When someone goes to the doctor to get help for a condition, and the doctor treats that person as a hypochondriac and ridicules that person and dismisses that person with nothing more than a pat on the head or a prescription for Valium; and when said patient has the courage and self-respect to go to another doctor and another, and keeps getting the same treatment, there are people who assume something is wrong with that patient. These kind of people start with the presupposition that doctors are good, that doctors are smart, that the medical system is there to help and heal people. Rather than allowing for the possibility that this patient’s experience throws into question such assumptions, they cling to the assumptions and judge the world from that viewpoint – effectively adding insult to injury and causing additional suffering to the victim.

These kinds of people are the status quo. They think they are the smart people, but they are the dumb people. They think that because something never happened to them, then there is something is wrong with everyone it happened to. When in fact something is wrong with that thinking.

The intelligent approach to life is to be actively engaged in it. To witness, to evaluate, to question, to give the benefit of the doubt to the explorer – ie, the one on the battlefield, having an experience and reporting back.

When I share my life’s story with the world – the ups and, mostly, because I’m processing through it, the downs, I am doing a service to humanity. I am offering you information and insight. I am offering all of us another perspective. An inside lens into a world that maybe you haven’t stepped into. As I knew when I was a child, and as I said way back then, “Truth lies in the details.” Details come from people actively involved in the nitty-gritty of a situation. They come from the child who is in the abusive family and sees the intricate details of the fabric of that family system. They come from the person who is vulnerable and seeks help from others – those who are positioned to help such people.

I once read a quote that was fucking awesome:

When you have everything, you know what you are made of. When you have nothing, you know what your friends are made of.

There are a MILLION variables in life. None of us, praise be the Lord, are exact replicas of each other, no matter how similar we may seem. That is the genius of life. Just because you were able to rise above a situation does not mean that someone else can do it and that that person is an extra super deluxe flawed human being for not rising above. It means that you were graced with the intelligence or resources or timing or a host of other factors that enabled you to rise up.

The greatest judge of character, in my opinion, is not whether you can rise above the bad, or whether you never experienced bad at all. It’s whether you will offer someone in the dumps your love and offer your hand. It’s whether you will use your power, privilege, and intelligence to help someone else rise above the bad.

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I just found out that a fellow Spoonie (someone living with chronic illness) has been booted out of her home and abandoned by her family, which ended up with her living in a car on a street. Now she’s in a hospital, because she’s gotten even sicker. Her life is in danger, and she needs our help desperately. If you are following my blog, chances are that you are living with a lot of stress and financial difficulties yourself. But chances are that you also have at least $1 to spare, or that you can write a blog post or tweet to spread the word and get help from people with more resources. There IS something you can do. Rise up to the occasion, just as you’d wish others would rise up for you.

If you are following my blog, you also know that I came damn near close to being homeless this past year, myself. It’s amazing how an injury or illness can completely unravel our lives overnight and leave us horribly vulnerable. I have experienced the sheer terror that comes along with having no financial safety net and limited resources and a severely compromised ability to function. So I want to do what I can to help this fellow Spoonie, whose Twitter handle is @blairnboca. And I ask you to join me. Here’s what I’m going to do, and what I’m asking you to do:

1. She needs a physical address to set up a PayPal account. I commit to getting her a mailbox in her hometown, if they will accept payment by phone. If not, I’d like someone in Boca Raton, FL to get her the PO Box, and I will send the money to comp that person.

2. She needs money. So through the first week of October, I will share with Blair 50% of all sales of my audio class CD. It’s a win-win all around: You get to learn how to dance to heal your pain; I get support for my spreading this work to those who are suffering; and Blair gets the help she needs to get out of her car and get a damn roof over her head.

Also, a friend of hers will set up the PayPal account once I get the mailbox. Check back on my blog, or follow me on Twitter, to find out how you can send $1 or $5 or whatever you can spare. Seriously, every bit helps. Not only does it help with expenses, but it boosts morale and keeps one’s head up to know there are people who care enough to help, even if only a little. I know first hand.

