'I'm a former nun - dedicating my entire life to God made me utterly miserable'
People who dedicate their lives to God and the church refer to it as a calling, and there are a number of different avenues they can go down to celebrate it depending on their faith. The many vocations include becoming vicars, priests, monks, and nuns.
Unless you’re interested in theology, the study of religion, you may not be aware of what happens when you become part of the church but it is quite fascinating. Considered an ancient occupation, the inner workings aren’t something that is usually discussed, at least not in mainstream media.
Most people’s awareness of working for the church comes down to television and film depictions, with many of us never meeting a member of the clergy in everyday life. But now, thanks to social media, a former nun is lifting the lid on what it means to dedicate your life to Jesus. Carrie-Eileen Chuff was a Roman Catholic nun for five years living in a strict convent that banned everything from wearing 'hip huggers' and using tampons because they weren't 'appropriate'.
The now married mum-of-six, from Pennsylvania, US, joined a convent when she was 18 years old after having a "really big conversion of heart" at age 13, but has now revealed exactly why she decided to quit.
Sharing a video to her popular TikTok page, she told followers: “I grew up in a nominally Catholic family, we didn’t even really go to church every Sunday but I did go to a Catholic school. When I was 13 I really discovered a new love of my faith, and I just really loved God and wanted to give my life to him in whatever way I could.”
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When Carrie-Eileen discovered that people did still join the church in an occupational sense, she felt it was the perfect way for her to show God how much she loved him. However, after five years of being a nun, she decided to quit in 2008.
She went on: “I left because I was just not called to be a nun. And the reason I knew I wasn’t was because I was utterly miserable. Like I was fine for about the first year or so, like the novelty, the excitement of joining, kind of carries you through for a while but my baseline default was, this is misery.”
Carrie-Eileen says she expressed those doubts to her superiors, who said it was a “temptation”. She added: “I tried as hard as I could to change myself in whatever way I could because if I changed myself it would get better. But I just sank lower and lower into misery to the point where we were walking along the sidewalk one day, and I was like ‘I wish a bus would come up and hit me’.
“If you are ever feeling that level of misery, something needs to change, whether that’s professional help, getting out of the situation that is making you miserable, which was the case for me.” The mum revealed the experience of leaving was incredibly hard as she felt she would be letting everyone back home and in her family down.
Carrie-Eileen, who was known as Sister Mary Faustina, said: “I was more scared to leave than I was to enter in the first place, especially because even though I expressed doubt, and there were red flags that I wasn’t called to the Life, my superiors kept telling me that I was but I clearly wasn’t.”
The TikToker went on to say that she did experience some unhealthy things in the convent, and although she didn’t elaborate on what they were, she did say she thinks they can be fixed. Carrie-Eileen ended her explanation of why she left the convent by saying that now she’s out and a wife and a mother, she’s so much happier. She said: “Being a mum now, I can’t believe I ever thought I was supposed to be a nun.”
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