JOthar and members, would it be over simplifying to say there is only one reason kids fall OTD? And that is BITACHON. there is a major malfunction in their bitachon in everything that Torah and Yiddishkeit stands for? Can we sum it up that way? i can relate.
I didn’t want to share this, but yet I want so badly to reach out share this with someone. I personally struggle sometimes, and DO NOT WANT TO FALL OTD. I am an adult BT and I struggle with the cultural differences I find myself agaisnt. Sometimes I feel so ripped off in that everyone else frum from birth around me got Yiddishkeit the real pure stuff served to them, born with the silver spoon of Torah in their mouths. THey were read the right stories, they ate the right kashrus, etc, had warm kind family didn’t struggle through the young adult years with the influences of public school. And on the other hand, sometimes I struggle with the cultural differences, a lot of what I learned as values and as social etiquette is backwards here and the people do differntly in Frumkeit. It alienates me.
Sometimes I reminisce about what I lost and then just like the unfounded complaints coming from the mouths of the Yidden who left Mitzrayim, I too fanatsize about “sitting around pots of meat” in the old days. Its ungrateful. I recognize that. I didn’t even eat meat, I was a vegan!
And it wasn’t even like I gave up anything worth missing or running back to.I don’t know why I am telling you all this. Maybe I see within myself a bit of that teenager at risk of going OTD.
I guess I need chizuk and strength and advice. Sometimes I feel like I am acting the part of Frum , and people think I am ehrlich but I don’t like who I am turning into, with having the internet in my home, spending a great deal of time there, and with the click of a button I have all the old music, tv shows, friends on facebook (whom I’d disconnected from years ago) and its self defeating to welcome this all back into my life. Sometimes, i feel angry against Hashem, when things get rough. Then I turn back to old memories in the internet like music and I noticed that reading the news and watching the youtube is changing me. I don’t like it.
Each morning I wake up I say “today I will not go there” but by the night when I am worn out and need an escape I go watch. I hate the pritzus and the secular mentality. I could better use my time reviewing halachos of tznius. Or shabbos, I know.
I know everyone in my community loves me, and I have many good friends so why then do I feel this way? How can I resolve to come closer to Hashem which was my main goal in this life when I threw away my name, and old ways and made a techias hamaysim of the neshama who was stiffling and crying out for L’chaim, when I became a baalas teshuva?
I know people are people and there are not nice people in every place, but some of the things I have seen “the big people” do exemplyfying the worst middos when they are suppose to be orthodox yeshivish yidden really makes me wonder. I could tell you a story here, but I have children who need their mother right now. Bye for now…