What It's Like To Be Home And Trans

Kurt Vonnegut once said, "Pictures are known not for their pictureness, but for their humanness."

The same can be said of mirrors. What I would give to see myself as a potential contender for the Fairest, a resident of the land instead of this amnesic state. I have forgotten all too quickly the coordinates of the embassy that we carry inside of us as an indication that second class citizens are not exceptions to humankind-they are inexcusable.

This happens every time I come home after being away for several months. I forget what I have learned at Rutgers about self-love until I am looking upon myself with the unaccustomed eyes of a layperson. The mirror occurs and I am affronted by a face made of fingerprints-no one has ever seen anything like it before and no one ever will again.

The formal term is freak.

My mother is my mirror-a hybrid of blank slate, acclimation, and ugliness. Her disapproving glare is like lightning that splits everything around it into a before and an after, into a dark past and an endless attempt at reconciliation. Whatever signs of long overdue acceptance she displays when I first arrive home are imbued with brevity, the kind that makes a bride last for but a day. Love of a child is not enough to impel her to enter the inverted world that hovers above a puddle, to liquidate her highly coveted way of viewing the world, to convert her contempt into its antithesis, to be a mother instead of an oxidizing agent adding fuel to a fire.

As we are driving in the car on the way to my grandfather's house, she says, as a way of holding my minor infractions against me, "You think I'm going to treat you like a boy? You have another thing coming." This comment takes me aback, as she has been referring to me as “Jordan” for days and making legitimate attempts to correct herself when she uses the wrong pronoun.

At my grandpa's house, she thinks nothing of having an open and frank conversation about my body parts and medical care related to my transition not only in my presence, but without my permission and as if I am not in the room.

The burden is on me to remove my person rather than on her to avert her gaze. This is because she is the primary source of perception and I am the reflection on the surface.

Mirror that she is, she makes my most salient feature my comorbidity, until layer after layer of flaws are wrapped around me like a cobra. She cuts off my circulation with the hysterical stridency that she uses to string together insults. Her esophagus has the wing span of a gargoyle as she screams obscenities so loudly that I can hear them through the front door of the house and from halfway down the driveway.

I understand now what it means to be a source of shame, a plague that has descended upon the family and defied their expectations of what it would be like to raise a child. I must bear the dishonor of waking up one day and realizing that I am loved in spite of who I am rather than because of it. When my parents speak of their child's accomplishments, it will be with affection that is soft and fuzzy, diluted by the anesthetic that dishonor draws up. As a drunk mind speaks sober thoughts, my mother in her endless slew of angry moments participates in the form of Truth. Her sentiments are distilled in a stream of consciousness, ostensibly unedited-and that is why I trust them, sadly.

But I must choose to be uncensored, too. It would be easy to go through life surviving, to be moderate, to speak in morse code, to reiterate what she says to me in a manner that is simple and to the point. It would be easy to communicate with enough marks to recreate the moment, and nothing more, to be detached and do only what I need to get by.

Instead, I must relearn the language that has been handed down to me. But being self taught requires enduring the turbulence associated with taking back the words that have been used to demean you. The reclamatory sense is more heightened than that of sight or sound. It is painful and amplified, but that is why our experiences can be used to create an even better masterpiece than can paint and pencils and instruments alone.

As Jean Paul Sartre would say, "Suffering is justified as soon as it becomes the raw material of beauty.." It is not easy to take a pastel to the precipitation and describe in every detail this vicious, relentless struggle with the pretty terminology that we use to classify the rain cycle, and yet we must. For although it is inexorable that the storms and the preceding calms we allude to will make cynics out of us, at least through the effort to allude at all can sorrow manifest itself as something that is more than a coincidence.

And so, I vow to paint pictures that are more than pictures. When I speak, it will not be for aesthetic purposes. When I speak, it will be my way of suing for all of the lost time due to transphobic comments and the disparaging parts of speech that she utters on a daily basis. It will be for, not eviscerating the bond between mother and child, but avenging the fact that it has to be there at all. My accounts will be full of eidetic imagery but also novel meaning that wasn't initially there. It is time to take back what is mine.

She should be the one living vicariously through me, but it is actually the other way around. It is I who is living through her. I see myself as she sees me, as her friends and colleagues must see me, as her family members must learn to. I understand what it is like to be them. It is the type of person that I was before I grew up and learned to think for myself, when ideas were handed down to me with antecedents and sacrifices made on my behalf.

It is like childhood, the lives that she and people like her lead. They are innocent and that is why they are troublemakers. Their ideals are less damaging than mine, less threatening to the stability of the world as we know it, while I disrupt the balance between all beings like ideas that were first espoused in the 1800's and the world hasn't been the same since. I am the hair that is let down, the corsets that are loosened, and the morals that follow suit. I am the bathtub gin that launched a thousand court dates. I am the conscientious objectors and the interracial couples. I am everything that was once an abomination. But always, always am I on the desirable side of the bell curve.


I have no need to do anything spectacular with my life. My only aim is to see something I can be proud of when I look into a mirror-when I look into my mother's eyes.

But this doesn't require winning her approval. What it means is that I can use her criticism constructively. I do not have to elicit her praise when I can use her as a source of inspiration instead. Her failed attempt at parenthood will be the victory that I gain on behalf of an entire community. It is in this manner that my appearance will no longer be an aberration. In fact, it might even be beautiful.

It is not an accident that portraits are one of the most popular forms of art, and that after that comes depictions of war. It is as if the capacity for violence is associated with looking at ourselves.

"Pictures are known not for their pictureness, but for their humanness."

So is hell.

Will The Real OCD, Please Stand Up?

Our vernacular conception of obsessive compulsive disorder is disgustingly divorced from the formal DSM-IV criteria. Lay people have somehow managed to reduce the archetypal OCD sufferer to a hygiene freak whose preoccupation with preventing contamination is a mere embellishment of Western society's increasingly meticulous sanitary movement.

This stereotypical portrayal of OCD diminishes it to a desire for sterility. Nothing could be further from the truth. OCD is not synonymous with germ phobia in any way, shape, or form. Furthermore, this behaviorist approach, which singles out merely one of myriad compulsions that may be presented, illustrates OCD as an overly simplified stimulus-response relationship that is exhibited when the individual encounters a manifestation of the universe that does not resonate with his or her immaculate expectations. This representation of OCD completely ignores the profound internal mental events that define the disorder.

