Dealing with someone else's depression

Recently an acquaintance has been suffering from a severe bout of depression.

I kept trying to think of what to say or do but I could never figure out anything.

One day he was having a particularly rough time so I gave him a hug.

It caught both of us by surprise and was probably not a smart thing to do since we really don't know each other that well but I gave him a hug because I was missing the 'old' him.

Yesterday he told me that that hug was the best thing I could have done because it reassured him that I was not considering abandoning our friendship.

I had no idea he was worried about our friendship; much less thinking the friendship might end.

I now realize that was the depression talking and that by giving him a hug I addressed one of his fears in the affirmative without even realizing it.

I think what helps the most with severe depression is just letting the person know that you are not going anywhere and avoiding giving advise because the advise just comes across as crticism of the person for feeling the way he does or pressure to get over it.

Sounds lame I know but I am trying to see it from the depressed person's point of view and, if I were depressed, that's what I would want done. 

Silly Christmas Song

When my kids were little, I would make up silly songs.

This morning I remembered my daughter's favorite Christmas song when she was four years old (she's 33 years old now).

Here it is:

Merry Christmas to my friends, to my friends, to my friends
Merry Christmas to my friends
Hi Ho Silver

I told you they were silly.

Merry Christmas!

Can anyone recommend a good gay movie?

Can anyone recommend a recent release say within the last year?

Here is what I am looking for...

An intelligent (feel-good a plus) film about complex relationships and familial/traditional expectations... and the surprisingly adult outcomes when a family is confronted with a nontraditional family situation.

Here are three movies I am already considering:

Weekend:  This frank drama centers on the cautious relationship between two gay men -- one a genial lifeguard, the other a lusty art-gallery worker -- who contemplate turning a passionate one-night stand into something more meaningful.

Circumstance:  Iranian teens Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) explore their forbidden attraction to one another against the backdrop of modern-day Tehran's subcultures in this Sundance Audience Award winner for Best Drama. Atafeh's brother, Mehran, returns home after drug rehab and is soon dismayed by his sister's newfound sense of liberation. Giving up on his dreams to become a classical musician, Mehran joins the morality police.

Beginners:  Based on indie director Mike Mills's relationship with his father, this intriguing drama tells the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a graphic artist coming to grips with the imminent death of his father (Christopher Plummer), who, at 75, has one last secret: He's gay. Both inspired and confused by his father's determination to find true love at last, Oliver tentatively pursues a romance with commitment-shy French actress Anna (Mélanie Laurent).

Here are two fairly recent movies that I've seen that I highly recommend:

Plan B:  After his girlfriend, Laura (Mercedes Quinteros), dumps him and takes up with handsome charmer Pablo (Lucas Ferraro), Bruno (Manuel Vignau) plots revenge: He tries to come between the new lovers. But his plan -- which entails a growing friendship with Pablo -- soon takes an unexpected turn. Though Laura still goes out with Bruno now and again, his sexuality comes into question in this Argentinean import from first-time director Marco Berger.

Undertow:  Writer-director Javier Fuentes-León sets this offbeat romantic ghost story on the rough-hewn but gorgeous Peruvian coast, where a married fisherman must come to terms with his love for another man, despite the strict moral codes of his homeland. This winner of the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic at Sundance is a vivid examination of the ways in which affairs of the heart supersede social strictures and all other forms of logic.

The Other Side of Stigma -or- How I as a minority managed my stigmatization

Recently, I posted about being a racist.

Now I’d like to flip it around and post about what it is like being a minority and having to deal with a majority that treats you unfairly.

I’m not saying all members of a minority have the same experience.  What I am saying is that I think there are common stages that a lot of minorities go through even if some may get stuck in a certain stage or skip a stage or even go back and forth between stages.

I'm a gay Puerto Rican and I have gone through many of these stages and have seen other Hispanic and sexual "minorities" go through these stages so I know it's not just the majority that has problems with someone being different.

 
Here is what I see as common stages that many minorities go through when dealing with their stigmatization:

Stage 1:  You don’t know you are being stigmatized and take the unfair treatment personally.  You may blame yourself for the negative reaction you are receiving and wonder what you said or did to offend. You may internalize the rejection and negative values of the larger group and may even start feeling inferior.

