Viet Nam is a country teetering on the brink of a nationwide AIDS epidemic. More than 250,000 people are infected with the virus and only 10% of those who fall ill are receiving the treatment they need. The country’s healthcare system is well-organized, but the disease has, until now, been concentrated among intravenous drug users, which is a national problem but not a priority.

Experts say it’s spreading quickly into the broader population because one of the chief barriers to prevention and treatment is this stigma that makes those infected outcasts. The government is preparing legislation to combat the epidemic, some $15 million in assistance is arriving from abroad, and more drugs are becoming available. But, it is support groups like the High Red Flamboyant (HRF) which are a critical part of the government’s strategy.

The International Herald Tribune (May 28, 2006) reported that Ms. Hue, a 26-year- old woman infected by her drug addict husband, was one of the first to speak out publicly on television “to show that we are people too.” She founded the HRF three years ago, which is now expanding from Haiphong to other cities.
When the HRF get together (they are mostly women infected by their addicted husbands whom have already died), they rarely talk about their illness. The HRF laugh, joke, sing, and console, because they know they will fall and that their sisters in the HRF will be feeding, bathing, and caring for each other’s children.

How do they go on, knowing they will likely not be cured? Nguyen Thi Sau, 29, whose husband has already died of AIDS, said, “The meaning of the group is so that when you’re dying you are less lonely.” The women have chosen to look directly into the face of the suffering that lies ahead and care for each other.

Whatever you face, you face better in loving community . . . even if it can’t cure, it heals.

If, indeed, we are the world’s leading nation in the diagnosably mentally ill, then we are also number one in the world for accepting its potential cures. If you’re suffering from depression or anxiety, and you need your pet at your side when you go out to eat or sit next to you in a plane seat, you can now bring them along. They are now called “emotional support animals.”

In new guidelines, the Department of Transportation has added emotional support animals to the list of “service animals” who help the disabled. Animals helping people with anxiety or depression are given the same access and privileges as animals helping the blind or deaf. These emotional support animals don’t do anything other than provide a feeling of well-being to the owner; they are not “service animals” trained to perform specific tasks, rather they comfort by their mere presence. So the Americans With Disabilities Act, which was intended to make sure that people with disabilities weren’t hassled, has now led to this.

In New York, restauranteurs who previously accommodated only dogs for the blind are now being challenged by people who say they need their pets at their side at all times. Airlines have had to accommodate monkeys, miniature horses, a goat, even an “emotional support duck” whose owner dressed it up in clothes.

Some people carry doctors’ letters. The New York Times (5/14/06) told of a jewelry store owner who said she tried living without animals when she married a man who bought an apartment in a no dog building. She went into a severe depression and had to go on medication. Her friend brought her two Pug puppies that she refused to give away. Her co-op threatened her with eviction, so she got a letter from a psychiatrist who wrote that she was emotionally needy. Her lawyer told her that it probably wasn’t sufficient, so she got the psychiatrist to write that she could barely function without them. She walks with her dogs, but they ride in a double-wide stroller.

We are # 1 in the world for definable mental illness because we keep expanding the limits of tolerability of what we call diseases. I have an enormous tolerance for peculiarities (have been accused of some myself), but I don’t inflict them on others and I don’t want them to inflict theirs on me. Just because you think you can’t be without your animal, doesn’t mean I should have to sit next to your goat on an airplane (I don’t care how well it’s dressed).

I’m fighting back. I’m putting a signed card in my wallet to give to restaurants and airlines that says these pets are not service animals trained to perform tasks for people with disabilities. They are pets! This is an outrageous abuse of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Please send a signed complaint to the DOT at the address below.

We are abusing each other with our demands and incivility. This really gets my goat . . . does it get yours? If so, please send a signed complaint to the Department of Transportation at the address below:

Office of the Secretary
U.S. Department of Transportation
400 7th. St. SW
Washington, D.C. 20590

Last year, a government-sponsored survey about the nation’s mental-health (Schlagbyte June 20, 2005) found that one quarter of all Americans are suffering from some kind of mental illness. The study predicted that in our lifetime, half of us will develop a mental disorder. We don’t have to wait much longer to pad the numbers because psychiatry has created another mythical disease that will add another 15 million people. The current issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry has described a new disorder called Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) that targets adolescents.

Discovered by my colleague Dr. Emil Cocarro, Chief of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago, this disorder is defined as repeated uncontrollable anger attacks. He’s not talking about ordinary anger which we all exhibit, even occasional thoughts of murderous rage (Art Linkletter once said there were only two kinds of parents, those that sometimes wanted to kill their kids and those who lied). People with IED get so angry they threaten bodily harm, destroy property and assault people.

After interviewing almost 10,000 people 18 and older since 2001, Dr. Cocarro says IED is a major unrecognized mental-health problem, and 5% of the population suffers from it. When people lash out in road rage, spousal abuse or more severe transgressions, they have IED, and Dr. Cocarro believes it is his mission to make the public aware of this disease. He says, “If you don’t think it’s really a disorder you will never get treated for it, and it’s important to treat because otherwise it may set the stage for more serious mental conditions like depression, anxiety disorders and alcohol abuse.”

This “disease” typically begins at age 13 for boys, and 19 for girls. It lessens when you reach midlife — I presume because people have learned about the consequences of their behaviors and learned to modify them (we call this process cognitive behavioral therapy).