What I find disconcerting is that even the DSM-IV criteria does not, in my opinion, accurately depict what constitutes a case of severe OCD. It is due to this very reason that it took me seven years to figure out just what the fuck was wrong with me, in spite of having consumed a deluge of empirical and anecdotal literature regarding psychopathology, receiving an associate's degree in psychology, seeing four therapists, and possessing the vast wealth of knowledge concerning the symptomatology, behavioral markers, and biological etiology of mental illnesses that are conducive to keen diagnostic skills. However, even the OCD inventories that are generated by mainstream psychological organizations do not even begin to capture the complexity and hallmark features of OCD, especially in its more severe forms. Consequently, the diagnosis evaded me for years.

Hence, I am going to propose a new way of understanding OCD. It involves acknowledging the remarkable amount of commonality between OCD and schizophrenia. "Although OCD and schizophrenia are distinct diagnostic entities, there is considerable overlap between the two disorders in terms of clinical characteristics, brain areas that are affected and pharmacotherapy" (Price, 2005). Indeed, the co-morbidity between schizophrenia and OCD is high. Studies have directly compared their clinical features. In fact, clinicians are frequently hindered by the difficulty in differentiating between the two.

While more enlightened sources devote a considerable amount of time to further addressing the psychotic component of OCD, most general clinicians don't even come close to tapping the surface of what OCD is really about. I firmly believe that if we analyze OCD in conjunction with its close cousin, schizophrenia, we can elucidate an essential understanding of the suffering endured by people with the disorder that would otherwise be impenetrable. My aim is to elicit compassion and support for people whose struggle is compounded by the trivialization and ignorant attitudes that undermine the disorder known as OCD.

Let us proceed with the comparison.

At the heart of the two disorders lies a gargantuan disturbance of thought. In the case of schizophrenia, this disturbance is often marked by the improper sensory perception that is characteristic of hallucinations, including (but not limited to) auditory and visual distortions. However, in the case of OCD, it is not incorrect information about the external world that is being imposed upon the sufferer. Rather, the individual is beleaguered by recurrent and relentless intrusive thoughts that materialize of their own accord, injected by a foreign jurisdiction rather than having been conjured up by one's conscious volition.

These internal mental events arise spontaneously, like pop-up ads, and are completely unresponsive to suppression efforts. Agency is usurped entirely-while you are at it, suspend the idea of agency entirely- as the individual is forced to share a space in his or her head with a volcano that erupts content of a disturbing and bizarre nature. It is as though a presence has been implanted in one's skull, and the intensity with which this presence asserts itself warrants the status of personhood. Think of the movie Inception, when the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio literally plants an idea in his wife's head, and the consequences of its germination are entirely out of her control. These thoughts serve the foundation for beliefs that, though they are false, are tenaciously held and against all resistance to modify them.

In an individual with schizophrenia, these unshakable beliefs are called "delusions." In an individual with OCD, they are called "obsessions." The nomenclature might differ, but both are characterized by a deeply held conviction that does not have a basis in reality.

The crucial distinction between the presentation of delusions in an individual with OCD and an individual with schizophrenia is that the OCD sufferer exhibits a degree of insight into the validity of their beliefs. That is, he or she is aware that their version of reality is twisted and warped. This lucidity adds an additional layer of horror as mutilated mental processes unfold. One reality is not being substituted for another. Rather, one reality is being supplemented by another. The individual's mind is superimposed by a lens that adds an additional element and another shade of meaning to one's existence.

In the grips of stress, this introspective advantage is lost, and the OCD sufferer operates, on an emotional level, as if they are absolutely convinced that their delusions are derived from a credible source. Hence, during these moments, the veil between firm ground and fantasy adopts a transparency that, for all intents and purposes, imbues falsehood with fact. For the time being, the delusions might as well be true.

The presentation of OCD and schizophrenia share a cognitive appraisal of the external world that has no basis in reality, and this appraisal is accompanied by persecutory themes and emotional components such as intense paranoia. Hallucinations are absent from OCD. Hence, the convergence lies in the misinterpretation of other peoples' intentions, as opposed to the insertion of erroneous sensory phenomena. It is almost analogous to intercepting and subsequently damaging the delicate genetic code that comprises DNA before it can be translated into the amino acids that serve as our biological framework. The entire meaning can become demented not by adding anything new, but by altering in some way what is already there. During severe episodes, namely ones exacerbated by stress and the deprivation of basic biological needs such as sleep, the OCD sufferer can experience episodes of paranoia that resemble a marijuana induced high in which the smoker "bugs out" and lapses into psychosis.

The individual with OCD is convinced that everyone is out to get them. For example, the obscure whispering of complete strangers across a room might be interpreted as negative commentary about the individual, tainted with a malice so incessant that it interferes with any and all attempts to supersede it. A crowded dining hall might prompt a magnetism that directs the eyes of everyone in the entire arena towards the individual. Casual glances of acknowledgement as people enter each others' realm of vision are converted into harsh glares and stares laden with daggers. A public space filled with random bouts of laughter is transformed into an orchestrated effort to destroy the individual with taunts.

The emphasis here should be placed on the judgement of others as it pertains to the individual, precisely because it pertains to the individual. This mindset arises not out of narcissism, but due to a deeply rooted self-directed enmity that results in an affinity for incorporating every surrounding stimuli, no matter how irrelevant, into a grand scheme to achieve self-deprecation at every turn.

Next, we will consider the OCD obsessions that are concerned with classic self-loathing. Again, keep in mind that the OCD sufferer is sharing a space in his or her head with a vicious presence that feeds him or her bellicose criticism all day long regarding every detail of their existence, and that the mercilessness with which this presence asserts itself is equivalent to a draconian, drug induced commander. To the OCD sufferer, every aspect of the self becomes a source of vicious scrutiny. One's gait might be perceived as incredibly stupid. The angle at which one moves his or her arm is a monstrosity. The inflection of one's voice mid-sentence makes one deserving of an execution. Like a topographical map, every perceived slight becomes an additional layer of imperfection, until the intellect of the OCD sufferer has constructed an atmosphere pervaded by inadequacy.

Sometimes, obsessions take the form of repetitive and morbid images. These extremely distressing and disturbing images, often involving themes of death, violence, and suicide, are completely unwarranted and erupt without the slightest provocation. While most people entertain dark notions from time to time, in the case of OCD, these obsessions can occur thousands of times a day. Additionally, it should be noted that these thoughts are entirely unwanted. To the OCD sufferer, it feels as though the spatter of a malevolent artery has extravasated into the compartment of the body that harbors their character. They mistakenly conclude that they have gruesome personalities. They take responsibility for their intrusive thoughts, an impossible feat for a human being, and grow terrified when they try to attribute meaning to these unwanted appearances.

