The first apartment we lived in in Yerushalayim was a one-room, dank basement. There was a half wall behind which the beds were modestly hidden. It was tiny, overrun by ants, and sand would blow in through the windows. I tried to clean everything, but the ants were everywhere. I would sit with my baby on the couch feeling hysterical: despite the bleach, despite the sponja, despite my best efforts, everything was so dirty! I’d look at the mold creeping over the edge of the ceiling, hold my baby, and cry.

My family was far away, in chutz l’Aretz; I kept up a cheerful chatter with them over the phone and via email. I made friends quickly in my new Israeli neighborhood, but understood that these weren’t real friends — I couldn’t be real friends with Israelis, could I? I mean, we had such different backgrounds, how would I really know that they liked me? Maybe they were just being nice to me, the chutznik?

When my second baby was born, the midwife said triumphantly: ‘Mazel tov! You have a boy!’

“A boy?” I shouted, half-conscious. “A boy? Are you sure? A boy? Did you check? Did you check? Let me check! Are you sure?!”

She gave me a look. “Yes dear, I’m sure….”

That wasn’t the only thing that I checked. I also checked the door to make sure it was locked at night; after all, our little basement apartment opened right into a park, and who knew what unsavory characters hung out there at night?

I checked to make sure that the oven was turned off when I went out; of course I did, who intentionally wants to burn their own house down?

I checked that I looked good before I left the house. It was important to me that no one ever find out what I really was — not that I was certain who I really was. I felt that I was standing outside myself, having lost myself, looking down at my body from a distance. So I checked to make sure that I looked presentable. This included turning my skirt around (in case I had sat on something), and keeping hold of a tissue in my hand at all times — who knew when I would need a tissue? I checked my legs for holes in my tights and the bottom of my shoes in case I had stepped on something. Often, there really was something stuck to my shoe, or the baby really had swiped a chocolaty hand over the back of my skirt; of course, I needed to check before I left the house!

I checked that I had my bus card, Kupat Cholim card, keys, driver’s license, a spare tissue, a pen, and a small jotter pad in my purse before I left. I checked that my baby had diapers, wipes, snacks, change of clothing, and his bottle before we left. I was determined to be a responsible mommy.

I’m not sure why I kept my driver’s license on me, because I didn’t drive. I had great reasons for not driving.

…Israeli traffic is crazy! I learned to drive in the quiet suburbs!

…I learned to drive in the UK — they drive on the other side of the road there! I can’t just change my reflexes!

Twice I tried to drive, and had harrowing scrapes with other cars. After those frightening incidents, I gave up driving in Israel. I felt fully justified, and very relieved; just the thought of driving made me panicky.

I had more children, and then a miscarriage.

I was devastated when I lost the baby. Devastated, even more detached from myself than usual, in pain, and miserable. I realized that I must be depressed, so I called Relief, who referred me to a therapist. The therapist was lovely. She listened. She was so sweet. I canceled on her after our third session. I knew that there was something wrong me; I would watch myself from somewhere up near the ceiling, chatting to the therapist, and know that it wasn’t really me talking to her; know that whatever was wrong with me, whoever was me at that moment, had taken in the therapist as well.

So I bumbled on, trying to be a good wife and mother, yet feeling horribly guilty about the fact that my husband clearly thought I was a nice person and a good wife when I knew I wasn’t.

Me: Oh! You’re home! Of course! You always come home this time! I can’t believe I didn’t heat up supper!

Husband: That’s okay, don’t worry about it.

Me: Ugh, I’m such a bad wife.

Husband: Oh no, of course you’re not! You’re my wonderful wife!

Me (relief, short-lived): Oh, and is it okay if we have brown bread? I know you prefer white bread, but the store was all out….

Husband: Of course, that’s fine, I like whatever you make for me.

Me (relief, short-lived): Ugh, I should have tried the other makolet, maybe they would have had white bread.

Husband: Of course you shouldn’t have gone to an extra store! You’re busy enough as it is!

