It's All Too Much - Since I got Here - The Story

This is the rough outline - more will be filled in and it will be cleaned up. If something happens - this is the legacy.


Moving…place to place

I arrived in 03 – came to the Judean hills in a valley of Bat Ayin….from taxi to one roodead misquito bloodied walls, flithy mattresses and a promise to teach and learn in the Midrasha. I came from the quiet and the green The consistentny of trauma pulsating through my veins and the house suppporting the wall to the room I rent for two hundred and fifty dollars a month icontains a family of boisterous, yelling, crying, door slamming people.

There is no phone and internet is disconnected for 3 months – I try. My cats are bewildered. The cats of Bat Ayin are tossed like garbage. These misofrounates find their way to my room and claw through the screened windows to get a little of what my own get freely. A symptom yet to emerge again and again throughout.
I am friendless and dour once again I retreat. I spend the entire holidays and shabbats alone tryng to contain myself from oozing out of my own skin in total collapse of my system. Wine is ingested daily. I have no drugs. Pot has been stopped. Nerves bombarded and I stop staying away from classes. I am asked to leave – or rather not given an extension to stay told – single women are not wanted.

I begin to search again for a place. I am frantic where to go in the Judean hills without any one to call a friend. At my wit’s end I manage to use a phone in the office of Bat Ayin anfd call Alon Shvut – they have caravans to rent. A single person is alloted half a caravan. The other half is shared with another family. The wall dividing – like paper. The rent is cheap and I am desperate – I sign a lease. I go – on the hilltop. I have no refrigerator for the duration of the 4 months I am there. I find an old stove to cook on. In the heat of the summer I live without refrigeration – I must buy food daily for cats. In winter that comes the fish will last 1 more day. I asked one neighbor during this time to use their frige. I felt like I was imposing. Crazy woman imposing. I am invited to a shabbat by neighbors. I soon back away from this connection. Too close, too soon, too intense.

They invite me to the bris of their son. I do not go. Again isolate – again drink – harder stuff now and find some solace in the fields around the area only to be stopped by the settlement’s security for meditating in a place that’s supposedly off limits. Another time I am chased down by security for not ansering their questions – not halting. I have telephone and I have internet – no furniture – aside from a bed I find outside. I sit on the floor till one neighbor with a heart gives me 4 rusty chairs. I paint them. I get an old door from outside and make a table. I start hearing the thumps and the shouts fand the throat clearings from the family I share the caravan with.

Then a dog is left chained up outdoors day and night who howls and cries and barks and my life begins to seem not worth living. I drink more.. I need some kind of anti depressants but do not have health insurance. I need to wait 4 months before that kicks in. I start conencting online with this forum and that. My computer is outdated I find someone on a foorum who lends me a copy of xp – I install – and consequently lose all of my writing from 10 years. All of it. My ID card had just been lost as well. I figure it couldn’t get worse.


I am a mentally sick – despaerte woman alone with 4 cats and the world is reflecting back to me who I am and what I show and my actions and non. I try to find another place – nothing is available. Money is tight. I have no ptions. I must move again. I’ve been called in by the Committiee headed by 3 women and a rabbi of aAlon Shvut to see if I’m suitable. I tell them. You’re right I’m not suitable and I don’t want to subject myself or you to this a moment longer I will leave. Why don’t you live in the city. Indeed. Why don’t I. Or why don’t you for that matter?

Why would I tell anyone at this point my dreams when I am being trampled on. My dreams are the last bastion left untrampled.. I cam e to this country – not to buried in a foreign land. I came to settle the land, build a home, tend sheep and goats and be a voice to the voiceless. That is it. Since arriving I’ve been raped. Not the rape I endured sexually here as a child – but the psychological, personal rape of boundaries. Here I am skinless and borderless. All infiltrates and there is no protection. From the elements. I am too sensitive. Too open. Too me.


And then from there I move to Kiryat Arba. U find a damp apartment on the 4th floor. That or be homeless. My cats again must adjust to yet another move. And understand how 4th floors work - with a stair well. And how to avoid traffic, dogs, children and neighbors. I am now beside myself with worry. Another log on the fire of desparir. Drinking is daily I decide now to go to mental health. I arrive at Kiryat Arba mental health – a joke. Given anti depressants, a letter of referral to the regional mental health. I start taking pills. In the morning am jolted by arab megaphones – fall asleep and am awakened again. My days are spent going shopping for food, trekking t Jerusalem for kitty litter and cat food and internet. Day in day out.

