You Don't Have to Die

I read about the suicides this week of Tyler Clementi and Asher Brown in the SF Chronicle, but it took the Larry King Live show this week with Wanda Sykes, Kathy Griffin and Tim Gunn, for me to realize that there had actually been five altogether within a week.

Anytime I hear of a teen suicide, for whatever reason, something inside me rips a little. A girl who thinks she's too fat, or a boy who didn't make the baseball team, takes the final step to end their suffering and never has the chance to experience what could have been.

When I hear about a child who takes his or her own life because they thought that they could not face living as a queer youth, the rip is more like a shred.

Hearing about five similar stories in a short amount of time is beyond painful. Paying attention to each individual story is just too much to bear.

The sad truth however is that although we are fortunate to have a heightened awareness that lgbtq youth still suffer and are more likely to take their own lives because of it, there are thousands more stories that did not make the paper or the media and the real reasons behind the suicide were never explored.

When I was 13, I knew that I found other boys attractive.

One day as a hormone-driven early teen, while looking up any topic that related to sex in the family Encyclopedia Britannica, I found the word "homosexual" and my mind virtually exploded. As I carefully read the words explaining the term, it so deeply resonated that I literally shook. Before that moment, I had no idea that there was a word to describe what I felt.

More importantly though, in that instant, I knew there must be others like me out there.

I did, however, know that I had to hide this reality and that everyone in my little world at the time would view me as horrible and disgusting if they knew. How I knew this, I have no idea since I have no memory of any discussions about gay people prior to that moment.

So, I did what I could to hide this emerging part of me by acting like people wanted me to act. I pretended I liked girls. I attended the fundamentalist church of my parents and I said nothing to anyone. I prayed to God to take these feelings away and to make me "normal". I called my gay self "disgusting" and told him to "shut up" and I was afraid and lonely and frustrated.

Back then, there was no internet. There were no books about it in our local libraries. There were no TV characters or role models.

At 17, I met someone older who told me he loved me.

I fell fast and hard, and I finally understood what my straight friends were talking about when they talked about romance and tingling naughty parts and fireworks.

And then, my parents found out.

After four years of suppressing and hiding and emotionally self-mulitating, I could not hide it any longer so I admitted to them how I felt.

They were not happy. In fact, they were livid. They said things that parents should never say to a child. I remember them like they happened yesterday.

In small fundamentalist Southern towns in the late 1970's, gay people were not welcome. What I had been able to find out about homosexuals at the time was not good. They were mentally ill to many people and sinners to the others. For rednecks, they made good punching bags. For scientists, candidates for "treatment."

For months, my super-religious parents made my life hell. They took away my freedom, removing my driving and phone privileges and blasting me with Bible verses. Anita Bryant, anti-gay crusader of the moment, was on TV regularly, and my mother often turned up the volume loud enough for me to hear every hate-filled word. At breakfast, she would leave readings from her right wing religious propaganda on my plate for me to find when I arrived at the table.

I had no place to go, no one to talk to, and no other options, so I spent many hours locked in my room, so angry and lonely that I begged Jesus to take my life.

After several months, my parents arrived at a possible solution and I was given three choices, namely, to begin meeting with the fundamentalist preacher at the church, to see a mental health professional or to get out of their house.

Because I knew that praying had not been the answer thus far, and I had no resources with which to support myself if I left, I chose the shrink, who after two evaluation sessions, ended up telling my parents that I seemed to be a perfectly well-adjusted gay person. He went on to tell them that if they were having trouble accepting me, they should consider coming in for some sessions.

In the flash of that instant, my life changed.

For the first time in my life, an adult in a position of authority told me that I was ok and that society was the problem.

It was a moment that I will never forget.

Since then, I have spent much of my time trying to live authentically and sorting out the messages in our society that makes sense and those that are based on fear, hatred and evil.

I have learned that being gay does not make you unworthy of love.

Being gay is a normal part of life.

