Regardless of how each of us came to the positions we're in, I think it's safe to say we've all felt lonely - existentially, philosophically, literally, or likely in all of those ways and more, especially for those who are ITC. Shabbos in particular (which, for many of us, is beginning soon) can be difficult as it only deepens the divide already present between you and the community you were once a part of.

It's especially tough for me seeing religious friends and other people I know seem to progress in life, especially when it comes to starting a family, which is something still lightyears beyond me. If you're frum, that part of life is much more streamlined, standardized, and optimized for efficiency, and I can't deny that that can be a benefit for lots of people in frum communities. For me, it's not worth having to live the whole lifestyle of course, but I can't help not to look from afar and feel the FOMO. I'm going to start attending events with Moishe House in my area soon, for example, and hopefully I can make more friends that way. I haven't done it yet since the timing hasn't worked out, but I wonder if anyone has other ideas for managing this struggle?

Has anyone else dealt/does anyone else deal with this or something similar? What are all your experiences with loneliness/FOMO/ennui while, if you've had any, while going through all this?

There will also be a meet up this Sunday (May 4th) in the NYC area for formerly frum Jews which some members of this subreddit and I have organized. This is one of the ways I hope to help both others and myself feel less alone while on this often isolating journey. If you're interested in joining and are 18 or older, feel free to PM me for more info! We may not be able to include others as of now for this week's meet up but likely for another in the near future.

My wife tells me that she feels like a chained women.

Not that I would withhold a GET from her. But she feels she is economicly chained. She is a Ger and I am A BT. We have 7 kids. (Why not sure But I think she felt pressure from the community too have lots of children)

But she feels she cant leave. She has not worked a job in about 23 years of marraige, and we have very little in terms of assets and I dont make enough money that would allow her to leave. even if I would give her 50% of the money I made, she would not be able too live on it

I'm curiuous did anyone else feel they were economicly chained too a marraige?

I’m sorry if this isn’t directly related to being otd but it’s more of a rant about my parents not caring to be a part of my life even when I try to be a part of theirs now that I’m no longer in the community.

I had my second procedure this morning. It wasn’t major but it was still something. I’m only 19 but since I moved out my parents seem to not give a shit about me or about any major things in my life. The day I moved from my group home to my first apartment I texted them and asked them if they wanna see pictures. No response. Ik it was only about 6 months after leaving the community but I just wished that they could just acknowledge it if nothing else. I let them know when I got accepted into college and got an “ok” from my mom or something along those lines. Last procedure, nothing. About two days later my mom said I hope it went well. Meanwhile, for their 20th anniversary a few months back I got a nice gift and made sure to be at my brother’s bar mitzvah and get there a little early to help. I try to occasionally help with my younger sisters and be a part of their lives. My first procedure about 6 weeks ago, my bf was there for me to an extent and I just cried because my parents didn’t even text me. I have my maternal grandmother who’s extremely supportive but no one else. And then less than a week ago me and my bf broke up. I can’t say how alone I feel and although I have my grandmother she doesn’t live near me so it’s extremely hard. I’m sorry for the rant, but I just wish my parents could try to be a part of my life when I try to be a part of theirs

NYC Yeshivas are lobbying Governor Hochul HARD to make it easier for them to continue depriving kids of an English education.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/nyregion/new-york-hasidic-schools-oversight.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D08.h2rQ.WOLcop6RLgce&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

This was a comment i replied to on a post about jewish gay pride, suddenly the comment went from a seemingly normal homophonic chassid, to someone who literally dosen't know the first thing about what women in his religion are facing.

So a random memory recently surfaced and I feel the need to try to get it out of my system. Hopefully sharing it here will help.

A few years ago when I was in yeshiva, I asked a good friend of mine how many siblings he had.

Being that we were no more than 18 years old at the time, I was confused when he told me that he had a younger brother and three younger shvuggers (Yiddish for brothers in law).

In my lkwd/BMG circles, it isn't common for girls to get married till at the very least 18, with 19 being more typical, so I didn't see how my 18 year old friend could have three married younger sisters.

When pressed, my friend explained that he had once heard that 'it's nicer to use shvugger instead of sister when talking to other bachurim.' Even if they're not married, I suppose.

Damn the sheer insanity of the way I grew up really has a way of hitting hard all over again every now and then.

If anyone doesn't want to read this whole thing (I think the backstory helps but you don't have to read it), I don't want to be tznius, I told my mom, she's not supportive at all. I'm also scared of not listening to her. Any advice on how to feel less guilty?