Not only has Dr. Cocarro pioneered the recognition of this disorder, he has also defined its treatment. You guessed it . . . it involves prescribing potent antidepressants and mood disorder medications like lithium and anticonvulsants. Let’s wake up people! “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” is not a disease of adolescents that requires chemical straitjacketing. It is the manifestation of a culture that has elevated violence to an art form. In an age of terror, violent videogames, brutalizing lyrics in songs, the new wildly popular blood sport “rage in a cage,” we are a culture that is becoming inured to violence.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken a public stand that media violence desensitizes children to its expression. We do not need more drugs to treat this mythical disease; what we do need is to tolerate less violence, set more limits on children and enforce consequences. Saying, doing, and getting everything you want is not a mythical disease, it’s called pathological narcissism.

Every year I do a 3-day retreat on Shamanic Healing entitled “From Torah to Tipi,” with my friend and brother, Rabbi Gershon Winkler, as well as Native American relatives. We talk about ancient healing wisdom, how to incorporate ritual, ceremony, chanting, drumming, movement, sacred objects and stories as powerful adjuncts in the healing process.

This year we met at Reb Gershon’s Walkingstick Foundation, a retreat center in Cuba, New Mexico. Just getting there required an hour’s van trip from the Albuquerque airport that ended on a dirt road on top of a desolate, high-desert mesa.

Walkingstick made our previous location, the Franciscan Renewal Center, look like Canyon Ranch; here people slept in tents, on air mattresses, used Port-a Potty’s, and had no running water or showers. But people still came, and it turned out that making it hard had its own advantages. In this primitive set up, people had to depend on each other more; sharing hardships made us appreciate every amenity, especially water, in a whole different way. Camping outside in such isolation makes you appreciate the awesome splendor of the night sky. Shooting stars fell in a silence so deafening you could hear the voice of the Great Spirit pulsing in your eardrums.

One day Gershon performed a Kabbalistic healing ceremony for me. He drew a circle on the ground with his 6-foot long walkingstick that had ancient Hebrew letters carved into it. In the middle of the circle he drew Kabbalistic healing symbols and explained them. He asked me to whisper in his ear what I was seeking to heal. I told him I sought the courage to face my growing awareness of mortality with a greater sense of peace.

He gave me the stick, told me to put one end in the middle of my chest, directly over my heart, and to hold the other end inches above the circle. He directed me to walk around the circle, while he walked behind me whispering Hebrew words that he had me repeat. He began with Henaini, the Hebrew word meaning “here I am.” I understood the importance of acknowledging the truth of the present in my mind, but it didn’t come with any new insightful flash. After many turns, he finally had me stop and come into the middle of the circle. It felt like I imagined a Navajo patient would feel stepping into the symbols and myths of a sand-painting.

Gershon stood in front of me, took the walkingstick from my hand, and we passed it back and forth, just like the pipe exchange at a Sun Dance ceremony. He took it from me, raised and lowered it in front of me, while chanting in Aramaic. He then walked behind me and again lifted the stick. Suddenly, I saw the stick as a snake-like shadow on the ground in front of me. I immediately recognized it as my wounded spirit. Unconsciously I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at my shadow with its fearful infirmities. At the same time, I knew it was what I needed to see, because it is the truth of where I am. I forced myself to open my eyes and when I did, the shadow had disappeared and there was only light.

In that moment, I experienced that spiritual epiphany when what you know in your head finally connects to your heart. Henaini, here I am, no idealized myth of yesteryear, I am in a state of perpetual repair. Stop running away from your shadow, face your fears and see your light. This isn’t so bad . . . I’m still standing up, thinking clearly, active, bearing witness.

When you open your eyes and look at your shadow straight, it’s not the darkness that overwhelms you it’s the awareness of the light of your blessings. Here I am, and it’s perfect as it is.

Even if we can’t prove that praying for somebody you don’t know can help them survive a life-threatening illness (Schlagbyte, 4/17/06), we do know that if somebody is dying in front of you, reaching out to help them might be helpful.

A 34-year-old British mountaineer, David Sharp, desperate for oxygen in what is called “the death zone,” collapsed along a well-traveled route to the summit of Mt. Everest. Dozens of people walked past him, unwilling to risk their own ascents, and left him to freeze to death. One of those climbers, Mark Inglis, was the first double amputee to reach the summit. He passed the dying Mr. Sharp on his way up and later, when interviewed by New Zealand television, said “The trouble is at 8,500 m it’s extremely difficult to keep yourself alive let alone keeping anybody else alive.” He said he had radioed for help, but that a fellow mountaineer told him, “Look mate, you know he’s been there x number of hours, been there without oxygen…. he’s effectively dead.”

A couple of weeks later, a 50-year-old Australian climber, Lincoln Hall, also collapsed near the summit. It’s not unusual — even the most experienced can become desperately ill from the lack of oxygen which can cause fatal brain swelling. Hall, an expert climber, collapsed at 28,543 ft., just below the summit. He was found the next morning by an American climber in a Russian-led expedition. They realized that even though Hall was motionless, he was still alive. Almost incomprehensibly, he had survived the night. The Russian leader dispatched a team of 13 Sherpas to rescue Lincoln Hall, and they did. They brought him hot tea, oxygen, medicines, and carried him down. The following day he descended on his own to an advanced base camp further down the mountain, where he was able to talk unassisted. He didn’t remember much about what happened but was in reasonably good condition.

Lincoln Hall may not remember what happened up there for a long time, but the rest of us will remember this story for a long time. We are losing perspective when a member of our party gets incapacitated and we leave them to die. I have enormous respect for the determination and personal courage that brings someone to pursue this astounding feat. I applaud the double amputee’s incredible testimony of stamina and will, but I also know he’s going to be thinking about Mr. Sharp for a long time.

In our pursuit of personal excellence, we cannot lose sight of what’s important. If you meet a beggar on the road, you reach at your hand because it’s the right thing to do.