Tuesday, December 29, 2015

When The Fog Clears

Tuesday, December 29, 2015


There is a sharpness about my life that was lacking for so long. Clarity is my companion at unexpected moments. I could feel this truth within the fiber of my being as I drove home tonight.

I finally feel as if I will soon be moving beyond a certain plateau I have felt stuck at the last several months. My grief, though nothing like it was in 2013, continues to occupy a portion of my heart and mind. But it is finally and consistently beginning to feel manageable.

There are still days when I wonder what my life could have been if only I had found powerful treatment for my unsuccessfully (fully) treated case of PTSD many years ago. What person could I have become had such a powerful intervention into the course of my life occurred years before it actually did?

I might have stayed in Monterey, California upon completing my graduate studies there.

I might never have traveled to Portland, Oregon where I spent a year of my life and accomplished what I now feel in hindsight was relatively little and quite insignificant to my career evolution.

But then again different circumstances in 2012 might have steered me away from ultimately applying to the McCloy Fellowship Program offered by the American Council on Germany.

There are so many directions my life could have gone. Now I finally feel interested in steering my life in a consistent way and in a singular direction.

I feel good about what I can create in 2016.


Saturday, December 19, 2015

Americana

Saturday, December 19, 2015


So I finally decided what I am going to do in the future in regards to my blog. In 2016 my goal will be to write once a week. Given the deep work I did the last 2 1/2 years I do not anticipate I will write extensively about my own personal journey in 2016.  I am largely complete with the psychotherapeutic odyssey I have undergone these last thirty months.

The holidays are often not an easy time of year for me. This year seems similar in that regard. And yet I feel much better than I did a year ago. I am still swimming through my grief. But at least I am able to swim through it. And I am fortunate to have friends and a therapist to accompany me on my journey.

American culture at large continues to dismay me these days. I feel deep concern regarding the political discourse related to the 2016 presidential election. Bullying and machismo seem to be as firmly rooted in the American psyche as they ever have been. We continue to witness gun violence at an appalling rate in this country. And we continue to collectively fail to do anything substantive about this scourge that, in my opinion, makes us a pariah state in the international community.

I am not proud to be an American citizen these days.


Sunday, December 13, 2015

What To Do Next?

Sunday, December 13, 2015


I am beginning to feel that writing a blog as frequently as I once did no longer really serves my needs. I know this is true partly due to the fact that I have changed. I am a very different person compared to the man I was in June, 2013.

I now find myself very aware of the many opportunities I have enjoyed in my life. Yes, I have experienced immense hardship. Yes, I was deeply and repeatedly traumatized in the earliest years of my life. But that is only one part of my life story. I overcame the obstacles of my early life history and obtained a great education. I have been generous with my time and energy throughout my life. I have been a kind person.

I need to move on now.

A whole new world is opening up to me now.


Friday, December 4, 2015

Old Demons

Friday, December 4, 2015


It was another full week.

And here I am being a responsible adult male and writing about my journey of recovery from trauma on a Friday night. There are times when I feel I must have one of the dullest lives on the planet. I am diligent and focused. And I am writing...on a Friday night. And yet somehow I am still struggling financially. Too often I find myself asking myself the question "How is this possible?" How is it possible that I could have worked as long as I have and have so little material security to show for it. It seems almost...inconceivable.

Yesterday was a rough day. I was obliged to visit one of my old haunts. The old haunt I am referring to is Abbott Northwestern Hospital. I went there for a CT scan after seeing a doctor in Uptown (who was filling in for my primary care doctor). My GI system has been bothering me for over a week now. I was also feeling a bit lethargic and unmotivated. So I decided to continue to live in a way I have been living ever since June, 2013. I decided to be proactive. I try to be as proactive about my health as possible because I want to minimize the risk of ever going through something like what I endured in June, 2013.  That month felt like a thirty day marathon of the sky falling in on me.

While visiting Abbott Hospital I was unsurprised to find memories of 2013 drifting through my awareness. I felt like I virtually lived at Abbott Hospital during the summer of that year. Upon getting great health insurance at the beginning of June, 2013 I decided to make extensive use of it. And as I made use of my insurance I discovered there was a lot of work I could do on myself. I feel proud of how much I have utilized the gift of my health insurance. And I am determined to never go through a period of my life in the future without health insurance. Living without insurance strikes me as incredibly risky and irresponsible.

