Legally Crazy; Walking the Tightrope of Mental Illness

Hello My Dear One,

It's funny, how we can pretend that enormous things are little, while we simultaneously create catastrophes out of details that will be forgotten by tomorrow. It's easier to focus on something we think we can control, rather than on a problem that is far beyond our reach. Think about when the grocery store is out of your specific brand of milk, versus climate change or gun violence.

That's the tightrope that we all walk, I think. And for me, visualizing it as a real tightrope helps me understand the issue better. When we imagine ourselves on the cord we only see the tiny sliver of path under our feet and ignore the large safety net below us. We can't even see the crowds in the stands, but we are acutely aware of their presence and the shame we will feel if they witness us fall off.

When one suffers from mental illness, like I do, that rope can seem to shrink to the width of a toothpick, and it feels like I'm wearing clown shoes. To extend the imagery, the tightrope also appears to rise higher and higher off the ground with every step. Before long, the height is dizzying and my anxiety has risen commensurately with the rope. I don't know if this is what it's like for others with mental illnesses, but it's been my experience over the years.

But as much as the mental illness, in my case Bipolar 1, sucks, there are ways to manage it. The largest one for me is the support net[work] of family, friends, religious community, and healthcare providers that I am surrounded by. Were it not for other people who are safely grounded on the floor I would be at risk for a ton of injuries, both psychological as well as physical.

There is another way that I deal with these things so that the fears and emotions don't send me flying. And that is being able to freely express the ins and outs of my illness in written form. Somehow, it makes it more manageable and less terrifying when I can get the words out of my head and into a more coherent form. I can read my thoughts out loud and hear if they make sense or not. I can see more of the picture, more of that balance beam I'm on.

But it's always in the back of my mind, that the disease can take over at any time, and the balancing act begins anew. And perhaps it's the balancing itself that is the issue, not the rope, or the net, or the crowds, or even my clown shoes. Maybe it's the ability to know how and when to lean into or out of a bobble or a potential fall. Maybe it's knowing how to steady yourself with something less instinctive, such as your feet, rather than grabbing out with both hands in a wild panic. Maybe, it's just being present to the situation and waiting for the feelings of fear to pass. Probably, it's a balance of all of those things.

Each day I'm confronted with the task of balancing the needs of my family with the needs of keeping my mental illness in check. Each day I hope that I have done a decent job and that both parties are satisfied with the end results. Each day I strive to be more balanced than I was the day before. But I am learning to forgive myself when I'm not.

The tightrope act.

I'm also learning to forgive others when their words or actions are delivered not with kindness but out of fear or a need for control. I'm learning to see others' panicky grabs for balance as a reflection of their fears instead of my own. I'm learning how to reach out to be a steadying force, rather than a reactive shove in the opposite direction where both of us are now flying off of the tightrope. And I'm learning to see the tightrope at the height it really is, usually no more than a few inches off of the ground, not 50 feet up in the air.

I will probably never master a smooth and steady walk across the tightrope of my life with mental illness. But perhaps, with the right supports and a steady group of people surrounding me, I'll make it to the other side in one piece.

Thank you for walking this tightrope of a journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself. 

Ari

Legally Crazy; My First Transgender Suicide Attempt

Hello My Dear One,

Important Preface: I am in no way currently suicidal. I have no suicidal ideation, no plans, no causes, no reasons for wanting to kill myself. And therefore, I don't want to kill myself. I am under the care and supervision of medical professionals and am 100% safe. Trust me, you can hold me to this one.

All that said, I want to share what my first suicide attempt was like and what I've learned about myself from it.

It was 1985 and I was on the floor of my parents' bathroom in the house I grew up in. I was 10 years old.

I know that seems shocking, that I was so young, but that was the first time I realized that anyone could end their life if they had the right resources. I happened to have the right resources.
I had a bathtub full of water, a towel, a door with a lock, and a giant block of dry ice. I had been allowed to experiment with the dry ice, we had received a shipment of frozen steaks in the mail, and was warned that the the CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the melting compound could be deadly. Dry ice is made of CO2 and as it evaporates the gas sinks to the floor and will cause suffocation if breathed in exclusively. So, I filled the tub, locked the door, rolled up the towel to block the crack under the door, and laid down. I was waiting for the suffocation.

But how did I get to this point?

There are numerous reasons that someone decides that suicide is a valid option for them. At 10 I know I didn't understand the true finality of the act, but I did understand that it was an end to suffering. It was an end to feeling different. It was an end to the constant pain of my Beast of Mental Illness telling me that I was never going to be okay, and I knowing that much was enough at that point.

I was different. I was a boy stuck being a girl. I was transgender, and I didn't even have a word for it. In 1985 there were people who had sex changes, I had only heard of 1 man who became a woman, and I knew plenty of people who were gay. Since I didn't know of trans people I figured I had to be gay, despite knowing I was male, something I'd determined when I was three years old. But without vocabulary I was left in a no-man's-land both figuratively and literally. Gender dysphoria wasn't a thing yet, but I was, and that was exactly how I thought of myself. I was a thing, an it, caught between a mind and a body that wouldn't match. Death seemed like a good answer at the time.

Thankfully, after awhile I sat up, because the process was taking too long for my liking. I moved the towel. I opened the door. I left the bathroom. I pretended as though nothing had happened. And it would be a few more years before I would cognitively realize my Beast yelling out again for an end to the pain.

I would still attempt self-harm during those years, fantasize about fatal or at least violent and scarring accidents, and wonder what death would feel like. It was a time when I see that I was more than distracted by the darkness, I was living in the hell of mental illness, of Bipolar Disorder 1, as well as trying to be male in a female body.

I have to admit that writing these things down has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. I wrongly assumed that recalling the factual details of an event in my early life would be a straightforward task. But it turned out that it has been emotionally draining in unexpected ways. The greatest one is that of being a parent now with children in their tween/early teen years and how much my heart breaks when I think of them feeling something half as badly as what I've lived through. I truly can't make myself feel that pain. It stops me in my tracks every time.

So, what did I learn about myself way back then? How did I change after that moment? And what have I learned since?

For one, 1985 was the year I changed my name in my mind. Even though the rest of the world knew me by my given name, Arin became the name I called myself. Yes, when I write to you it is as Ari [are-ee] and not Arin, but I have other deeper reasons for that.

A spoonful of poison...

Secondly, I learned that no matter how hard I tried to be something/someone else I couldn't do it. Even a dead body was the wrong body.

And among other things, I now see that who I am is a product of those horrible conflicts within myself. I am exactly the man I am today because of the female role I had to play back then. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, a friend, and so much more for having chosen to walk away from suicide that time, and many more as the years went on.

Thank you for living alongside me on this journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Legally Crazy; Transgender in the Psych Ward, Disclosure

Hello My Dearest,

Five years ago I was in an inpatient psychiatric facility. Those are still not easy words to write. It means that my mental illness, my Beast of mental illness, was so far out of control that I was no longer safe with myself or others and had to be placed in a facility where I could be monitored. In fact, it meant that my room door was open and nurses walked by and checked in regularly. Unlike a regular hospital room though, there was no curtain to give an illusion of privacy, and the bed wasn't adjustable. Plus, the furniture was bolted to the walls, and there were bars on the windows.

But what was it like to be trans in the psych ward? It was definitely a mixed bag, especially because I was having a complete Bipolar 1 breakdown. I was suicidal. I was manic. I was delusional. In one way I was not myself, but in another I was completely myself.

