Ilana-Davita came back after being away for a few days and wrote in response to my post about the bulldozer attack in Jerusalem:

It’s about the only piece of news I have heard in three days. I wish I had heard about brighter items.

Does anyone have any good news to share?

Bill Gates and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City are getting together to spend millions of dollars on a campaign to stop smoking. Is that good news? Also, if you had their kind of money, would you spend it on a campaign to stop smoking?

People have different boundaries; what might be comfortable to you, for example, might not be comfortable to me. My husband is a rather private person, so I try not to write much about him. It’s hard, though, because our families are part of our lives, and I enjoy connecting by writing.

I do try to be careful about what I say about other family members, and I don’t think I’m being too revealing by saying:

Here’s what my boys are excited about.

This is a website that has lectures my father enjoys (I’ve downloaded them unto his mp3 player).

And here are some of my daughter’s buddies:

America

Tsefat in the Galil in Northern Israel suffered an earthquake in 1837

or, this could also be titled:

How do you talk to someone who expresses a lot of fears?

I was thinking of subtitling this: ‘How to talk to an elderly person.’ But the truth is, it could be a child who is very anxiety-prone. And for some elderly adults who have seen so much over their lifetimes, anxiety over an earthquake is not a big issue.

When I visited with my aunt who is in her eighties, she told me she is glad she no longer lives in Jerusalem, because the people who live there are going to be in trouble. At first, I thought she meant they were in danger for spiritual reasons. No, she meant for physical reasons. She had seen a television show that stated an earthquake is due to come to Israel, and Jerusalem is going to be one of the harder hit places. She said the Arabs (generally speaking) tend to build their homes on rock, and the Jews (generally speaking) built homes on sand. So the Jewish homes are more at risk in an earthquake. How structures are built can determine who lives and who dies in an earthquake. For example, in the recent China earthquake, sadly, some children died at school while their parents at home survived.

In responding to my aunt, I mostly listened, trying to echo what she said (what I would call “active listening”). I asked my cousin what he thought of his mother’s earthquake anxiety. She does have a point, he responded. However, he figures the earthquake isn’t due for another ten years. So for the next nine years, he tells her, don’t worry about it!

Do earthquakes cause you anxiety? Or maybe you get concerned over global warming? When I was a kid, the thought of nuclear war used to scare me.

First, a definition. What is separation? Well, assuming one understands that we form attachments at very young ages, we could define separation as the process of moving away emotionally from those attachments.

Often separation is about the process of separating from one’s family of birth and attaching emotionally to friends and to a family of our own forming. And then, if you have children, the separation continues, as your children grow and gradually separate from you.

Sometimes separation is about losing a connection with a close friend, like when I was single and a close friend got married. My friend became more connected to her husband, as one should, so there was the loss of the emotional closeness, and she also moved away physically.

At other times separation can just be the process of leaving a thing, instead of a person. We are going away at the end of this week, and I have a hard time separating from my kitchen!

Tonight separation was about going to my son’s eighth grade graduation. I’m sure part of the reason I did not enjoy it was because my eldest “baby” is growing up. And I have to suffer through another graduation this week, as my youngest “baby” graduates from kindergarten. Torture for moms, that’s what graduation feels like.

Years ago, a non-Jewish friend who had grown up in a mostly Jewish neighborhood told me that she thought Jewish kids have a harder time separating from their parents than non-Jewish kids. I think there is some truth to that. What do you think? Is this too much of a generalization?

Have you found separating difficult? Any more so than those around you? If you are a parent, do you linger at the door when you drop off your pre-schooler (I was told that my husband should start bringing my daughter to school, and we agreed. Drop-offs have reportedly gone much smoother recently).
  

This post was inspired by these posts about separation:

I’ll Call Baila: Leavin on a Jet Plane and Ever Notice How…?

Eclectic Jewish Thoughts: Letter to Yated about Father-in-Law

Orthonomics: Same Yated Letter

In my last post, I started talking about therapy. In this post, I’ll bring up the topic of depression.

When I was 18, I was diagnosed as having an “affective disorder”. Another way of saying that is “mood disorder”. What does that mean? I think it means that I have a hard time staying on an even keel without a little medication. Or a lot of talk therapy. I have been managing my complicated life (aren’t all our lives complicated these days?) for many years now.

The good news is that I have gone from feeling very, very, very down and depressed to feeling OK. So if you or someone you know suffers from depression or mood swings, help is available. And my story isn’t the same as your story. We’re all unique in how we experience life.

On a whim, I Googled “Jewish depression anger blog therapy” to see if there are other Jewish bloggers discussing depression. And related topics. Some of my posts came out on top. Not what I wanted to see! Makes me feel alienated, like I’m the only one discussing these topics. One of Rivka’s posts came up: When three out of four IS bad. If you read Rivka’s latest post, you’ll learn that she is doing much better; some adjustment of her meds has helped a lot.

Some of therapydoc’s posts showed up. Her blog, Everyone Needs Therapy, is a good place to start if you are new to this therapy thing.

Dr. Helen has an interesting post called “Do Men and Women Express Depression Differently?”

Daniel Saunders talks openly on his blog about depression. For whatever reason, his posts don’t show up in Google. Does Google not spider Live Journal posts?

Finally, there’s Yoni’s blog. Those of us that read Yoni’s blog have a hard time helping him. Many commenters urge him to get a therapist. You can only help someone so much.

I hope my writing all this might help someone. I think it’s helping me, at least.