The Teshuva Journey: The Road to Recovery
Michelle Singer* is the perfect model of a well-adjusted, stable young woman. She is married with beautiful children and is today completely put together. However hidden deep below her calm exterior is a story of a troubled childhood, filled with abuse, drug problems and suicide attempts. For most of her childhood and adolescence she felt completely lost in the world with no one to support or love her. However when she began discovering Hashem and His love, she found the strength to rise up out of the mire and recover from her abuse.
Michelle grew up in a nonobservant, pathologically dysfunctional home. She says she was physically and emotionally abused by her parents. As a result, Michelle developed severe depression and psychosomatic ailments. She says now that she cannot remember a time in her life when she was not depressed.
As a teenager she was sent to psychiatrists but to no avail. Instead of helping her deal with the underlying causes of her depression, they diagnosed her with a host of illnesses including bipolar disorder. At one point in her life, Michelle was taking 12 different psychiatric medications. The medicines affected her body and dragged her down into further depression. She found out later that she didn’t have any of the diseases she was diagnosed with.
During high school Michelle found a way to escape from the abuse, albeit only temporary. She spent one year on a high school program in Israel. The program gave her the respite she needed. Though the program was secular, it took the students on tours to significant spots in Israel and taught them the basics of Judaism. From these experiences she developed a deep love for Judaism and Israel.
Michelle came home after the year and tried to bring some of the inspirations and lessons into her life. She tried to keep kosher at home and follow other practices. Though her religious observances gave her strength and structure, she soon fell into the same patterns as a victim of abuse and the subsequent negative routines and depression.
During her early twenties Michelle turned to drugs and alcohol to numb her pain and emptiness. The substances wreaked havoc on her body, leading to additional health issues and further depression. She attempted suicide several times.
Michelle’s psychiatrists sent her for ECT, electroconvulsive therapy. ECT uses shocks administered to the brain for patients with severe depression that does not respond to treatment. Side effects include confusion and memory loss. In a small number of patients the effects can be even worse.
Michelle received 12 ECT treatments over a single month. The treatment didn’t rid her of her illnesses, but instead left her with intense long-term memory loss and even personality changes. Family members visited her in the hospital and she was unable to identify them. She also had to learn how to read and write again.
But as the ECT made her forgot almost everything that she knew, it began drawing something out of her soul. She began recalling and connecting to Jewish truths and ideas. She had no Jewish education growing up and few religious experiences, but somehow began recalling Jewish concepts. She began recalling profound spiritual ideas about the existence of G-d, faith, truth and the holiness of the Creator.
“I never had any formal training, that’s why I thought it was so amazing,” Michelle said. “Clearly I must have learned this in the womb.”
The Rabbis write (Niddah 30b) that an angel teaches the Torah to a fetus while it is in its mother’s womb. Michelle said it was this Torah that she was now recalling.
For each ECT procedure, Michelle was put under complete anesthesia. Immediately before each treatment, Hebrew words popped into her mind, the words of the Shema. She doesn’t recall ever learning the Shema, but she knew what the words were.
After a month the ECT treatments ended and Michelle felt liked she had an amazing chance to start her life over.
“At first I couldn’t form sentences, I couldn’t really speak, but I knew Hashem, I knew that Hashem loves me,” Michelle said.
This newfound awareness of Hashem and His love helped Michelle recover from the treatments and abuse and build a new life. She began reading whatever Jewish books she could get her hands on. Within six months of the treatments she had begun keeping Shabbat and kosher.
It’s now been several years since the ECT treatments. Michelle is off all of her psychiatric medications and illicit substances.
“For me there’s no need to take medicine. I found all of these ways to become healthy.
If I’m feeling a little down, I always know there’s Torah. I can read the Parsha, I can just daven and I’ll feel better,” Michelle said.
Postscript: After her treatments, Michelle moved out of her parents’ house and went to Manhattan. At a class at a Jewish outreach center she met a sweet young man. He came from a stable family and was just becoming observant.
They spent a year together in the same class but never spoke to each other. Finally a matchmaker set them up. After three weeks they were engaged and they were married a month later. They are happily married with three children and live in New York.
————————————————————–
Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Jerusalem. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com
* Name has been changed
(Published in The Jewish Press in August 2009)