![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well I HAD an actual post here.
I deleted it all because I found out that the guy who saved my life multiple times died. A year ago, because we'd been so caught up with our own family shit we'd lost touch shortly before my dad got sick in 2014. Which as it turns around was when he got sick. I tried to reach out to talk to him today and this was the news I got.
This was the neuropsychiatrist (and inspiration for my career track; I wanted to study psychopharm as soon as I was old enough to understand his research) who diagnosed me with autism when I was 8 (early 90s) in a time when nobody diagnosed girls. He knew exactly what to tell us and predicted and interpreted my issues like I was the book he was reading. And then he stuck with us, and stopped me from killing myself as a teenager a number of times. He defended me from the rampant abuses of my school system and its population as much as he could, including once in 9th grade claiming he was hospitalizing me when he actually wasn't just so I could stay at home and read for a week.
(This was after a teacher had deliberately knocked me down a short flight of stairs and managed to evade punishment because I wasn't seriously injured. My 4th grade teacher and her mean girl minions were the trauma that initially caused my PTSD diagnosis; it was a very cruel place until 10th grade when I stopped interacting with anyone altogether except for people on the Internet - people who are still my close friends - and the teachers who I actually liked. This doctor was also instrumental in not justtelling me "ignore people" but helping me actually learn to do so, and let their harsh words flow off me, and calmly react to physical attacks by leaving and getting help for any injury without trying to get those people to care what they'd done - because believe me, they didn't, and I bet they still don't.)
He was an incredible man; I'll quote the obit because it says it perfectly.
This was the neuropsychiatrist (and inspiration for my career track; I wanted to study psychopharm as soon as I was old enough to understand his research) who diagnosed me with autism when I was 8 (early 90s) in a time when nobody diagnosed girls. He knew exactly what to tell us and predicted and interpreted my issues like I was the book he was reading. And then he stuck with us, and stopped me from killing myself as a teenager a number of times. He defended me from the rampant abuses of my school system and its population as much as he could, including once in 9th grade claiming he was hospitalizing me when he actually wasn't just so I could stay at home and read for a week.
(This was after a teacher had deliberately knocked me down a short flight of stairs and managed to evade punishment because I wasn't seriously injured. My 4th grade teacher and her mean girl minions were the trauma that initially caused my PTSD diagnosis; it was a very cruel place until 10th grade when I stopped interacting with anyone altogether except for people on the Internet - people who are still my close friends - and the teachers who I actually liked. This doctor was also instrumental in not justtelling me "ignore people" but helping me actually learn to do so, and let their harsh words flow off me, and calmly react to physical attacks by leaving and getting help for any injury without trying to get those people to care what they'd done - because believe me, they didn't, and I bet they still don't.)
He was an incredible man; I'll quote the obit because it says it perfectly.
He spent his entire life studying his special field of interest—brain molecular biology. Among other esteemed colleagues, he worked with Dr. Eric Simon and Dr. R. Bruce Merrifield, the Nobel laureate, to characterize opiate receptors in the brain. Most recently, he invented and patented a device to objectively measure disorders of movement, such as Parkinson's Disease, so that clinicians may quantify severity of disease and response to therapy.
He maintained a passion for his German, particularly Waldensian, heritage and strove to meticulously document and connect with many of his living relatives in Germany and the U.S.
More recently, he located a 400-year old ancestral farmhouse in the Alps and dreamt of restoring it with a team of Italian architects.
He was an avid pianist, horseback-rider, and voracious reader.
He will be remembered as a deeply devoted husband and father. He lived his life in the service of others. He was fiercely academic and prided himself on being a perpetual learner. As a man who was known for his encyclopedic intellect, he could expound on the works M.C. Escher one moment, and then relay an anecdote about Emmanuel Kant the next. He could always be found tucked away in a quiet corner of the house, wire-rimmed glasses at the tip of his nose, a pile of books next to him, scrawling away on his yellow legal pad various ideas, theories, and revisions of his work.
no subject
I am sorry that the way you found out he died was sub-optimal, and that events and illnesses conspired to lead to you losing touch with each other before the end.
<3
no subject
I'm willing to privately exchange his name if you feel you may ever need it, I just didn't want his family stumbling on this post and also didn't feel comfortable making it locked.
* I was told I could leave; I chose not to because my car is in the shop so I can't pick up my dog from daycare and would be home by myself. I feel safer in the office where I have things to occupy me and people to speak to. But my job isn't a bunch of heartless jerks, I'm staying of my own volition.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject