By LYNN OLCOTT / Courtland Standard
Nowadays, Cortland County resident Kurt Warner is a psychotherapist, and he is also a successful author who has two more books coming out soon. It wasn’t always this way.
The puzzling regimens of obsessive-compulsive disorder began to torment him around age 5. He suffered a severe head injury due to the carelessness of friends as a teen. Mammoth swings from bipolar disorder interrupted all aspects of his life as a younger man, and he sustained a severe back injury from plain honest work. What to do?
The author shares his experiences in “Victory in Every Fall: The Antaeus Approach to Overcome Disabilities” in hope other people will find them useful, as we all have disabilities of some kind. He battles his “giants” with Greek mythology, simple pleasures, knowledge and grit. Over the years, various treatments, pharmaceuticals and therapies have ranged from helpful to harmful. Three things have always had restorative value: empathy from others; his faith; and the act of writing.
The author offers a strategy based on a fellow named Antaeus. In Greek mythology, Antaeus was the son of gods. He derived his amazing strength from physical contact with the Earth. In short, he was made stronger and more victorious when he fell down — and got back up.
Warner recommends his mom for the Mother Hall of Fame and writes movingly of his appreciation for people who have helped him along the way.
Many things have helped: a desk with a sliding drawer; a voice activated software system; the words of the great philosophers.
The book is dense with experience and thought. It is written with emotional honesty and just enough distance to make the concepts easily accessible to others. “Victory in Every Fall” is available from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Kallisti Publishing, Google Play Books and Apple Books as well as through the Finger Lakes Library System from the Cortland Free Library.