3. We need to get the word out that Blair needs help. Blog about her situation, or cut and past my blog onto yours, if you don’t have the energy to write a new post. Tweet about it. Post on Facebook. Retweet (RT) posts on my Twitter account, which you can follow @dancingwithpain.com .

4. Send messages of love and support and encouragement to Blair on her Twitter account – @blairnboca.

Too many of us struggle alone. It doesn’t have to be that way. Social media connects us and empowers us to help each other. Let’s all tap into our hearts and spread the love. If only in the name of R’shana, the Jewish New Year, where we are taught to look deep within ourselves and ask how we can be better people, and how we can make the world a better place. Here’s an opportunity to start the year off right.

On that note, if you are involved in a religious organization – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, whatever, please spread the word. Religious communities are ass-kicking organized and a great source of support when mobilized.

With love, peace, and blessings that we all may thrive, my hand in yours, your hand in someone else’s, all of us, together, never ever turning away from those in need, spreading a sense of dignity and well-being among us all. Tizkoo leshanim raboth unemoth, may we all merit numerous and joyful years.

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What I loved about the movie was that I could relate to it in ways that I can’t relate to narratives in most other movies. Coming from an orthodox Jewish world gives me a radically different spin on life than coming from a secular society. I remember some feminist gathering, where people were talking about how “we take for granted the feminism of our mothers.”

Uh, not here folks. There was no feminism to speak of in my household growing up – except the innate feminist spew coming out of my mouth since I was about three, and the Wellesely-induced feminism from my sister during her college years and beyond. (I remember pleading with her to shut up about all the gender roles when the TV was on, so that I could watch the damn programs in peace!) True, women’s rights were supported to a certain extent on a community level — ie, outside the family — but within the home, it was a traditionally patriarchal household — raging tyrannical father, submissive deferential mother, and all.

Just the other day, oh wait, I think it was this evening, I was talking to my mom about how when you have multiple layers, it gets really hard to find a match in a man. When the Rucheleh character (the orthodox Jewish woman) was displeased with all the matchmaking choices offered her, all hell began to break loose. The mother panicked about Rucheleh becoming an old maid and therefore destroying the younger sister’s chance of ever getting married.

I come from a family where one of my aunts was married off quickly to a physically violent man, so that the younger sister could get married to a man she loved. Because if the younger sister got married first, the older sister would never, ever be married off. She’d end up an Old Maid.

When Rucheleh started hanging out with a Muslim woman, the mother also panicked about how it would ruin Rucheleh’s reputation and therefore prospects of marriage. I think that’s much more of a Eastern European Jewish thing – that community tends to be far more provincial than Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, for example, who easily mixed with their non-Jewish neighbors.

But the point is that once you start to question the codes and rigid restrictions, once you start to speak up and speak out, you start to bang against the walls of the religious Jewish establishment and get shut out – as started happening to the Rucheleh character. That which was once warm becomes dry ice cold. It’s like a lovingly abusive relationship: As long as you stay in line with what the abuser wants, everything is fine. But the very second you say or do anything that does not fall in step, all hell breaks loose; and the violent hatred is exposed.

So I grew up a devout young Jewess – my heart and my life dedicated to the Jewish way. But then there was all the sexist crap in the synagogues. And the violence in my home. And the entrenched, systemic racism towards non-European Jews like me. And the egomania running rampant in the Sephardi and Mizrahi communities. And the disability issues. And let’s just say that I am not one to shut my mouth.

Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer. With each issue, I was estranged farther and farther from the community. People just did not want to deal with things, did not want to think about things, did not want to do the transformational healing that needed to happen at the root level. There was less and less of a space for me, certainly without a fight. In fact, being part of the Jewish world came to feel like a constant battle. To the point that I gave up.

Tonight is Friday night. While my preference would be to light candles and pray and say qadous and sing songs, I am utterly isolated from the Jewish world, for all the reasons listed above. So I watch movies and just chill out instead.

