Financially, my parents were really challenged. One winter, my younger brother didn’t have a coat, so my mother took him to get one from a local gemach. Someone in shul recognized the coat as his old one and was decidedly vocal about it. My brother was so humiliated, he vowed he was never going to take anything from a gemach again — and that he wasn’t going to leave the house until he got a new coat. So my mother trudged over to our family’s rav to beg for money. I wished I could disappear from shame, yet my heart broke for my brother.

At their lowest financial point, my parents were threatened with foreclosure on the house. We kids were always caught in the middle of the drama, bearing witness to yet another spell of temper from my father.

Once, I overheard my father on the phone with his brother, who was planning to visit. He asked my uncle to bring along some alcohol. “Drunkard,” I muttered under my breath to my mother. (Which, granted, wasn’t okay, but I was just a child.)

Catching wind of what I’d said, my father slammed the phone down and chased after me until I locked myself inside the nearest bathroom. He banged on the door with a hammer, jamming it by mistake. I can’t remember how long it took or how I got out in the end, but for years after, I couldn’t step into that bathroom without feeling trapped.

MY

mother would often vacillate between joining my father’s rants and trying to protect us — although the latter usually ended in loud arguments between the two of them, to put it mildly. She provided for us physically, but I remember little affection from her. Back then, it was more about clothing your children and putting food on the table than about how your kids were holding up emotionally. In hindsight, I believe she was too busy fighting for her own safety to worry about others.

I didn’t have much support outside my home either. I’d never made many lasting friends. I always attracted people who sucked up my energy, people who were too much for me, and I never connected to teachers or mentors, so ashamed was I of myself and of my family. Why would anyone respectable ever want me or need me, I’d tell myself.

In ninth grade, I met Leah, and we clicked. It was the closest I’d ever gotten to developing a real, promising, mature friendship. But during her one visit to my house, my father yelled about something or another, and I was so embarrassed, I dropped the friendship. I never brought Leah or another friend home with me again.

My senior year was a short-lived relief. One of my teachers at high school caught on that I was struggling at home and convinced my parents to let me attend 12th grade in a new high school in another city. But I had so little confidence and belief in myself, so much distrust, that I couldn’t let myself enjoy whatever respite I had from home.

When I turned 19, I married the first boy I met through our chassidishe shidduch system. It was my ticket to leaving home, and I grabbed it. In any case, I wasn’t a child who had any choices in life; my choices were all controlled by my father, and I married my husband without knowing a thing about him. He didn’t utter a word during our beshow, but I figured that with good will and determination, I’d build a happy home and make anything work.

I didn’t know then that my husband would turn out to be another tormentor. I grew up thinking that fathers and husbands were people you had to please in order to gain their favor. I was irrelevant, invisible; there was only my husband and his whims and fancies. If I did everything he wanted, all would be fine.

Years later, I confronted my father’s brother, who lived overseas in my husband’s family hometown. “Did you know anything?” I asked. “Didn’t my father consult with you before going ahead with the shidduch?”

“Yes,” he said, he knew my in-laws’ family well and had relayed all the facts to my father. But my father went ahead with it anyway — he was happy, apparently, that someone had said yes to us. 

MY husband’s behaviors started out insidious, creeping up on me like a slow, steady fog. At first, they seemed harmless; jabs masked as humor, or a faint sigh when I needed help with something. There were no outbursts or obvious hostility. Instead, there were the small, dismissive comments or silent treatment that lingered just long enough to make me question myself, but not long enough to feel like overt mistreatment, which was confusing.

We’d have an argument and then he wouldn’t say a word to me for 24 hours, and I’d think that was normal. If I’d ask him questions, he’d call me the FBI, so I stopped asking. He’d make snide remarks about my cooking, so I’d just cook more, adding complicated dishes to my repertoire, sometimes working until after the zeman on Fridays to show him how capable I could be. Yet he’d spend our Shabbos meals commenting on what was wrong with each dish I’d made.

