I’m the second oldest (I have one big sister doesn’t live with us anymore) in a family of eleven children and two parents. I’m twenty-one. I’ve always been helping at home — with work, with the kids, with everything — honestly since I was eight. I study in college, but from home, and I only go there for exams.

Since last year something changed in me. I began to feel the need for God and to wake up spiritually. Before that, I barely cared about Him — shame on me — but since that moment I’ve been trying to live with repentance and prayer, aiming to reach the state of self-acting prayer. Around that same time, the thought of monastic life also appeared. When it first happened, I mentioned it jokingly to my mother (and I’ll explain later why I said it as a joke). She reacted very strongly against it. So after that, I tried to bury this desire, convincing myself that she was right when she said it’s not for me, that I’m not good enough for it.

During this past year, I’ve kept practicing the Jesus Prayer and tried to live ascetically, but I often fell into periods of negligence, distraction, or carelessness because I believed God abandoned me despite him healing me, my fear of my mother and worldly issues lead me to it. I never stopped the Prayer itself, but at times it became mechanical — my heart cold, my mind elsewhere. I even was angered at God for leaving me alone with no help. At first, I had great zeal for silence, prayer, and asceticism. For two or three months I lived with ardor and saw many fruits — inner peace, contrition, love for God. But then I allowed worldly thoughts and despair to take over again, and my mind became distracted.

During this period, I also failed to study properly. I would always prefer prayer and ascetic reading in secret rather than my university work. I wanted only that life — a life close to God. I didn’t want to live for studies I never even chose myself. My mother decides everything — what I study, what job I should have, even how I should live. I’ve followed her all my life because I had no purpose of my own. But now that I’ve turned to God, I only think of Him. Everything in me is drawn toward prayer and Orthodoxy. That’s what fills my heart.

Of course, I still tried to study, but it felt like death for my soul. Studies made me distracted, dried my prayer, and filled me with unrest. I can read and understand things when I’m in prayer — but is fruitful with only spiritual things. When I try to study worldly subjects, I must use my mind actively, and then I lose inner stillness completely because I have to stop praying and focusing on what I read so I can memorize the sentences. My prayer stops, my heart hardens, and I become scattered. It’s like I must choose between prayer and study, and when I study, prayer dies. In the end, I failed my academic year. I know I’ve ruined things materially and socially, but I still thank God for it, because through this fall I came closer to Him, and my hunger for Him only grew stronger.

These past three months I’ve come even closer to God again — especially during these last days. I’ve also started to practice the descent of the mind into the heart this past weeks.

That’s been my journey over this year.

Now the main issue with my desire for monastic life is my mother, without her I could just test it out. I’m writing this here because I never spoke about it with my spiritual father, since they know each other, and I’m afraid of judging her and I don’t want to make her look bad or evil and make myself better . But the truth is that my mother is almost always hostile toward me. It feels like she sees only evil in me. She often looks at me with anger and disgust, speaks to me harshly, insults me, shames me, yells at me. May God forgive me for saying this — I truly believe she’s better than me — but this is what I live with daily. Because of that, I have almost no trust in her and can’t confide in her at all. She’s never pleased with me, constantly complains, says I’m useless, that I should leave, but at the same time she forbids me to go anywhere. Every little mistake I make ends in judgment and humiliation.

That’s why, when I mentioned monastic life a year ago, I said it jokingly — because I knew she’d react harshly. And she did. She called me proud, deluded, full of sin — which is all true about me, but still, that not helping the situation. Then a few months ago, when my desire for God came back stronger, I mentioned monasticism again, and again she condemned me. Since then, she brings it up constantly to shame me.

For example about two weeks ago she entered a quiet room where we wash the clothes and noticed a small bench I placed before an icon for prayer, for practicing the descent of the mind into the heart. I only did once and this another time I’m talking about. It’s the quiet place where I can practice because my little brother sleeps with me but he makes noises so since complete silence is advised I wanted to do it. But usually I stay in my room even if there’s noise. She became furious. She accused me again of “playing holy,” said it’s demonic, that I’m walking on the path of delusion. She asked how I could be so full of evil and demons. But strangely, during these moments, while I silently pray within myself, I feel peace and love. I either agree with her and condemn myself before God, or I just keep praying. There’s multiple situations like that but I just keep silence.

I always try to hide my prayer and stay silent before her, but I still fear her. I avoid her as much as I can. I’m also afraid to tell her that I failed my exams, because she can get very angry and say or do extreme things.

This family situation troubles me deeply. All I want is help to find my path, because all I desire is prayer, repentance, and humble labor — the kind that doesn’t consume the mind and frees me from worldly distractions that destroy my prayer. But I have no one to help me. My mother is completely against me, and my father doesn’t get involved or take my side. I’m afraid to talk about this to my spiritual father because I fear angering God or judging my parents. Yet I can’t just “be patient” anymore — my whole environment pushes me to make a choice. My mother forces me toward one direction, and God pulls my heart toward another.

These past days I live mostly in prayer while pretending to study, but I feel so much inner progress. My longing for monastic life grows stronger and feels more like a calling — as if, if I don’t follow it, I’ll never truly unfold or reach my full spiritual potential. It feels like if I stay in the world, I won’t attain deification — at least not as deeply or as fast.

At times though, I’m struck by emptiness — like nothing matters, like I should just give up, that monastic life isn’t for me, even feelings of disgust or that I’m useless and so I should do nothing. These thoughts bring anxiety, unease, and despair. But I recognize them as temptations because they bear no peace.

I don’t know what God wants — the monastic life or the world. But one thing I’m sure of: I want to be deified, to live in constant prayer, repentance, and closeness to Him. I want a life where I can pray and labor without being consumed mentally, where I can weep freely when grace comes, without having to restrain my tears. Because right now even that I can’t do — if my eyes get red, everyone notices, and I must stop. I often want to weep at every evil energy within me or idle thoughts but I can’t with my family and even when I can in secret I have to hide it and can’t go all out because it’s will be noticed and will again be used against me.

I’m lost, afraid of delusion, and torn between obedience to my parents and what I feel within me. I love my family deeply, but my soul isn’t at peace in this way of life. Something inside me seeks something else — silence, repentance, prayer, and union with God.

My mother is better at me everything and pray for me because I’m prideful enough to share it and feed my pride and ego that I’m better.