“I came to Camphill Village when I was 20. Now I’m 58. Not everybody in our village is mentally ill, but we all have disabilities, and sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. Usually I smile, but in that photograph I was just waking up from my rest hour. I read, and I listen to my radio, and I sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.

“May I tell you one thing? I don’t like taking medicine. It gets me too dopey and too sleepy and too tired, not enough energy. I need to have it, but I wish I didn’t. Some people don’t take anything. Some people can go and live in the city on their own and nothing happens to them. I’m pretty weak to live on my own and get around on my own because I don’t know what will happen. I just don’t know why some people can do better than other people. Why is that?” .

Karen Edna Wallstein, as interviewed by Catherine St. Louis for The New York Times Magazine.