Herbert Thomas Hensgen – 50th Reunion Essay

Herbert Thomas Hensgen

7420 Drake Rd.

Cincinnati, Ohio 45243-1422

hensgentom@yahoo.com

513-791-1552

Education: BS, Univ. of Cincinnati, 1973; MS, Univ. of Cincinnati, 1978; AAS, Cincinnati State, 1981

Career: 6 years as Medical Technologist, 24 years as Research Assistant

Avocations: Theocentric Philosophy

College: Branford

They took the name of Yale in vain. Of course, this is the problem you can run into at a place like an Ivy League college. There can always be opinionated, authoritarian mentalities that can influence others more than is appropriate due to the fact that they are going to a very good school. I am speaking of the “God Squad.” (Remember them?) My experience was so traumatic, and the end of my Yale days so tragic, that I almost did not write this essay. I might have preferred to silently disappear into the woodwork.

I do not list Yale on my résumé. It would raise embarrassing questions, like why I did not graduate. “Oh, heh-heh, I was admitted to a mental hospital.” The God Squad had thrown me out for “gluttony.” At 6 feet tall and 160 pounds I was right in the middle of normal on the body mass index. The stress of this rejection caused me to get anorexia religiosa, an eating disorder that has not been around much since the Middle Ages. I have yet to meet a physician who has heard of it. Every time I went on a long fast, I had to be hospitalized. Finally in the third institution (1974) I abandoned my Christian faith. This stopped the fasting, which stopped the hospitals. I was never readmitted. In addition the change of worldview refuted religious explanations for why I was in the hospital and enabled me to see that I really was ill.

Since then, I went back to graduate school at the University of Cincinnati and earned a thesis M.S. in biological sciences. But my medical history made it difficult to find a job, so I had to get an AAS in medical laboratory technology from Cincinnati State. I was hired at my co-op site and worked 30 consecutive years in hospital laboratories as a medical technologist or a research assistant (this time I was the man in the white coat). I retired in 2010 but had to take a part-time job as a security guard last September. Yes—I attended Yale but am now making $10 an hour! And I am glad for that, because an individual with a psychiatric diagnosis could have a hard time finding any work at all.

As I said, I do not mention Yale on my résumé. It probably would have been better if I had not gone.