You love better when you love honestly.

The bad times will pass.

There are more of us out there who will understand you and love you and support you.

Do NOT listen to the hate messages from your family, your religious institution or your government. They are wrong and sad and corrupt.

Choose to live and be strong.

You have a choice and you have options.

There will be a day when you look back and be grateful that you survived. I never thought this day would come, but it did and now I am truly free and happy. You can be too.

If you think you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans, and you are alone and afraid, take the first step by calling the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.

There's a whole lot of love out there waiting for you.

Check out my video blog on this topic here.

Done with Politics for a While

Now that Don't Ask Don't Tell has failed to be repealed by the Democratic majority Senate, I have made a decision.

I'm done with politics for the time being. I'm not voting for Democratic candidates, or left leaning independents. I'm not voting for Obama again and I'm not going to help Jerry Brown or Barbara Boxer. Anyone who reads this knows that I won't vote Republican either.

I'm also not donating to political campaigns now as well.

Why? Because I'm tired of politics that don't work. I completely understand the frustration that the Tea Partiers have. They too are disappointed by their elected officials who seem paralyzed to do anything. I don't agree with their solutions, to elect whack jobs who speak loudly and make no specific promises, but equally despise the status quo, just because they can "relate" to them.

No, I'm sick of politicians. I'm really sick of the Democrats and Obama, who could have made this happen. They could have used the force of their influence to push Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both Democrats, to vote for repealing this or face the weight of the Democratic machine helping oust them from important committees or in their next re-election fights.

Obama could have used the power of the bully pulpit instead of Lady Gaga doing it for him.

He could, with the stroke of a pen, order the military to stop enforcing DADT and when the next President comes into office, it would be virtually impossible to start enforcing it again once the military was integrated. He knows this and chooses not to do it.

Now, with mid-term elections happening and likely to go to the Republicans because of Democratic incompetence at getting "on message" or responding to Republican or Tea Party or Fox News distortion, the chance at legal repeal of DADT will be virtually nil. This was the opportunity, with a majority House, majority Senate and Democratic President. AND a recent federal judge declaring it unconstitutional. What better odds?

We have to wait for the issue to worm it's way up to a heavily biased U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays are real Americans or just second class citizens. Imagine that a small group of people that you don't even know gets to decide if you deserve full equal rights in this country. People who were hand picked by Republicans, who will knowingly favor corporations over individuals, because they get money for favoring corporations over individuals.

Democrats, in my opinion, should have seen this coming and done whatever it took to stop the plan of replacing unbiased justices with highly biased ones. Yes, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan have biases- they are humans- but at least they appear to try to interpret the U.S. Constitution in a way that favors American freedoms and not extend them to companies or restrict them from tax-paying, honorable citizens.

So Democrats, so long. Stop calling me for donations. Don't expect my vote for your hand-chosen successor. I left the Democratic party several years ago to become an independent, but like Bernie Sanders, I-VT, I voted for Democratic candidates or issues 95% of the time. Not anymore.

Until you repeal DADT and DOMA, I'm outta here.

And if that means America suffers because the nutjobs take over, then she will have to suffer.

Hello President Palin!!

A Week of Patience

This is a week that I've been dreading.

For more than a few months I find myself challenged, almost daily, by circumstances that are harsh and disorganized. It is hard at this point in my life to be treated so disrespectfully and so crudely. It's compounded by my health challenges that have been surprisingly gentler to handle.

Even though my head tells me that this chaos has little to do with me, because of my conditioning, my first response is always emotional and irrational. Because someone treats me poorly, the reflex is to believe that their treatment is justified. It's hard for me to believe sometimes how people make the decisions that they do, that ultimately are not in their best interests.

I guess what suprises me most is that for most of my career, I have listened to thousands of stories of people who have made choices that weren't in their best interests. And I of course, am also guilty of making choices that came back to bite me.

So, what I don't get is why someone who could use my help right now, chooses to insult me instead. It does not make sense.