It is worth clarifying that these images are not hallucinations. Rather, the OCD sufferer is forced to confront scenario after scenario in which the darkest elements of human existence are considered as a not so distant possibility. The vicious presence mentioned before taps into the primordial depths of one's deepest fears and exploits them.

Most importantly, it must be noted that the overwhelming majority of those afflicted by these thoughts, while terrified that their true desires are being represented, are so deeply disconcerted by these shocking images precisely because their disposition directly opposes that which is being presented to them. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of people with OCD never inflict acts of violence upon others. Quite the contrary, the afflicted individual often retreats into isolation and secrecy, a perpetuating behavior that further plunges him or her into a steepened state of despair.

Again, the emphasis should be placed on the prevalence of these thought processes. OCD is as debilitating as it is due to its exhausting stamina. Dozens of these thoughts are fired per second so that it is impossible for the individual to experience any semblance of respite. During a severe episode, these thoughts can cycle rapidly, as often as every second of every day. Additionally, it is important to note that the language used by this negative presence is ruthless, unforgivable, and asserts itself in no uncertain terms. The constant state of autonomic arousal that ensues in response to this intensity escalates into panic attacks, as the OCD sufferer is plagued by the calamitous effects of extreme anxiety. It is not uncommon for people with OCD to experience numerous panic attacks during any given week.

At this juncture, I would like to make an analogy that compares OCD and schizophrenia. I do this so that people with OCD might inherit some of the solicitousness that is reserved for those who suffer from a purely biological phenomenon. At this point, I think it is safe to assume that most (educated) people will not condescend to telling someone with schizophrenia, "Just don't think about it," or "Try your hardest not to let it bother you," or "You can ignore it if you really make an effort to do so." It would be silly to say any of these things to someone with schizophrenia. Neuroscientists, geneticists, and other relevant researchers have pinpointed a plethora of biological factors and neural circuits that are present in someone who is experiencing schizophrenia. It has been widely accepted in modern psychopathology that schizophrenia is a neurodegenerative disease, much like Alzheimer's.

Schizophrenia is the sole mental illness that has been observed across all cultures and during all points in history. This strongly suggests that schizophrenia is not influenced by social factors. Interestingly, reviewed studies from a diverse array of nationalities yields the insight that OCD also looks remarkably similar across cultures.

At the present time, I will not discuss the implications of an overactive orbital frontal cortex, abnormal brain cells in the basal ganglia, or insufficient levels of serotonin. Just take my word for it that OCD is biological as fuck.

The analogy that I would like to make alludes to the fact that the brain runs on electricity. Schizophrenia involves a total degeneration of the neural circuits that facilitate full blown visual and auditory disturbances. In the case of OCD, it might be useful to imagine a light bulb on a sign at a store that needs to be changed so that it flickers constantly, and every time it flickers on or off, images of death and irrational thoughts pop into the head, every second, all day, every day.

These obsessions, as they are described above, serve as the foundation for the emergence of compulsions, designated as such because they signify a mental mandate to behave a certain way, no matter how greatly this behavior may serve as an affront to the individual's conscious wishes. Compulsions emerge in an attempt to assuage the smothering din emanating from the obsessions, and because their function serves the purpose of dispelling potent fears and sources of disquietude, engaging in them is part of a contractual agreement. There is no backing out.

Compulsions are not habits. They are an army of addictions. Imagine not one alcoholic occurring within the same body, but countless alcoholics. A continent of alcoholics.

Compulsions can take many forms, and in some cases, one individual can exhibit dozens of them. Compulsions can mean having to breathe a certain way, such that the lungs expand the same width every time. Sentences might need to be read such that an equal allocation of time is devoted to every word. Sufferers might need to engage in activities for certain periods of time, if specific numbers have been deemed as "wrong" or "unsafe." For example, studying for a number of hours that does not end in a quarterly denomination can prompt an individual to believe that he or she is a failure in school. A person with OCD might need to check things, such as outlets, alarm clocks, and windows, as often as several dozen times. He or she may feel that surfaces touched with one hand need to be touched with the other while exerting the same amount of pressure delegated by the initial hand. Movements implemented on one side of the body may be met with the demand for exact replications of that same movement on the other side.

In some cases of OCD, self-injury develops in response to the need for symmetry and "balancing things out." Cutting and burning become motor outlets in addition to actions that signify self-loathing due to an inability to meet the incessant demands of one's mind. The very act of speaking can become a breeding ground for nervous breakdowns as the OCD sufferer scrupulously scans every possible vocabulary choice for imperfection and every potential word pairing for error until it becomes impossible to string together coherent sentences. To the OCD sufferer, it is better to remain silent than to utter a sound that can even remotely be construed as stupid.
Deviating from these irresistible rituals produces agonizing results. Violating the compulsory attendance statute devised by one's impossible expectations leads to utter despondency.

The interfering nature of compulsions with everyday activity and the associated anxiety and depression can lead to a total decomposition in functioning and prevent the OCD sufferer from meeting his or her basic needs, such as sleeping and eating.

The obsession-compulsion cycle takes place all day, every day. It does not cede itself to evenings, holidays, or second hands. It is unfolding during every wrinkle of time. Someone who has OCD may be consumed literally every second of their life by obsessions and compulsions. This is why OCD is one of the most incapacitating mental disorders, and is often met with treatment resistance.

So next time you go to make a joke about having OCD, please, refrain. Chances are, you don't actually have OCD, and your facetious remark is only serving to disconnect somebody who actually does.

Blindness and Homosexuality: What Can We Learn From This Fascinating Combination?

Today, my cognitive psychology teacher showed us a video about the phenomenon known as blindsight, or the ability of people who cannot consciously process visual information due to lesions in their primary visual cortex to respond to this stimulus, in spite of the fact that they cannot actually see it. Studies demonstrating the accuracy with which blind people can detect movement and discriminate amongst visual stimuli have yielded the insight that our behavior is guided by sensory information that is acquired without our explicit awareness.

How is it possible to perceive the world around us in spite of cortical blindness?

Human beings have two separate visual systems concerned with different aspects of vision. The first one allows us to "see." Its pathway involves more sophisticated and higher brain structures, such as the visual cortex. Within the context of an evolutionary timeline, this system has emerged relatively recently. The other system is phylogenetically ancient, and resides in the parts of the brain that we share with reptiles, rodents, birds, and other mammals. It relays information from the brain stem, a primitive structure native to all vertebrate. Reflexive behavior and directing eye movements are some functions of this older visual pathway.

