Mental DNA. Traumas are scorched on the body and become part of the DNA, not only as an identity, but within the blood cycle. My grandfather passed this on to my mother, who then passed on to me impressions which are remembered by the body and consciousness. However, does this mean that I am destined to live with this heritage? Am I capable of dissolving this mental genetic continuity and creating a new one?

From the moment I was exposed to the holocaust and to my grandfather’s survival story, it seemed like I am in a time machine, returning to a place and time in history which was familiar to me, which my body recognized. My grandfather was killed two months before I was born. I was the firstborn grandchild. His heart met mine, his body met my body, the information imprinted in him transferred to me. The same hand which gently touched me, was also touched by Dr. Mangele. It is in my bones and does not leave me be. As a young boy, the holocaust occupied my thoughts much of the time. It was never quite enough. The more I delved into the holocaust, the more the fears and threats of it grew. The fear that perhaps my younger brother would be torn from my arms on a railway platform in the dead of night, with barking dogs, frightened me very much. I wet my bed until an older age, I would vomit, I would have migraines and every summer my nose would constantly bleed. In the fourth grade, I got high from Ti pex dilute solution, glue fluid and any other narcotic substance which could be bought at a stationary store. In high school I was drawn into the world of heavy metal music. I released rage and screamed on stage. I graduated high school. I served in the intelligence unit in the army for four years and then graduated from The Hebrew University with a BA. Later, I became addicted to substances, sleeping pills, pain killers, alcohol, anything that could take away the pain of my inner reality. The holocaust was always with me. As opposed to emotional distresses which were processed over the years, some coming and going, the holocaust does not go away. Success, work, money, relationships, sexuality, food, everything is connected to survival. I am stuck in a pattern of a survival existence. I am fed up of living in constant anxiety, I am tired of occupying myself with evil and death. I am ready to rid myself of the addiction to pain and sadness.

In the hardest times of my life, the ones when I lose my grip on reality, my grandfather returns to me, clarifying to me that I have no prerogative whatsoever to wish to die. That is not an option. I must not. My grandfather, the young boy who was torn from his family and stayed all alone in Auschwitz, who managed to survive the atrocities and later build a family, be a successful business owner and live a vibrant life until the age of 46, died suddenly when I was only two months old. I am now 46 years old. Dealing with these dark places of the soul is a part of my life, a so-called Medical Dark. It is an alchemy which wishes to turn darkness into light. Feverishly, I work at breaking the hurt mental DNA chain which I inherited, so that it will not pass on to my daughter.

r u capable? I have to be.

Idan Golko