I've certainly pondered all the reasons that could explain this scenario. None of them seem rational in the real world. I supposed the most understandable reason is self-preservation in a desperate situation- basic animal survival where you lose your moral compass, but you do what you have to do. There are less kind explanations of this behavior as well but that's not what I choose to think about today.

Today, I need to prepare myself for facing the challenges with grace and dignity. I need to reflect on my strengths and not my weaknesses.

I gained some perspective on recent events last week and although it doesn't change the situation, it did help me understand it better and oddly, give me confidence that I can handle whatever comes.

Writing helps me find my center- helps me find a new angle, perhaps one that reminds me of what is important and what is not.

My plan for the week:

I will focus on helping my clients this week, more than ever.

I will breathe, relax and meditate.

I will pray for the strength and flexibility of a deep-rooted tree in a strong wind.

I will ask for support from the people in my life who show me love.

I will remember the things I know to be true no matter what I hear from those who don't know me.

I will think of the wonderful things in my life and feel gratitude.

I will be patient with others even while they are impatient with me.

And I will rest when the week is done.

A Single Man

Finally, after weeks of the new DVD release of Tom Ford's movie A Single Man arrived from Netflix, we finally had time to sit down and watch it last week.

We knew we wanted to see it when it was in theaters earlier this year, but I wasn't ready emotionally to watch someone going through a grieving process since my plate was pretty full dealing with the surgery and all the layers associated with it.

In a way then, feeling ready to take this movie on is a good sign. I felt strong enough, and I guess safe enough, to watch something that I knew from just the reviews would touch me at some level.

I'm confident given the press about the movie that I'm not being a "spoiler" in describing the basic story, which is essentially about a middle-aged gay man in the 60's who loses his long-time partner early in the film and we spend the rest of the film watching him deal (and not deal) with his deep loss. The film was adapted from the Christopher Isherwood novel by the same name.

Within ten minutes, I was bawling.

To be fair to the readers who haven't seen the movie, I'm going to try to resist the details, but instead I want to share what the movie meant to me in a global sense.

First, on an immediate level, the thought of ever losing Brad is so painful, it's beyond description. It's an ache in the chest that's both gripping and total, that it forces tears to my eyes that just run freely even without sobbing. Literally, like my eyes are spigots that have been turned on and are slowly leaking the pressure from my chest.

I have never seen love between two men expressed so beautifully on screen. The level of mourning he felt paralleled the intensity of the relationship. The lead character's grief has many layers, from the vivid details of intimate moments that symbolized his joy when they were together to the heaviness of getting through another day alone, revealed in his dreams of sinking under water, unable to breathe or escape.

Another theme I strongly related to was the era in which the movie was set. A time when no one recognized or validated gay relationships (or gay people for that matter). The loneliness he must have felt as his best friend in the world, a heterosexual woman, couldn't even fully understand that his love was better than any relationship she'd ever experienced, reminded me of the days from my childhood when I could talk to no one about being gay. I lived in a world, not far from the 60's, where homosexuals were considered mentally ill, deviants, and second class citizens incapable of love and trust and spirituality. I remember the isolation and the condemnation. It has always been in the back of my mind as I grew up and tried to overcome those messages as I reached out for real love and affection.

He is not allowed to grieve openly.

He does not have society's support which is virtually universal when one of a pair of lovers dies.

And as a middle aged man, I so strongly identified with his insecurity about his future.

We see him question the value of continuing. He is certain at first, that the best part of his life is over and that the happiness he's felt for 16 years could never happen again.

But despite the rawness of the emotion and the fears that it evoked, I did not find the movie depressing.

On the contrary, it was an experience that opened me up to gratitude.

We do live in a different era. I am not a little gay boy living in a fundamentalist (Tea Party) world of harsh judgement, anger and hatred.

At 41, as a middle aged gay man, burned out from incomplete relationships and self-doubts, I met someone who loved away my fears and defenses.