Immediately, this video directed my thoughts to an internet article I encountered a year earlier that is authored by a blind man who also happens to be gay. I had conducted a Google search for "blind and gay" because I reasoned that the presence of gays in the blind community would largely refute the arguments that homosexuality is learned. After all, many of the models concerning observational learning, such as the one proposed by Albert Bandura, are primarily sight-oriented, and do not take into account how the visually impaired pick up on social cues and grow acclimated to gender roles.

I was fascinated, and still am, by the accounts of people who have been blind since birth and were aware of their same-sex attraction at an early age. Even with no conception of visual attraction, they report a romantic and sexual affinity for the voice and touch of members of the same sex. They develop an attraction towards one sex, but not the other.

One gay and blind man asserts that when he was as young as eight, he experienced strong feelings when hugging other boys that he did not experience when hugging other girls. By the time he attended college, he knew with certainty that he was gay, but was terrified of inquiring about the gay community due to the fear that the social difficulties he faced as a result of being blind would be compounded by an additional deviance from the "norm." (Those who maintain that being gay is a choice should seriously question why anyone who self-reports a significant amount of psychological distress due to an unfair social stigma would deliberately subject themselves to inheriting more animosity.)

As is the case with transgender individuals, we have another valuable, yet untapped, population, the empirical study of which contains the potential to fully understand the astonishingly rich enigma that is sexuality (and, in the case of the former, gender identity).

To what extent is the sexual and romantic experience of the visually impaired influenced by tactile sensation, sound, and the release of chemicals such as pheromones?

Is there a biological hardwiring or genetic predisposition to developing strong feelings of attraction for the same sex, and if this drive is innate, then does it require sensory cues, or is it merely amplified by them?

Are there differences in the incidence of homosexuality amongst people who are blind due to lesions in their primary visual cortex as opposed to people who have sustained damage in other parts of their brain, more specifically, the older visual system? Does this primitive visual system still detect distinctions between the motions and mannerisms of men and women?

The answers are right in front of us! The search for biological etiologies of homosexuality should include studies of people who are both blind and gay. There is so much insight to be generated! Why does this topic have such a scant presence in scientific literature?

Being openly trans v. being stealth: the continuing debate

To what do I owe a continuing stake in a crusade that makes my own happiness less pertinent?

By what passion, what permanent interest, is the beloved observance of my formative experiences actuated?

How palpable is the public good that I should grow unduly attached to a cause that dispenses nothing but incomprehensibility in my presence?

How consistently must I assert these concepts that alienate me before my accrued rights sustain the injuries of my accrued debts?

When will the hours that I pour into advocacy and the animosity that I inherit be consonant to a pronounced respect for people like me?

I just want to retreat into my intellectual cabin, study people as though they are things, be left alone, and secure the testimony of autumn that time obliterates rather than heals that which was not maladious to begin with.

I want to file away the scandals, the scrutiny, and the ease with which the presupposition makes it more probable that I will feel oppressed.

I want to burn my driver's license and deposit the ashes in a Swiss bank so that they will be insulated from the light of day, from the pressure to reciprocate support for a past that serves as an impediment.

Is it possible to compose enlightened views from the incubator of neutrality? Is it possible to elicit support and kindle sympathy for who I am without disclosing who I used to be?

I wish I had answers instead of pain.

Should I start over completely at Rutgers by leaving my past behind forever?

I always thought that I would go back into a burning building to retrieve my antecedents as though they were a friend under extreme duress.

I thought that I would be capable of wearing my past on my sleeve.

I thought that I was ready to be a pioneer instead of a person.

I was convinced, mistakenly, that as long as some unsubstantiated trans kid in Uganda got his wings every time a gay person I met at a pride event asked me intrusive questions about what's in my pants or felt entitled to know what surgeries I have had, that I could derive an iota of satisfaction from my transparency in spite of the humiliation and discomfort that it facilitated.

A sense of purpose and a commitment to promoting the visibility of a vastly underrepresented population has beleaguered me with a balancing act that I cannot reconcile.

I write this from a musky basement littered with embarrassment in the form of clothing that has not felt mammalian warmth in over a year and a half. I'm leaning on a pillow made of garbage bags filled with bra imbued tank tops that were stitched together to accommodate bits of matter that I seek to destroy, in spite of the ineptitude of our universe at doing so.

Curse the conservation law. I want so badly to forget that I was born in a female body. It's so fucking painful.

The solicitous inquiry about my transition provokes unwanted memories. It embellishes an opening that has already been antagonized by birth, a void that grows more evocative every time I am lured into a dark cave full of reckless inquiries and drinks laced with determinism.

I thought that I could perceive my past as a legacy rather than a liability. Instead, I want to write myself out of my own history the way that autumn omits the foliage from the trees.

How many calendars would I have to rewrite in order to account for the discrepancies that would undoubtedly come up in future conversations? Must I deprive myself of hundreds of Facebook posts, a lifetime of wisdom acquired through the lens of lashes that were often lengthened, even my fucking Bat Mitzvah? Must I go so far as to invent a twin sister to rationalize the contents of a thousand photos, only to kill her off so as to put her sudden disappearance from my life in context?

Though this task seems daunting, it is one that I seriously entertain.

For while I am incapable of establishing a meaningful friendship with someone who doesn't know what I have been through, I can't bear the thought of one insidious detail compromising their conception of me early on, or ever.

So long as I draw upon my experiences as a trans person for educational purposes, I will continue to be my own worst enemy. I undermine my own masculinity by divulging these flagrant sources of comparison for all the world to see. Interesting and statistically rare as these reference points might be, they conjure to the forefront of my mind stabs of remorse for having drawn attention to them at all.

I don't want a Sabbatical. I want a sunset.

I want the past to die. I want to introduce myself with a display of blood that will never be blue again. I want rigor mortis to take my memories away, to absorb sound waves that I now find staggering to interpret and egregious in the damage that they inflict upon my newly resolved sanity.

I stupidly thought that embracing this magnanimous resolution to educate and reform by living my life as openly as possible would serve as a source of strength. Instead, I find that any vestige of my former self weakens me.

It's sad because...I never thought that I would fight so vehemently to come out of one closet, only to trade it for another.

The Transgender Individual Can Fuel Cutting Edge Scientific Research

We are the cornerstone of any meaningful debate that strives to establish if greatness is made or if greatness is born.