I have dual diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder 1 and Gender Dysphoria, along with 4 or more other psychiatric disorders, and insulin dependent diabetes. The DSM 5 psychiatric diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, despite all of the work I've done, and had done, indicates that my body and my mind don't entirely match up. I suppose being bipolar probably doesn't really help that in the end.

Being transgender and having Bipolar 1 Disorder possesses an intrinsic sameness for me.

It means simultaneous existences in 2 disparate worlds.

It means that even when I'm here, I'm there too.

That first night I probably wasn't thinking too much about the trans part of my life. I suspect I was more focussed on the sheer insanity of detox. Then again, I wanted to appear as fully male as possible. I didn't want anyone to know I was transgender. Even though every staff member knew my gender identity. Sanity wasn't on my side to start with, so thinking clearly wasn't there either.

Being transgender in a psych ward was terrifying for me in a way that was completely separate from the Bipolar 1. I was afraid for my own safety at the hands of the other patients. I was afraid that if the men there knew, they would physically or sexually assault me. Consequently, I never told them.

Looking back now, I think this put a huge damper on my recovery. I believed that I could be well even if my whole self wasn't present. I thought that I could heal the wounds without exposing the deeper cuts. I held myself back. In so doing, I delayed my progress and stayed stuck. I kept myself from moving forward in meaningful ways.

The anxiety of disclosure is still with me of course, even though I share my story easily and readily. I bring my whole self whenever possible, but there are times when I check 30 years of life treatment as a female at the door. I leave behind the person I was and pretend that I've always been the male who's standing there.

Perhaps this is an act of self-preservation. Maybe it is the physical fear of attack, but I believe it is an emotional, psychological, and spiritual fear of degradation and loss of dignity. Exposing oneself to other people's ignorance, bias, fear, distrust, and hate is risky. And yes, I am fully aware that I have a choice, my white skin color is a privilege, and I don't have to disclose my gender identity if I don't want to.

But sometimes I want to disclose for the sake of others. For my trans brothers and sisters who did disclose themselves and lost it all. For trans youth who are terrified of coming out to the safe people in their lives. For nontrans folk who have family members who are trans. And for the bigots who believe I am not who I say I am, who devalue my existence through denial and hate. For all of them to help normalize and accept that we are real live people who choose to be ourselves.

And back in the psych ward, I wish I'd done just that those first few days. I wish I'd had the courage to be that man. But maybe just being a man at that moment was enough. Maybe standing there in my Bipolar meltdown as the man I am was exactly what I needed to do, because a few days later I would have the opportunity to open up when the time was right.

Thank you for being on my journey of disclosure.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Legally Crazy, Transgender in a Psych Ward part 2

Hello My Dear One,

After the first night at the inpatient psychiatric facility, I woke up to the startling reality that I was still there, and that I couldn't leave. Owing to the fact that I was rapid cycling in a full blown Bipolar 1 episode, and I had gone off of FDA approved amphetamines (Ritalin and Vyvanse) with no plan and no medical assistance, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I started writing.

Being a writer was beneficial at that moment, particularly because all technology was removed from patients, and I needed something to do. The electronic detox was at times as horrible as the medical one was. It was hard to not have my laptop, especially since I'm dyslexic, and writing by hand can be physically painful. Still, I kept going because I was driven by the therapeutic need to as well as the mania.

In order to justify, or make some sort of sense of my stay [to myself] in the psych ward, I had to create a different reason for being there. I decided that morning I was a writer, not a stretch, who was doing an undercover piece on what it was like in an inpatient mental health facility in rural Maine. On one level this was true, insofar as I was writing about said subject. The reality though was I was there because I needed to address my own mental snap, not an undercover journalist. I was not Nellie Bly reporting on the wretched conditions of an asylum 1887. I was the wretched conditions of myself and my family being treated for asylum worthy behaviors.

Anyway, by 4:00 pm I grabbed the composition book I'd brought, although I have no recollection of packing it, or for that matter packing at all, and sat at the dormitory style desk in my room. I have to think that my wife packed it and brought it for me, but I've never asked, perhaps because I haven't wanted to imagine what that must have been like for her. There are a lot of things I don't want to know about those early admission days, but I know I will ask when I can.

I got out the pen and started working. The writing is relatively clear, although it resembles a verbal cascade like a dictionary spilling itself down Niagara Falls. The words were pressured the same way that my speech was, a spigot of sensical and nonsensical language turned onto full blast. Given that I am an extrovert by nature, I can scarcely imagine how this must have appeared to others. I know my ability for talking, and I'm thankful for the amnesia that surrounds that section of time. I must have been far more obnoxious than usual.

As for the writing, I'll let the first sentence speak for itself:

"Today has been my first day inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, I have met w/nurses, recreational therapists, behavioral techs, student nurses, an NP, visitors, a therapy dog, my wife, and a cavalcade of characters who are on this journey with me - the other patients."

So, that was something. And it goes on like that for another 4 pages. Yep, four more long, accelerated, and at times unreadable pages. The script itself is obviously a barrier to understanding, but, like the person writing it at the time, it is addled and self-aggrandizing. It reminds me of the mania itself, and that has ramifications now all these years later.

Old school technology.

What now? I guess it's a matter of one sentence at a time. I'll keep you posted on the progress. And yes, the transgender identity does matter here, it will be addressed soon. Just a little more time is needed.

Thank you for unpacking this part of the journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Legally Crazy, Five Years Ago in the Psych Ward, Colors

Hello My Dear One,

Autumn, here in the North Woods of Maine, has arrived and the leaves are finally changing color. I remember how vivid the hues were, and how vibrant the scenes were five years ago. I was in the throws of a hypomanic rapid cycling event of Bipolar 1 Disorder. Everything was more delicious and over the top. The individual blades of grass were whispering their sadness over the upcoming deaths they would soon face. The cool breezes spoke of light and loss. And the darkness was the blackest that I had known.

Of course, the reality was that I was about to slip into a full break with reality itself.

After multiple violent and terrifying blackouts where I couldn't remember how the chaos around me had occurred, I made what could've been the final drive of my life. I don't remember much of that either, only the telephone pole that I swerved away from and the looks of compassion on the faces of the people at the crisis center. And I remember how my then therapist took my hands and said, "I am so sorry that you are feeling like this." It was a strange and comforting moment that I would look back on throughout the hours and days that were to come.

I know that I spent hours at the crisis center, hours in the emergency department, and took a ride in a fancy new ambulance down to the inpatient psychiatric facility at a hospital about an hour away. I remember screaming, crying, throwing things, and hurling insults at the woman I love. I remember wanting to die.

I have plenty of memories from within the pysch ward, too many really. Even five years later I remember the plastic mirrors, the lack of shoes, the open door with the night checks. I remember the therapy dog, the arts and crafts room, the terrible food, and the other patients. Even the one who needed the electro shock therapy to deaden her depression, and how she would need to return when the effects would wear off in 4 to 6 months. I remember the lockdown when an out of control patient had to be confined to one wing, thereby reducing by a third the length of hallways that could be paced. He refused to control his diabetes and so the rest of us lost the lounge with the second television.

The colors there were all beige and grey, food included. We were allowed to wear our own clothes, but even those looked pale and dead. Many people wore black, grungy shirts and ripped blue jeans. Some donned light blue hospital clothes because they had been transported without their own things, and there was no one on the outside to bring them items. The staff had scrubs, or shirts and ties, but any colors didn't pop out at me just as if we were all blending into the grey surroundings ourselves.

