Sixth Former Grace Benzal addressed the Portsmouth Abbey School community at Church Assembly on Thursday, May 4, 2017. Grace talked facetiously about her fixation with Moby Dick, or Obsessive-Compulsive Moby Dick Disorder.

I doubt many of you, even my closest friends, are aware of the struggle I went through last year. It snatched my sleep, my social life, my integrity, and nearly ruined me. What began as a mere escape from life soon took over my life. I want to speak out this morning, especially to the Third and Fourth Formers who may soon find themselves in the same dark place I was. You need to know, you are not alone.

I discovered that my problem has a name: OCMDD. Obsessive-Compulsive Moby-Dick-Disorder.

Ms. Smith first offered me some Melville, right during class. I knew all the other Fifth Formers had tried it. I'll admit it; I succumbed to peer pressure. I was hooked immediately. I'm not the sort of person who can read Moby Dick responsibly, just a chapter or two in the evening. I'm a problem reader. Untangling Melville's twisted sentences became a mania for me. Day and night I grappled with this dizzying masterpiece, fighting the riptides of confusion to reach the shore of understanding.

I soon started reading alone in the Brigid's third-floor alcove after lights out, sure that Ms. Reardon would catch me annotating. There I'd be, my fingers shamefully covered with color-coded Post-it tags, tracing the minute threads I was afraid to lose in the swells of profundity.

I developed bizarre routines. I hunted down Ms. Smith at the most inconvenient of times—hurling questions at her during meals, sending frenzied emails well into the depths of the night—begging for an idea to keep me going, just this one time, then I'll quit, I promise. I was drowning in this ocean of a novel, and loving every moment of my destruction.

Moby Dick soon consumed all areas of my life. My yearning to decipher its meaning spilled into even the most informal discussions between me and my mates, I mean friends. Shocked by my uncontrollable Melville quoting, soon few dared to converse with me beyond the polite, unavoidable small talk As I navigated the perilous depths, they were content with tranquil sailing on the Shmoop-level surface.

There are deeds I'm not proud of, acts of Ahab-like defiance, as Melville demagnetized my moral compass. I ignored the library's checkout deadlines. Worse, I dispensed with the sign-out policy altogether. Desperate for secondary sources that would explain it all, I plundered the shelves. I smuggled books out. I was a library pirate.

Three days I spent at the end of the term, chasing the perfect essay. Alas, I discovered that I had overfished; nothing on my pages made sense. Like Pip, I was a castaway, driven mad by the infinite.

But here I am this morning, in church, in recovery. "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee" this lesson. Whatever demon possesses you -- APUSH, Bio Honors, Satan himself in Paradise Lost—don't despair. The school year is long, long as a whaling voyage, but it always comes to an end. We only have a month to go.

Stay afloat, shipmates.

Thank you. Listen to the audio of Grace's Church Assembly Talk.