My first passaover is spent wansdering the streets fo Kiryat Arba – then deciding dsince there is no place for me I will venture to the family someone told me about that was hippyish and open. I go. I feel uncomfortable not knowing anyone – that is the theme of my life the virtual stranger but mostly when I get spat in the face by the one of the daughters aged 7 for making the horrible mistake of trying to play a game with her. I leave. Where am I? My faith in all is shattered. I do comtemplate suicide daily. Though for my cats I stay alive.
One year and the lease is up. My son says Tzfat – go to Tzfat – I know Tzfat. I will help you find an apartment.


And my son he goes and cleans out a storage room and cleans the gas range that is there and presents it to me. Kindness. I move from Kiryat Arba to Tzfat into the room and there is another dog next door shreeking at every move I make. The porch between us in undivided. I divide trying to distance myself from this sick dog that will not relent in his skreeching, yowling, yelping incessant barking. And this causes my alcoholic neighbor to become angry with me how dare I divide the porch into yours and mine. It is ALL mine. Don’t you understand. And the heat. And there is no kitchen. And there is no where to put myself or my cats. And we overflow into nothingness.

I wash the dishes in a sink made for a bathroom placed between two rickety cupboards that get sopped by water each time. And now I have mildew along with the plaster that keeps on crumbling down from the walls and ceiling bcause someone decided to paint with crappy paint over crappy paint and then use cheap plaster n it all and the heat and cold and extremetieis of teverything including age present themselves to me as a fresh coating of white, pink and blue with every time I sweep or wash the floor. And then the war begins. And I have no where to run. I have no where to hide. Then the fires which are started by a pyromaniac or which came first the flames or the katyushas.

And in the dead of night I can feel my soul departing. Just leaving me. In the morning my cats are still alive – I am too. I have no where to turn for help. I try to connect. I try to connect. I try to connect. To pray. To sing. To help the dogs and cats abandoned there. I stay the duration of the war for 4 months. Then I have had enough. I go to Gedera – found apartment again through my son. I arrive. With everything. The van – the cats. The apartment is being rebuilt. I must wait for 4 days – in a stranger’s house. The owner’s mother. I go. I have no choice. I feel ike I am in hell. I must be. I don’t want to be in anyone’s house. I want to just die. I wait. I have no clothes. I rummage in the garbage. Then someone tells me that there is a synagogue. I go and there are some bags of old clothes I rummage through. I find a dress and a shirt. I am set.

I move to the apartment that is filled with debris from building. I begin to clean the apartment from the filth. Unimaginable. The owner is no owner to be found. Payment is made by mohnth. I clean the white tiled floor. Snow white tiles where every hair shows. I have no refrigerator. I have no appliances to cook with. I have a toaster oven. I don’t care. The walls are still not painted. Painter comes in – I am still not unpacked. I have no furniture I must present myself to the world as demure and modest. I speak little. I hide once more. Covered hair and half covered face. Always looking down. Searching for answers. Where is hope?

I have contact countless rabbis - no one can help
I have been in countless hours of therapy - nothing has helped
I have been searching for years for answers - there are none
I have tried with all my being to be the best I can be.
I cover my hair
I cover my mouth
I cover my ears
I turn negativity into positivity whenever possible
I pray
I do teshuvah
I light candles
I sing
I ask for forgiveness
I try to forgive

I've been to social workers, shrinks, runaway from home, run away from group homes, been anorexic, bulimic, depressed and dysthymic. I've been suicidal and have been isolating for almost 30 years. No one has any answers. No one. No one understands and no one can fathom.

Parents divorced. Mentally ill mother. Abandoned as baby. Estranged from father. Obese child. Regressed. Kidnapped at 11 to be taken by mother to Israel. Molested at 11 by stranger. Molested at 12 by stranger. Molested at 12.5 by another stranger. Boils on my body - head to toe. Nose bleeds. Spine collapsed forced into wearing Milwaukee brace. Stopped wearing it. Stopped going to school at 14. Ran away. Pregnant at 18 - divorced at 21. Raised son as single mother. Depression throughout. 92 broke back. One year recovery. Lived in poverty. Welfare. Social System. Worked odd jobs throughout. 93 returned to States to find recovery. 10 years in States. Getting some kind of perspective. Moved to Woodstock 99. Lived there for 5 years. Smoked a lot of pot. It helped me greatly.

