In the mid seventies, I was a teenager living in Lansing, Michigan, and um, I was having a pretty hard time, lots of anxiety. , tremendous anxiety, lots of depression, things like that. And at that point, in the mid seventies in Lansing, Michigan, uh, in my family, there was basically no understanding of what that might be about or what someone might do about that.

You know, calm down. It was about as much help as I got. There was no therapists, no meds, no support really of any kind. So, um, you know, That was pretty difficult. And eventually I was having like immobilizing anxiety attacks. Like you get so worried you can't move. And uh, I don't know if anyone here has ever experienced that, but it's unpleasant.

Okay. It is not a fun experience. And so, you know, I suppose I was about, uh, 15 or 16 and I realized I was, if I was gonna get any help with this stuff, I was gonna have to help. And, uh, so I just started, uh, reading everything I possibly could. Um, and my mom's a librarian and one of the first things I remember in my entire life is sorting a card catalog for her, you know, uh, and cause she's a grade school librarian and so I would be sorting the card catalog, looking at all the books.

And so reading about stuff is a way that I was really. Trained to intake information. So I decided I'm gonna have to help myself with these anxiety attacks and I'm gonna do that by reading. So I read a lot of stuff and um, I was also into science fiction novels, but one day I was in the bookstore and I saw a very interesting hardcover.

Uh, called The Scientist. Anyone ever read that book here? Really? Wow. I would've expected a lot of hands here. It's called A Scientist and it's by John c Lilly, and it was his biography at the time. And, uh, I of course had no idea who this person was, but there I am in my room in, in Michigan, you know, uh, nice Midwestern family.

And I'm reading about this guy who's like, Pounding, you know, uh, metal rods into donkeys brains to put electrodes in to guide them. He's talking about, um, uh, Trying to learn the language of dolphins and how his wife was, would get in the tank and have sex with dolphins. You know, I'm like, wow, you know, this is, this is better than a science picture novel, you know?

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