Me (momentarily reassured).

I didn’t even see how the whole space in which our relationship should have blossomed was filled with my husband reassuring me: that I was okay, that we were okay, that everything would be okay.

I didn’t sleep well. As soon as I went to sleep, scenarios played themselves out in my mind.

…replay: my baby having a fit, eyes rolling backwards — omigosh omigosh omigosh no no no think about something else…

…walking down the street, a car comes, my toddler runs into the road — no no no no think about something else…

…our terrible finances, the shame I feel, what this says about me: I’ve failed at adulting. Argh, think about something else!

I told my husband that I was just a light sleeper.

Things came to a head one day. There was nothing special about that day, except that I couldn’t decide what to cook just as I could never decide what to eat, which was the secret that kept me losing weight. I just couldn’t decide if I fancied milchig, or meaty, or a treat — and so, opted out of decision-making, until I felt that I was on the point of fainting. Daily.

There I was sitting in front of my cookbook drawer when I saw a Mishpacha magazine sticking out between the cookbooks. I pulled out the magazine to avoid having to make a cooking decision, and I opened to a page in which someone described being utterly tortured by her fearful thoughts. She wrote that she had been helped by an organization called Nitza.

Before I could lose my resolve and get stuck in indecision, I ran to the computer, found Nitza’s number, and called. I was put through to a case manager, but when she asked me about my history, to my own horror, I just started to cry. I hadn’t cried for years; what would crying have said about me? That I was unhappy? No, no, I had to be happy. For my husband. For the kids. To uphold my own image of myself.

I kept accidentally hanging up because I was crying so hard, but the case manager kept patiently calling me back, until the details all came out. I was immediately put in touch with a wonderful older woman who called me twice weekly to check in with me and just to listen. I found myself slowly sharing things with this total stranger whom I would never meet, and whose name I didn’t even know. Finally, Nitza sent me for therapy.

I was certain that I was depressed.

But Sara, the therapist, sat hard-faced, unmoved, one eyebrow twitching as she asked me questions. She wasn’t taken in by me at all. I suddenly felt that someone was seeing the whole me, the parts that didn’t feel part of me, the me that I had lost long ago.

What she said was: “I’m pretty certain that you have OCD. You’ll need to go to a psychiatrist to get a definite diagnosis.”

I think I may have laughed. OCD? But I didn’t have any compulsions!

“Yes, you do,” said Sara, “you look for reassurance. Or you reassure yourself, don’t you? That’s a compulsion.”

“No, I DON’T,” I lied, hotly.

But, of course, she was right. I began exposure therapy, despite my misgivings. “I’m not certain that you’ve made the right diagnosis, you know,” I told the therapist doubtfully.

“That’s part of the OCD,” she responded crisply.

“You can’t say that about everything I say!” I protested.

She made me work hard. I was not allowed to check anything, even though I had good reasons for the checking. “I’d rather you get stuck somewhere without a bus card, than have you checking before you leave,” she said firmly. I burned two pots because she wouldn’t allow me to check that I’d turned the flame off. Sara called in my husband and carefully explained what I was going through, and how he was and was not to react.

At first, it was excruciating. My husband would turn away from me, or begin humming a little tune, or waggle his eyebrows meaningfully when I asked him a simple question that ended with “…right?” or “…no?” or “…don’t you think?” But his participation in my healing meant that slowly I overcame the habit of asking him everything.

I had never made big purchases alone; I would always call him first to check whether it was okay to spend money on the kids’ clothes, for example. Now I had to learn to spend money myself and ignore the voice that said: …how do you know for sure that there’s money in the account? How do you know that you really, really need that dress? What does this purchase say about you — that you’re irresponsible with money, that’s what. Sigh. I cannot reassure myself that I’m responsible with money. I may be totally irresponsible.

And I had to stop avoiding driving.

“I’m not avoiding driving!” I shouted at Sara.