The transgender body, ostensibly born as one sex while endowed with the invitation to someday decompose as another, offers more answers about human nature than the armamentarium of Abrahamic religion and the typewriter, or rather, wax tablet, of Dr. Phil and others whose brains manufacture oatmeal instead of grey matter.

I want to take a moment to separate the sigmas and epsilons of my predecessors from the "P's" and "Q's," and still, to eradicate the politically correct jargon-fuck of an alphabet soup that the LGBT acronym has become so that we can have a scientific conversation about gender identity, one that highlights the assets of the transgender individual and the wisdom embodied by those who have lived as both sexes. From a scientific standpoint, transition is a powerful vehicle for significant physiological change, a lightening bolt that sifts through the sky and splits everything around it into a before and an after.

My chemical transition has facilitated so many personal changes that for the purpose of brevity, I cannot even begin to list them.

Prior to taking testosterone, while my true interests, moods, aggression levels, and sex drive fell within the range of what would be considered male typical, these traits still developed against the backdrop of a female physiology. All of my organs and neural circuitry were bathed in the same currents that flowed through Cleopatra.

While I identified fully as a man, I sought to isolate my more feminine traits and accommodate their presence by rejecting the dichotomous gender model that contemporary society subscribes to. And while I fully embrace the beauty of gender variance and defend the existence of a gender continuum, I am compelled to report that since taking testosterone, I am more inclined to incorporate those feminine traits into a patriarchal umbrella that engulfs these attributes rather than ostracizes them from the shadow's reach. That is, the male chemical has catalyzed the development of my true self by substituting masculinized equivalents for female traits.

I used to think that emotions were basic, primal, and universal. The old me would have asserted that, indeed, tears blur the lines of gender into pastel shades. People cried in varying degrees, I thought, with parts of them that are male, and parts of them that are female. To harbor a mix of male and female attributes, I maintained, was to be extricated from the casket nailed shut by gender conformity. And sorrow was a gourmet tea, rich with herbs and other halves.

The dramatic revisions that have been made to my body as well as my emotional faculties serve as a reminder that this is not the case, and that the read-only biological template sponsored by liberals and progressives alike is, ironically, as backwards as whatever word processing technology Bill O'Reilley might be employing these days.

The paucity of mere references to the transgender individual in contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research is alarming. Note the vivacity with which such an individual opposes the assignment of a biological sex at birth and the degree to which he or she feels as though their autonomy has rudely been imposed upon. Like a recalcitrant state, he or she rebels against an authority that has been instituted among men, presumably cisgendered men, and consequently, is not equipped to infer the grievances of the incongruous.

This internal struggle strongly suggests that men and women are inherently different. If these differences were not so salient, then the horror elicited by being born in the wrong body would not be analogous to sustaining some awful birth defect.

Thus, the transgender struggle heavily insinuates that society must altogether scrap this politically correct facade and understand that diversity is not to be equated with deficiencies. It is impossible to ignore the gender differences that have been elucidated by discoveries made in the fields of neuroscience, genetics, and general biology. Inherent biological differences between the sexes need not be equated with inferiority. In fact, basic evolutionary theory recognizes that variety is an advantage for any species, as genetic diversity ensures adaptability in the face of environmental change. Thus, specialization should be seen as a strength, not a flaw.

Any researcher concerned with the study of gender needs to step away from the drama and painfully contrived theories generated by the Real Housewives of Social Psychology.

Consider, for a moment, a biological approach to gender, one that gives rise to an appreciation of physiological differences between cisgendered men and women.

For example, sex differences in the anatomy of the eye suggest that boys are prewired to be interested in motion and girls are prewired to be interested in faces. This explanation is conducive to the results of one experiment in which male babies fresh from the delivery room were more than twice as likely to look at a dangling mobile, while female babies were more likely to look at a young women smiling at them.

The retinas of almost every male animal are significantly thicker than those of their female counterparts because they contain a much higher concentration of "M" (magnocellular) cells, which receive input from the color-blind rods and detect motion. On the contrary, female retinas are dominated by "P" (parvocellular) cells, which receive input from photosensitive cones and detect information about texture and color. They are more involved in object identification than "M" cells. At very young ages, even before they have any conception of gender, girls prefer dolls and boys prefer trucks or cars. When they reach school age, cisgendered girls tend to draw people and use warm colors in their pictures. Cisgendered boys tend to portray verbs, such as vehicles in motion, and use very little color.

I have come across dozens of experiments that aim to uncover discrepancies between the genders. But in all of my reading, I have yet to encounter one thinker who has espoused the revelation I have had in regards to the transgender individual and empirical design.

The transgender individual that resorts to chemical means in order to transition is a researcher's dream. I will tell you right now that hormones affect everything.

Absolutely everything. Aside from total fat redistribution, voice deepening, increase in muscle mass, and the masculinization of my figure as well as my face, the manner in which I experience and express emotion has shifted markedly. I will assert that the addition of these new dimensions to my character can unquestionably be attributed to testosterone.

Clearly, we can learn a shitload about gender by studying a transgender person during the course of his or her chemical transition. But what I want the scientific community to realize is that transgender people offer an incredibly rare and invaluable opportunity to learn about gender differences through the lens of the ideal experiment.

Many researchers employ the within-subjects design because it offers fundamental advantages. In this type of experiment, the same subject is exposed to more than one treatment. In this case, we would administer brain scans, surveys, and standardized tests aimed at capturing the cognitive and emotional performance of an individual before, during, and after he or she undergoes hormonal therapy. Using the same subjects for each condition reduces the variance associated with individual differences in intelligence, genetic makeup, environmental influences, diet, sleeping schedule, and any other confounding variable imaginable. It also reduces the probability of beta error and increases statistical power by increasing the number of subjects than would be used in other experimental designs.

Unlike every other study about gender, this one would feature participants that have each been exposed to both conditions: pre-transition and post-transition. One sex before, one sex after. Because every other biological and environmental factor is being held constant, all subsequent changes in physiology, personality, and emotion can be attributed to the only variable that is being manipulated: the dominant hormone that is circulating throughout one's body.

Oh, just think of the untapped potential that an entire population has to offer! Isn't it monstrous that, rather than appreciate the invaluable contributions that transgender people can make to scientific and psychological literature, we segregate them inside a "greater-than" inequality on a pie chart representing unemployment and discrimination rates?

In addition to wondering why some cartoon women have coniferous boobs, I beg the question as to how the scientific community has not yet realized our value as living, exquisite experimental designs?

