chocandpatience: pretty much
oomis1105: she is wrong, and i am the first to admit that she is wrong and that what she did is awful, but i havent written her off as a jew or a person because i know what drove her to it. you all know that im working on a book…and let me tell you it is taking a LOT of self control not to use it as a platform to air my grievances about our community–and i have many. but i know what it feels like to want to, i know where that feeling comes from, and i therefore cannot disparage her for wanting to do that. i can condemn it…and i do…but i havent given up on her as a person.
the world isnt split into good people and frei people.
a mamin: i have no reason to assume that anything in her book is a lie (read the excerpt on the S&S site). she may have spun certain things in an unfavorable way, but i have no reason to assume she lied about anything, least of all her family problems. what she describes actually fits the bill.
by the way, for those of you who are wondering why im so hung up on this, aside from the fact that i experienced something similar, its that your response is precisely what drives people off in the first place. she says in her book that when her cousin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, her grandfather locked him in a room for 4 months rather than send him to a psychiatric facility. i believe that because i know its happened.
her mother was never addressed, and her father was written off for being mentally deficient. think about your communities and how they WOULD (not should) react to something like that. it destroys the perfect image that we have as a community and in our respective families when someone is diagnosed with a mental illness and everyone knows it. therefore, it is ignored.
not to mention sexual abuse…we all know THAT gets covered up very often, and mentioning it earns you the title of nuchem rosenberg. you mention the fact that domestic violence exists in the community and all you get are a bunch of people telling you to be quiet. if youre a victim, you get told that you either deserve it, or that you should just grin and bear it–that you are over-reacting.
and you wonder why someone would want to disparage the community, why someone would want to shame it to its core? because if thats what it takes then so be it. now thats not my personal opinion, and i dont think that she accomplishes that with this book and her publicity, but i know what it feels like to blame the entire community for your suffering and to want retribution. baruch hashem i got over my problems and am using other methods to further my agenda…but thats why i feel so strongly about this.
because to a certain extent…shes absolutely right.