#lefttheconvent

[wildflower8281]

Some of the Crazy Shit in #nunlife

I’m trying to understand why I’m feeling so moved to write (again!) about much of this and share it. I think the answer is 3-fold:

1.) To bring awareness to an institution that is little known and that does a few things well, but a buncha things not so greatly. Incase any friends, parents or girls considering religious life ever read this – I have been and am happy to be available to connect and share more. I’ve been doing this for years offline – just sharing the behind the scenes, so as to remove the idealistic view that this order portrays. People be free to make their own decisions, tho!

2.) For me, there is a release and a letting go that happens when I write and share it out. It’s like the energy of it all is no longer lingering in my body and mind. It’s on the laptop and it’s out in the world. While I’ve had lots of pieces of my transition on my tumblr for years and other #nunlife posts on fb before, for some reason I’m feeling moved to write this way and share now, so here I am!

3.) I think my #conventlife is also like a really good book. You can revisit it at various points in your life and see new things, take in new messages, read the nuances even further. It’s pretty fascinating to me, so I enjoy revisiting, looking at parts from new perspectives, and allowing new lessons and wisdoms to appear for me.

(Below, basketball games and birthday celebrations with some of our very favorite youth and families.) 

In my last post, I shared a lot of what life in Spanish Harlem was like, as a missionary sister, living day to day. Pretty basic nun stuff, even if it was new to readers. Here I’m going to follow-up with some events during my 4 years in San Pablo that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love them because I’m pretty sure without them taking place, I may never have left (and leaving has been all things awesome, so!)….and I hate them because they were truly some of the most difficult, exhausting, dark years of my life on all levels. Looking back, I’m pretty confident it was the Universe going: “Here – you are getting the intensive course on burnout…Imma send you a legit crazy (1 definite, a few mas or menos) and make you literally in charge of everything…for 2+ years. Then, you’ll die, want to leave and get on with your life.” 

I think like any people-pleaser, like anyone who can’t say no, like anyone who knows not their own voice – my story is no different, with the exception that I was wearing a bright blue habit and a veil. The rules were a little more dramatic – to say no, was saying no to God….and quitting was quite literally scandalous….but still, same structure. I think we all have our own levels of what drives us to our utter exhaustion and burnout. For me, it was a mentally ill sister and replacing another who left, with little support in either situation. This is not a complete piece about why I left – as ultimately the motivation was much more interior - but more a list of external events and circumstances that led to my utter collapse on all levels.

How To Get Girls to Leave Religious Life in 3 Easy Steps:

·         Make them Superior. Firstly, being the “superior” of nuns older than you both in religious life and real life just felt uncomfortable. Dealing with the Pastor without having any mission experience was also highly uncomfortable, and it didn’t help that he was the most stoic priest ever and only spoke when necessary. It was annoying and scary at first. (After getting to know him over the years, however, that eased up & I learned he was like a really big-hearted Uncle, who had drank the Stoic Koolaid. It’s cool. I admire him for many things still to this day. He has actually since left the order, but is still a priest!) Being sent to Harlem as superior was like this: “Here, be in charge of all operations in this place you’ve never been to, and be in charge of these people who have been here longer than you.” It was just annoying and stressful!!! That’s what I got for being responsible & docile. Of course, I looked to the sisters who had been there longer for most of my answers in those first years. I knew how to be humble, yo! But still – I really didn’t enjoy being the Superior.. Training was joke – barely a week. It’s “the missionary adventure!” they said. “Trust the Holy Spirit!” they said! “Grace will provide!” they said!  #Koolaid, I say, to help the cray go down easier.

·         Send them a Crazy. My 2nd year there, the Provincial Superior decided to send me a “troubled” sister. Due to my “calm and peaceful nature” she thought I could handle this sister and would be a good superior for her and that I should really try to bond with her, so that she would trust me & get better, etc. This sister was notorious for her emotional outbursts & instability and for having been shipped from convent to convent, because of the trouble she caused....