Transgender people don't simply represent the next frontier in civil rights. They represent cutting edge research endeavors in a range of scientific fields. In a country where injustice is as incontrovertible as Independence Day, the fireworks that we throw in peoples' faces need to be put to better use. I will not be placated by playing dress up. I am going to initiate something that is even stronger than political change; I am going to study the body, the most potent of social constituents, and publish my findings through an enriched understanding of the human race. In a culture where we are told that attitude is everything, I WILL squint, not with the eyes of an optimist, but with those of a scientist, until wish bones snap into a size that is favorable to me.

It is time to show some fucking respect for the transgender individual.

Examining The "Affordable Care Act" Anti-Obesity Initiative Through The Lens of Physiology

I have major reservations about the War On Obesity that will be facilitated by the Affordable Care Act. For those of you who are unaware, the Obama Administration plans on channeling millions of dollars into obesity prevention initiatives by implementing public awareness campaigns, establishing research efforts to optimize the public's understanding of health and nutrition, and providing states with incentives to educate Medicaid beneficiaries about the availability of obesity prevention services. On the surface, it seems like this is exactly what our country needs.

But I'm here to tell you that Obama's efforts, while solicitous on the surface, will only serve as a polarizing agent in a culture that is already perturbed by the extreme ends of the disordered eating spectrum.

The initiatives set forth in the Affordable Care Act perpetuate society's obsession with weight loss. This is ironic because the body is inclined to achieve homeostasis, the tendency to maintain stability and optimal physiological levels despite changes in our ambient surroundings.

Ingestive behaviors are triggered by correctional mechanisms in the body that operate in order to replenish depleted nutrient stores. These mechanisms are activated by any deviation from a set point of a system variable; thus, they increase our motivation to seek food as soon as our nutrient reservoirs begin to dissipate.

Powerful hunger signals besiege us from all parts of the body. The stomach secretes a peptide hormone called ghrelin, a potent stimulant for food intake.
Feelings of hunger are correlated with increased blood levels of this hormone. Both the brain and the hepatic portal vein in the liver contain receptors that are equipped to detect falls in blood glucose levels. The brain monitors the availability of glucose inside the blood-brain barrier, and the liver monitors the availability of glucose in the rest of the body.

What needs to be noticed here is that, due to the vital importance of eating, no one system, organ, or mechanism in the body is allotted sole accountability for controlling ingestive behavior. The body is hell bent on being fed. Severing the hepatic branch of the vagus nerve, which prevents the brain from registering the aforementioned hunger signals, does not prevent the organism from eating normally. Lesions in the medulla that destroy the hunger signals associated with glucose deprivation do not disrupt long-term eating patterns. The consumption levels and body weight of mice with a targeted mutation against the ghrelin gene, the potent hunger stimulant mentioned before, are not disturbed. Clearly, the preponderance of redundancy in the body's neural and hormonal mechanisms that regulate food intake suggests that voluntary efforts to deprive oneself of food present a sure recipe-pun intended-for failure (I will bet you are still laughing!).

American culture is conducive to disordered eating, whether these pathological consumption patterns manifest themselves as obesity, anorexia, bulimia, or dieting. Our unhealthy obsession with food has insidious effects on every aspect of our lives. We manage our emotions with food, whether our desire is to surround ourselves with comfort after a stressful day at work/school or seek respite from our insecurities through calorie counting. Often, the aim is to exert control over over our bodies, to exercise sovereignty over the physical encasement either through suppression or overindulgence.

Society is stymied by making fat the focal point of weight loss efforts, or by even prescribing weight loss regimens at all. Industry capitalizes on this fear of fat, thereby perpetuating unrealistic fitness routines that make weight loss difficult to maintain. The preoccupation with thinness is a societal standard that is inherently unsustainable.

As one Harvard professor points out brilliantly, the inverse correlation between portion size and ideal body image has steepened over the decades. That is, as Americans increase their level of consumption, the archetypal beauty remains untouched. When the media and fashion industries promulgate a standard of beauty that is, for many people, not feasible, the consequences are amplified by the constant presence of food on television, in magazines, and on every street corner. This exposure to conflicting ends-a skeletal structure and satiety-either discourages people from being healthy when their efforts to lose weight don't yield the unrealistic results they desire or deters them from eating altogether.

Making fat the culprit in our war against weight gain simply won't work. This approach has already failed. In fact, a meta-analysis of 55 intervention studies, which was published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, yielded the finding that the average amount of weight lost by the 30,000 children who participated in these studies was one pound. And diets are notorious for being associated with weight cycling. Restricting calories and engaging in an exorbitant amount of exercise doom weight loss efforts because the body is, from an evolutionary standpoint, designed to reserve fat. Achieving fullness when food was available prevented our hunter-gatherer ancestors from starving.

One fascinating study has even suggested that the symptoms of eating disorders are triggered by starvation. Researchers at the University of Minnesota observed the effects of semi-starvation in thirty-six physically and psychologically healthy young men. When their diet was cut in half, these men displayed mood swings, an obsession with food, ritualistic eating behaviors, irritability, severe depression, reduced sex drive, fatigue, isolation and social withdrawal, and other hallmark symptoms of anorexia. Perhaps these findings can elucidate the relationship between diet crazes and the eating disorders that plague millions of people of both genders.

At the other end of the spectrum, researchers have found that hunger can be induced in an organism by depriving cells of fat, a process called lipoprivation. This implies that excessive dieting proves to be counter-productive, as unattainable levels of emptiness trigger strong hunger signals that cause people to disengage from the weight-loss goals they have set for themselves. This accounts for the high proportion of failed diets in America.

So, rather than endorse campaigns that castigate overweight people, we should be teaching people to treat their bodies with respect, not give them more of an incentive to view their bodies in a disparaging manner.

This is not a matter of political correctness. It is a matter of pragmatism.

By requiring that insurance companies pay for medically-advised weight loss expenses, and additionally requiring that employers provide said insurance, there is a risk that weight loss initiatives will enter the workplace. As it is, some companies already offer benefits to employees with a low body mass index.

Not only am I strongly opposed to federally sponsored values entering the workplace, I am also strongly opposed to perfidious weight loss programs that guarantee long-term results in exchange for a lifetime of shame and guilt.

We need to recant our stance against fat. According to one study, body mass index is not even a reliable criteria for determining who is healthy, as 51% of “healthy” participants were identified as unhealthy, and 18% of participants with a low BMI failed to elicit concern from their doctors, in spite of their poor health (Wildman et al.,Archives of Internal Medicine, 2008). Additionally, diet pills and liposuction don't produce the long-term results that they promise because the mere removal of adipose tissue from the body is insufficient means to maintaining a lower body weight.