Stage 2:  You realize that it's not about you at all but instead about being judged for something you have no control over - the color of your skin or how you look or your sexuality. You may be upset but still hoping for reconciliation with the larger group but are getting tired of the rejection.

Stage 3:  You are so tired of being treated unfairly that you decide not to give them a chance to reject you anymore so you reject them before they can reject you. You have lost trust and start rejecting the larger group’s values.

Stage 4:  You are more fully rejecting the majority's values and instead taking pride in your minority and embracing your minority's values. You may even start feeling superior to the majority.

Stage 5:  You expect rejection and become militant in your outlook. You may not only feel superior; you may find justifications for rejecting the majority. You may seek an apology and even redress from the majority.

Stage 6:  You encounter members of the majority who actually treat you equally but the hurt is still so fresh in your mind that you cannot accept their acceptance and instead eye everything they do with suspicion. You may be in a vicious circle where you are stuck in the past and can't move forward because the anger re-opens old wounds and the re-opened old wounds re-kindle the anger.

Stage 7:  The acceptance of some members of the majority challenges you so much that you may let go of the fear of rejection long enough to realize that they may actually mean what they say.  You may start questioning for the first time your rejection of the majority.
 
Stage 8:  You realize that you are doing to "them" what they did to you. That is judging them based on something they have no control of such as skin color, how they look or their sexuality. You may feel ashamed for doing to them what they did to you.

Stage 9:  You stop seeing them as members of the majority but instead as just people with good and bad traits and start judging each person based on the content of the their character instead of them being a member of the majority.

Stage 10:  Enough of the majority welcomes the minority to the table that you start feeling like you belong.  You may start identifying with the majority.  In other words, you have arrived.  The majority has invited you in and you have accepted.  Done for long enough and that may result in the redefinition of who belongs to the majority and minority.

Remember how Michelle Obama was criticized for saying she felt proud of being an American for the first time after her husband got elected. I think what she was trying to say was that she felt proud of being just an American for the first time because before the election she had always felt like an American in waiting but America had embraced her husband so fully (see Stage 10) that she started feeling like she belonged; that she was no longer a not totally accepted member of her own country; but a fully accepted American.

That feeling of belonging and being just an American is something I felt for the very first time after that election, too.  It’s a wonderful feeling.

But none of the above is new to these times.  When Kennedy was elected, the Irish and Italians and Poles (i.e., white ethnics) felt they had won and probably many felt like just Americans for the first time, too.

Unfortunately, the politics that followed shortly after Obama’s election spoiled that feeling of belonging for many of us.

When I saw a lady on television cry out "I want our country back", I wondered if  she thought people like Obama (and therefore people like me) had taken the country away from her and other Americans and that made me doubt her “our” included people like me.

So you see it's not just the majority that has issues with people being different.

And it's not just the majority that stereotypes or has to get over their stereotypes.

Regards,
Philip

Two dreams....

I am in a warehouse.  It is a warehouse of old people.  Doctors and nurses are milling around going from patient to patient.  I look all around me.  My eyes keep coming back to this one woman.  She is somehow familiar.  Her hair is grey and brittle; her breasts sag underneath her sweater.  I have never seen this woman before but then I know who she is.  She is my wife and she is waiting.  Seems to me that she has been waiting all her life.  I realize I am lying in a cot.  I don’t feel any pain but I know I am dying.

I ask God if in death will we finally find happiness.  I wait but God does not answer.  Then I know.  No, not even in death will we find happiness.

I wake up crying.  But after a while I am able to fall back asleep.

I am on the Burlington Northern train heading out of Chicago to Berwyn where I live.  I am young again.  I have wonderful news and am so excited.  I don’t know what the wonderful news is but it is big.  And there is only one person in the whole wide world that I want to tell this news to.  The closer I get to my destination, the more excited I get.  But it’s not clear in my mind who that person is.  Finally the train halts to a stop.  I get off and start walking briskly.  I walk faster and faster until I break out into a run.  My heart is pounding.  Then I know who that special person is.  It is her.  It is her.  I am running to her.

I wake up crying again.  This time I am afraid to fall back asleep.  Daylight finally arrives and I get up to start my day. 

Race

I am a racist.

Not a George Wallace racist.  I am more subtle than that.  But a racist nonetheless.

I want to talk about it because I am not particularly proud of that fact.

