I started to cut down on my food intake. I was actually eating too much, due to my sister telling me to eat everything given to me.
I had bloomed from a skinny young girl into a hundred and thirty pounds plump young woman.
The nuns were very happy with it, being plumb means good health for them.
Feeling unloved with little to take pleasure in, I began to take pleasure in becoming slimmer. At least I am getting thinner, I would say to myself and feel better.
Had the young nuns left me alone, I would have stayed with that reasonable amount of food.
But they told the mother prioress about it and tried to get me to eat more.
Starving for attention, unwittingly, they triggered it for me,
Even though it was negative attention, it was still some form of caring and concern.
I cut it down further.
The more they protested, the more I cut down on my food intake till I was barely eating anything.
And now the older nuns began to get very concerned.
The nuns started trying to cajole me into eating more. When good measures failed, the young nuns resorted to anger.
It drove me into full blown anorexia nervosa though I was not aware of it. At the time, I did not know anything about being anorexic, nor did the nuns.
I just knew I could not make myself eat.
The nuns called the Archbishop, who came to the parlor and gave me a good talking to.
The nuns thought he delivered a harsh scolding but he was actually very nice about it. He thought the matter was closed but it was not.
Meal times became a battleground for me. I was taking care of the refectory at the time. It means hauling heavy jars of water to fill the jugs of the sisters amongst other things.
I am fine, I do not need food, I would chime. And that was a lie.
By this time, I was operating on sheer nerves, my body felt as though cut in half, above and below the diaphragm.
That was the strangest feeling. My chores done, I would sit down, and felt like collapsing into the chair. But throughout, I was held afloat by some kind of superhuman strength.
The mothers put me in “hell”, meaning I was given meat to eat.
A good nun would do anything to get out of "hell", get out of eating meat but even that did not get me to eat. This further increased the ire of the young nuns.
The mothers tried supplements, I lied my way out of taking it. I had resorted to lies and my conscience started bothering me.
At night, I often woke up, crying out loudly, “My conscience is clear.” It was obviously not clear. The sister next door to me became so traumatized by it, she changed cells.
The mothers wanted me to eat and I was not eating, that was against obedience and caused me no end of mental stress.
The wrath of the young nuns knew no bound. Their hate increased as also the verbal abuse.
I took it all with bright smiles, acting as though it did not affect me. But it was affecting me.
My diary was filled with woes, feeling unloved, rejected, dejected.
The situation dragged on and on for months.
“It is a dark night of the soul,” I told myself and believed in it. I finally made a truce with the mother prioress.
Father Pierluigi, a Carmelite priest, was coming to give us a retreat. If he were to tell me, it is not a dark night of the soul then I would see a doctor about it.
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