The pain of that period of 2013 was compounded by the fact that I went to many of my medical appointments alone. Though I did have some local friends at that time I had not lived in Minnesota very long at that point. Bearing the burden of undergoing so many tests and appointments was thus more difficult because I had minimal local support to assist me in a time of immense need.

Old memories of painful times from decades ago appeared in my thoughts again today. I attended the annual meeting of the Youth Intervention Programs Association in Brooklyn Center. I met a lot of people who are passionate about helping youth overcome obstacles and realize their potential. I felt very encouraged. But I also found the meeting to be a sobering experience. The scale of the problem of disenfranchised and mistreated youth is significant. There is a lot of work to be done.


These last thirty months represent my most concerted effort I have ever made to transcend the pain and limitations of my early life history. I might not have been so diligent in my journey of healing had what happened in 2013 occurred much earlier in my life. I would like to believe that we all tend to become more mature as the years pass. I might have foregone the opportunity to do still more psychotherapy had I been a man a decade younger than I actually was. Older and wiser often can go together.

I feel a lot calmer tonight after having my doctor rule out appendicitis and diverticulitis as likely explanations for the symptoms I have been experiencing in my gut.

I continue to do my best to be open to healing in my life. Healing, love, abundance and joy can come to us in very unexpected ways. I would like to believe that 2016 will be my best year yet. I certainly feel I have been tilling my own 'psychic ground' long enough such that immense blessings should easily find their way to me.

One can only hope.




Tuesday, December 1, 2015

World AIDS Day

Tuesday, December 1, 2015


Today was a day dedicated to honoring those who have lost their lives to AIDS and those who fight onwards in the present day in the search for a means to stop the spread of HIV. I was fortunate to be a bit too young to be able to count myself among that generation of gay men who lost many, many friends and lovers to AIDS. I can vaguely remember hearing about the development and spread of AIDS on the evening news when I was a kid. I wasn't even technically a teenager until 1986. By that time AIDS had spread throughout the world. The epidemic was in full swing by the time there was any chance I would be sexually active and thus be at heightened risk of infection. Had I been born in a different time (earlier) and place (the San Francisco Bay Area or New York City area) I might easily already be dead today. Our life journeys can lead us in unexpected directions.

In the autumn of 2004 I did some extensive traveling. I was a graduate student at that time. I went to the Netherlands to visit the village where my paternal family of origin lived before coming to the United States in the 1870s. Upon returning to the United States I visited Boston and New York City. My visit to Boston coincided with World AIDS Day that year. I can still recall attending an AIDS Day event  during my visit to Boston. I walked a labyrinth and contemplated all the people who had died in the two decades prior to 2004.

The appearance of the AIDS epidemic has relevance to my blog focused on trauma. How? The AIDS epidemic was a cause of immense loss and suffering for many people. Many gay people lost friends, partners and even whole networks of people. And as HIV continued to spread around the world it became quite clear that AIDS was not a "gay disease". Heterosexual people, married couples, injection drugs users and others fell victim to HIV infection. HIV was (and still is) an equal opportunity destroyer of lives. The loss and suffering many people endured was so extreme that it is not an exaggeration to state many people were genuinely traumatized by what happened. The AIDS epidemic thus exemplifies how serious physical health issues can ultimately compound upon themselves and lead to additional burdens such as psychological trauma. It's a wonder more people in the healthcare community did not burn out given the demands they experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. And the trauma of the AIDS epidemic was still further compounded by the hatred, hypocrisy and hysteria many infected with HIV found themselves confronted with in American society.

HIV and AIDS is a very different reality today. Those who became infected but nonetheless survived the early years of the epidemic now face realities that were quite rare decades ago. Having survived two or even three decades those first infected with HIV long ago now also face the challenges of aging. These circumstances will undoubtedly bring both new opportunities and challenges for those living with HIV as well as the healthcare industry.

I thought of the changing face of the HIV positive community today as I reflected on the significance of World AIDS Day. I have a good friend in his 60s who is HIV positive. It is wondrous that so many people were ultimately able to survive the early years of the epidemic. And I think it's even more amazing that some of these survivors' mental health is as good as it is. I wasn't an adult in the early 1980s so I can't know what it was like to be a young man and suddenly discover myself to be HIV positive. I can imagine it felt positively harrowing for all too many people.

As I prepare to end yet another productive day marked by numerous blessings I feel quite fortunate to be me.