And the color of darkness was present too. I can't describe that very well, because it's different for everyone. At the time I would have called it an endless blackness where no light could be seen. But now I see the darkness through the glare of the florescent lights. A flickering grey that could only be altered by fresh sunshine during the days, yet still a place to stumble into a mire of beige and grey. I hope to illuminate that space in time.

There's more of course, but for now those are all the descriptors I have left. After five years, it's time to free the demons of the psych ward from my memories and back to the hell where they belong. It's an arduous task, but a necessary evil if you will.

More muted than before, but just as beautiful.

So, in the meantime, I plan on looking at the world outside of myself and seeing what the comparison is to the alternate universes that swirl around on the inside. So far it seems that out there it's not quite so busy, so frenetic, or so anguished. It's not quite as scary either. The world between my ears can be a dismal place to reside, and seeing the colors of fall, even if they are more muted than five years ago, gives me hope.

Thank you for being on this colorful journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari

Legally Crazy, in Transgender Sickness and Health

Hello My Dear One,
     Nearly 19 years ago, at our wedding, my wife and I recited vows we had written that reflected our youthful beliefs about our future. We were after all, "baby dykes," lesbians in our very early 20's, with idealistic gay pride dreams and plans for an "Out Loud and Proud," kind of life. Well, as out loud and proud as one can get in a rural college town in the northern woods of Maine.
     So, the timeless "in sickness and in health," phrase wasn't necessarily a direct quote in our marital pledges to each other. It was certainly implied, but not explicitly stated, and sometimes I wonder if that was an intentional oversight on my part, or just wishful thinking on her part. Maybe, at 23 we knew that we were invincible, and no disease was going to strike down two young, healthy, and attractive kids just starting their lives together.
     Of course, our reality has been nearly nineteen years of a partner (me) who has battled bacterial infections, dislocated joints, broken bones, viral attacks, Legionnaire's Disease, cancer, insulin dependent diabetes, Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Bipolar 1 Disorder, and Gender Identity Disorder. And really, that's only a partial list. I've had at least a dozen surgeries, every test under the sun, treatments, therapies, medications, hospitalizations, and that infamous week in the psych ward. Currently, I am recovering from the flu. Sickness. A damn lot of sickness has been handed to my wife on the less than a silver platter of her spouse. Somehow, she manages, or exceeds at making it all work out, and I have absolutely no idea how she does it.
      But back to our wedding, to that rainbow pride flag filled day, with guests, and cake, and the promise of a fresh, new, and amazing start. Back to that moment when I saw the most beautiful woman in the entire world, floating down the aisle in pristine white and smiling at me with tears in her eyes. Eighty people disappeared from my sight as we met in the middle of our beginning. Time was standing still, and I remember little else from that afternoon, save the glitter that came exploding out of the air vents in my car as we drove away. Those responsible for this know who they are.
     What I am certain of, was my new wife hardly expected 14 years later she would be dealing with a female to male transgender husband who had been admitted to a psychiatric facility.
      Inpatient hospitalization happened that day for rapid cycling of extreme mania and immobilizing depression, withdrawal from FDA approved methamphetamine [medically prescribed stimulants for ADD], the refusal to take medications for Bipolar Disorder 1, and suicidal ideation and suicidality. There had been an attempt that morning as I drove myself to the crisis center, choosing at the last possible second not to plow into the telephone pole on my right. Only G-d could have been with me then, because I certainly wasn't.
     After the crisis center came the Emergency Department, then an ambulance ride, an elevator, and my delivery to the inpatient mental illness floor of the Catholic hospital an hour away. I was in a self-imposed and unsupervised detox, having mood swings of messianic proportions, and painfully suicidal. There was a team to keep me from falling apart. There were safety nets everywhere. And of course, there were bars on the windows.
      But what about my wife? Where was she in this chaos? Where were our children? And what could that woman possibly have been thinking? What was this sickness doing in her life?
     I don't have the answers about her emotional state, though I can guess, but what I do have are the memories of her presence each and every step of the way. I remember how she placed herself between my Beast and our boys. And how before I even arrived at the crisis center, she had reached out to family and friends to ensure that our children were safe, cared for, and loved. She was present for them as she reminded them their father still loved them, but he was sick. She was present when she told them that even though he'd stopped acting like the loving daddy they once knew, he was still there, somewhere. She protected them from the sickness, and from the Beast that was tearing his way through that man.
     And then, she was there at the crisis center, and then the ER. And when my Beast could no longer be contained she returned to our children, having faith that I would get the help that I needed. She was there at the psych ward, once even bringing those precious boys to visit the crazy man who had barely begun to accept the sickness and the Beast that were attempting to drag him into oblivion. A Beast and a sickness that were clawing at him from a hell that even he hadn't imagined, despite decades of mental illness.
      She was always present. Her love, support, and devotion were there every second that I was there, even though I couldn't recognize it at the time. The Beast tried to tell me otherwise, but pathological lying is a hallmark of that guy. And I know the Beast was wrong, because, almost five years later my wife is still present, still caring for, still worrying about, and still loving our sons, and me.
     And I believe that her ability to be present is a demonstration of love in action, the love that she has always known from and through her relationship with G-d. It is her faith that has been enough for both of us, has been enough for our family. It is her remarkably healthy faith that continues to combat and overcome the sickness in me and in our world, familial and otherwise. You should see her teach Sunday School sometime. So, the sickness and the health will always be present in our marriage, as will the faith that started with a hopelessly romantic fantasy, saw the births of two remarkable children, continued through years of immeasurable changes, and still persists in spite of all the reasons for it not to. And our family is blessed by a G-d who chooses to continue showing love through all of G-d's Beloved Children. 
      Thank you for living into the love in action along this journey.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Blessed by Love in Action

Of Being a Real [Intersex] Man

Hello My Dear One,

I recently wrote about my transgender realness, and what it currently means to be me in the world I live in.  But I knew I needed to address the other part of me, the intersex part that has driven the need for the transgender procedures, and that has been an underlying chemical truth of my life.  I need to explain the biology behind the mental illness of my own gender dysphoria.

As far as I know, I have Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, an inherited condition that causes masculinization in XX individuals and hyper-masculinization in XY individuals.  In my life and family medical history this has presented as facial and body hair, fertility problems, anxiety, high libido, short stature, and masculinized features in the XX females on my mother's side for at least the last 5 generations.  On my father's side, there were hyper-masculinized XY males, very early onset puberty (age eight for my father himself), short stature, anxiety, anger management issues, high libidos, and massive amounts of facial and body hair.  In the XX females I know of in that lineage there were fertility issues, uterine and ovarian cancers, anxiety, some masculinization, and again, shortened stature.  These are all known characteristics of Late Onset CAH.

Personally, I knew myself to be male from the time I was three, but my body sent mixed messages about this.  I was physically strong, quite tall for my age, was developing some body hair, and mimicked only the males in my life.  But on the other side, my body was missing a penis, and I was in perpetual disbelief that somehow I had not been given one or worse yet, that I had lost it.  I began packing (using different materials to create an appearance of male genitalia under clothing) at a very early age, but stopped when I realized that it was something I just wasn't supposed to do.  

By the age of twelve I had gone through female puberty, and six months later I began male puberty, one however, that did not result in the expression of all male secondary sex characteristics.  This confusing, and ultimately horrifying experience of two bodies fighting within one to exist, left me in a state of shock.  I was troubled.  And turning to my family and even doctors proved just as lacking in answers.

