I thought I was about to die.

I think a part of me did die that day. It wasn’t my first attempt: I’d tried a couple of times before, only to freeze-up last minute and turn around in shame and inner turmoil. Each time, the thoughts bubbled to the top of my mind again: I’m fake. I hate myself. I’ll wake up fine tomorrow. But this time was different: I marched down the stairs, shut the door behind me, and swiftly picked up my phone and pressed the home button. My lock screen lit up with the following words:

3:09 PM — Saturday December 13

My heart was pounding. Even though I’d closed my door, I swiveled around to make sure there was no one in the room. I knew I couldn’t leave the room yet — my hands were trembling and my shabbos shirt was drenched with nervous sweat. I put down my phone and sat on my bed, my head sandwiched between my hands, as if to block out the noise of my subconscious mind. But there wasn’t a sound. I’m not dead, I thought, my head finally clear for the first time in six months.

I didn’t know that this was only a momentary respite. Things were about to get much worse.

***

If the spate of memoirs, blog posts, and surveys have been any indication, going “OTD” — Off the Derech — has become somewhat of an obsession in the Orthodox community of late. The studies combine the elements of satisfaction and repulsion that create the perfect setup for such a fixation: while readers can’t help but worry that this trend will lead to the demise of their community and tradition, they also must empathise with the criticisms raised against them. Usually, their minds then set to work resolving the contradictions: Well, that’s not a problem in my community. Why did they throw out the baby with the bathwater — isn’t it really their own desire to satisfy themselves that forced them off the derech?

But, hidden among the OTD, trapped between their conscience and their community, lie a curious bunch: the “Secret OTD.” Our numbers are unknown and our sentiments disregarded; we don’t know each other — we’re too scared to confide in anyone, lest our worlds be destroyed; we live in a twilight zone, our very personalities in constant contradiction. I’m only 18 years old, but I’ve been living this way for three and a half years; I can’t imagine my future, and my mental health is in a constant state of flux. I can’t imagine doing this for five more years, kal vechomer ten more — yet there are people who have married within the community, suppressing this part of themselves, keeping it from spouses, children, and friends.

This is the first of a series of blog posts in which I hope to reveal a side of the community that’s often swept under the rug, and the travails that face us every day in our interpersonal and psychological interactions. It’s a tale of how I lost my faith, how I’ve hidden this fact from everyone I know, and the torture of feeling my identity slip away. I’m just a microcosm — or maybe I’m the only one, I can’t know for sure — but I hope to show that no community is perfect, not even the Modern Orthodox world in which I was raised.

***

Saturday, December 6

I stood in front of my phone for what seemed like the hundredth time; each time, my wait grew longer as I contemplated why I should or shouldn’t press the button. Each time, one thought held me back: What if this is all a test? I imagined to myself that the world’s existence was contingent on this act, that everything in my life was being directed by God to lead to this point. The moment I failed the test — the moment I pressed that button — everything would cease to exist.

I turned around and left the room.

***

Saturday, December 13

My thoughts were silent; I didn’t die, this wasn’t a test — and God isn’t real. It occurred to me, sitting there, that for the past six months my subconscious — possibly because some part of me still believed in God, possibly because I didn’t want to open Pandora’s box — had been preventing me from taking the leap. The only way I was able to move forward was to accept that I couldn’t live with myself if I never tried, and so I accepted that I might die.

I had to prove it to myself that it was true. After sitting for five minutes, I picked up my phone again and played a short puzzle game, but I traumatically was forced to stop when I was called upstairs to play a game of Bananagrams. I haven’t broken every shabbos since then, but most of them I have; it’s a way to recall who I am, what I am, and where I stand. But I haven’t told a single person to this day.