Sweet Pills

Ruchy was a European-born chassidish young mother with OCD who had come to me for an evaluation after the birth of her second child. She’d been working with a life coach named Suri, who knew she was out of her league with Ruchy’s symptoms, and grateful her client finally found her way to treatment. Part II

As it turned out, Suri, Ruchy’s life coach and confidante, wasn’t at all the roadblock I’d imagined her to be, and was in fact extremely supportive of Ruchy, my new patient, getting formal treatment. And for my part, I had to ask forgiveness for judging her as someone who didn’t know the limits of her own skill set — because it was Suri who in fact encouraged Ruchy to be an active participant in the standardized treatment plan that we’d drawn up. With a few months of cognitive behavioral therapy and an antidepressant medication working in tandem to control her symptoms, Ruchy was back on track and her obsessive thoughts of hurting the baby, her compulsive need to check halachos, and other symptoms were under control.

We’d followed up a few times over the year to ensure that things remained stable and Heshy always came in beaming, happy to have his wife back.

As we were about to complete our first year together, Ruchy asked me about coming off of her medication. It was a very reasonable and predictable thing to ask, given her long-term stability and the fact that most people don’t like taking psychiatric medications long-term unless they’re sure there’s an acute need for it.