I thought that to keep a man happy, you have to give him everything he wants. That’s what I absorbed in kallah lessons and what I picked up from life. At one point, I had a well-known kallah teacher call me up to encourage me to set the table nicely for every meal. I didn’t know who was behind that phone call, but I had my guesses. In my overeager, ambitious mind, marriage wasn’t an endeavor that takes two; it was the woman who was everything. I was so convinced that all I needed was to try harder and be a better wife, and then I’d see the good I so badly wanted to see in my husband.

Still, nothing I did worked.

Our four kids came one after the next. My focus on them was total; there was nothing else to fill my world. I loved my kids, but I didn’t know how to express my affection. Instead, I’d shop for them until I dropped. I cooked and baked for them. I provided for all their physical needs. And always, my husband hovered in the background with snide comments and wily criticisms.

I withered emotionally, and unsurprisingly, my parenting went haywire.

At ages two, three, four, my kids were telling me they didn’t like me. At six, my daughter was throwing herself on the floor tantruming like a two-year-old. The others would hear my husband disparaging my food or my choices, and they’d mimic him. I was so out of my depth in dealing with it.

I threatened my kids. I yelled at them. I even hit them. One time, one of my girls refused to get into pajamas at bedtime, so I slapped her until she had purple marks on her face. I had no idea why I’d done that — it didn’t feel like me. It felt like a monster had taken habitat inside my body and was doing its own horrifying thing.

When my son was five, I missed his Chumash seudah. I don’t remember exactly why, but I do remember that it had something to do with him refusing to finish his sandwich. I have no recollection of whom I was trying to punish. I do vaguely recall having no idea of right from wrong.

With each incident, whatever remaining self-esteem and self-respect I had left got crushed into a million splintered fragments. I’d cry and cry for hours after. All I wanted my whole life, all I ever wanted, was a loving, warm home, yet whenever I spent time with the kids, I was so tense, so uptight, with zero clue where I’d erred. And there was no joy in me, only a deep, yawning abyss filled with desperate longing for something I couldn’t define. It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with my marriage; I thought it was all me. Only me.

J

ust when I thought things couldn’t get worse, my sister, my burden carrier, the one who’d nurtured me all my life and supported me through all my travails and who would commiserate with me about her parenting as though she struggled like I did just to make me feel better, fell ill with a horrendous terminal disease.

It was too much. Now, I didn’t just cry after messing up badly with my kids, I cried all the time. I alternated between spending my days in bed or crying or both. I couldn’t sleep.

Back when I was a kid, I’d lay awake for hours after bedtime, always afraid of someone coming to get me, constantly listening for threatening noises of another temper fit brewing. Now, with my sister sick, my kids out of control, and my husband emotionally absent and forever watching me for the next opportunity to criticize, my sleep habits regressed. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I was engulfed in deep depression. I was losing my sister and I had no one: not one single person to fall on.

The first time I’d ever reached out for support was when I was pregnant with my third child and needed practical help. A local chesed organization sent over meals and cleaning assistance. I didn’t know how to access any help beyond that; I barely knew that more existed, and accepting help wasn’t something I’d grown up with.

Somewhere along the way, my sister, who allegedly also struggled with her parenting, connected me with a family-support organization who set me up with a parenting coach and later sponsored play therapy for my children. The therapists would sit with me and show me what to do with my kids at home based on what my kids played out in sessions. They also sent a social worker to observe my parenting at home, which terrified the wits out of me, but eventually I came round and willingly complied, determined to show them that I was an eager learner, which I was. (My husband was always out working during these visits and our marriage was rarely discussed. I didn’t think there was anything to discuss.)

Just prior to my sister’s diagnosis, an older woman with a background in alternative healing moved onto the block. Every now and then, I’d stop to make polite chitchat with our new neighbor, and she would share snippets of her professional background as an acupuncturist who specialized in treating not just physical pain, but the underlying emotional pain as well.

“The two go hand in hand,” she explained.

I was fascinated. Emotional pain? They were practically foreign words to me at the time, but the concept resonated deeply. I played with the words. I’m in emotional pain.

