Mormon Blood

Toxic Brain

Screw the meds, he thought. They weren't curing him. The drugs kept him flat, like the surface of water on a windless day at Redfish Lake, minus the beauty. The cures made him tired and groggy, like the zombies of his dream. He had no aspirations, no hope for anything. The future was lifeless, washed out, bleak.

His shrink, Dr. Sumpky, probed him in a way that made him feel violated. Raped emotionally. And, he didn't understand Peter either. All he cared about were the drugs, experimenting until they found the right combination. Peter knew that he should also see a counselor, but his fairly wealthy family would not support too much mental health nonsense. Expense was not a problem for the parents. Anyway, the last thing he wanted to do was talk more about his feelings, and the therapist would probably become bored. For a psychologist, surely nothing could be worse than talking at a zitty teenager who knew less about himself than about other people.

On the pot, he had the revelation that no one on the entire planet understood him, how he felt, and no one seemed to care enough to find out. Oh yes, people believed they understood him, which made them feel better, as if human beings were easy to label and file away. The home teachers had been over, doing their duty, checking off one more notch on their list for entrance into the Celestial Kingdom, the Mormon heaven. Brother Hicks with his "Good to have you back," a lie since no elder is welcome home after just thirty days. Brother Éclair with his "Not all young men can handle a two year mission," not a lie but a label. The two had pushed fervent prayer, a catchall for sinners and backsliders, who needed to grab a hold of the iron rod, just like those who stray from the path in Lehi's dream, a story from the Book of Mormon that lay embedded in the primal memories of primary children. In the story hand rail of iron leads followers out of darkness and sin to the tree of life. Prayer and righteousness were represented by the iron rod, letting go symbolized sin and hard heartedness. He made no eye contact during the entire half hour lesson from the home teachers. If they only knew how much of his day was spent pleading to the Lord.

Certainly no one in this tiny Mormon college town in the middle of nowhere felt his anguish and humiliation, and most sincerely believed that the best medicine for the mind was scriptures and prayer, grabbing the iron rod. Mormons didn't really believe in mental illness, only spiritual weakness. No one knew about the days and nights of his tormented praying to the Lord, begging for healing. He could not allow himself to think that God did not know him either or that He did not care.

A non-Mormon visiting Rexburg and Brigham Young University—Idaho for the first time would think it was a village on religious amphetamines. This was the veneer, the image the church wanted to portray to the world, that we were special, chosen, the true church. Negativity and illness were secreted in the nooks and crannies of the city limits. The town was a homogeneous and exclusive zone where someone who was not a Mormon stood out like a Jewish person in a crowd of Aryans. Peter's few friends throughout his childhood were all Mormon, and in fact, he did not know any kids his age that weren't. Though he was baptized at eight, he felt like a nonmember now, stinging from exclusion. Since his return, and only in glimpses, he saw his church through the eyes of the rest of the world and found his culture a bit odd and exclusive. This thinking left him dizzy. How could a Mormon city be so far Christ's teachings of acceptance and forgiveness.

He hadn't spoken to any of his old acquaintances. He avoided them. He was an outcaste in Rexburg where the only valid reason for coming home early from the mission field was severe physical ailment or death. The populace of zealots seemed to accept nothing less than the appearance of perfection, a tacit intolerance of difference seeped, blood red, out of the communal essence collectively. Architecturally this even manifested itself in well kept homes with tightly manicured and elaborately sculptured yards, and militantly tidy streets. Unkempt houses did not fit in.