I read this Wall Street Journal article  on genetic testing with interest. In it, the author describes those person having the genetic trait in question as "patients-in-waiting." I prefer a different term, "exceptionally healthy."

Patients-in-waiting are basket cases. Exceptionally healthy people are proud of their health, in spite of what the doctors are telling them. They may be the answer to the disease others with similar genetic markers have.

Let's change the mind set, and be exceptionally healthy.

“The last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one’s own way.”  -- Viktor Frankl 

Choosing My Own Way

I learned about the BRCA 2 mutation after my daughter called me following up on her physical exam, and told me her doctor asked whether our family carried a BRCA mutation. The question was based on her family history: a great grandmother and two great aunts died young of breast cancer, her grandfather had breast cancer, and her maternal aunt also had breast cancer. Clearly something was going on.

I spoke with my father about getting genetic testing because genetic councilors suggest the oldest living person who potentially has the mutation gets tested first; that way, if the results are positive for the mutation, the other family members can tell the lab what to look for.

“No! I don’t want to get the test! Of course I carry the cancer gene, but I won’t get the test! Tell your daughter to be extra vigilant, but my veins are hard to reach and I don’t want to waste money getting a test that we already know what the outcome will be.” So went a heated conversation over the phone with my father. He flatly refused to have the test done.

Since he wouldn't  I did, and found out that I have a “deleterious mutation” to a BRCA 2 gene, confirming that the reason my grandmother died of breast cancer, and my dad had breast cancer and died of metastatic prostate cancer, was that one of the cellular hygiene features in our DNA was somehow different. Theoretically, the mutation may stop a cleansing process, allowing hyper-dividing cells to freely multiply at some point relatively early in life, and cancer can develop. 

So perhaps a root cause for some of my life choices is the BRCA 2 mutation, manifest in my grandmother, echoing through her absence, into my family. The pit in my stomach when tempers flare may come from 1930s Philly – when survival required living without love, because a cancer grew unabated in a mother’s breast. Therefore, I forgive my dad for his emotional lack, he tried. I forgive my grandmother, who I never knew, for dying so young – she did not have a healer. She passed along to me, though my father’s blood, a genetic anomaly we label a deleterious BRCA 2 mutation. She passed it on to her daughters, too, and they joined her too young and after too hard of lives.

Since God makes no errors, what is the spiritual purpose of this mutated gene? 85% of women who have certain BRCA mutations develop cancer. Perhaps the reason lies in the 15% of women carrying this mutation who do not develop cancer. Could these women hold the cure for cancer? Could I?

My objective in dealing with BRCA mutations, and any other inherited trait, is to address it not with fear, but with curiosity driven toward understanding. I know I must be vigilant monitoring my health, but even more vigilant monitoring my thoughts. If nothing else, knowing my BRCA status provides me with an impetus to live life more fully – as if each day is a gift from God – which it is.  

I choose love.

What I believe to be true about addictive/compulsive behavior

Robert Michel

An addictive person is one who believes that they are not whole, and that by adding an “X Factor,” they will be whole. The “X Factor” can be a substance, such as drugs or alcohol, or it can be an experience, such as gambling or sex. What the addictive person in each case has in common is the feeling that they are not capable of functioning the way they desire without the stimulus of the “X Factor”.

Often we associate addiction with personality. According to the Science of Mind textbook, factors to be considered in the development of personality are listed here:

·         Heredity
·         Race-suggestion
·         Environment
·         Child training
·         Education
·         Auto-suggestion
·         Anything impinging on conscience

Heredity may promote physical addiction and/or addictive behavior. For example, some ethnic groups, such as Native Americans, have not developed a resistance to alcohol and may become addicted more easily than other groups. Other ethnic groups may actively promote addictive behavior, like smoking cigarettes in Eastern Europe.

Race suggestion feeds an addictive mentality by promulgating the sex appeal of addictive behavior, and this may be Madison Avenue playing on our psyches. When our society continuously reinforces the perceived attractiveness of smoking or drinking, it tends to absorb into the collective consciousness and find its way into our personalities.

Environment also can support addictive behavior and personalities. When a person is born into a family already addicted to the “X Factor,” it becomes normal that the new family member is also an “X Factor” addict. The family is not the only source of an environmental influence; kid’s cohorts growing up have a similar effect to family: “If you are from our neighborhood, you do the “X Factor” with us – or you are an outsider.”

Child training feeds addictive personalities when the training is rife with “X Factor” influences. Kids are fed wine at the dinner table in some families and this normalizes getting drunk. Kids see drinking on TV or in the movies and they get trained in the idea that it is OK and normal to drink. The same thing goes for gambling, sex, and drugs: many kids get trained in these “X Factors” from their parents, TV, movies, and their cohorts.

Education shapes personalities, and lack of education shapes personalities too. If a person lacks the basic education to survive in the job market, they easily fall prey to “X Factor” intoxication. Whether it is substances or compulsive behaviors, lack of education can be tied directly to addictive behavior.

Other factors shaping personality include auto-suggestion and “anything impinging on conscience” forms the category of “anything else that could make a person addictive.” Clearly we do not know the reasons why every person ends up dependent upon addictive substances or compulsive destructive behaviors, so we write it off as auto-suggestion (they thought their way into it) or something impinged on their conscience.

These pathways to addictive personalities are the same that form non-addictive personalities, just turned in a skewed direction. The addict’s need for the “X Factor” may stem from any of the listed personality inputs, or combinations of these inputs, combined with low self-esteem.  By addressing the roots of the addictive personality, they can be treated, and addiction can be healed.