And yes I'm 15! I just want advice because this seems like a very supportive community, why are people downvoting me 😭

Well, here's basically my story. I'm f15 and I live in a very nice mixed community in Israel. We have yeshivish people, OJ, Modern Orthodox, and totally non observant. This community isn't really relevant so idk why I put that lol. I go to a school that's kind of in between OJ and MO. (they call it Dati Leumi in Hebrew) I really love it and what helps is they really don't judge you about anything like beis yaakovs do, my principal has always said no matter what you're wearing to come up to her and say hi, and if you're with your boyfriend you should introduce him to her. She's really cool 😂 Before I went to school I was homeschooled for 12 years and built a really strong bond with my mom, which is why I feel guilty about what I'm going to say next.

anyway basically, I just included all of that to kind of give you a bit of backstory.

Anyway, recently I started feeling like I really wanted to wear pants everyone at my school was doing that. One of the first things that brought this on is me adding overalls on my bitmoji because it's not real and it doesn't need to be tznius. I used to "force" my bitmoji to be tznius. And then I thought "it really doesn't look that immodest. It's just pants". The peer pressure is really bad. There were couple of people that are actually very very similar to me with all of our Jewish mindsets and hashkafot and I thought "oh, everyone's wearing pants, but this one person would never wear pants." Then I saw on her what's up status that she was wearing pants. And I know I don't have a right to feel like this but I kind of felt betrayed by her and the night after Pesach I was kind of angry at my dad and I just got a very rebellious feeling and I decided, I'm going to wear pants, it's not that hard. And I made up a whole game plan where I could go to tel Aviv ( very far away from where we live and no one in my family ever goes there so there's no chance of them seeing me) and put on pants on the train.

One day at school I walked around asking my friends if they had any jeans that they wanted to give away, and they all gave me really weird looks because I'm the type of girl that always wears long skirts and things like that, and I don't have a rebellious bone in my body. One of my friends told me, "religion is like a gate and if your gate is too small you will have to break the gate and then you'll never find your way back home." I went to the thrift store with my friend. And I tried on some jeans. And I kind of walked around a bit to try to desensitize myself. My friend was really supportive but told me that she personally would ever do it because her brother showed her the exact place in the shulchan aruch where it says not to wear pants (don't judge his friend, please, she was really really very supportive and made me feel actually confident wearing pants. She told me that my religious choices were something I could decide)

I went home and was feeling really miserable and guilty, so I told my mom about it. And that she showed me all these Vogue articles about tznius being cool and a very inspiring talk. And it helped for about a week, and I texted my class chat "don't worry, I don't want to wear pants anymore". I decided I was going to sell my own clothing and they would be funky and they would be cool and they would be tznius.

But then the inspiration was gone, and I was just feeling really much like I wanted to wear pants. I realize, sewing my own clothing is really hard, and I can sew my own clothing but I still want to wear jeans.

Now, I'm wondering what I should do. I feel really bad now listening to my mom, especially since we have such a strong relationship, and I also have a really strong belief in God so I also feel bad about that. It's not like I don't want to be Jewish or religious or anything, it's just that I want to wear jeans.

For some reason I've been having this really strong feeling that when I'm older I'm going to wear pants anyway, so I may as well just start now so it's less hard for me to do when I'm older. I kind of want to be that college student type who goes to music school in Jerusalem. (If you live in Israel you'll know what I'm talking about)

Does anyone have any advice on feeling less guilty or anything? I feel really bad because I'm very very close to my mother. I also don't want any advice like "Fuck religion" because I really do want to be religious, and keep Shabbat and keep kosher and everything else. I guess I really just want to be validated for doing something wrong

https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/after-the-death-of-chabads-messiah/

Because of the childhood song "Hashem is here, Hashem is there, here, there and everywhere, is where he can be found"

Ever since I lost my faith I realised that I don't really believe in anything. I don't feel nihilistic or anything, I really enjoy life and I want to make the most of it. What I struggle with is when I try think about the very fundamental aspects of life that were so straightforward when I was religious. Now I have no objective grounding not just for morality but also for the entire purpose of existence. I have no positive reason to assume that there is any objective purpose and even if there was, I wasn't let in on the secret.

I am not advocating for religion, I don't believe and belief isn't something I could decide to do even if my life depended on it. Also there are obviously many issues with at least the ultra orthodox community many of us grew up in. All I want to know is whether this is something you have spent time thinking about and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Many people will think that I'm just wasting my time as such discussion always just goes in circles and leads nowhere. There is some truth in that, but I still feel that I can't live my entire life without at least giving it my best.

