BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

At 83 years of age, I've experienced a lot of life. This includes my own life, my family's, my Marine Corps friends during the Vietnam Era, and the lives of a thousand or more of my psychiatric patients and their families. I was raised by a mother who suffered from mental illness throughout her life. I have also dealt with major depressive disease similar to my mother's. My two sons and I were abandoned by my first wife when the boys were in the third and fourth grades. To spare them the challenges of being raised by a stepmother, I delayed remarriage until they graduated from high school. Now, in my later years, my adversities have become more medical. Cardiac surgeons had to replace my calcified aortic heart valve fifteen years ago, and recently, they discovered an aortic aneurysm that was caused by the old heart valve. To complete my complex medical picture, I have had Parkinson's disease for nineteen years.

When Covid-19 overwhelmed our lives in 2000, my chronic depression bottomed out. Following in my mother's footsteps and those of many of my depressed patients, I chose to undergo a course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). I'm happy to report that it worked.

But before you get sick of hearing me continue to recite my painful life story, let me be clear that I am not telling you my story to evoke sympathy. No, I am writing this to proclaim that I still find life meaningful. As long as my life has meaning, it's worth living.

What is meaningful to me? I want to continue to use my mind and my therapeutic skills to alleviate human suffering whenever and wherever I encounter it. Starting right here on this website.