loud irrational fear that everyone around me will see me do something "silly/weird". Instead of just going with the flow with what feels good and fun to me I have this internal voice that tries to shut down any comfort and enjoyment of myself at the moment. In turn with the figuring out more of the weird twisted thoughts in my mind I try to challenge these thoughts, I had a chance to do this on a family trip to France to visit family this past winter we were walking by a Christmas tree and water fountain and my sister asked me to take some photos of her, I did and enjoyed being the photographer but then decided to push myself and get her to take some photos of me. Posing felt awkward of course as the internalized voice saying why are you moving your body, why are you smiling, who are you trying to copy or look like. I tried to shut that voice off and just smile and enjoy the moment with my sister trying to laugh the internal awkward feeling away. So do I love my body and the pictures without noticing the flaws? No, but I try to enjoy the photos and my body for what they are and where I am in life. Do I feel this weird internalized feeling of being super touristy and taking posey photos in Europe? Totally! But I love the memories of pushing myself way out of my comfort zone and having a great experience with my sister, and moving my body a bit and taking shots and freezing memories of a trip in time. Looking back at the photos, I like how far I've come in accepting myself and where I'm at enjoying and loving the moment. Hopefully, my evolution of self-love will continue and I will have photos to remember it by.

2020's Forgotten Dreams

I wrote the draft for this post right when I got back from a trip to my grandparents in December. For a variety of reasons, I haven't posted anything for a bit before that. Classwork got intense at university and till last week I was super busy with finals. I've been in a fog since then and I knew a decent amount of it was locking up my emotions and thoughts trying to just focus completely on schoolwork. So now to the actual topic at hand, Toyota ads in the Zurich airport and the wave of emotions I completely forgot I had regarding 2020.
"2020" For years I had an imaginary finish line that I wanted to cross at "Tokyo 2020". It was a somewhat elusive sports goal of making the Paralympics after my paralympic dream for 2016 fell apart for a variety of realities that combined to remove the goal from reach. When I returned to Israel in 2016 my focus changed from being consumed by sports dreams and goals trying to be achieved through workouts and pretty much eating, sleeping, and breathing sport, to focusing on university and Israel and the process that entailed to make it there. I worked on myself, mentally and physically in different ways trying to balance the idea of working out without focusing on a paralympic dream and goal. Throughout these past three years, I went through a variety of hospitalizations, between a voluntary in-patient program at an eating disorder clinic for a couple of months, where I gained new tools and friends. I started wheelchair tennis only to end up with a few different short stints in the neurological unit of the hospital where I got much less help and made no friends. The lack of explanation and ability to solve the pain and loss of sensation, led to pressure being put on me to do fewer sports and working out less in hopes that the pain and loss of sensation would disappear. In that my paralympic hopes and dreams seemingly disappeared from my mind completely and the focus turned to university and a job. Of course, my body and mind sometimes what I feel conspire to make me take a step back and between trying to work 20 hour weeks, falling and spraining my wrist the first week of the semester and getting incredibly sick, by December of 2018 I was at one of my darkest places I had been in a very long time and ended up suicidal in a psych ward needing to hospitalize myself for proper mental health care. Forget dreams of Paralympic medals I didn't want to wake up the next morning. A large focus in the care was focusing firstly on just the day to day and then just basic monthly goals, no need to focus on big dreams and goals as they can overwhelm and send you back down the dark spiral. This all made sense and for a while, I was ok with just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and slowly but surely get back to university and while getting into the basic grind and doing it well is great, at the end of the day I'm still a hopeless dreamer regardless if I always share the dreams and goals. There is a constant inner fight in my brain of wanting to just be an elite athlete and push my body to the extreme and blank out the racing thoughts and the mandatory other parts of life that I need to achieve. So I had thought that I completely turned off the inner clock and timer to "Tokyo 2020" I'm not training in any sport that has any relevance for me at the Paralympics at this time, so why this wave of emotions in response to seeing the symbols and words? It brought back to the forefront of my mind this clock ticking down to the Paralympics that I thought I turned off completely but it turns out I seem to just have hit snooze enough times. It's not like I forgot I still love to compete and push myself to my physical limits but considering I had literally no training in any sport at any level even close to being relevant to the Paralympics, I almost didn't believe it was something that I still considered a dream. So after figuring out that it is still a dream, I am working on balancing my mental health needs, university and work needs and physical needs, while believing that dreams are important but creating the small achievable goals for now and as my path through life evolves hopefully I will be able to bring the paralympic dream back into my life. For now, I'm focusing on growth and evolution, and maybe I'll be able to cheer on others at Tokyo and maybe not, but now at least I know where I'm at and have actually processed what I wished and in the back of my mind hoped for some kind of paralympic dream. Heres to me owning the year 2020 regardless of if my dreams were gold medals and now they are good grades.