But I didn’t know how to break free. One or two sessions with my neighbor was like trying to swim against a tidal wave, what with everything going on inside of me and out.

As my sister’s condition deteriorated, my depression thickened. One freezing cold day I was out, supposedly taking a walk but really just feeling so down and lost and contemplating any way out of my situation. Someone else was also taking a walk. It was my neighbor.

She took a good look at me.

“Rechy, you know this isn’t normal,” she said. “I don’t know your story, but you can’t stop crying. There is something going on with you.”

Then and there, she dialed a local helpline and handed me the phone.

In that first call, I could only cry. I couldn’t get a word out.

Life had hit rock bottom, and the weight of it felt unbearable. And yet, in the depths of that darkness, a minute shift was taking place.

MY

sister’s passing, tragic as it is was, came as no surprise. She was niftar on a Thursday, and as I fretted about Shabbos, my husband just stood by idly, offering no support, neither physical nor emotional. By that time, I’d had a really good start on therapy, all funded by the organization that hosted the helpline. Their willingness to help was my lifeline, the nourishment that kept me from wilting from all the grief.

Hope didn’t arrive without a struggle. The first therapist I was set up with had a background in couples’ work; the goal was that hopefully my husband would join. But while he attended sporadically, he refused to interact with the therapist at all, and eventually the therapist referred us to individual therapy.

I saw someone else for several months, slowly warming to the idea of sharing my life with a professional who could help me — me! Not my kids, but me! I spent much of the time sharing my “cover story,” a term I later picked up from trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk as I learned more about trauma. A cover story is a narrative that a person creates to make sense of or cope with their traumatic experiences, even if the story isn’t fully accurate or complete. Trauma often shatters a person’s sense of safety and understanding of the world, so by framing a story a certain way, they can temporarily avoid confronting the full impact so they can survive psychologically.

My cover story meant mostly talking about my sister who’d passed away and how the grief was impacting me. Looking back, this was exactly what I needed. The world of therapy was only just opening up to me. I was gradually learning the taste of trust.

After some time, I switched jobs and could no longer afford the travel time necessary to see my therapist. But in my new position, teaching in an elementary school, I came across a behavior specialist who came in once or twice to give sessions to us teachers and classroom assistants. She made an impression on me, and I reached out to her privately for individual sessions. When I learned of her credentials and background in psychotherapy, I nominated her my next therapist. The lady wasn’t from our community, and the distance felt secure and safe.

With yet another new professional, a fresh layer of the onion was stripped away, and along with it came the tears. In therapy, I discovered that crying isn’t a sign of weakness, but a necessary release. I would cry often, allowing the waves of emotion to wash over me.

I shared about my kids, I shared about my sister — and then I kept going. I shared my childhood, my parents… and I shared about my marriage. We worked slowly, took baby steps. I paid for this new therapist out of pocket, so I’d give the chicken to the kids while I ate cereal, relying on my small salary along with government benefits to pay the rest of my expenses. Sometimes, when there was no money to buy Shabbos staples, I’d go over to our rav and he’d hand me a hundred dollars. To this day, my husband doesn’t let me live it down.

But as my world began to look just a little brighter, I found the strength to stay the course. From this therapist, I learned to embrace and utilize whatever support I could access, even amid the rut of my circumstances. She referred me to a charitable therapeutic healing hub that offered alternative therapies such as shiatsu, massage, and acupuncture, designed to complement traditional medical treatments. She taught me about trauma and recommended bite-size reading and watching materials, which I devoured.

When I raised the idea of attending a frum well-being weekend retreat, she highly encouraged me to attend. It was a turning point, because it was at the retreat that I learned, with startling clarity, that I was the only one in charge of my own emotional health. I was an adult now, and neither my father nor my husband had the power to control my emotional world.

I continued my journey to healing, learning about mindfulness and breathing. I learned about yoga. I also discovered another charitable hub that offered osteopathy and wellness services to people with persistent physical pain, which was another thing I was dealing with.