Why, then, do we continue to buoy our efforts to dispel fat from society? It hasn't worked so far, has it?

The logical thing to do is to make self-acceptance a priority. Everything about the way the body works screams that satiety is the solution to weight management, rather than an obstacle. Commercials or advertisements that portray any body type in a vilifying manner or serve to increase our dissatisfaction with our bodies only encourage us to abuse them, whether by over-eating, starving, or purging.

Really, what we should be striving for is fullness, not hunger. The aim is to fulfill needs, not deprive oneself of nutrients, to indulge in care that includes a plentiful diet as well as regular exercise and consistent physical activity. Balance is literally the key to controlling vital characteristics in mammals, including, but not limited to, temperature, pH levels, fluid compartments, and hormone diffusion. Eating is no exception to this rule.

In the end, the hippies have it right. Love conquers all. In this case, self-love leads to physiological peace and harmony.

The Overman: An essay in which I come to terms with becoming a man

(Contextual note: I wrote this three days before I started taking testosterone.)



It is time.

"It is the hour of your greatest contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome to you, and so also your reason and virtue."

For happiness, as well as everything cerebral, and everything emotional, that does not resonate with one's rendition of truth, is militant to the mind in which it resides.

So implied Nietzsche when he passionately spoke of The Overman, an idea in which a man rises above humanity by establishing his own values and severing his dependence on the predetermined. He fills his home not with comforts, but with constant reinterpretation inside a castle of his own reality.

It is time to be real.

For a split second, I curse the scientific method, and that avenue in which we are analytical at every turn, because it has become more of an alleyway than an asset. It is a scene that incriminates, deprives us of blood, bruises us when we rebel, infringes risk upon us, and paves our road with regret instead of who we really are.

I am afraid, but I am also the Overman. I am, not less than a biological male, but something more than, something in addition to, and that in-addition-to is the implication of strength, courage, and empathy that I would not possess, had I not been born something other than a biological male.

The Overman. I have decided to challenge the gender binary. We are taught to leave the world a better place than when we found it, to venerate those who live in a manner that is consistent with altruism. But I venerate those who live in a manner that is consistent with entropy, those who leave the world in an increasingly chaotic state. It would be a privilege to add disorder to the universe, to expend from the system every iota of wisdom that we take for granted, to compel other people to mark up and annotate the nuanced gender spectrum, and ask that they leave it acronym-laden.

I am petrified by the act of creation that is necessitated by living in a world that is meaningful solely because we will it to be, as this act calls for change. I fear the changes- the emotional, the mental, the physical, and the unfathomable. But does this mean that I should fear art, and music, the birth of classical literature, and theory formation? Why can't the creation of a self incite the jubilation associated with initiating any other kind of change that is meaningful and lasting? Can change not be beautiful?

The Overman insists it is.

Look at the keys that unlock music. The piano creates beauty out of a binary-and so will I. Black and white will no longer be the prestigious tones. It is time for other colors to be considered. So disproportionately represented are the shadows, as I am among men. It is time to intercept the prevailing position on a man and what he should be, to interrogate every type of masculinity so that I may wear his secrets and his authenticity every day and without shame. The road not taken is that which is not an archetypal man, and I walk with shoes that I refuse to fill. The entire industry of striving comes to a standstill as I announce that my distance will no longer be in accordance with societal ideals. Rather, I will beat my own drum.

Some people will never know how to react, but catering to their confusion is not my mission.

I aspire to be multi-faceted. The columns of man are monolithic. The empire of man was built with shallow stones. There is no room for sorrow that is wet and does not dry quickly, for cheeks that are burdened by the visible proof of despair. Despondency makes a name for itself with anonymous men, with those who would rather be caught cheating on their partner than weeping.

Well, I am going to instill a new kind of man with the soles of my feet. I will walk the journey of a thousand miles uncensored, insecurities and all. I will never auction away anything of my own. They are more valuable than the greatest jewel that I do not have, my unguarded sorrows, the ease with which I am moved to tears. These are qualities that I covet highly, and I will not relinquish them simply because I am to become a man.

I am creating a new man, my own man.

I spent these last few days in the terror that I would lose myself, that the devastation induced by my inability to uncover the most prized aspects of my personhood would be irremediable. In some time, my current self will be a tenant of another time zone altogether. Our satellites will no longer be partners in space. And that is a terribly sad concept for me to consider. But I can assure myself that continuity is temporal, that it can be touched, that all of the qualities we love about ourselves can be lured back to the surface, if only we keep our core luminous. There is really nothing to lose except fear.

Oh yes, I will still be afraid. This is inevitable. For one really can be polygamous with one's principles, in the sense that we can commit as equally to the arduous as we can the pursuit of happiness. I can shake interminably and at the same time feel like the luckiest man alive for having this opportunity at all. Is it possible for fear and happiness so profound to occupy that same space?

It is so, for I will it to be. I relinquish lawfulness in the name of self-love. It is the anarchy of who I am. Everything that I am supposed to be surrenders to what I actually want.

With order usurped during these tumultuous times, we find that the root of all evil is not desire-it is a debt to ourselves. We sue our standards in court, then lead protests in order to end their imprisonment. We let them free, and then we let them in. We resuscitate them every time, because we are afraid of living unabashedly. Staying true to oneself with wild abandon takes strength.

These past few months have stripped me down to my weaknesses and my darker elements. But I am proud to say that the velocity of my shortcomings is not as swift as my ability to overcome them.

These are the physics of epiphany. It is the energy used to create light, in a world where the natural state is darkness. And it is the understanding that even that which is lost can never be destroyed.

Who I am, the Overman, is just being born. With so much creation, there is no room for loss.

The fibers of continuity are not a soul, but a strength exhibited by oneself. It doesn't mean that we never change. Rather, it means that we do not let go. It does not mean that we stay the same. Instead, it implies that we are giving ourselves a chance, at whatever that may be.

I understand that I am scared of losing myself. And yet, there is already a part of me that remains inaccessible, and that is my participation in the male role. In a sense, I have already lost something valuable. It is worse to live a partial truth than a lie, for at least those who live a lie are impervious to how rich and rewarding an honest living may be. Yes, at times, pain will inhibit my true potential, and reduce me, and weaken me, but as my preferred gender, I am automatically true. I am, intrinsically, a truth. I am an ideal, honesty; without having to be a perfect man, a strong man, an integral man, I can still be an ideal, without exhibiting any of them, purely because I am a man.