 Long, long story short-ish – she ended up having Borderline Personality Disorder, which we discovered during her stint in Harlem. (Before I go any further, please know I take mental illness very seriously. If there is any circumstance that made me realize it’s a very serious thing, it would be the one I am describing here. It’s no joke, it’s not her fault, but many versions of BPD do require intense programs to really get anywhere. I learned and read a shit-ton about it all, not to mention lived it on a daily basis in a very intimate way. I am in no way here blaming this sister for her antics, as clearly the #ssvm is to blame for not responsibly providing her the care she clearly needed.) She was officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist and it was recommended by him (note, a doctor who specialized in treating catholic religious….) that she be put into an intensive treatment program – like a 3-4 day a week program. It was also suggested that she go home to Argentina until she was well, or just for good. Well, the order carried out none of the recommendations of the doctors blaming money constraints and also because “the sick are our chalices” – a brainwashy line in our rulebook to make us think it’s virtuous and saintly to care for every member who is sick in any way, and never send them home. Keeping them with us and taking care of them is like making spiritual bank, basically. So, she stayed in our convent for 2+ years, basically causing unrest on a weekly and, often daily basis. Personally, it was emotionally exhausting for me, as I was the person closest to her & obliged always to care for her (the rest of the sisters basically avoided her and walked on egg-shells around her.) If you know anything about this mental illness, you know that it’s the people closest to them that they manipulate, abuse and have a love/hate relationship with. I think I went to more doctors appointments with her in those 2 years, than ever in my life – every specialist of every kind, there was always something. Basically anything to get my attention. Days when she would cry for hours on end, lock herself in the bathroom, bang her head against the wall, threaten suicide, be totally rebellious….and most of these situations, it was just me and her in the convent. Everyone else was out doing their things in the parish, but I was stuck at home, dealing with her. Despite that though, she found a way to piss off, provoke and drive all my sisters crazy. People with this mental illness are very emotionally savvy and know exactly what to say to provoke and push buttons. The sisters fell for it over and over again, until they finally learned & paid her no mind, which is what she could not stand. Same with me. This is how I learned to not engage. It’s been one of the wisest practices of my life & has saved me a lot of bullshit. The provincial superior, no matter how many things I shared with either of them (there were 2 during my 4 years in Harlem,) never did much to actually help me. It took my spiritual director (priest) to ask the provincial superior to remove this sister from our convent, for my sanity. Did I mention that I was sent with her to Argentina to visit a special doctor?! This was the last straw for me. I ended up cutting my part of the trip short, and flew home alone from Buenos Aires to New York, because she was absolutely nuts and if I stayed any longer, I was going to lose my mind. After that trip is when I asked Father to beg to have her removed from my care and from my convent.  It was emotional and mental manipulation at its best by her, who was ill, and then to feel that my own superiors and order would not remove this situation from not only me, who also had anywhere from 3-5 other sisters to be present to, but would not remove the situation from our house, where it affected the peace and happiness of our convent community.  I am positive it was this situation in particular that really began breaking my circuits. One at a time, the breakers were being flicked off. My brain had less and less mental energy to make decisions. I stopped caring about anything…

·         Add Work, Remove Support. My 3rd year there (still with Sister Borderline), one of our mainstay sisters (the bitchy one) had not gotten laid yet, but had to go back to Argentina to help her mother. She ended up staying there for an entire year and no replacement was sent my way for her. I was asked to take over her parish duties, which was basically a full time job. She was the Director of Religious Education of our huge bilingual program – over 400 students, half on Saturday in Spanish, the rest on Sunday in English. It was a huge beast of a job (like in other parishes, is a regular paid FT job) that I was tasked with, with minimal help. The provincial house sent me 1 sister for a few hours a week to help me, but that was it. This job entailed not only weekend classes, but catechist formation classes (teaching adults how to teach and about the faith) and a ton of reception of the Sacraments, like coordinating hundreds of parents, sponsors and students for Baptisms, 1st Communions and Confirmations with the Bishop and all that insanity. I asked for another full time sister – someone who could really take over and was not given any more help than a few hours a week. Plus, I was still the provincial liturgist, having girls visit our convent, and doing all the things I originally had to do in the parish and as a superior. I was relieved of nothing, just tossed a full time job on top. So, at home I was being driven utterly insane (oh, and of course she was jealous that I was at the parish so much more, so of course she would have bouts of emergency illness, random piercing pains, etc, anything to get me to come back home and check her out, give her attention, make an emergency doctor visit, etc.) and at work, I was overloaded, but expected by Father and the parishoners to keep everything status quo. Not to mention the people of the parish obviously had no idea about the stressor of Sister Borderline and Father knew only minimal information and really didn’t care. He needed shit to get done in his parish and he didn’t care about an angry, whiney, emotional nun in the convent who didn’t work in his parish anyway. Nice set up, huh?

I mean – is it no wonder I left, I don’t like responsibility and I don’t like people?

Is it no wonder I can spot the red flags of people’s bullshit a mile away and be like #talktothehand. Peace.

Is it no wonder I aim to keep my lifestyle simple, free and lighthearted?

Is it no wonder I never want my work or job to become my life?

Is it no wonder that I go crazy when I see people who just don’t say no, and let people or organizations bulldoze over them?

Is it no wonder I never want to be in charge of shit, plan events or do someone else’s work?!

 (Below, amazing youth at my farewell party...I was sent to the mission in Avondale, PA in July 2011 to be a regular sister and take a breather. This breather allowed me to realize and accept it was time for me to go home. Story for another day! Far right is now a NYPD!)

So, like I said at the beginning, it’s a love/hate relationship with these aforementioned circumstances. They totally sucked and at the same time, taught me so many lessons and infused me with loads of insight that I use daily. This is why the children, youth and families of Harlem are my absolute faves – in order to escape the stress and heaviness and utter out-of-controlness of my life, I would just go and hang with them. Laugh with them, eat and play with them. They helped ground me, allowed me to breathe and just always loved on me. And they still do to this day.

How interesting that my own religious family would not support me in these circumstances, and does not see me (or many of us who have left) as family even today? Yet the people of San Pablo always did and still do. I have real friendships with the people I met in Harlem, literally to this day. And when I go back to NY, I visit them. And yet, with the exception of 1 human, no one from the ive or the ssvm would consider me family today. #whoislivingthegospel? #irony

I’m not throwing shade….well, ok, maybe I am, ha! Sometimes, shade’s gotta be thrown, yo! #truth