Maybe I should back up a minute.  I am a racist the way a lot of people are racists but never admit it.  I am talking all kinds of people including people that don’t think of themselves as racists yet are.

Talking about racism is hard so sometimes I am going to talk about homophobia, a subject that’s easier for me to talk about because it’s not as controversial.

In fact, it was when I dealt with my homophobic feelings that I realized I was a racist.  I am a homophobe, too.  And I am gay but then I am dark skinned, too.

What makes me a racist?

I think what makes me a racist is that I still, despite knowing better, haven’t gotten beyond skin color.

Now I admit I have tried.  I have even gone so far as to consider making friends with a black person in order to overcome my racial feelings but I live in Phoenix and with the exception of Salt Lake City there probably isn’t another large metropolitan area in the U.S. with fewer black people.  What I am trying to say is that I want to make friends with a black person but it’s difficult to naturally form friendships with black people when you live in a town where you can go all day without seeing a black person.  I mean I don’t want to make friends with a black person just because they are black.  I want it to happen more naturally than that.  I may be a racist but I’m not an insensitive racist.

But that’s getting off topic.  What makes me a racist is that when I see a black person that is the first thing, the middle thing and the last thing I notice – that person’s skin color – and I know that’s not right.  I should see the person first and the skin color should be secondary – it should be background music like his or her height or weight or shoe size. 

What is the point of this whole post?

Well, I am making progress.  Very slowly.  And that progress emboldens me.  It emboldens me so much that I am willing to risk being attacked for being racist in order to address my shortcomings.

And the fact that nobody reads my blog makes it easier for me to address this very sensitive issue.

What is this progress you might ask?  OK, here goes.  The last few years I have been experiencing something that I have never experienced before.  I see a black person and sometimes, instead of that person’s skin color being the first thing that comes to mind, I see something else.

I’ll give you an example.  Last summer I was waiting at a light and a jogger stopped just ahead of me.  He took off his shirt and I saw a very trim body; no body fat.  First, it was insane to be jogging in 115 degree heat but what was most strange about this experience is that something kept nagging me as I witnessed this young man strip off his shirt – I just couldn’t place what it was that was nagging me.  Than it hit me.  His skin was black.  This European’s skin was black.  And that is my breakthrough.  Now every once in a while when I see a black person I see some other dimension than skin color and it takes a while to register that this person is African, too.

So my breakthrough is that I saw a European where before I would have seen an African or to be honest where I would have seen a black person.  And it’s not about the skin color.  It’s about the whole package.  The whole package is that this person struck me as being European because he was so much more European than anything else that I didn’t see the anything else. 

I don’t know what this says about me that I can forget a black person's skin color but only infrequently.  I am almost afraid to ask.

But it is happening on a more frequent basis.  I am use to this happening when it is a white person or Hispanic or Asian or a mixed person of Asian and white heritage or of Hispanic and white heritage but having this happen with a black person or a mixed person of African and white heritage is a fairly recent development.

I think this might be happening now because of all the Indians from India I work with.  With Indians I oftentimes see a European person with dark skin.  The Indians often seem Italian or Irish or even German.  It is almost like I knew this guy back in Chicago but back then his name was Palumbo or Dieter or O’Malley not Surya or Javed or Dhiraj.  I don’t see how others don’t see this.  It is so evident. It’s like seeing double; same face, build, height, weight, etc.

I guess I thought this old dog couldn’t learn new tricks but now I know this old dog can still learn new tricks and I want to.

But I know more progress needs to be made. 

Why is it so hard to unlearn prejudice?

I think it is a trust thing.  Intellectually I know it is wrong but emotionally I must still not trust black people enough to let go of the underlying fears (whatever those fears are these fears exist even if I am not conscious of them and don’t even know how they got there) long enough to stop bringing race to the forefront instead of leaving it in the background where it belongs.

Did I mention I am a dark skin person?  And also gay?  Well, I mentioned that because I have gotten over most of my homophobia in a natural way so in my mind what I did for homophobia I should also be able to do for racism.