And finding a man is one hell of a pain in the ass. Because I criss-cross worlds, points of view, values, beliefs, and needs. It’s part of this, part of that, not quite this, not quite that. Orthodox Jewish ideas and secular ideas about sexuality, for example, are equally myopic in my opinion, equally oppressive, just in polar opposite ways.

Anyhow more on that later. I’m thinking about relationships between women and men – gender roles, religious values, all of the many pieces that play out. And how, the more one has perspective on all these things, the more difficult it seems to be to find a mate. People like to do things by rote. And the more you pay attention and act on principle, the farther and farther out in left field you find yourself.

And left field is a lonely place to be.

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Take Emery Miller, who was born with a hole in his heart. He is just a young man but already has undergone five heart surgeries. Throughout his childhood, as well as during his recovery from surgery as a young adult, Emery endured overwhelming levels of pain. With pain management techniques and a positive attitude, however, Emery continues to do activities he loves. He is at the top of his game on the baseball field, for example — despite the fact that doctors said he never would be able to play.

It’s not only the pain medication and surgeries that typically bring down pain patients. It’s also the accompanying feelings of guilt, anxiety, and grief over having lost the life they once knew.

Doing things you love is a great way to keep your mind focused on the positive – in turn keeping you feeling motivated and strong. Spending time with loved ones, taking the dog for a walk on a beautiful day, playing catch with children, painting, and dancing are examples of activities that can reduce stress, increase serotonin, and literally decrease pain.

If pain makes it difficult for you to do activities that once brought you joy, look for alternatives. For example, if a Zumba class is too much for you, try water aerobics. If running is out of the question, try swimming. Even if the activities are lower impact, they still can help reduce your stress and lower your pain.

Every day we are inspired by the perseverance, strength, and incredible willpower of our patients at the Pain Center of Arizona. May you be similarly blessed to keep on keeping on – never letting pain stop you from living your best possible life.

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One afternoon, a carful of cute guys struck up a conversation with me while at the red light. This was back in the 1980s, when Israeli men were friendly and innocent, and it was safe to talk with strangers. Our conversation was light and fun, and as the boys drove off, I blew a playful “au revoir!” kiss. The guys loved that, and one of them blew a kiss back.

At the time, my hair was down; my contacts were in; and I was wearing a purple tank top, blue jeans, and purple belt.

That Saturday night, I was reading a book on the balcony. My hair was up; my glasses were on; and I was in sweats. Suddenly, a guy walked up to the balcony and said hello. I said hello back. He asked if I had a sister. I said yes. He asked if she had long hair. I said no. He continued asking questions about my sister, and I kept saying that was not my sister.

“Wait a minute,” the guy said, looking at me intently, an expression of amazement passing over his face. “Were you here the other day, when a carful of guys stopped at the red light and talked with you; and did you blow a kiss as we left?” “Yes,” I answered. “I’m the guy who blew a kiss back,” he said. I laughed.

Throughout my teens and 20s, I often experienced men having a completely different reaction to me, depending on how I was dressed. I came to understand that while beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, that eye is besieged with an onslaught of images of what is and is not attractive in a woman – to the extent that men are unable to recognize a beautiful woman unless and until she presents herself in a very specific way.

In college, I let my playful, creative spirit express itself through my dress. I had my punk rock look, my sexpot look, my athletic look, my urban look, and my totally unique look – an original boutique silk blouse on top, for example, black square dance skirt and black leggings on the bottom, and black lace-up boots on my feet. I seamlessly blended styles and textures, to fit whatever mood I was in at the time.

I loved wearing black turtlenecks with super short black skirts, fluorescent tights, and black pumps with three inch stiletto heels. It was bold and playful. And that’s exactly how I meant it – no less, no more. I was having fun. And I think that we need to be able to express ourselves in ways that are bold and playful without any assumptions being made about us or how we behave or how we want others behaving toward us. Case in point: I didn’t start dating until I was 18; I shared my first kiss at 19; and I didn’t have intercourse until well beyond my college years.

