LITMIR.BIZ

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what I did. And what I remember versus what I actually experienced may be more story than fact! I have teachers and friends who deeply believe we choose our lives before birth; that souls agree to join with us in that drama for some Higher Plan. I don't believe that. . . and I can't say that their belief is not true.

      I will do my best to recount what I remember, holding each of these (possible) truths. Whatever victim talk or anger you still read. . . well, there you see my growing edge.

      * * * *

      I actually don't remember much about my first life. For most of those 26 years, I lived with dysthymia: chronic, low-level depression. That sounds so clinical. I resonate with the definition my second counselor gave me: "utter hopelessness". He followed that up with this: "You are the most functional dysthymic I have ever treated!" So I guess I was lucky. But not lucky enough to have avoided its symptoms: "... low self-esteem, low energy and drive and a low capacity for pleasure in everyday life. Mild degrees of dysthymia result in people withdrawing from stress and avoiding opportunities for failure."⁵

      Here is dysthymia in my own words. I thought life was a prison, with rules, a prescribed and repetitive order of activities, and only limited and earned periods for recreation. There were only a few breaks in that pattern. . . and those were not always welcome or happy. Days sort of smooshed one into another, and those days turned into years. I know this sounds dramatic, but when they showed me the films about concentration camps and interviews with survivors in temple school, I could relate to them. I thought I lived in an uncaring, oppressive, and dangerous world. I believed it was safer for me to survive one day at a time, giving up any hope that things could be different.

      I still fight my need for routine; the belief I need to earn my rest and pleasure; the preference to isolate.

      * * * *

      Each of us comes into life as a unique constellation of mind, body, and spirit. So like many aspects of life on this plane, the causes of my dysthymia were both nature and nurture. There is mental illness and addiction on both sides of my family. So perhaps a major cause was biological; in my genes. When I choose to believe in past lives, I add this: we also carry into this world a host of past life experiences, stored somehow, somewhere within us. As will be related elsewhere, those weren't free or happy lives either.

      I came into this life with what I humbly describe as a sharp, multi-gifted mind. I am a mystic; a spirit-oriented, spirit-directed person. I seem to be highly attuned to connect with Something that I know is greater than my mind. It appears to me that I have a greater-than-average recognition that I need to follow that Something. And to do so, I came into this life with strong capacities in honesty, openness, willingness, and courage.

      I also came into this life as a highly sensitive person. A psychologist has actually identified this as a natural variation in human existence. An "HSP"… has a sensitive nervous system, is aware of subtleties in his/her surroundings, and is more easily overwhelmed when in a highly stimulating environment."⁶ According to this researcher, 20% of the population is highly sensitive; another 30% is variably sensitive; and the remainder of the population is largely indifferent to the clues that the other two groups can pick up. Want an example of this? Here goes:

      Two friends and I are in a crowded, noisy restaurant. One of my friends is chatting away. All of a sudden, I realize that there are some musical notes being repeated again and again on the overhead speaker. It was driving me crazy. I stopped the conversation my friends were having; they were like: "What. . .??" I went to the manager and told him his CD was stuck. He ejected it and put it back in. Sure enough—out popped the full tune of an Indian pop song! My friends were amazed. I was finally calm.

      I am certain that I am well up there in the highly sensitive 20%. My ongoing challenge is living with the other 90% or so of my fellow human beings who can't see what I see, hear what I hear, or feel what I feel… as quickly or as deeply as I do.

      On the nurture side was my family, my home religion, the communities, and the society into which I was born. Not merely or primarily the facts of each, but the mismatch between what each offered me and what I needed. What each took for granted… expected…demanded…versus who I truly was.

      I was born into a Jewish family. Yet I resonate with the example of Jesus. I need to make "Trinities" (me, someone/something, and Something greater than my own mind), to act effectively in my spiritual⁷ life and life in general. Growing up in that household, my need for that relationship and for Trinities went unrealized and unfulfilled.

      I grew up during the late '50s and 60s. Most of my first life was lived in a middle-to-upper class, predominately Jewish suburb. My parents were lower-middle class, working people. Both of my parents had to work to support us kids. Being the child I was, I needed more attention and emotional support than my parents could offer. Money was always an issue, especially with three of us set to enter college within a three-year period. I had to start working early to earn money, and I had to save what I made. I didn't have the time to hang out with the other kids. We didn't have the money to acquire what was expected. . . required. . . to be accepted, let alone popular.

      Without going into the details, I am convinced that neither of my parents loved themselves, felt safe in their own lives, nor were they proud of whom they had become as people. It seems to me that my parents had a plan to ensure a safe, financial future for their children, to expunge their shame, and to resurrect their own opinion of themselves. Early in my life, as early as five or six, my parents started inculcating in us kids what I call "The Script". Mostly unspoken but enforced by rewards and punishments, made both covertly and overtly, each child absorbed his/her role. Here was mine:

      "Get straight A's and be a model of good behavior. Become a rich dentist, marry a nice, Jewish woman, and have at least two children. Join the temple and be a reasonably-religious, reform Jew. Live in a nice (white), predominantly Jewish suburb, in a big house. Respect, follow, appreciate, and support your parents to the hilt, especially in their old age."

      Yeah; that fits me to a T! Is it any wonder why I needed 12 years of therapy for dysthymia?

      * * * *

      Let me redeem my parents here. First, I am judging the quality of my parenting looking back some 50 years. The knowledge base about children and parenting was different then. The dream my parents had for us was completely normal for that time. (Too bad I wasn't!) I don't think my parents realized the kid they had in their care. But I can't fault them for that. . . it has taken me about 40 years to figure me out! Diagnosis of dysthymia can be difficult because of the subtle nature of the symptoms. So my parents could honestly have missed what was (not) going on for me and its seriousness.

      I am thankful I received some aspects of the parenting that I did. I am aware that there are parents out there who have little or no sense of duty to their children. My parents took their role for our safety and physical nurturance seriously and sincerely. (In fact, I think my parents erred trying to protect us kids too much.) It is still a source of wonder to me that a man who made $24,000 a year at the height of his earning power and a woman who was a part-time office worker turned out three, advanced-degreed professionals. I know that parenting took a toll on their emotional well-being and physical health.

      My parents gave me far more emotional support than they received from their parents. And my mom and dad imparted many excellent qualities to me. Qualities that in some cases, and unfortunately for me, they themselves did not possess and so could not teach in a gentle, reasoned way. Discipline, for one prominent example. . .

      I know my parent's mistakes were motivated by love; by what they thought was best for me. Their mistakes were not so grievous or deep that I totally lost my ability to re-establish conscious contact with that Something greater than myself. And for the record, I am a living example that taking a wrong action for a loving reason does not make that action a loving act.

      I am still recovering from their blunders today.

      * * * *

      And then there is this little fact that I am gay. Much sociological study has been done on the relationships of parents and their gay child. Parents, especially the father, know they have a gay son; this happens early in the child's life and well

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