I learned from my mother that this male part of myself was something to be horribly embarrassed about, shameful, disgusting, and should be hidden at all cost.  Stories of birth control pills gone wrong, useless electrolysis, and ways to be more womanly through wigs, makeup, clothing, and behaviors were standard topics of our discussions from as far back as I can remember.  Being who I was, what my body was expressing completely naturally, was a tragic error on the part of G-d.  It constituted a burden that I was supposed to bear, rather than a gift to embrace.  And I felt a deep and persistent hatred for my own body because it, and therefore I were mistakes.  Never female enough to be the woman my mother wanted me to be, never male enough to be the man I knew I was.

From my father, I learned masculine ways, traditionally male gendered activities, and that he had really wanted a son.  Never male enough to be the son he desired, never female enough to know what to do with.

I lived in my disparate selves for more than twenty five years and then something changed.  In a dichotomy of life and death my body decided to take over, the rest of the way, and allowed my true self to shine through.  It was possible only because of a life threatening illness, one that literally took my life multiple times, but for the grace of G-d and the dedication of the medical staff who saved me.  For me, it was through this physical death that my inner core was able to be born into corporeal existence.   

I was twenty eight years old, and in my second semester of seminary.  My mother-in-law had died of terminal lung cancer barely two months prior, and my now motherless wife and I had a five month old son.  I was taking nineteen, yes, 19, credits, and consequently chose to live on campus two nights a week in order to be physically able to attend all the classes.  I was camped out in a tiny bedroom doing as much schoolwork as possible and then rushing home to be a parent to our new son, be a loving partner to my wife, and to continue my ridiculously heavy graduate course work.  It was exhausting and I began unravelling quickly.

One Monday morning, six weeks into the semester, I was hurrying out of my home when I slipped and fell on the ice, sliding partially under my car.  I banged a few ribs, but shook it off, threw the rest of my stuff in my car, and drove the two hours to school.  That day I became very ill with a high fever, blurry vision, and extreme nausea.  I made it to the Emergency Department, was diagnosed with pneumonia, treated with antibiotics and promptly sent home.

A few hours later I returned to the Emergency Department, half-dead, and saw the panic in the physicians' eyes as I faded in and out of consciousness.  The following days were largely a blur, being taken to the ICU, seeing my wife, x-ray after x-ray, oxygen masks, and then nothing.  I would later learn that I consented to being put on a ventilator, and then a few days later my wife consented to having a temporary pacemaker inserted into my chest so that I wouldn't die every time my body was moved.  I spent more than two weeks in the ICU, was resuscitated multiple times, was drugged out of my mind, watched all of my skin peal off from the megadoses of antibiotics, and celebrated my 29th birthday in a hospital bed.  I can only imagine the fear my family must have experienced during this ordeal.  But for me, fear was not a part of it at all. 

During my hospital stay I was largely unconscious, though a few bits and pieces of events remain.  Once, I saw a great, warm, white light that I wanted to go toward.  It was inviting, and I felt a sense of calm as I approached it.  Then in an instant it was gone, and I was returned to a darkness filled with strange noises and visions.  More importantly though was a dream that involved a surgery of testicular implants, and I remember lay feeling elated by my great fortune.  But again my joy ended when I looked up (in the dream) and saw two doctors at my bedside discussing my case.  As one man flipped through my chart, the other looked down at the silent/sleeping me and said that they [the hospital, the doctors, the nurses?] "didn't take care of patients like that."  I was hurt, yet still happy that my body matched my mind.  Of course this was just a dream, no surgery was performed, at least not that particular one, and when I awoke from the medically induced coma I was heartbroken that the implants were not there.  And again in my mind, they were lost, just like my (imaginary) childhood penis.

The turning point in my life, to begin the transgender transition process, occurred not from the illness, the near death, or the dreams.  Rather, it came at the end of my month long stay, when I awoke to find my mother in my room.  She was distressed, physically upset, crying, and obviously concerned about the situation.  I, in my ever hopeful desire for a loving mother, wondered if she was thinking about nearly having to bury her only child.  But this is my mother, a woman with untreated Borderline Personality Disorder, and nothing could have been further from the truth.  No, she was devastated that during those weeks, one minuscule, meaningless, and pointless act of care had not been done.  My face had gone unshaven.  I had three and a half weeks of facial hair growth, and this was a fate worse than death itself for her.  I must point out that this terrible outcome of not being groomed had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the hatred she had for her own body.  At the time of course, I didn't see that.    

Her words penetrated into my very soul, "For G-d's sake, why didn't they shave her?"  

She seemed to be reliving a conversation with someone, and it was as if I wasn't even there, despite the fact that she was speaking directly to me.  And once again, I felt like I was not a real woman, nor was I a real man.  I was a creature betwixt and between the two.  And I was left to hang in that dark place of despair, alone, afraid, and secretly thrilled to have my body trying to show its true self.  I had a beard.  It was all mine.  And even though I shaved it off that night, I knew for the first time that the world would not end if I let it grow.  I was given the gift of authenticity.  I could finally move forward on my journey.

A real intersex man.

As the years passed I went through all the necessary steps to becoming the real intersex and transgender man that I am today.  And it has been nine years since my body, my soul, my mind, and my heart finally came together to integrate into one whole being.  Even through the horrid Beast of Bipolar Disorder I, PTSD, and suicidal ideation, I have remained true to my male self and gripped fast to the real man I am inside.  I am a real man.

For now I am happy, content perhaps, with who and where I am in my life.  Yes, there is more to do.  Yes, there are hardships and hollow times I will endure.  And yes, I will have to navigate the devilish waters of puberty with my own sons, and how I will fully explain who I am at a biological level that will have positive meaning for them.  But in the meantime, I will continue to advocate for the realness that we all deserve.  I believe in the real purpose of that.  And I believe in the G-d that makes it so.

Thank you for staying on this sometimes all too real journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari 

Of Being a Real [Transgender] Man

Hello My Dear One,

It has been too long since I have written, and I apologize for this.  I have been working during summer vacation, teaching, attempting to garden and get yard work done, and I enjoyed a 1 week sabbatical in Austin, TX during the third week of June.  So, I have been busy, yet honestly not too busy to write.  

Since my sabbatical I've spent a lot of time delving into how I present myself to others and the receptions/perceptions I get.  While there I was afforded the opportunity to interact with people who did not know me or my history.  I went places, had cool experiences, met cool people, and got to spend time with one of my oldest and dearest friends.  It was a wonderful time, and I enjoyed nearly every minute of it.  Of course, with all things in life, there is no perfect.  And while I was there I had to grapple with the changes I have made in my life and what the ripple effects have been over the past 9 years.

Recognition of who you are, who I am, is a form of human validation, of creating realness when we are truly seen and understood.  As a transgender individual, recognition of self, can be the difference between life and death, literally.  If the crushing weight of living as the wrong self does not cause one to choose suicide, at the very least it can kill one's soul and joy in living.  And, sadly, the physical body of a wrong self can become a target of intolerance, abuse, and even fatal violence.  Living within and between genders can feel like an isolation, an existence that is devoid of love, understanding, and internal peace.  It can be a place of the darkest depression that a soul can bear, and then it can be too much to bear at all.

When one does find a place of hope and at least temporary resolution, anxiety may be lessened, and the desperation within may be quelled for awhile.  Discovering resources, other people who have already gone through the process, health care providers, therapists, and accepting friends and families will bring great comfort.  When you are given the gift of tolerance, if not acceptance, it can bring a calm that you may have never known.