As an added perk, my therapist was also a child expert. She provided me with a never-ending stream of tips and ideas to improve my relationship with my kids and encourage better behaviors, despite the resistance my kids felt from their father.

Nothing had changed in my marriage, but I was on the painful yet cathartic way out of my cocoon to become a person. Slowly, I started to uncover the wonders of healing.

W

hen Covid hit, I’d already been in therapy for several years, exploring different forms of support, and had learned to minimize visits and calls to my parents to help me cope. Every phone call with my mother involved my father eavesdropping and controlling the conversation, blaming me for my own problems. By now, I was in a better place so the calls hurt a bit less, but I never knew what might send me tumbling into a spiral of memories and hurt, so I had to keep a safe distance.

Then, during the second wave of the pandemic, I found out that my mother was very sick with Covid. It lasted a long time, and we held our breaths, but eventually she came out of it. When my mother was sick, I warily called my parents’ home to check in on her. Of course, my father took the call. But this time it was strangely, eerily different. To this day, I cannot put my finger on what it was, but for the first time in my life, I heard a little bit of love and care in his voice. Maybe, just maybe… could he be changing? My heart pined with hope.

It would be the last conversation I’d ever have with my father.

Predictably, he caught Covid, but his was a more aggressive form of the virus. Several weeks later, he was admitted to the hospital on a Thursday night and sedated. By Friday night, he was gone.

The shivah was a blur. I fluctuated between waves of nausea, cynical amusement, and anger. Oh, the anger, listening to everyone talk about the masmid my father was. And they were right. He’d get up at 4 a.m. to learn.

I knew I was supposed to be sad, but all I could think was how inconvenient it would be not to be able to hear music for a whole year. I loved music. For the most part, I managed to fake it, yet I couldn’t shake feeling that something was very, very wrong with me. Where was the sadness? There was no sadness. There was only anger. Deep, dangerous, toxic anger.

Post shivah, I resumed therapy with a vengeance, and suddenly all I did was spend my sessions shouting, crying, saying things I’m ashamed to repeat. Now, I wasn’t robotically “doing therapy,” I was experiencing it — and experiencing it fully. I was in my late thirties, and all I could do was yell like a little child, the child in me that never got her chance to fully express any thoughts, feelings, or opinions of her own.

My therapist used a variety of modalities to help me face my feelings. I blew up balloons and then popped them, one by painful one. We role-played all sorts of different scenarios. I drew, I wrote, I built stuff with clay… anything to get the anger out of my system.

A turning point, a very tiny turning point, came when I built a home out of water and sand and then demolished it. My therapist guided me to take some fresh water and sand, mix it with some of the demolished material, and build a new home. While abuse is never justified, we agreed, she encouraged me to say thank you to my father to symbolically demonstrate my innate ability to move on — thank you for putting me on this journey that will lead to a stronger, better, healthier me.

I couldn’t do it. But something miniscule inside me shifted; I wasn’t so angry anymore. Instead, there was sadness — it had finally come. I was sad, intensely sad, about my dashed hope that my father was possibly changing — the tentative, tentative hope I’d nurtured during our last phone call would never see the light of day in this lifetime. Of all things I’d grieved, this was by far the most painful loss.

Picking up the pieces after my father’s passing was a slow, excruciating process, yet the journey was made a little brighter by all the help I had allowed into my life.

Years ago, when my father chased me up the stairs because I refused to change my clothes, I made a deal with Hashem in my own childish way. I told Him that if He stays with me, then I will stay with Him. That was the first time I talked to Hashem.

Looking back, have there been moments when I felt utterly alone in the world? Absolutely. But deep down, somewhere, somehow, I always felt the brush of His presence at my side. As a child, I’d often think about my paternal grandparents, whom I never got to know, as they passed away when I was very little. I’d marvel at the stories of how they both survived the horrors of Auschwitz and emerged with their Yiddishkeit and emunah intact. I was only a small child, but already I intuited that Torah and Yiddishkeit are a safety net, and in the decades that followed, I never attributed the abuse I’d been through, or the struggles I continue to face, to Yiddishkeit. It’s always been clear to me that my father’s issues were his alone and not a reflection of religion in general.