At almost 50, my faith in love is powerful and sustaining.

A Single Man has reminded me to be grateful and fully present. I don't want to miss a moment.

I'm Still Here

I have been thinking a lot about blogging.

Missing it...thinking of ideas...meditating on it.

But unfortunately, generally avoiding it.

It's kind of like when you have a really good friend who lives far away and you miss them dearly and really want to catch up, but you avoid calling them because the time is never "exactly right" or you don't want to call because you know you'll end up talking for a super long time.

I feel that way about blogging.

Sometimes I get inspired to write something meaningful based on current events.

Recently for example, I found myself shaking my head at Elizabeth Hasselbeck's disdain for Kathy Griffin and starting to wonder about what makes her type tick. You know, the humorless, ultra conservative, Sarah Palin types of women.

I'm being serious. I think the problem lies in my sort of starry-eyed vision of women being superior to men in many ways. I had this romantic notion of women from the 70's burning bras and marching for rights in order to change the bullshit that men had been putting them through for years. I envision the Gloria Steinems, the Bella Abzugs, Madeleine Albrights and the Hillary Clintons of the world as representative of the entire female population.

It confuses me when I see women who lobby against their own rights. Just like it confuses me to see a gay or African American person in the Republican Party. Let me clarify: an openly gay person in the Republican Party.

And it's more than just the political, it's the personal rage and bitterness that confuses me even more I think.

Yes, I also am confused by men (usually white men) who vote against their own interests out of some warped sense of patriotism or racism or classism or some other "ism".

I honestly do try to understand the anger that people feel and express when they join groups like the "Tea Party" (which doesn't really seem to be "for" anything, just against stuff that makes them upset).

It's not difficult to understand why people might be motivated by fear with an economy in crisis and two wars and terrorism everywhere it seems. I can even understand why watching the culture that you grew up with change might be threatening.

After all, if two men or two women can get married and live happy, productive lives, then maybe you have to question if you're really doing the right thing yourself if you married someone of the opposite sex when you were young because your parents said that's what you were supposed to do.

Not that everyone is a closeted gay mind you (unless you're a GOP politician it seems), but there's probably just enough identity insecurity out there to make fuzzy boundaries seem like the gateway to hell.

Fear and confusion have to land somewhere I guess.

So you're afraid that you're going to lose your house. Your daughter's a lesbian. Your cholesterol is high and your blood sugars are out of control. What do you do?

You watch TV and wait for someone to identify with your insecurities.

Or you go to church where they don't make you actually THINK about these issues.

You just want someone to tell you what to do.

Progressives and most good hearted women and men wouldn't think of telling you what to do or think.

We've all learned that (a) it's not our place to tell someone else what to do and (b) we learned to respect others even if you don't understand them or agree with them (as long as they're not harming someone else). It's the American Way right?

On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there who have decided to ignore (a) and (b), tell others what they SHOULD think and do, and a few even have made a very successful living out of doing so.

Rush Limbaugh was one of the first to figure it out on a massive scale. Just say out loud what frightened, frustrated people are saying to themselves and they'll adore you.

Glen Beck has co-opted the conspiracy theories and invests them with the power of good acting.

Sarah Palin finally addresses the concerns of frightened/pissed off women (and a few horny frightened and pissed off men) who forgot about the Steinem and Abzugs or feel trapped and insecure as America changes.

Entire organizations, some political and some religious, are structured around boosting self-esteem by condemning others (i.e. "I'm better than you so I must be ok").

Some are sincere in their beliefs, not intending to harm others, but gullible enough to follow like sheep.

Others find a way to profit from this ignorant paranoia, stooping to saying almost anything if it raises the ratings or garners publicity.

Kathy Griffin does it when she screams "suck it".

Elizabeth Hasselbeck does it when she screams "scum".

Meg Whitman seems like an angry woman who will say anything to get elected.

I take a deep breath and remember the majority of powerful women in my life who are sane.

