Rachel is a Jewish bisexual autistic woman (she/her) with ADHD in her twenties. She loves writing and can always be found with her nose in a book! Her plan for the future is to earn her Psy. D. in clinical psychology. This interested in psychology started as a way to help her understand people better and to figure out what it was about others I kept not getting. It is also something deeply linked with her self-advocacy. There is a gap in communication between the autistic community and providers, and she want to help bridge it and challenge others to see things from different perspectives.
View all postsA Question of Safety During Pride Month
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Last Rosh Hashanah, I had a panic attack in the middle of the service.
Maybe I should have seen this coming, even if outright panic attacks aren’t a common occurrence for me. I can have bouts of anxiety, some based in reality and some less so. In this case, the anxiety that began to rise within me almost as soon as I arrived at my Synagogue was unfortunately not so baseless.
There’s been a marked rise in antisemitism over the last few years. Not that I think I’ve ever lived at a point in time when antisemitism wasn’t present, and even a decade ago, I was already afraid of watching my own country turn on me, but some days it has begun to feel truly omnipresent. To be Jewish is to fear for your safety, and I feel that now more than ever.
Yet, last Rosh Hashanah was still the first time my fear of antisemitism turned into such a vivid terror of the possibility of violence. As services progressed, as we turned each page of our prayer books, I became convinced something terrible was going to happen. I tried everything: breathing exercises, removing myself to a quiet place to calm down, even attempting some meditation while huddling in a bathroom stall. But I couldn’t calm down. My terror and sense of impending doom only kept mounting. There have been no major incidents of antisemitic violence where I live, but in my growing panic, that logic could not calm me.
At first, I could only tell my dad I didn’t feel well. He didn’t realize what was happening until we were out in the lobby. We spent a good amount of time there, trying to see if I could calm down. Most of the time, though, I just cried.
Even once I did get calmer, and after someone had found me bottled water to rehydrate from my tears, I couldn’t go back to the service. I was too afraid I’d just have a panic attack again.
I was ashamed of that.
On the way home, I couldn’t stop feeling ashamed and embarrassed that I’d let something that only existed in my mind control me like this. Perhaps the threat of violence was real enough, even if only in a hypothetical sense, but the palpable danger I’d sensed that day had only been an anxiety-fueled mirage. One I’d been spooked by all the same.
I’m sure it’s hard to understand at first what this post about the high holidays could have to do with Pride Month. Every time I’ve written a blog post here for June, I’ve taken the opportunity to talk about my queer experiences as a bisexual gender-nonconforming woman. But this time I’m writing about a more unfortunate intersection between my queer and Jewish identities: fear.
Once, a friend bemoaned to me that he felt isolated as a bisexual man; too scared to take part in any queer community. Some recent news of violence done against LGBTQ+ people was fresh in his mind. What that singular event was hardly matters. He was angry, upset at the world for making him so scared to embrace or explore queer culture. He felt cut off from potential community by that fear, and by the people who had instilled it.
I can’t deny that whenever I’ve gone to a pride event, I feel a spike of anxiety. Even just the night before, I’ll usually feel some amount of trepidation as I consider the day ahead. It feels like something always happens every year. Hate crimes, big and small, litter this month that’s supposed to be about celebrating love. Safety tips are administered plenty in advice given to those going to a Pride festival or event for the first time. Still, most people thankfully make it through Pride Month without experiencing any violence. But it can be hard not to worry that this year you won’t be so lucky.
When I’ve gone to pride festivals with friends, it’s always been a lot of fun (if inevitably overstimulating). Yet when the day begins, I can never deny the mounting fear that it won’t end well. It’s a feeling that subsides once I let myself be swept up in the day’s festivities, but I can understand how such a feeling could keep some people at home entirely.
The purest cruelty in acts of violent hatred is the violence itself, the harm it does to innocent people. Yet there is a secondary form of cruelty in them, no less intended; the fear created in others when it comes to participating in their own community. The goal is to make people feel unsafe to proudly be themselves, to gather together and celebrate. It is to steal the joy from these celebrations. Because maybe if they can replace all that joy with fear, they can stop the celebrations altogether. They can stop people from loving being themselves.
That joy was also stolen from me on Rosh Hashanah, on a day that’s meant to mark the beginning of a sweet new year. Instead, I was filled with fear and then shame of that fear. Shame that I had let those who hate me win.
I know I said in my June blog post last year that it’s important to focus on queer joy during Pride Month. I still believe that’s true. It’s so important we do not let fear become a central part of this time of year. Yet, after my experience during the high holidays, I couldn’t get my friend’s words out of my mind when I sat down to write this post.
Even as we try to focus on the joy in this month, on the love, it’s important not to forget or leave behind the people who struggle with that. We can’t abandon the people whose fear prevents them from fully enjoying or embracing Pride Month, because that fear is not their fault. It’s so easy to feel isolated when you’re too afraid to reach out and be a part of your community. It’s the kind of fear that keeps you from the people who could help you face it.
If this month you’re too scared to go to pride events, if you’re still too afraid to even come out yet, I’m writing this blog post to let you know that your feelings are valid. And that also goes for my fellow Jews who may feel they’re no longer comfortable being publicly Jewish. It’s ok to be afraid when there are real threats to fear. It’s ok to look after your safety first before anything else.
I hope we can work towards a world where we can all feel safer to be ourselves, where fear doesn’t have to be a barrier between us and the community we need. The people willing to put themselves out there in public, to live proudly as themselves, are helping us work towards that future. But no one is obligated to do that work, and no one is selfish for not being ready to. If the only celebration you can manage this month is a private one, that’s still enough. Just don’t forget, despite it all, to celebrate.