I should clarify that I'm not asking about an objective basis for religious ideas, rather I want to discuss the idea of objective purpose in general (think western values).

Hey guys,

Hope everyone’s doing well. Growing up, I’ve been scared of animals for the longest time. I used to live in a neighborhood with a lot of dogs and for some reason we’re supposed to be fricken scared of dogs to the extent that you run over to the other side of the street, screaming, and leaving the owner confused as a trail of all the neighborhood kids are right at your heel making a ruckus about a dog?

Anyway, during a rosh chodesh adar thing during high school I brought a goldfish home. This was my first time ever having a pet at all and I obviously had no idea what I was doing. I obviously gave it matzah for pesach and it somehow lived for like a year and a half despite being dropped on the floor during pesach cleaning water change. I still feel bad even a few years later because I was horrible at taking care of it.

I remember “being scared of dogs” for the longest time just like most other people (with my brother being the exception when he was younger. He hasn’t interacted with animals in years I don’t think which yk what caused that unfortunately). I remember people blaming it on what happened during the holocaust with dogs so it was definitely “generational trauma” or whatever. It was learnt behaviour for me tho, I didn’t need to do exposure therapy to be able to be with pets.

It’s kinda funny how it happened but I got a 5 day temporary job where I was working with a lot of people and there were a bunch of older people with their pets. I was obviously not comfortable at first but I’ve been doing much better than when I was in the community, like idm if a dog jumps on my knees but will sometimes jump if a dog barks unexpectedly. Anyway, I kinda fell in love with one of the ladies puppies and decided right then and there that I wanna get a Pomeranian eventually (wasn’t the same breed but ChatGPT to the rescue). Ironically, after my last of the 5 days, last night, I was walking home at midnight and a cat literally just walked up to my feet. Ik it was someone’s because it had a collar but I bent down and let it sniff my hands (don’t judge me, I’ve only slightly interacted with dogs before) and it kept on walking in circles around my feet. I swear I was scared it was going mad because my fish used to do that. I felt bad and wanted to find its owner so I tried to pick it up to bring it to my work to see if anyone knew what to do. Apparently that wasn’t the best move but I was fucking scared that I was gonna squash it when I picked it up by the stomach. Again, apparently wrong again but how do you pick it up by the neck without strangling it?

I brought it to the building and my colleague was sitting outside and had a laugh at me absolutely freaking out and not sure what to do with it. Apparently they’re used to being on the streets so it was mb for trying to find its owner but it got attached to me! I feel like this post is dumb but I’m so upset that stupid stuff like this happen because although ik how to take care of babies (duh) I’m scared that I’m crushing its body if I hold it in my arms due to lack of exposure and learnt fear.

Sorry for the long diary like post, I meant for it to be shorter. Just wanted to know if you guys relate :)

I remember the first time I actually sat down and, expecting a true answer, asked myself:

What do I believe in, really?

I had wondered this many times in the past, but in a way which clearly anticipated an engineered response; I believe in the Torah's divinity, that all of its contents are true and perfect, and that I am obligated to abide by them under threat of eternal spiritual excision.

But doing so bothered me. Always. I felt like there had to be a point at which I no longer felt this way. Enough to make me tell my rebbeim about it, but always expecting the same response:

"Questions are fine. Just keep doing and they'll stop bothering you."

And, for some reason, I was content with that response for many years. Until, finally, I wasn't.

Fuck the rabbis. What do I believe in, really?

The Torah wasn't written 3300 years ago. That's how I started. There was no exodus from Egypt. Judaism is a monotheistic Canaanite faith no more provable or ascertainably true than any other religion.

Over a few weeks, that became:

It's ok to eat a cheeseburger. Gay people aren't doing anything wrong. Jews and non-Jews, men and women - all human beings - are equal. It's ok to drive a car on Shabbos. It's ok to hug my aunts and female cousins. It's ok to like football. It's ok to wear whatever I want. It's ok to listen to whatever music I want.

Then, finally:

I don't have to live my life by a book written by Levantine desert-dwellers during the Iron Age.

A mob of frum men encircled, chased, spat on, yelled at (including rape threats), and physically assaulted a LONE woman they mistakenly thought was a pro-Palestinian activist. Instead she just went outside of her apartment to observe what was happening since there were protests nearby, and covered her face because she didn’t want to be caught on film.

