Jed Diamond
After I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1965, I applied to several medical schools and was accepted at U.C. San Francisco and was awarded a four-year full-tuition fellowship. I hoped to get through medical school so that I could go on to become a psychiatrist. In the back of my mind, way in the back, I imagined I could learn the magic of why people became depressed and suicidal. I hoped to save myself from what happened to my father and learn how I could help other families dealing with similar problems.
I didn’t last long in medical school and soon transferred to U.C. Berkeley’s school of Social Welfare where I hoped to get a broader and more socially relevant education. The Free-Speech Movement began on campus a year earlier and the Viet-Nam war protests were occurring when I attended.
I got very involved in campus protests, but needed a break and I attended a talk offered by residents of a program called Synanon. “My name is Sheila and I’m a recovering addict,” a curly-haired blue-eyed blond said seriously. She looked too young and too cute to be an addict, but she told her story about getting hooked on heroin when she was in her teens, her life of prostitution to support her habit, hitting rock bottom, and finally coming to Synanon for help. For some reason, I felt like I was hearing from a kindred spirit.
I had never even smoked marijuana and I drank little alcohol. But I did feel like an outcast from society, going through the motions of belonging, but not truly present. There was something about the stories of hitting bottom and finding support and redemption in a community that very much appealed to me.
Three other addicts told their stories and I was struck by how honest and real they were. No bullshit jargon. No text-book formula’s for helping. No mental health labels. I was learning important things about psychological and social health in my Social Work classes, but this was real life. This wasn’t class-room knowledge. This was street knowledge and I soaked it in.
When they said they were planning to bring their unique brand of social change to the Berkeley campus and start “Synanon games,” I immediately signed up to attend, though I had no idea what I was getting into. I wasn’t a recovering addict, so in the parlance of Synanon, I was a “square.” I may not have gotten addicted to drugs, but I, too, was lost, confused, and needed help.
The first game was to take place the following Wednesday at 7:00 PM and I eagerly joined seven other students and two of the Synanon residents where we sat around in a circle in one of the school classrooms.
“There are three rules,” Sidney, a rotund, 30-year-old guy with a New York accent, intoned. “First, no drugs, including the legal ones like alcohol or the illegal ones like pot. In other words, come here straight, with a clear mind. Second, no violence or threats of violence. You can use strong words, but don’t get out of your seat. Third, tell the truth.”
“Why do you call it a game?” I asked Sidney.
“We think of it as the most human sport you can play,” Sidney explained. “There are a few rules, but the real fun is mixing it up emotionally with the other game players.”
It sounded O.K. to me, like some of the encounter groups I had attended in college, but as soon as things started, I realized this was not like anything I had ever experienced before. It felt like an emotional street fight.
“So, what’s your story professor? What’s bothering you?” I was now the center of focus.
I remained calm, took a deep breath, took off my glasses to clean them. “I’m fine. I’m just here to learn.” I smiled to show I was listening and wanted to take in whatever wisdom they had to offer.
“Don’t give me that intellectual bullshit. You’re fucking angry. I can see it. Let it out, you’ll feel better,” he screamed, and others joined in with their own voices, attacking my protective façade that I insisted wasn’t there.
I defended myself as best I could and the game moved on to someone else. I felt I had been emotionally pummeled, but I also felt strangely exhilarated. I was beginning to feel things that I had long buried and I felt more alive, less depressed and confused.
It took months for my defenses to be breached. In one game I talked a little about my father and my experiences leaving medical school.
“You’re fucking pissed at your father. Admit it.” This from a tough-looking addict that looked like he could rip my head off.
“I can see you’re angry. But really, I’m not. I just feel sorry for him,” I said.
The group continued to push my buttons until one guy got to me.
“You’re such a God damned wimp,” he yelled at me. “Your father fucking abandoned you and you act like nothing happened.”
“Fuck you. fuck you. fuck you!” I screamed. I felt like a plug had been released in my brain and it scared the hell out of me. I had never said “fuck you” in my life and I waited for the retaliation.
“Finally, some honest feeling from the professor,” Sidney said with a smile. “I think there’s hope for you yet.”
Gradually, I began to let down my invisible shield that I hoped would protect me. I could finally tell my emotional truth about the anger, hurt, and fear I felt toward my father for leaving me and my shame for having a father in a mental hospital.
But there were deeper emotions that I was bottling up. Although I was settling into classes and was also working two jobs to pay my rent, I felt isolated and alone. My girlfriend, and later my wife, Lindy, was still at U.C. Santa Barbara. Talking on the phone didn’t remove the terrors I felt every day. Viet Nam was heating up. Campus protests continued and I went home alone every night.
One day, I felt particularly depressed. I didn’t really want to die, but I just wanted out of the craziness of the world. I lived on the third floor of an old apartment building and began going down the stairs. I was imagining ways I might escape my pain and confusion. I didn’t want to kill myself. I just wanted to sleep a long time and maybe never wake up. In that moment, I stumbled and fell down the stairs and ended up in a heap at the bottom agonizing with pain. I thought I had broken my neck, but when I was taken to hospital it turned out I just had a bruised shoulder, and my pride.
After I was released from the hospital, with a prescription for pain pills and instructions to use one before I went to bed, I talked to one of my fellow social work students who was also going to the Synanon games. When she asked what happened to me, I gave her a sanitized version of the events that had put me in the hospital. “I just stumbled and fell coming down the stairs,” I concluded by explanation of what happened. As I had done all my life, I quickly forgot about the underlying feelings that terrified me and the thoughts of suicide that preceded my fall.
I had nearly forgotten what happened when I was on the hot seat at the next Synanon game, until I was on the hot seat.
“So, you’re the guy who tried to kill himself.” I felt pinned to the wall.
“No, I just fell down the stairs.”
“Bullshit. You wanted to die. Tell us what happened.”
For months, every game opened the same way and I was forced to tell my story again and again. The more I told my truth and opened up to the despair and sadness I was living with, the better I felt. If I had gone to the student health center or some other kind of health facility, I would have likely been given a diagnosis and a label by strangers who didn’t know me and didn’t have time to get below the surface of life
Instead, I was treated like a guy with a lot of shit building up inside who needed to talk about it with people cared about me and would keep pushing until the wound was cleansed. Most of my life I’d been a dutiful son, a nice guy, and kept my true feelings buried, even from myself. Now, these addicts, who had a lot of experience with feeling hopeless, depressed, and suicidal, were pushing me to open up. They weren’t afraid to go deeply into my fears, wounds, and desires to escape. It was my first experience with “tough love” in a form that I desperately needed without labelling me “crazy” or “mentally ill.”
By the time I had told the story over and over again, the shame of having problems began to dissipate. I felt held and embraced by a community who were all wounded healers. There was not separation between “us” and “them.” I felt better and thoughts of wanting to sleep for a long time and maybe never wake up, had gone away.
I have been a men’s mental health professional since November 21, 1969 when I held my newborn son and made a vow that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and do everything I could to improve the mental, emotional, and relational lives of men and their families. Along the way I have earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree, a PhD in International Health, and written 17 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions and The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression. Home – MenAlive
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