Thanks y'all.

Achieving the Here and Now

Although I've been an avid student of various theologies over the years, it was only about four years ago that Brad and I took a six week course together on mindfulness meditation at Sequoia Hospital.

Everything I knew about meditation and Buddhism came from my readings and discussion (and one gay Buddhist sangha meeting I attended 12 years ago).

There are so many things that are attractive about Buddhist thought to me from the emphasis on acceptance of things as they are to the active practice of detachment from things that may cause suffering.

I am especially drawn to the idea that loss is inevitable, and becoming excessively attached to our things, our ideas and even our self, will lead to more suffering. Walking the middle ground between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-punishment is a worthy goal achieved through the practice of nirodha, which is essentially learning to become dispassionate about things that lead to suffering. With much practice, Buddhists believe that you can ultimately achieve nirvana, which is a state of freedom from worry, troubles, ideas and fabrications.

Coming from a fundamentalist Christian background, it has not been easy for me to comprehend a world without right or wrong, judgment and penalty.

In my upbringing, there was an ultimate truth and there was no middle ground.

It was only when I left the household I grew up in, and made my way to college, was I exposed to other ways of thinking and believing.

This, of course, is the very reason that education and intellect is so frightening to evangelicals in my opinion. Maintaining control is much more difficult when you allow freedom of perspective.

In his extraordinary book, Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl, a Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist described his internment at Theresienstadt and the development of his existential theories of mental health and suffering (called Logotherapy). One crucial concept that he vividly illustrated was his realization that no matter what the Nazis took from him- whether his belongings, his family or even his life- what they could not take from him was his ability to view the situation however he chose.

This was a powerful point for me, that I believe has underscored much of my own search for meaning in the events that occur in my life.

Dr. Frankl helped me see that I am in control of my suffering and my pain.

And meditation offers me a specific path to achieve less suffering with the caveat that I must practice.

Interestingly, my family would be quite threatened by my exploration of thinking that is outside of their box. Leaving the box would mean abandoning the safety that comes with having all the answers in black and white and facing the potentially frightening shades of gray that fall in between. Maybe it's just me, but I see more compatibility between the words and actions of Christ and Buddhist thinking than I do between the actual examples of Christ and modern day fundamentalist evangelism.

I realize that I have been avoiding meditation because at some level, I must be avoiding the gray areas too.

In my case, I think those gray areas include the feelings that I would rather not feel, which in all likelihood blossom from thoughts that I have become too attached to.

My anger/fears/sadness arise only from thoughts.

Living in the moment seems like a nice alternative.

Stillness is Hard

I find myself with more time than I can fill these days.

It is an odd place, not one that I am used to.

Even after my surgery, I filled my time with healing, or resting. And resting is doing something I realize because now, I'm not resting, nor do I need it.

Usually, I am a busy person. Except for two short periods of time, I'm worked fulltime, usually had at least something else on the side to do like teaching or writing. Before I met Brad, I was into training for marathons, playing softball on weekends and Match.com dating.

With my ex, at one point, I was working three jobs and writing my first book on chronic pain.

Now, it seems that the stars have aligned to give me pause.

As I begin to start my private practice, I find that I have large gaps of time in my day.

It is uncomfortable to be "not busy". I realize that I have had a motor inside that pushes me to go go go. Find something to do. Don't sit still. Sitting still is lazy. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

But busy work for the sake of business doesn't interest me right now.

Organizing my closet would be productive, but ultimately not satisfying.

Surfing the net has lost it's glamour.

So I'm wondering if the natural next step is to try to be in the quiet.

I am curious and frightened by the silence, the unknown.

Will I like it? hate it? Can I get over the need to keep moving, challenging? Today, I spent a few seconds doing nothing. It was ok. It didn't kill me.

I have been saying that I will start meditating this year. I have been avoiding it for some reason.

Life is giving me this opportunity.

This week, I will give it a chance.