I couldn’t help but notice that when I dressed one way, men swarmed around me when I walked into a room; but when I dressed another way, I might as well have been invisible. Same woman, same body.

During my senior year in college, I like-liked a guy named Josh. I could tell he like-liked me too. I believe I told him that I liked him, which probably is what led to the part of the conversation I remember, where he indicated that, yes, we should date because we had this and that in common and because – get this — I was “a reasonably attractive woman.” I got my WTF face on and was like, “reasonably attractive”?! Then he kissed me. Then my bus arrived. I boarded it, weirded out.

Fast forward to an AIPAC conference a few weeks later. (I loved AIPAC conferences – tons of gorgeous Jewish college men! Oh yeah, and saving Israel, yada yada yada.) I was decked out in a totally original piece – tight black spaghetti-strap top and short black skirt, black pantyhose, black stiletto pumps, and a silver scarf thrown over the whole lot, down the frontside, belted at the waist. I remember being surrounded by 20 men as soon as I walked into a room. Josh was one of those men.

The next time we spoke, he called me a “drop-dead gorgeous” woman. Hm. What a difference an outfit makes. He also threw me on his bed the next time I visited his house, but I was no longer interested. If you can’t see me in sweats, you neither see me nor deserve me.

I’ve always been baffled by this assumption that if you are not dressed a certain way, it’s because you can’t dress that way, ie, you don’t have the goods to pull it off. I have come to realize that people see you exactly as they see you. Just as editors can’t see past the exact wording of the pitch you send; just as people assume that if you don’t have an MD or PhD or whatever other alphabet soup, it’s because you were too stupid or lazy to get it; just like anything else, most people see you exactly the way they see you in one snapshot moment, nothing more.

Which is why that whole “lady in red” song pisses me off. If you can’t see her beauty when she’s wearing polka dots, mister, leave her alone for someone more worthy to come along.

Anyhoo, in college, I was alternately anorexic, bulimic, and exercise bulemic. Then I had a few thoughts: Why do I only feel sexy when I dress a certain way, whereas men feel sexy even in sweats? And as a friend added many years later, “And why do we need to be sexy all the time?” I decided the system is fucked, the way women are viewed and responded to is fucked, and I was having none of it. I gained 30 pounds, began living in sweats, stopped shaving (again – I didn’t start until 18, and then it was pretty intermittent and with much internal conflict), and felt more beautiful than ever in my life.

During my 20s, I mostly stayed in sweats, by choice. But through a decade of chronic and debilitating pain from my late 20s and all of my 30s, I stayed in them by necessity. It’s not that I was rejecting wearing heels; it’s that I literally could not wear heels. Unless I put them on while sitting in a chair, and I did not get up from said chair until the heels were off. In fact, fuck heels. I couldn’t wear anything but well-cushioned running shoes, or I’d end up in awful pain and unable to walk.

Having a severely compromised life – on the beauty front as well as all other fronts – made me suddenly crave those little, stupid, formulaic indicators of beauty. I wanted to shave, to wear heels, to wear contacts. I felt so out of the world of romance and sexuality, that I suddenly didn’t have the energy to fight those stupid fembot things. I wanted the easy way in. Hair down, contacts on, armpits and legs shaved, heels on, even makeup on and eyebrows plucked. Check. Bring it on.

But this shit offends my sensibilities. And so beauty and self-image has been a see-saw throughout and since the years of chronic and debilitating pain. Here is what I have come to, or perhaps more accurately, come back around to:

Enough with these bullshit “Women Who Love Too Much” and “He’s Just Not that into You” books. Women need to stop catering ourselves around men’s needs, reading the latest issue of Cosmo to find out what men want. We need to start demanding what we want and backing it up with the fist if necessary.