And I do not need to lose someone that I love. I can evolve without erasing what I like about myself. All of the qualities that I hold in high regard need not become part of the past in light of this new potential self that looms on the horizon. My beliefs will rub their decibels against each other like diamonds that don't have the heart to tarnish the surface of something that they can sympathize with. Everything that is important enough to define me will endure. I need not be afraid to take this next step.

Gone are the days when I must appease the agony of being misgendered by biting my lip and holding my tongue. No longer must my self-control release endorphines as it is exercised, constantly, by people who refer to me as "ma'am," "miss," and "she."

Gone are the days of facing the unmistakable scrutiny of strangers every time I enter a public venue. No longer must I notice their incredulity before I notice the color of their skin.

I am harnessing this concept of Nietzsche's in the hopes that I may live sincerely from this moment on.

The Drug Enhanced Story of Passover :D

In the drug enhanced story of Passover, the Jews eat matzoh because they don't need carbohydrates. This is due to the fact that they are snorting coke, which suppresses appetite. You THINK they get that emaciated look from slavery, but we all know drugs are the best diet of all.

The Ten Plagues were the product of a mass hallucination, courtesy of those Egyptian worship cults. Logically, the Angel of Death had to have been a fancy name for a coma. Note how it sounds similar to "Angel Dust," the street name for PCP. I think we all know what the first born children were REALLY doing that night.

The lamb's blood is the mystery liquid on the floor of the elevator lobby at the college of your choice on a Saturday night. Then all of the Egyptians overdose and blame it on the Jews. The end.

Morbid Passover humor: Makat b'chorot, Death of the First Born, had the Pharaoh's son in...stitches! Because the Egyptians would have mummified him! It's the original dead baby joke! :D

And on that note, I have to go help make Passover dinner. Hey, maybe I'll actually get to wear a yarmulke at the Seder this year, which is a head covering that Jewish men wear on religious occasions. But my parents, being the Jews that they are, ordered the GENERIC cartoonist instead of the name brand one when I was born, because it wouldn't cost as much. He ended up drawing me all wrong.

See what I did there? I blamed my parents, and the Jews! :D

AHAHAHAHAHA.

Have a happy Passover, everyone.

Myth: A drug problem is always a problem.

Lay off the drugs. When I say that, I mean, lay off! Stop giving a small category of physiologically altering substances such a bad rap. I'm sick of hearing people condemn those who have died of drug overdoses for being addicts, and I'm sick of hearing that individuals who use drugs cannot be role models or worthy of admiration

And what of the 10% of Americans who are prescribed antidepressants every year? What of the millions of children who manage their ADHD with a stimulant? What of the 50% of commercials that advertise prescription drugs? America is not drug free, you Nancy Reagan induced dumbass, and neither are you. You hypocrites.

I repudiate this notion that altering the physiological substrate in order to enhance the organism's perceived state of wellness is a sin. Because to some degree, everyone seeks respite from unpleasant symptoms. They do what they can to alleviate their discomfort, assuage their anxiety, and take the edge off. Their methods exert an effect on their biology and chemistry. Why are some coping mechanisms more socially acceptable than others? What of the people who escape into video games and reality television?

Studies have shown that, in stark contrast to the activity of reading, watching television produces slow alpha brain waves in a fashion that is similar to the threshold of sleep. This preponderance of slow wave activity suggests that watching television demands minimal effort. The t.v. is, quite literally, an idiot box. And yet people come home and drown themselves in the stupor of someone else's lives for hours on end, and this is alright. You view with disdain the people who turn to the bottle, but what of the people who are dispelled by the doldrums of everyday life, who go through the motions and get old, who expend the minimal amount of existence? Do they deserve a medal?

I'm simply looking for some consistency. I'm tired of hearing, "Oh, he was a drug user, he did it to himself." Why do you condemn the drug user when they die, but not the tanner who developed skin cancer, the smoker who developed lung cancer, or the overweight person with the sedentary lifestyle who died of a heart attack? I thought that sympathy is supposed to be allotted to all individuals who are suffering, within the context of any illness, be it mental or physical. I don't understand the stigma associated with destruction that is self-inflicted. Do these actions not arise from despair and pain? Do these emotions fail to produce victims, to produce patients that are worthy of care and respect?

Why do you approve of the naturally occurring chemicals involved in the sensation of pleasure and love, but not of their synthetically produced counterparts that mimic not only the molecular formulas found in the body, but their actions on the brain?
And why do we accept the intentions of one business man over another? Are pharmaceutical companies driven by honesty, and not by greed? Is the aim of any given transaction going to be something other than profit?

I do not understand why illicit drugs are denounced when the drugs that are legal are just as capable of ruining lives, and under the pretense of being therapeutic! In my opinion, this affront to our trust is more despicable than the overt dishonesty of the dealer. Even when taken at the recommended dosage, a psychotropic drug such as an antidepressant is associated with serious dangers. Studies have suggested that in many cases, not only are the healing properties of these drugs largely unsubstantiated, but they can also incite violent behavior, produce a myriad of undesirable side effects, and most importantly, increase an individual's risk of suicide. Additionally, these drugs can trigger extremely unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the prescription is lifted.

I am not going to pass judgment on or withhold compassion from people who seek relief in chemical form from a condition that can be debilitating and life threatening. The point is that neither should you, whether the medication is ingested under the supervision of a doctor or administered by the self. All of these drugs are habit forming, and we rely on them in one way or another in order to restore our ability to function and return to our former fully capable selves.

Besides, I don't adhere to the blanket statement that all drugs kill, that all drugs are deleterious to our health, and that all drug use is pathological. On the contrary, I agree with psychologists who argue that experimentation is the norm. In his book THE NATURAL MIND - An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness, Dr. Andrew Weil claims that “The desire to alter consciousness periodically is an innate, normal drive analogous to hunger or the sexual drive...” I couldn't agree more.

And what if the ambition to trigger the untapped potential of intense emotion, to be moved and to be admitted access to an even higher level of cerebral creativity, is not just a biological need, but a by-product of evolutionary advancement, a signal that civilization has been achieved and people can afford the luxury of being moved and inspired, as they would be by art, music, and literature? Much as Socrates stated that "The unexamined life is not worth living," I will say the same of the unexpanded mind.

It seems to me that drugs need to be viewed on a continuum of individual risk, and, more importantly, we need to view individuals as individuals, not drug users vs. non drug users. It's not about what you are, it's about what you do with what you are. There is nothing that prevents people who dabble in drug use from being productive, and good, and kind, and intelligent! These categories are not mutually exclusive.