Thank you again, Azadehruh! And I can certainly understand how extra space outside of the frenetic day-to-day can bring up things that are asking us to deal with, no matter how long they've been tucked away. It sounds incredibly unfair what your friend said; I know people do the best they can but it can be really crushing when people close to us can't understand what we've experienced or even how the potentially insensitive or just unsupportive things they say may make situations even worse. I'm wishing you space for lots of healing and productive contemplation so you can move forward in a way that feels right to you!

And by the way, I'm not exactly sure how immigration worked in the UK, but when Jews were migrating to the US, often the immigration agents couldn't understand their complex names and ended up truncating them without consent of the immigrants. Most Jews I know in America have surnames that are different from the real ones their grandparents or great-grandparents had before arriving on US soil. But there's definitely a huge range of attempted assimilation that most Western Jews nowadays fall under-- it's sad for me to see (I have been working on unpacking my own shame about my Judaism for the last few years) but most Jewish people I know (mainly reform or conservative Jews, not orthodox) do everything they can to publicly abandon their Jewishness. I wish we could all be proud of who we are and embrace our imperfections and love ourselves regardless of our shadows or how much "work" we have yet to do, but I fear that this world and especially the culture in many online spaces has moved into a place that is so shame- and fearmongering that it causes many people to try to hide themselves and conform to whatever is "cool" or at least "acceptable" so they don't have to face this deep discomfort.

Anyway, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Many well wishes to you!