The Ice Breaker

I was searching for warmth, for light, for years. But the layers of ‘ice’ were thick; they trapped my soul in frigid darkness.

I lived in a house that was dark; it drove me nuts that it didn’t have much light. I searched high and low for it. I replaced the cloudy privacy glass in the large patio door with clear glass. I had the walls painted – not once, not even twice. I was compulsively neat and clean – dust was my enemy. So I moved and found a house complete with big windows! Cheery walls and warm wooden floors! And it disguised dust!

But the light was merely external. Even in the new house I was miserable.

What was missing was the internal light. I would daven for it when kindling Shabbat candles – to truly know emuna, not just talk about it with others while it remained a remote concept within me. I could relate to it but couldn’t feel it. And I didn’t understand why.

I plunged further into the darkness — a bottomless pit of despair and suffering.

My darkness came in the form of depression and an anxiety disorder; a hereditary darkness, which has enveloped at least three generations of my family – on both sides. How could I, the sole frum family member, suffer from the ‘disease of the soul’? I tortured myself with this question, bristling at the injustice I was doing to Yiddishkeit by succumbing to such darkness.

My non-religious family didn’t see it that way. They said I had an illness like any illness; our family ‘curse’ simply kicked in when stress levels got too high for too long. They supported me, telling me I should feel no shame. A person with cancer, chas v’shalom, doesn’t beat himself up over it. After months of struggling to get out of bed in the morning, feed my children, and make it through the day only to long to get back into bed, I agreed to see a psychiatrist. I was prescribed an anti-depressant, though it took me a week to actually take it. I felt like I had failed. But I’d hit rock bottom – my husband needed a wife, my parents and siblings needed a daughter and a sister, and my children needed a mother.

The first time I took the pill, I said a prayer that I’d discovered. “May it be Your will Hashem my G-d, that this use of medicine bring me good health, for You heal graciously. Blessed is the Healer of the sick.” I went to therapy regularly, and after a few months, felt alive once more. I knew I’d gotten better when my son said to me “Mom, you’re acting weird.”

Several months later, the medication seemed to be no longer effective. I weaned myself off it, and stopped going to my therapist. I found myself spiraling down again. And I felt so defeated. A friend encouraged me to turn to the true Healer – Hashem. Motivated, I pushed myself out of bed in the early morning to talk to Hashem. I had a hard time finding the positive in my life, yet I managed to thank Hashem for my depression. I asked him to heal me, so I could show my non-religious family that it wasn’t partly religion that had made me sick (which is what they believed, since I didn’t struggle with chronic depression before I did teshuva).

Some days I would just sit; sometimes I’d fall asleep. Sometimes I didn’t even get out of bed. But I always thanked HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

I knew my suffering was an act of chessed from Hashem. He was answering my prayers – to know emuna. To live, breathe, walk and talk it. For if I tasted darkness and recognized that it was for my benefit, I would come to feel emuna.

As much as the darkness engulfed me, I told Hashem that I knew it was for my own good. I told Him I trusted in Him, and wanted to live b’simcha – to wake up each morning not to regret that He hadn’t taken my soul at night, but to say Modeh Ani and really mean it.

While I reached out to Hashem, I also found another psychiatrist, who put me on a different medication. I realized that cutting my treatment nearly cold turkey had been a bad idea. I decided that I’d take medication with the hopes that I’d get off of it – slowly – with Hashem’s help, when the time was right.

Within a month of beginning the new medication, I stopped scratching at my face, sitting in the bathroom for hours, and standing in front of the pasta boxes at the grocery store, taking 10 minutes to decide which brand to buy. A writer and editor, I found I could express myself again and focus on others’ words. Suddenly, my life seemed very, very right.

The darkest time comes before dawn’s early light. As I grew more at peace with myself, I recognized that light had always been there – it was a matter of becoming a kli (vessel) to receive the light, and draw it inward.

I now feel that Hashem is my constant companion. I see Him in everything, and accept whatever comes my way any given day with simcha. I’m far from the Master of the Soul Rebbe Nachman’s prescribed hour of hitbodedut – I’m trying. But the light is firmly implanted within me, and I no longer seek it in the windows, color of the walls, or on dust-free surfaces.

Generations of ice are finally melting.