As the transition process begins and continues, an integration of self will also happen. It is getting the chance to grow up into who you always thought you were.  It is a chance to have your body do the right thing, rather than betray you.  It is the truth of yourself, your authentic self, at last being recognized by those around you.  It is that moment of realness.  

Yet, the reality of being transgender is that transition, transitioning from your gender assigned at birth to your target gender doesn't end.  You don't finish transition, or truthfully any meaningful form of human growth, until you are done existing on this planet.  I have found over the years that most transfolk I know have dealt with this in a similar fashion, often believing in a day when you can say "I have transitioned."  But the longer you live in your target gender the more you realize that defining gender for yourself and others becomes a new form of transition.

Simply put, what does gender really mean?  What makes a man a man, or a woman a woman?  Is it clothing?  Is it voice?  Is it traits and characteristics?  Is it specific responses to, or actions in situations?  What is acceptable behavior for a man in your society?  How about for a woman?  What professions are normative for your newly expressed gender?  What things are OK to do, and what things are not?  And maybe most importantly,  how do you interact with people who knew you prior to transitioning?

And there's the crux of the reflection that I have been doing.  When I was on sabbatical I spent time with someone who has been my friend for more than 25 years.  She is a woman I hold in high regard, like a sister who has had my back all along, someone who never pulls a punch and tells me when I am being an idiot, who's not afraid to challenge me no matter the cost.  She was actually the best "man" in my wedding, and I guess that's a reflection of the relationship we've always had.  It has never been dependent on gender, gender stereotypes, social norms, or even chronological years.  It has been a relationship of deep connection, one that is so wholly platonic that it is often perceived by others as one of brother and sister.

And, for all that, there is a gendered society that sees a more emotionally intimate relationship between a married man (me) and a married woman (her) as something suspicious.  And this is what I have been grappling with, the fact that I, despite the 30 years of life experience as a female, and an anatomy that betrays my maleness, am now seen as a man in all settings.  And it's something that I have not entirely chosen to do.

Yes, I choose to live as a man in my day to day life, particularly at work, but even there most of my colleagues know that I have gone through a gender transition and respect me for who I am.  So, even in my professional world there is an understanding that I am not a typical male, rather, I am one with a great insight into my female coworkers's life experiences.  I am known for being capable and willing to listen to details of their lives that most men neither want to hear about, nor care to have to deal with.  Frankly, were it not for being married and having 2 sons, I believe that most people would assume I'm gay, and that I hang out with "the girls" because of that.  I have never had a husband of a coworker,  confront me, or be concerned about my interactions with their wives.  Even the husbands of the baseball/basketball/soccer moms I hang out with at games have never come to me with a problem.  

Honestly, the refrain I hear most often is "That's just Arin."  And though I could certainly take this as an insult to my maleness, I don't.  For me it's more of an affirmation that I am Arin a being that is not within the binary normative of gender identity.  I am a category unto myself, a gender that is defined by me, not by external factors that may or may not reflect my values and beliefs.  For lack of a better term, I am an Arin, a person who stands between and within the genders.

Yet, what does that mean when I am in new and different situations where my personal story of transgender is not the focus of my interactions with people?  What does it mean for me to be a real man as I navigate the murky waters of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in my life?  Who am I to other people, and does it really matter? 

The answer is that I'm not sure who I am perceived to be by other people, but, whether I like it or not, it does matter.  Every day it matters to those who serve me my coffee, who fill my grocery bags, who meet me at the post office, who work with me, who go to church with me, who love me.  It matters because it determines exactly how I will be treated in each and every situation in my life.  It matters to everyone around me, because we are a gendered society that starts with pink and blue blankets, and we work our way up to suits and skirts.  It is as superficial as our clothing, and it is as horrifying as the difference between physical violence vs sexual violence.  To break someone's nose, or to brutally rape them?  Are they man or woman?  The answer too often determines the outcome.

So, here I am, an Arin, stuck between my head and my heart.  I am a man through and through.  I am a real man.  And I am also a man who knows what it's like to be treated as a woman.  I am a man who has lived in two bodies, and experienced the fear of one, and the power of the other.  And so I choose to live in the space between.  I choose to share my life as an example of what can go right when you find your real self, of what can go wrong, and of what you can learn.

What has gone wrong?  I have confessed my truths to those who have turned against me because of them.  I have withheld my truths for fear of being hurt.  I have omitted and hidden parts of myself, my life, my history in order to protect people who didn't need protection.  And I have lived in fear that my secrets might cost me everything.

What has gone right?  I am still alive.  I am happy.  I am at peace with who I am.  I can look in the mirror and see the person I have always known was in there.  And I am myself, the real me, less afraid to step out and participate what is around me.  I have a family, friends, coworkers, providers, and therapists who treat me with dignity, respect, and love.

A real man.

What have I learned?  Well, I've learned to trust myself.  I've also learned that the people you think will have the hardest time with transgender are usually the ones who accept you more readily than the ones you thought would be more understanding.  And I've learned that there will always be men who see me as less than because they believe I have infiltrated the sacred gift of male privilege.  I have learned that others will see my words and actions as threatening instead of genuine.  And that the little misunderstandings of cultural difference can have consequences you never imagined.

At the end of the day, I go to bed, a man, a real man, a real transgender man, and hopefully a better man.  If I am present on my journey, then I am capable of being who G-d continues to call me to be, no matter what or who that looks like.

Thank you for asking the questions that I cannot always answer on my journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Of Unhidden Easter Eggs and Unwanted Rabbit Holes

Hello My Dear One,

It was a hell of a Holy Week this year.  I found myself pulled as usual in multiple directions, Passover, Easter, the Bipolar I nightmare that is the month of April, excessively high blood glucose levels, and dealing with a school vacation that robs me of my routine as well as a week's worth of pay.  Spring has never done much for me, I love summer, but that's another story.

Anyway, as far as the Holy Week issues, I could have defaulted to my old standbys of religious discord as the basis for my current distress, however that would have been a lie.  This year I have been more at peace with who and where I am on my spiritual journey than I can ever remember.  I watched and listened as the Jewish and Christian holidays and traditions danced, dovetailed, and diverged as they always do.  I marveled at their relationship and my relationships with each of them.  In reality my problems with Holy Week have far more childish roots, or at least, reasons that are rooted in my childhood.

The angst I experience each year stems from what I didn't get to do as a child, what was not done for me, and how I leap down the rabbit holes of distortion over and over again.  Every year I perseverate on the missing elements of the holidays and the ones that I as an adult am now responsible for.  There is a deeply wounded place within myself that recoils at the jobs that are now mine.  And there is but one reason that underlies my petty unwillingness to participate in a manner befitting an almost 40 year old.



My parents never hid easter eggs for me.






It appears trivial in a way, never having been gifted with the opportunity to seek out plastic eggs filled with jellybeans, candy, or coins.   It seems silly, to be sad over children's holiday games that ultimately do not enhance the spiritual meaning of the religious tradition.  And it even seems a little pathetic that I, a trained theologian, become morose at the thought of Easter morning because there will be no hidden eggs, no basket, no store bought candy waiting for me when I awake.  My desire for religious growth is buried under a heaping mound of missing chocolate bunnies, stringy vinyl easter grass, and those damned plastic eggs.    

Now, for sake of transparency, I will admit that I did receive easter baskets in my youth, they did have candy in them, albeit from the fancy candy store from our beachside town, and that there were indeed plastic eggs with goodies in them in the basket itself.  Mind you, the coins within the eggs suffered from a dirty, sticky, cough drop infused coating that made the money seem more like a scrounge through the bottom of my mother''s purse than a special treat.  The amounts weren't even clever, just assorted clumps of change that my mother had in fact fished out of her purse that afternoon.  Oh, and the dreaded black jellybeans were in other eggs.