“Not driving, when you can drive, is called avoiding driving,” she said, very sensibly. To prove her wrong once and for all, I went out and drove. And kept driving. And forbade myself from checking for Arabs hidden under the back seat, forbade myself from checking that I’d really turned my lights on, forbade myself from checking the gas gauge. Yes, there may be an Arab in the back seat. Yes, he may kill me. I want reassurance that my lights are on, but I can’t give myself that reassurance.

And Sara made me acknowledge that I had, indeed, lost myself.

“Right,” she said calmly, “you were once one person, and now you’ve lost yourself. Now you’re someone else entirely.”

I want reassurance that I know who I am. I want reassurance that I really really am frum. I want reassurance that I love my children. But I can’t give myself that reassurance. Maybe I don’t love my children (tears running down my face). Maybe I’m a bad mommy.

At first, facing the thoughts was like living in a nightmare. I literally collapsed for about three weeks, emotionally exhausted, weeping all over the place. I don’t know where my lost baby is. I want reassurance that he’s all right. I want reassurance that I will see him again, after 120. I want reassurance that Hashem and my grandmothers are looking after him. But I can’t give myself that reassurance. Maybe he’s lost forever. Maybe I’ll never see him. Maybe I won’t know him instinctively when I die. Maybe I won’t recognize my own baby.

­Sara asked about my davening. No, I didn’t get stuck on certain words. Yes, I davened constantly, tefillah shebalev. Didn’t every mother do that?

“You have to daven only Shacharis, Minchah, and Maariv,” Sara informed me briskly. “Saying a tefillah as you drop off each child in the morning is not tefillah, it’s just you reassuring yourself.”

“What!?” I was aghast. “If I don’t daven for them, who will?” May my children be physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially healthy. Protect them from everything, please, please, Hashem.

But I reluctantly followed her directive. Had she been right? Was I davening to Hashem or was my davening a compulsion, a reassurance of self? I always said the same sentence. I worried that I’d missed out one of the ways in which I wanted my kids to be healthy. Despite my misgivings, I stopped, confining my davening to the three set times a day — I can’t reassure myself that my children will be okay today. Something terrible could happen.

I thought I was healed, and I was adamantly against taking medication. But the psychiatrist prescribed it to me, and mainly to prove my therapist wrong, to show her that the meds would make me sick with all their side effects, and likely even kill me, I acquiesced to taking them for a few weeks.

The change was miraculous. I didn’t know that I could feel so good. I was once on a bus, just staring out the window, when I suddenly realised that I’d NEVER just sat on a bus staring out the window. I would sit on a bus with my thoughts twirling round and round my head, my anxiety building, my finger rubbing my knee, my teeth biting the inside of my lips, my toe tapping the floor.

I had never felt this good, never. My whole childhood and teenagehood had been punctuated by intense stomachaches, and I’d been diagnosed with a number of conditions and had even been operated on! As soon as I went on the medication, the symptoms completely disappeared. I had never felt physically well before; I didn’t know it was possible. I had never felt so relaxed before.

SO here I am. This is me. I’m not perfect. I go out and who knows? Maybe the baby’s smeared cream cheese all over me. I won’t know; I haven’t checked. Maybe I have tissue stuck to my shoe. Maybe I’m late for work sometimes, instead of chronically early. Maybe I stay totally chilled when the bank blocks our bank account for an unpaid bill.

“You’ve gone out the other side!” yelled my mother one day, when we were making Pesach for the extended family, and I decided that we needed an Erev Pesach trip to Ikea to buy huge stuffed animals for Makkas Arov. “You’ve gone from tense and anxious to FAR TOO CHILLED!”

Who knows? I no longer need anyone’s reassurance that I’m doing the right thing. I like it here in the land of the chilled. Everything’s so much calmer. I exercise daily, laugh with my kids, have a weekly date night with my husband, and don’t always tidy up the mess. Am I irresponsible? Possibly. Am I me? No idea. Maybe I’m not. Am I happy?

For the first time ever, yes.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 917)