My growth spilled over to my marriage, too. People are like dominos. When one piece shifts, everything shifts along with it. I’m not saying my husband has come on board completely, but I’ve come to accept that he, too, is trapped by his own limitations. I’ve thought many times about leaving our marriage, but for a host of reasons it hasn’t felt like the right move for me.

Through ongoing therapy, I’ve learned about boundaries. I’ve discovered that it’s okay to prioritize my needs and desires. I began to set limits with my husband, communicating my feelings clearly and assertively. I told him I didn’t want to engage in conversations where he wouldn’t take responsibility for his actions. I started to make decisions for myself — about my health, my happiness, and my children. I began buying what I needed for myself and my kids without waiting for his approval. I’ve come to terms with the fact that my marriage may never be what I had hoped, but I’ve also realized that I’m not trapped. Therapy has taught me that healing is messy and nonlinear, but it’s constant. Once the ball starts rolling, it doesn’t stop.

With each passing day, I feel more empowered. I’ve delved into my interests, exploring hobbies I set aside for years. Gardening has become a therapeutic escape, a way for me to reconnect with nature, and nurture something outside of myself. I find joy in planting seeds, watching them grow, and caring for them. During Covid, I spent a lot of time engaged in mindfulness and breathing exercises, and I’ve come to appreciate the present moment, to breathe deeply and ground myself in the now.

I read a lot. I learn Shaar Habitachon and prod my mind in the direction of, “I don’t know Your reasons, Hashem, but I know there are reasons — and good ones.” I listen to Manis Friedman on similar topics and have read The Presence Process by Michael Brown.

Music, too, plays a significant role in my ongoing healing. I learned to immerse myself in songs that resonate with my experiences. Shulem Lemmer’s “Offen Veig Aheim,” Avraham’s Fried’s “Keep Climbing,” and Chayale Neuhaus’s “A Yid Never Breaks” became anthems of hope and resilience for me, along with “Many Happy Days are Coming,” “Footsteps,” “The World is a Narrow Bridge,” and Abie Rotenberg’s “Butterfly.” They remind me that life is a journey filled with ups and downs, and I’m learning to navigate it with grace.

I sometimes play a game with myself where I go through the alphabet and give myself a positive affirmation for each letter — adored, beautiful, caring, daring, efficient, friendly, gracious…. Each synonym reminds me of my worth and my journey. They anchor me on days when I feel overwhelmed.

I’m still sad that my father never had the tools to realize the extent of his abuse and the wherewithal to control it. But I’ve since accepted that hurt people hurt people and that only someone in severe pain could act out like that, and while that doesn’t justify the abuse, it doesn’t have to impact my ability to move forward; it’s okay to be sad that my younger self didn’t have the choices I would love to have had.  Yet I’ve learned to embrace the complexities of my life, to accept the messiness of my emotions and the uncertainty of the future. I’ve come to terms with the idea that healing isn’t about perfection. It’s about taking the broken pieces of your life and creating something beautiful — like shards of glass in a kaleidoscope, piecing together a new, whole version of myself. I’ve come a long way from that girl trapped in that bathroom, the girl who spent years pleasing others just to survive.

As I look at my four grown children, the oldest of whom we just married off, I see the reflection of my journey. I want to continue to give them a home filled with love and understanding, where they can express themselves freely and talk about their own angst without fear of judgment — which they do. I want to ensure they never feel trapped as I once did. I’ve survived trauma, but more importantly, I’m finally realizing my potential. Each step I take is a testament to my resilience and courage.

I’m sharing my story so you know that healing can happen. If it brings even a glimmer of relief to someone in their darkest hour, my pain has a purpose. Helping just one person is like touching an entire world, and that fills my life with meaning.

There’s also closure for me in sending my story into the public domain. That life is over now. I can start again.

I will not let the shadows of the past define me. Instead, I choose to embrace the light of hope, growth, and possibility.

The narrator can be contacted through Mishpacha.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1048)