But these childhood slights are not about the traditions themselves, not the actual hunting for eggs, or shrink wrapped, toy filled, plastic baskets from the local department store, but rather what they represent. They represent the normal that I longed for that was never achievable in my nuclear family.  I wanted adults to be adults and hide the Easter eggs for me to find, just like my neighbors' families did.  I wanted to believe in the Easter Bunny, but just like Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and every other childhood fantasy staple, that desire was crushed on a yearly basis.  My parents were people unwilling or unable to play the magical roles that create a foundation for playful innocence and joy in a child.  Instead, they chose to explain how the magic tricks were done, leaving behind no mystery for me to be amazed by.

So, I hid the easter eggs for them.  I was the Easter Bunny.  I was the magician performing for my parents.  At the tender age of 9, I secretly hid the eggs and ensured that each one was found.  I hid those stupid plastic eggs for people who should have been hiding them for me.

So, like most years, Easter morning arrived this year and once again there were no eggs to be found.  In fact, because there is often a hectic rush to church on Easter morning, the Easter Bunny visits our house while we are at church.  Translate this statement to mean that when the church service ends, one parent must rush home, hide the eggs all over the lawn, make sure the baskets are ready, and display the handwritten note from the Easter Bunny himself stating how many eggs he has left for the boys to find.  This final touch ensures that each child will have an equal number of eggs at the end of the affair.

It was my parental turn this year, so I came flying home to be the Easter Bunny again, 30 years later, this time as a father attempting to perform the magic for his children.  And as my stomach turned, I hid the plastic eggs, and did my best not to fall into the rabbit holes of my mind, where the sadness, unworthiness, and fear reside.  I tried to hide the eggs skillfully and with joy, but most of them just ended up barely hidden in obvious places.  And in retrospect this lax effort was not a mere fall into the rabbit holes, it was a knowing leap.  

As I squeezed into the darkened tunnels that twist and turn, creating a never ending maze of fear and disappointment, I willingly stayed in the confinement of distorted thinking and behaviors.  It is not a truth I want to disclose, but I wasn't the parent I wished that mine had been.  I didn't bring my best that day, and I didn't miraculously evolve into a better, richer, more fully actualized version of myself.  No, I limped along, tried to make the best of it, and still managed to be an unpleasant fool to be around for the rest of the day.  

At the end of the day I had still done more than my folks ever did, and I knew that my boys were happy with whatever magic I had managed to create.  And in the days since then, I have realized more and more that I can see the rabbit holes before I fall flailing into them.  It doesn't mean that I won't fall or leap into one, but it does mean that I don't have to, and that I can climb out before I get sucked down further.  Just like the disappointing plastic eggs of youth, those rabbit holes are not filled with what I need, want, or even desire anymore. 

What I need, want, and desire is to be a man of integrity, dignity, and inherent value, and I want that for my sons as well.  I want them to know that they are loved.  And maybe, if I can watch where I'm going, I can lead them away from the rabbit holes that I've fallen into too many times.  Maybe, I can lead them to the hidden eggs where the treasure is in the finding, and not what is inside.

Thanks for joining me along this crazy bunny trail of a journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari   

Of Doing the Best They Could, of Moving Forward from the PTSD Flashbacks

Hello My Dear One,

It has been a tough couple of weeks at work again, with multiple changes to my schedule and my responsibilities.  It has also been a time of deep reflection on the events of my past and the flashbacks that I have been dealing with.  It has been a time of outer and inner confinement, and within that I have found different perspectives on how I perceive myself. It began in the darkness of the inside self and has slowly moved into the light of the outside world.

For the past 25 years I have seen my life as one grand failure after another.  For 25 years I spent my time believing that who I was could be summed up in the disasters I had created and the wreckage I left behind.  I was unable to feel that the positives that had occurred had actual meaning, that they were more than just accidents of fate.  I could not believe that I was in any way the originator of the good itself.  I believed that I was merely a guilty bystander who by fluke had a good thing happen to him and others around me simply by proximity.  I was a big, fat nothing in my mind and each bad thing that happened in my life was a reinforcing reminder of my inherent unworthiness.

In part, this sense of self, this sense of failure came from the six years that my parents were tangled in that ugly affair, all the while refusing to make good choices, and telling me that they were staying together for me.  Yes, they reminded me daily that their immense dysfunction was for my own wellbeing.  And for the past 20 years or so, I believed that I was therefore to blame for the six years of torture and the failure of the relationship itself when I went off to college.  I carried the weight and the burden of a failed existence that wasn't even mine.  I was responsible for their choices, or so I thought, and each bad thing that followed was directly related to my actions.

And I stayed a prisoner to the past for a very long time.  I allowed the darkness to overwhelm the light, and to overwhelm me.  Consequently, I couldn't become the man I knew I was. I was stuck living as someone who had been imprisoned by her/his own body.  I was also stuck with profound and profoundly untreated mental illness.  Add in the unbearable dysfunction of my family of origin, and I had a recipe for substance abuse, self mutilation, violence, impulsivity, mental breakdowns, and sheer hopelessness.  Sadly, I fell down all of these rabbit holes at one time or another, and I am always aware of the fact that it could happen again if I don't take care of myself.

It is not surprising when people tell me it was a miracle I survived all of my mental and physical illness.  And it is true, I did survive.  I did not lose the battles with my parents' Beasts or with my own Beast.  I lived to become the man I am today, including being a loving husband, father, and teacher.  And those accomplishments are far more than mere survival.  I surpassed the hells of my existence, I grew out from them, using the unsteady foundations to build new platforms for my success.

More importantly, is that the things I did and did not do over the past twenty five years are more than just the result of divine intervention and dumb luck.  Rather, who I am is the product of all the successes I created out of the abyss that I crawled up from, with the help of G-d.  It is what I have done with the wretched times in my life that has given me a way to use my G-d given gifts, shaping and honing them to be of the best uses possible.  I didn't merely survive, I thrived.

I have had many successes in music and art.  I have earned 2 undergraduate degrees, as well as a Master of Arts in Theology and Ethics, all while living with learning disabilities, mental illness, mega-doses of medications, and gender identity issues that led to a full transition from living as a female to living as a male.  I successfully transitioned from female to male, keeping my marriage and family intact.

I understand what it is like to live with emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse.  I have the experience of fighting with Bipolar 1 Disorder and how it can wreck a person's entire life when left untreated.  I have the ability to share my stories with individuals and large groups in order to broaden others' understanding of gender identity, transgender, and intersex conditions.  I choose to share those stories as an example of success in the transgender community and a way to teach others that it is the journey of being human that is universal even when our paths seem so remarkably different.

But what about the pain and the scars that I still deal with when I think about the past, about the horrific ways my parents acted, the crimes against human dignity that went on for so long, the bizarre reality that was my life?

Well, I used to view those battle wounds as the result of people who refused to do their jobs of being good parents.  I balked at the notion that, as many people would tell me, "they did the best they could."  I hated those words and the lack of personal responsibility they implied.  It was as if those 6 words excused everything, because my parents had put forth the best effort they could.  In my mind and aloud, I would scream that this was untrue, that they had NOT done the best they could.  They had chosen their own narcissistic needs over my basic human needs.  They had failed me miserably and I was unwilling to believe otherwise.

