Sometimes I had to hold on to the wall to steady myself and not fall. One day my mother found me passed out in a heap outside the Ante choir. My legs were soft like jelly and I was a heap of helplessness. My head hurt. How much she despised this failure. How I needed to grow up, get back on my feet! She told me that it’s “normal” to face challenges and begin to feel spiritually disoriented. Just deal with it and pick yourself up. No, you do not need to see a doctor.
It is difficult to pinpoint the beginning of an avalanche. But some of the earliest megaliths remain haunting, foreshadowing the fall and fall of our world. One day in the choir, Sister Jennifer, a fellow minister who had arrived in Aikenside at the same time as me, jumped up and began shouting at Mother Irene. She had been elected head of the parish a while ago; She is 70 years old.
After a boiling undercurrent and a half-suppression, this was a complete eruption, an explosion unlike anything the monastery had ever witnessed. Jen was completely upset and lost her temper in a totally unbridled way. Soon after, she fell into a mental illness and was hiding in her infirmary.
Toward the new millennium, another collapse occurred. Lucy, a young hypothesist, has been with us for over a year now and she and I have bonded wonderfully. We laughed and joked. She had a quick wit and rarely left a recreation without enjoying one of her puns. Best of all, she was able to decide about her own affairs, apart from others. None of these qualities endeared her to Elizabeth.
One day the bishop came to talk to us, so Lucy decided to stand in front of all of us and challenge him. She certainly knew how to choose her own moments. She also knew how to raise her voice to get her point across. What was the bishop doing about church and world events? Did he have no sense of responsibility? Where was his spiritual backbone? Did he really think that we, as a church, embody the revolutionary spirit of Christ? Shouldn’t we all push ourselves more and live less comfortably and complacently?
For the next few days, Lucy was treated with very careful “concern”. Some said the poor girl clearly had a stressful life. She wasn’t herself. She has changed. She wasn’t feeling well. Then came the terrible day when she slipped from Rouse’s stall and was slammed and slammed against the echoing floor. Her limbs were twitching and flapping all over the place, her head was spinning, and the whites of her eyes looked scary, spinning and twitching.
For several minutes I thought she was dying, her face was blue-grey. As is customary, no one stopped them or tried to help them. Our duty was to look away and continue praying. Finally, Mother Irene stumbled over to where Lucy was lying, waited for Lucy to regain her consciousness, then helped her to her feet and led her out the door.
Like Jennifer, Lucy also disappeared into the infirmary. Although she was in the habit of taking her vows, she had not yet taken them. Although she gave Carmel a good job, she was clearly not well enough, or as her mother would say, “able to”. Two weeks later, she disappeared and had another mental breakdown. The word that leaked out this time was “delusion.” I didn’t understand what the word psychosis meant, and there were no dictionaries or the Internet that offered much information on the subject. But paranoia sounded serious, so people bought it. Lucy’s girlfriend’s mother came and kicked her out of her property. I realized that, like Jen and others before her, she was simply a victim. We couldn’t help but ask ourselves how long it would take until we were all dead.