After one month in apartment in Gedera - cleaning and removing debris. Last straw was downstairs neighbor appearing on my porch without asking - I moved within a week again. Move 7. To another place in Gedera. Still no refrigerator - new place has gas burner. Again we re-settle. Again moving cats. Again adjusting. Again new sounds, smells, people, inquisitive - who is she. One room and a tiny hall. Ground floor. That's all I wanted. I begin to collect the thrown away plants that people think no longer serve and bring them back to life. My porch is not shared with antagonistic people but with the unloved plants - and they show signs of life and soon all is blooming. I clear debris from the surrounding garden. I paint. I put up canvas where the old canvas was. I try to create a small place for myself. I live next door to Thai construction workers. This place is situated a few meters away from a huge construction area where 100 apartments are being built. This is where I am. The trucks begin to beep at 7 and don't stop till 6 in the evening.

Crashing, moving, beeping, yelling - all day. I am here. Music is going all the time. But I am close enough to shops and I can get anti depressants. Still I isolate. For one year I live in this place till the owner tells me he sold it and I must leave. Again I must find a place. I am very tired now. Where will I go. My son no longer is inclined to help. He gets married and I do not go to the wedding - not wanting to face my former husband and his 9 sisters and mother who will all judge me. And I opt out. I try to explain to him and his wife why I can't go. And they nod.
I start frantically looking again for a place. I look and there's nothing. It is the holiday season of Elul - where will I go.

I go through the internet every few minutes. I find something - I go see it - it's past Kiryat Gat. On the road to Beer Sheva - a moshav called Achuzam. I move in to a one bedroom house. With weeds and thorns all over - all over - all over. 3 Dunams of weeds and thorns. It was a farm. Now it has gone to waste and I ask the owner over and over to clear it. finally he sends over a worker called Amnon who arrives with a bulldozer to clear the area. It is cleared but filthy.

I work to clear. I promise to paint. Again. The diligent worker. The slave just to survive. And there are no fences. Just a road and another road and this house and dirt. And it soon becomes apparent that it is lawless place. All terrain vehicles come crashing throughout the day. Wild dogs barking all night. Plastics are burned. Day in and day out. And this is my life. I must walk half a mile to a bus station and then wait up to an hour for a bus to get to Kiryat Gat. My leg bothers me from my spinal condition. It's hard to survive here. I break my foot. My cat gets mauled. I must barricade my doors and windows from starving cats that want what my cats are getting and from the escaping dioxins into the atmosphere that I must breathe. Burning plastic. I soon find out that I live across from the regional garbage dump. This is how they rid themselves of their garbage. Burning it.

I ask why I am told to go back to the city. I am not wanted. Pariah. I hold on. I hold on. Between calls to suicide hotlines and internet pleas. Emails to rabbis and attempts at friendships. Nothing works. I maintain an online list for animal rescue in Israel. My cat that was savaged almost died. My son helped me bring her to the vet at night. Her life was saved. All her teeth were broken, her leg bitten - torn - she - in shock. My foot broken - I hobble to and from vet spending money I don't have on taxis. I never buy myself anything but food and drink - trying to stay alive - just trying. I pray for my cat's recovery. The vet's bill still outstanding. I try to find jobs, nothing. I try to record my voice to sell a song. Nothing. I try to write my book. I can't. This is the best I can do. Someone donates fridge.

I find second hand store get gas. My son purchases a new pc for me - on my birthday February 4. Kav dalet Shevat. or is it Kav vav. I don't remember. I use that one now. Every month I tithe. 10 percent of whatever I have. I spend entire days on the internet. I plug my ears from not hearing the cars, tractors and ATV's. I burn incense not to smell the plastic burning.I take Rescue Remedy and red wine. Sometimes Arak. I smoke catnip. I go to sleep but not to sleep. Fitful if ever. Now I am taking sleeping pills. My back hurts me. 2 months after breaking my foot it's still hard to walk.

Anxiety is high. I don't think I can take much more. I haven't mentioned the car accident and the terrorist or the Tehillim reading and the Yasams who were called on me because I was reading them in a social worker's office and wouldn't stop. But I will fill in these parts....I hope. God help me and mine.

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