But as I continued to reprocess the initial flashback, a door was opened up for me to let a new narrative be heard.  I sat in my therapist's office, still hashing out my feelings and that nagging phrase "they did the best they could."  And as I sat there saying that I couldn't accept that my parents had done the best they could, I suddenly sensed that my worldview was about to change.  My therapist asked me questions I had never had the courage to ask myself.  With a compassionate but blunt truth she asked, "What if they did?" "What if it was the best that they could do?"  "What if in their own dysfunction, disease, and emptiness, their choice to stay together for you was the best they could do?"

And sitting there in the early morning, I realized that the answer to all of those questions was one that I didn't want admit, much less say aloud.  So I breathed out a heavy sigh and said "Yes, maybe that was the best that they could do, even if it wasn't what I needed."  And that was the answer.  My parents had somehow believed that they were doing the best they could for their child, albeit a deluded, misguided, traumatizing, and dangerous best.  Yes, my parents did the best they could for me.  And in the end, that is all they could have done. 

So, here I am, knowing that I have survived and grown from the "best" my parents could do.  And that is a miracle, it is a mitzvah, and it is a living faith.  It is a miracle that even the worst that someone can endure can still be transformed into a blessing.  I am living proof that G-d's love is greater than any brokenness that a human can have.  I am living a life of my own design, choosing to be a better man, choosing to show that I am a blessing and that I am blessed.  And I continue choosing to accept the "best" that each of us can do for one another, hoping and helping with the broken parts of each of us.  

Thank you for being a part of the blessing that is my life.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Of PTSD Flashbacks, and of Screaming to Be Heard

Hello My Dear One,

I've had a rough few weeks at work, and they've left me struggling with how triggering some of my students' meltdowns can be for me.  I understand meltdowns from the inside out, and sometimes my level of empathy is too high in a situation.  I can all too easily find myself feeling the way that I have during my own meltdowns.  I work very hard to combat this, and the more I do my job, and the more therapy I do, the less apt I am to get caught up in my own stressors during an episode. Even so, no matter how objective I can be, the fear of physical danger for myself or others, can still trigger flashbacks from my own past filled with emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical abuse.  And the funny thing about PTSD is that you never know exactly what that trigger might be or what flashback will be triggered.

In the therapeutic work that I continue to do I have recently encountered a memory, a flashback, that was an absolute turning point in my life.  Oddly, after more than two years with my therapist this memory has never been in one of the "memory chains" that I have reprocessed.  Neither one of us is sure why, however I suspect that my own understanding of the event hadn't matured enough to actually deal with it.  I'll never truly know the answer, but I do know that I am at long last ready to face this point, and all of its ramifications from the past 25 years.

The memory is as vivid today as if it had occurred yesterday rather than two and a half decades ago, and this ultimately gives credence to the flashbacks I've been having about it for several months now.

The place, the colors, the smell, the sounds, the emotional distress come rushing in at full force, knocking the wind out of my already deflating lungs.  I am transported back to that moment when the line of before and after is drawn on the invisible timeline of my life.  I am watching myself be changed in an instant, and I have forever marked my time on earth as prior to that moment, and everything that has come since.

I am sitting in the basement of my grandparents' house, noodling with some project or other, the smell of leather and freshly cut pine fills the early autumn air that flows through the ground level windows around me.  I know that my mother has finally decided to confront my father and the tenant who is living in our 2nd floor apartment about the affair that we all know is happening.  I am waiting for her to return to me, to tell me that he has confessed, and that this madness will soon end.  I am waiting to hear the reassurance that I have been right all along, and that this nightmare is real.  I am waiting to know that my mother has put my needs, ahead of my father's wants.

But something else is happening.  My life is being thrown into a radically spinning change and at the eye of the storm is the calmest my mother has ever been in my entire life.  She is sitting near me, to my right, and we are not making eye contact.  She is telling me that the affair is real, that she has confronted them, that they have confessed.  I feel a flood of relief that this wretched time is about to end.  I ask her when, not if, he is leaving.  And the answer to that question will set the course of my life for the next 25 years, although I don't yet know this.  I have asked her when is he leaving, and she replies that he isn't.  She asked him to choose, and he gave some juvenile, puerile, thoughtless response about choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice creams, and that was that.  I am screaming in my head, and I am screaming at her, and I am completely unheard.

She sat there, unwavering.  She sat there, as though no other options had ever existed, or could exist.  She sat there, unmoving and unmoved to choose a life that could be different from this madness.  She sat there.  She simply sat there telling me that my future was forever altered, and that I could do nothing about it.  I was screaming, but unheard.

As I look back now I am struck by the stillness in that space.  I am shocked at the quiet.  I am dumbfounded by my mother's actions, or lack thereof.  Suddenly, this crazy woman with borderline personality disorder is acting the opposite of how I have known her my entire life.  There is a silent void that seems to be expanding, encompassing the rational words that could be spoken.  This created emptiness was as defining as the words that had come before.  And it would take me 25 years to be able to describe that emptiness without the screaming.  

In fact, for the next 25 years I screamed.  Sometimes I screamed at her, at my father, at my friends, at anyone I could.  Sometimes I screamed in my head, or finally cracked and screamed as I threw and broke my things.  Sometimes I heard her screams in the night, the night terrors ravaging her, and awakening me from my own troubled sleep.  Sometimes I even heard the darkness itself closing in around me, a silent scream that was louder than any verbalization I could have made.   

After I married, I screamed at my wife.  Later I screamed at in-laws.  Then I screamed at my children.   I have been blessed by G-d a million times over that they have all stayed true to me and waited for the Beast to stop screaming. 

So even though I've relived this nightmare more times than I can count, I've never been able to ascribe deeper meaning to it than not being worthy enough to have my needs met.  But as I've lived through these students' meltdowns and hears their words, and their fears, and their needs to be heard, I have seen my own memories and meltdowns in a new light.  I have been trying to be heard.  That what I have to say matters, not just what I need, but that my words carry weight and can change outcomes.  That my words can save my life, save my sanity, and stop the madness that swirls around and within me.  

So, for 25 years I have felt unheard.  I have felt that my words, and the meanings behind them, were valueless, and consequently, so was I.  But all that incessant screaming never got me what I truly wanted.  It never made me feel that I had any more value than before I began ranting.  All the screaming ever did was keep others from hearing me, and after awhile, no one wanted to listen to the screaming either.  

Through writing, I've learned that a quiet voice speaks many more volumes than a wild-eyed Beast ever can, even when he's been shouting for hours, days or weeks.  I've also uncovered that so many of my life choices, have been about being heard.  My academic pursuits, my career choices, my professional speaking, my deeper desire for power and authority have all been driven by a need to feel heard.  It is a tough reality to acknowledge, but by naming it, just as I have named my Beast(s), the power of the darkness is diminished.    

Now that I can see parts of this truth, I know that I can begin the process of change, so that I can be heard.  And more importantly, so that I can be heard without screaming.  My life can be my words.  My actions can speak for me.  My ability to communicate rests in my ability to believe that my own words have value first, and then when it is time to speak them, it will not matter if others agree with my words or not. I will know that my words were ones of conscience, morality, integrity, and truth.  And if I can hear that, then I will never believe that I am unheard again.


