Mormon Blood

Post Mission Lithium

Peter fell off the bed, face first, his lips and cheeks mashing into the blue carpet, but he landed lightly. The floor felt surprisingly cozy, prickly soft carpet against his face, the tan comforter wrapped around him like a serpent. His mind was fuzzy. Peter wouldn't move from the sleepy, tumbling mess. After waking, lingering sleep pleasured him, this his single joy in a day. All that followed would be grinding existence. His lucid dreams in the light end gave him joy.

Moments past and Peter eased his eyes open to another lithium-gray, Mormon morning, edged with guilt. He refused to rise. No one could force him out of his cocoon on the carpet. The lethargy he felt pulled him down like a malevolent gravity.

Peter had transgressed. His soul bred the sin like a contagion that threatened to consume him and rendered him contagious, like a plague. He self imposed a quarantine. If only he lived in some other place. Even Rigby to the south or Saint Anthony to the north would be tolerable. But his roots grounded him in Rexburg, Idaho, and he was completely incapable of making it on his own elsewhere. Here, returning home from a Mormon mission in less than the honorable two years ranked near fornicating and drinking alcohol on the sin scale. He could hide sex or imbibing, but abandoning the calling was like exposing himself in Smith Park, shameful and unforgettable. He actually dreamt that several times, Peter walking down the jogging path naked, the park filled with watchers, all shocked, covering the eyes of their children. In reality, Rexburg could not help but remember that Peter's presence back in town was too soon.

The medicine, drugs, made his mind thick, and he shouldn't have needed them. His true problem was a lack of purity. Though not openly stated, Mormon culture equated mental illness with sin, medicine and therapy exacerbating a soul sickness. Relying on Xanax or Celexa amounted to giving up on faith, scriptures, and prayer. Faith consumed Peter, a true believer in the Mormon faith. He always paid tithing, attended church, studied the scriptures, and prayed. He never let doubt in God, his church, creep in. Through the lens of the Mormon religion, he viewed and interpreted the world. And, the world was destined to be overtaken by a tidal wave of missionaries. He perceived himself as weak or perhaps faking his illness. Was he faking? It was not beyond him to believe that Satan lurked inside him like a worm. Many Mormons believed mental illness to be a form of possession. He sometimes felt possessed by demons, and the medicines made him feel different but not better. He did not feel possessed by anything at all.