I should be able to wear whatever the hell I want, where I want, when I want, without my safety or boundaries being compromised in the faintest shade. I wrote a book about this, Consequence: Beyond Resisting Rape, in 1996. Wearing teeny-tiny minis with turquoise tights and stiletto heels and whatever the hell else is fun and playful and should be treated as such, no more, no less.

During my book tour for Consequence, which I did in conjunction with spoken word artists, self defense organizations, a filmmaker, and improv jazz groups across the country, one of the spoken word artists wore a plunging neckline with a pushup bra. “I feel safe wearing this here,” she revealed. We should be able to feel safe wearing that attire anywhere at any time.

And that attire needs to be just one form of attire that we wear as an expression of our playful and pretty sides. And men need to wake the fuck up and recognize that. We are beautiful and sexy with armpit hair and unplucked eyebrows, free of makeup, perfume, and hair products, fat or thin, wearing what-the-hell-ever.

It feels bold, scary, and a whole lot less surefire to walk out in the world wearing a swimsuit with hairy legs. But it feels a whole lot more authentic. So damn it, get used to it and start to see it as beautiful.

I honestly don’t know what part of me is socialized and what is not. I do enjoy the whole femmy thing, but not when it’s a prerequisite for getting noticed. Then it’s just fascist and fucked. And I don’t like the way men look at me when I’m wearing anything that’s not up to my damn neck.

Anyhow, I’m still trying to figure out who I am right now when it comes to self-expression through clothing. I don’t want to have to fight all the time. In other words, I don’t want to have to call men on their shit whenever I wear a blouse with a v-neck (which I love). I feel exhausted by all this bullshit. Why do we live in such a misogynistic world? Why is it so damn difficult to figure out what’s mine and what is society’s? Why are people such robots who see what they are told to see, nothing more, nothing less, missing out on raw, authentic life?

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Meanwhile I’ve been booted out of my apartment for three days, because the OCD maintenance crew in my apartment complex decided they had to replace all the doors, despite the fact that all the doors are working just fine. Is someone getting a kickback or what?

The new door they put in was too short, so there was a gap on the bottom. Enter Big Black Cockroach. Fortunately, I lived in Israel for years, so I adeptly chased the cockroach out the door, where it happily scurried away.

Meanwhile, the one broken item in my apartment has not been repaired, despite multiple requests. It’s been 100 fucking degrees, and my air conditioner does not work. Maintenance keeps claiming that it’s totally normal for AC to only bring the temperature down to 85 degrees, when you have the damn thermostat on 78 for twelve hours straight. I am not exaggerating by one minute here.

So I’m expected to pay over $1300/month for rent, plus about $500/month in utility bills for an AC that runs constantly but doesn’t do much. On the first day, when I informed the maintenance supervisor that my AC was on for an hour but the temperature only went from 87 to 85, he said, “Well, you were gone all day. Your apartment was hot. It takes time.”

It’s too noisy to be home during the day and too hot to be home at night. I have been staying at my mom’s, but as she often does when I’m vulnerable and in her space, she got all crazy on me, going for the jugular on some deep wounds, then leaving me a million messages back to back, saying lord knows what – I deleted them without listening.

Why is my family so fucking crazy? Can’t everyone just chill the fuck out and be normal and caring and supportive? Even relating to the loving parts of my clan is like playing a game of Russian Roulette. Then there’s my dad, who is just all about manipulation and control and possession, playing fucked up power games when I’m at my weakest and most vulnerable. Of course, he cries victim when I boot him out of my life again.

I end up feeling guilty all the time, on top of feeling traumatized, on top of dealing with whatever other crap I’m dealing with – like financially scrambling and fighting cancer and managing pain and shit.

I am feeling a lot better than earlier, though. I have spoken with some friends and reached out to some colleagues who can help me deal with the nodule on the energetic and mind/body levels. I am very proud of myself that I take excellent care of myself. I may have no control over certain circumstances of my life, but I refuse to be controlled by them.

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