“Maaaaaa!” Baruch wailed from the playroom, “Shmuly’s bothering me again!”

Two minutes earlier it was Leah. Ten minutes earlier it was Yossi. That kid did not stop riling up his siblings. And as his mother, I was at my wit’s end.

Since Shmuly was little, our house was a raging hurricane that never seemed to subside — with the rest of us haplessly riding the waves. His out-of-hand behavior was sucking the peace and happiness out of our home.

The worst part was his extremely obsessive behavior. He was obsessive about his hygiene, often washing his hands fifty times in a row. He’d spend an hour doing the same thing again and again… and then again.

In public, he became shy and reticent. He was embarrassed by the constant head, facial, and hand tics that overtook him. He would hide his twitching hands, but it didn’t help. Everyone saw. Everyone knew.

It wasn’t a life for him. It wasn’t a life for any of us. Being around Shmuly meant being around a never-ending source of anxiety and aggravation. It was painful to watch, and it was tearing our household apart.

We tried specialist after specialist. Medication after medication. Energy healer after energy healer. Nothing could rid our precious little boy of the monster that held him in its grip.

When Shmuly was twelve, I saw an ad for an educational event on the topic of stuttering and Tourettes. One of the presenters was Yitzchok Weiss, and after hearing him speak, we decided to book a session.

At the session, Mr. Weiss evaluated Shmuly, concluding that OCD was the root of all his other behaviors. He addressed this core issue first, and then worked on the rest, including treating his anxiety and tics.

It was a slow process. Shmuly would get a bit better, and then he would regress. He would get control of his tics in Mr. Weiss’s office, but not at home.

But slowly and steadily, we began witnessing the changes we’d been hoping and praying for. Shmuly was stopping his obsessive behaviors! The hurricane was subsiding, and we were left open-mouthed and oh-so-grateful.

After five sessions over the span of a month and half, Shmuly was a changed boy — he was in control of himself. I kept thinking incredulously, ‘Is this really my Shmuly?’

Before his bar mitzvah, he went to Mr. Weiss for one more session. When the big day arrived, Shmuly, our proud, black-hatted bar mitzvah boy, shook hands with people for the first time — something he’d never done with his obsessive hygienic behavior. He gave a beautiful, loud, and confident pshetl, which we could have only dreamed about just a short while ago.

Today, we can confidently say that Shmuly is 95% better.

His life is changed. Our home is a home again. We got our precious Shmuly back and couldn’t be more thankful for that.

*Names and identifying details have been changed.