Thank you for taking the time to listen to my words.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari 

Of "Little" Words; of Love and Want; or Why I am a Jew Who Frequently Attends a UCC Church

Hello My Dear One,

It has been awhile since I last wrote, and I apologize for the interruption in correspondence.  Forgive me as well if I write more than usual, because I have left so much unsaid these past days.  I feel as though I have a synaptic sort of gap in my creativity.  The ideas are there, but the ability to communicate them isn't firing correctly.  So, I've tried to bring together as much as I can, yet it's never exactly what I want.  And that's the heart of the matter right there, what I want.  It's true.  I want, I want, I want.  I always want more or less than what I have.  I want more stuff, less stress, more money, less debt.  I want security and safety, and I want excitement and fun.  I want to experience as much as I possibly can, yet I want the predictability and routine that is the backbone of my existence.  I want.

Some months back I spent a night with some dear friends, one old friend, "S"of 25 years, a new friend "T", my best friend my wife, and an old soul friend "IR" whom I have a "casual but deep" relationship with.  IR is a  man who shares a love for Jewish learning and reflection, for relationship with something larger than ourselves, and for serving the world in ways that are truly unexpected.  He is a lay Reb, a one time lawyer, a performer, a writer, a musician, a son, a husband, an uncle, a questioner, and all around mensch.   

That night we had all been together at one of IR's performances in the sleepy little resort town that S and I grew up in.   The show was hysterically funny, ridiculously relevant, and musically phenomenal, but one song in particular has always been a favorite of mine.  It deals with the desire to have, and to be something that will fulfill temporary earthly desire, but will ultimately lead to death when the emptiness of the want is met.  It is also set within a meticulously crafted four part a cappella song, sung by four talented male performers dressed in full drag.  Did I mention that some of my dear friends are enormously talented political satirists who perform biting attacks on current events, the human condition, and the implications of religion upon a theoretically secular world?  Did I mention that they are also known as The Kinsey Sicks?  Well, if I didn't, now you know.  And you should find them online www.kinseysicks.com, on Youtube, or live in concert, and then you should buy every one of their albums and listen to them as many times as you can.  Oh, and remember to buy a t-shirt and a magnet too.

At any rate, the The Kinsey Sicks' song that was performed, "I Want to be a Dead Princess"* was written shortly after the death of Princess Diana.  The song tells of a person's want to be a "dead princess," i.e. revered, cherished, idolized, and perhaps immortalized at the highest peak in their lifetime.  The verses ask for a fame that will encompass the neediness that is eating away at the core of the vocalist(s), while the chorus and the ending repeat the phrase "I want."  And that is the place of pain and brokenness that resonates most deeply for me.

My wants, my desires to be adored, even at the cost of the security of those around me, even my own life, seem to pour out of me when I least expect them.  And as I think about this message of exchanging life for human praise, I am reminded of the daily deaths that we all endure as we suffer injustice, human frailty, and human nature.  We choose to let our emotional and psychological neediness trump the needs of others.  When I buy something I want, something that has no inherent usefulness to my life, be it an original Da Vinci or a plastic thingy from the dollar store, I have made a statement to myself, my neighbors, and my G-d, that my wants are more important than anyone else's needs.  I want.  


As I think about that sentence, those two words, I want, my mind travels to another set of words, those "three little words," "I love you." Those words that can be too quickly blurted out or too infrequently breathed, into the ears and hearts of those around us. "I love you," three little words.  How intriguing it is that we label them as such, little.  There is nothing little about love.  There is nothing little about I, or you, or the relationship we create when those words are spoken.  Think even briefly of Martin Buber's seminal work, "I and Thou."  Yet, somehow we feel pressed to minimize them, their meaning, their value, their vulnerability.  We are afraid of not hearing them back.  We are afraid of what a relationship of love might actually mean.  We make small that which is too big for us to handle.  Much the way we do when we speak of G-d, or the relationships we are called into when we let G-d be within our hearts, our minds, and our souls.  We confine love to create the illusion that we are in control of forces that are uncontrollable.

I believe that this matter of control is a core issue for many people and their relationship with G-d.  It is hard enough to feel accepted by another human being, even one who truly loves and accepts you unconditionally, the way my wife does, let alone with a deity, force, creator, G-d who may be seen as judge, jury, and jailer all in one.  Relationship with G-d requires a level of vulnerability that can be so overwhelming that we never even attempt such a relationship.  Being open to a G-d that has promised to love unconditionally, and to drastically change your life if you are willing, is to strip down to your barest soul and expose the wounds of a lifetime of pain.  Being in relationship with G-d is that process of revealing the brokenness, to G-d and to yourself.  It is also the process of letting go of that pain as we allow G-d to be within the pain.

So, instead of revealing the brokenness and allowing G-d to repair and replace the emptiness of my core self, I attempt to fill the spaces with the things I want on my own.  I seek out that which will temporarily gratify my neediness and my emptiness, giving relief to the pain I cover as I walk through life.  I want. 

And what I really want is a religious community in which to travel this journey with.  Unfortunately I live an hour away from any synagogue, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, "non-denominational" or otherwise, so my need for a physical Jewish community is largely unmet.  Yes, I know and have Jewish friends in the area, yes I have Jewish family members, and yes I celebrate most all of the Jewish holy-days.  But its not the same.  Being a Jew, means being a Jew in community.  As an Eastern European Jew in particular, it means returning to our shtetl our village, to live our faith as a group, most often in conflict with the secular world around us.  It is a culture in unto itself, and it defines a large piece of who we are.  It is about finding solidarity in our otherness especially in comparison to the culture(s) we live in.  It is a community of faith, one that promises that we will be suppoerted in our joys, our triumphs, our disappointments, our sorrows, and our persecutions, both real and imagined.  Community.

But here's the catch, I am in fact a part of a faith community right here where I live, and I have travelled millions of miles with them throughout the past 15 years of my strange and wondrous journey.  And they are not a Jewish community.  Rather, they are self defined as a United Church of Christ, a christian church.  It is a  place where there are weekly explorations of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and his ministry in Israel over 2000 years ago.  Yep, there is a cross on the altar, an enormous stained glass window with a very white looking man with long hair, flowing white robes, and a sheep above the altar.  There is christian iconography throughout the building.  There are excerpts of scripture posted on the walls.  There is a common understanding in the community that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the promised messiah of the Jewish people living in the Promised Land millennia ago.   And yet, they are the faith community that I return to over and over again.

Why?  Because I want the love of my wife, who is truly, and honestly a believing and practicing christian in the UCC.  I was there when she was confirmed as a teen.  I was there as she explored other traditions, but always came back to her roots.  And I  have been there as she has brought our sons into this community, taught them, and raised them with a rock solid foundation of what it means to be a loving, forgiving, and growing person of faith.  She has provided for our family a common faith to live in. 

Why?  Because, we need and want the love that we receive from the people who form this community.  We want to experience the love that we can share as a community.  And I want to be a part of a faith community, even if by definition it is not my own tradition's.  

And why do I frequently attend this UCC Church? Because every Sunday morning as the service begins the following words are spoken:

     "Whoever you are, and wherever you are on life's journey, you are welcome here."

And the most remarkable part is that they do mean it.  There are lakeside residents who belong to synagogues back home, who attend services every summer, sometimes more faithfully than the locals who straggle in only on Christmas and Easter.  There are people who identify in all manner of spiritual ways who attend on any given Sunday morning.  And I am one of them.  I am accepted, exactly for who I am, and for where I am on life's journey. 

And in the end, that's what I really want.  To enter into relationship, to want, to love, and to know that for all the vulnerability I will share with others and with G-d, I will be accepted as I am. 

 Thank you for accepting me as I continue on my journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

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*http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kinseysicks2#