What did I do?  Well, I am a masculine gay man and for years I felt uncomfortable around effeminate gay men. Get an effeminate gay man around me and all I would notice was his hand flurries and the way he moved his hips and the voice, especially the voice, and I never, ever got beyond the fact that he was effeminate.  I wasn’t proud of how I felt even though all my masculine gay buddies felt as much or more disdain than I did.  They may have thought it was OK but I knew it was not OK even if I felt just as uncomfortable as they did.   Because after all how could I as a gay man expect to be treated equally by straight people when I had disdain for other gay people.  I mean I can’t actually demand respect when I was not giving it.  Yet I didn’t know how to let go of whatever it was that kept me from accepting my effeminate brothers as equals.  Fortunately for me, my best friend had an effeminate gay lover that cut my hair.  So every six or seven weeks I would sit down and talk to this effeminate guy with his flurry of hands and his sashaying hips and listen to that voice.  And what I found was a real human being.  Someone constantly stared at even when doing mundane things like grocery shopping.  Someone afraid to go into a men’s locker room.  I listened to him and laughed and joked and then one day, after months of getting my hair cut by him, I trusted him enough to let go of my fear of effeminate men (and who would have guess that a masculine man like me had a fear of effeminate men) long enough to start hearing what he had to say.  All I know is that one day all this static (“look at this hands flurrying”, “look at his hips sashaying”, that voice, omg, that voice) was gone and Chris (that’s what his name was) started coming through loud and clear.  I realized I was hearing Chris so much better because the static I had never before been aware of was gone.  I was really hearing Chris for the first time.  But get this.  It didn’t happen overnight.  It took time.  Lots of time.  But it was so worth the time and effort.  It was and is so liberating.

And that’s what I want to do with black people.  I want to rid myself of all that static.  But I am not there yet.  I guess that won’t happen until I make friends with a black person and then only if I have enough patience to give me enough time to trust enough to let go of that fear whatever it is.  But it has to happen naturally.  I won’t make friends with a black person just to get over my racism.  That’s like making a friend with an effeminate guy just to get over my homophobia. That’s just too insensitive.  I couldn’t do that to anyone even for a good cause.

But on the other hand, if some straight guy said to me “Phil, I like you but I want you to know that I am having trouble getting over the fact that you are gay” then I think I would react positively because I would know he was trying and there was a good chance of success.  However, I don’t think I would feel the same way if a white guy said to me that he liked me but that he wanted me to know that he was having trouble getting over the fact that I was Puerto Rican.  I know I would have more trouble with that because I would be thinking of my half Puerto Rican kids.

I guess that’s why talking about racism is more difficult to talk about than homophobia.  And why I am more willing to accept prejudice in others when it comes to my sexuality then when it comes to my ethnicity.  Because more often with race or ethnicity than with homosexuality it impacts people we love; people we love more than ourselves.

So my long range goal is not to become color blind but to have a person’s skin color just be another factor like hair or eye color or masculinity/femininity.  I just wish I could hurry the process along.

Because I know the person that would benefit the most if I could overcome my shortcomings would be me.  It would be so liberating.

Any thoughts?

Deja Vu...all over again

I was in our local bookstore. I knew what he was up to the moment I saw him. He was off to the side but staring intently at the Culture Studies section. Since he didn't look Hispanic or Asian or African American and he wasn't a woman then it must be the GLBT shelf. I am intimately familiar with that shelf. It is two-thirds full of titles mostly written 10 or more years ago. The GLBT shelf had been my destination. I changed direction and headed towards the Bargain section. I didn't want my presence scaring him off. I noticed the slight build and youthful clothes. I purposely didn't look at his face.

Later on while in the bargain section trying to convince myself to buy another book I will probably never read, "blue shirt" walked by and stood in the cashier line. Impulsively I grabbed my $4.98 special and got in line behind him. He was holding a tradebook in his hand with the title face down. I watched him make his purchase. His voice held but his hands gave away his nervousness. Or was it my over-active imagination at work? I watched the young man walk away. Seemed to me that his pace quickened as he neared the door. The cashier was talking to me. I was being rude and turned my attention away from the young man. I held eye contact with the cashier longer than I should have. He gave me a half smile. Here was a kindred spirit. I wondered if he was thinking of what had just transpired, too.

When I got outside I felt silly but searched for the young man. He was gone. As I waited for my ride, I couldn't help but think of another young man long ago and how that young man's heart had pounded while making his purchase and the relief he had felt when the cashier nonchalantly rang up and bagged the purchase without accusation. I can even remember the title. "Men on Men", the first in a wonderful series. My ride arrived.