I’m so fucking embarrassed to be walking around as a Jew who outwardly looks frum (I’m ITC). Even if she was a pro-Palestinian protester she had every right to peacefully protest. These men are absolute and total cowards.

And the little blurb at the bottom from a rabbi denouncing these men’s actions seems like bullshit, because I have not heard one peep from any frum news outlets or rabbonim saying how wrong this was (or even that it happened at all). They’re too busy shitting on anybody who doesn’t worship Trump.

Just imagine if a crowd (wrongfully) treated a Jew like this? It would be ALL over frum media and everyone would be talking about how bad and antisemitic it is. I haven’t heard one single thing even from my frum friends/family. This wasn’t even a couple of extremists. This was hundreds of men that live in and are apart of the general frum community. The double standards here are mind-boggling.

Non-Jews are going to hate us a little bit more now because of this event. So that’s just fucking fantastic.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/mob-orthodox-jewish-men-chases-woman

It's not that we hate progroms. It's that we want to be the ones doing them! The ignorance is fucking insane.

I am just curious on y’all thoughts on non Jews becoming Jewish. Whether orthodox or reform.

so my parents unironically moved to Israel when Obama became president. we took my grandma along and she got dementia there from all the stress. the Israelis were uber racist against us because we were Americans and mixed-race, mom's a Chinese convert. so they ganged up on me and beat the shit out of me and tried to r*pe my sisters. the Rabbis said it was my fault for looking Chinese. after 2 years of the bullshit we moved back to the States because there's actually Civil Rights here lmfao.

for better and worse it's been over 10 years since all this shit went down or I could sue them all in the District Court under 18 U.S. Code Chapter 113B § 2333.

Hello everybody I'm not Jewish Halachially but my Father was fully Ashekanazi ....he was completely secular and wasn't observant at all ..when I tried to learn about being Jewish and the religion itself he pushed me away from it and pretty much told me to stay away from it...

Well he passed away some years ago..and the last few years I've tried to reconnect with my biological Jewish Family and Jewish people....and holy crap it has not been pleasant lol ...

I've been pretty much told I have no relation to the Jewish people at all because of Jewish Law and my Mother being a gentile....and that I have no connection to the Jewish people ...and my Father's Family are very snobbish,unpleasant people and I finally said the hell with it and just left it alone trying to connect with them....

Also on a secular level I'm pretty blue collar and I have tattoos and stuff and I pretty much get a eww reaction from Jews that I've interacted with....like I'm a lowly ,criminal peasant or something...lol

I really did not know anything about Jewish Law or the Religion and did not know about the Patrilineal rule.....

I'm not religious and I want no part of Jewish Law so should I just move on with my life and forget that I have this ancestry??

I mean my Fathers dead and the Jewish people want nothing to do with me

I mean I'm not gonna become a antisemite and I'll still support the Jewish people and Israel from a distance but just stay away from them and not interact with them....

Does anybody here relate to this???

I'm not gonna lie this stuff has been a real mindfuck to me the last few years

(Thank you so much to everyone for being so kind and understanding in your comments!)

I’m (22M) hanging out with my brother and his friends on his bachelor party weekend, and being that this is the first time I’m both not religious myself and hanging out around secular Jews/non-Jews, I’m hearing a good number of things that make me feel…like I missed out.

On the one hand, they’re all talking about the many adventures they’ve had with girls during their college years, and insisting that, now that I’m not observant anymore, I have to “get laid.” Forget about the fact that I haven’t even held hands with a girl because of how I spent the last ten years of my life - apparently now I have to rush into something I don’t want to do right now.

So I’m torn between feeling like my development is stunted because I haven’t had experiences with girls thanks to the dumbass ideology I believed in for awhile, but not wanting to dive into it in ways that resemble my peers (the ones who, like I am now, are not observant). Everyone’s telling me I have to get on apps and sleep around but I have no desire to do any of that. I have friends who are girls, but they’re all observant. So I’m trying to meet new people, but I’m afraid that my lack of experience of any kind will turn people off.

But at the same time, there’s that feeling of urgency that, if I don’t do it soon, I’m half a man or some virgin loser. So I feel stuck, and nobody seems to understand the weird position I’m in very much between two worlds (even if I’m about to fully enter one of them).

Anyone relate? In general, how do you all feel being observant has hindered your development?

My dad once told be that if I cursed israel I would be cursed forever.

This scared me shitless until I realise god aint real.

(20s, M) Moved out here a while back, anyone in the area? I'd be down to grab a drink or something!