Good afternoon all,
Several responses to all of you. First of all, I have never “done drugs”, I have never “partied” nor have I drank heavily, or lived a lifestyle such as that. I did not choose to become frei in order to live an immoral lifestyle. I never did, nor do I act in an immoral fashion, I don’t run around, nor act in a promiscuous fashion. I was raised in a neglectful home, and essentially was treated differently than my siblings, but that is not why I went frei. I still have respect for my family, and respect their choices, though they have little to none for mine, and that is their prerogative. I do not hate nor resent them, and before my father died, I forgave him, though I am sure he passed hating me, I will never know, and frankly, it’s sad, but I made my peace with his indifference towards me long ago.
I am the only successful member of my family. I have an education (Ph.d) and a successful career, both of which I acheived on my own, and live quite well, in spite of the many hateful emails I am still receiving from the members of the “god fearing, religious, frum” members of the former community in which I used to live, telling me that I should just kill myself and make everyone happy (that’s one of the nicer ones), and in spite of the fact that it has been close to 3 years since I made my choice. I do not dress like a streetwalker, I do not look like a prostitute, nor do I dress like one. I make a point to dress with modesty, not because of religion, but because I prefer not to “show my wares” to everyone.
I will not give out my entire story, because again, had I wished to be continuously attacked, I would have stayed within the community that I had originally lived. Second of all, I did make the choice to become not frum. It was a choice, pure and simple, and one that I made with complete and total clarity after weighing all my options (not that I felt I had too many after years of abuse and neglect).
I would like I state with clarity however, that to compare someone becoming not frum and someone committing suicide are two completely different things. The American Psychological Society (of which I am a member) does not condone suicide because they feel that suicide, while debated amongst psychological professionals as ethical or otherwise, should be one’s choice only if it is a full informed decision. Since one is unable to make that determination because one is never aware of what actually occurs after death, one is physically or emotionally able to make a fully comprehensive informed decision about the finality of the decision of suicide.
Now, as to the remained of your questions: I read one comment about a menahelet making certain inappropriate comments to students that she removed from her school about them being scum and so on, well, I had that in my school, to students who were still in the school, primarily to students that were not amongst the wealthy and priviledged (or deemed intelligent enough). But that’s not the reason I chose to make the decision I did.
I will answer specific questions. BUT, because of how I was treated in other threads, and by other members in other threads, I will not tell my story, and I will not respond to one single member whom I feel is disrespectful or dismissive. I will not lower myself to their standards. And, by the way, to the one member who made the comment about going off the derech being an emotional decision rather than an informed one, I have to state, with clarity, that this is completely erronous. The decision I made was both INFORMED and EMOTIONAL. But, please don’t think for one second, that I did not think it through thoroughly. I was very well aware of what I was giving up. And I was well informed, both before and after, by everyone involved, through nasty telephone calls, hate mail, hate email, things thrown at my home, and other “messages”.
My view of yiddishkeit, is not that it is “the best”. Quite the opposite.