05.The important mentors who made my Epileptic Journey possible. (Article 5 of the history of my epilepsy.)

My first spouse and our children Annie and Anders.

Those steps of Maslow's pyramid, which is about security, family and sexual intimacy,  my first spouse, helped me meet between 1962 and 1974. Although we both often used each other to smooth our sharp edges, the marriage and the fellowship with our children Annie and Anders gave me a total well being that gave me confidence both socially and in my career. The maturation and development I got together with them formed the basis of that I could seize the opportunity offered in the drain when I met Sven Moller Andersen during the autumn of 1974.

DR David Ingvar

DR David Ingvar was my neurologists for years at the hospital in Lund where I went for a routine examination once a year. (He also helped me with a referral to an experienced specialist in the 90's when my ambitions and neuroses were about to kill me). A skilled neurologist and brain researcher with a solid international reputation. An intellectual, academic person typical for the University of Lund, who radiated a warmth in his sparse aloof elegance, and he was easy to feel confident with without the contact for that sake became particularly deep.

DR Ingvar, I am particularly grateful to because when my fiancée 1965 called him to check if it was true that I could not have children, which I claimed, reassured her directly (and indirectly me) by saying that we could get both married and have children despite my epilepsy. Here we can talk about an important support, both emotionally and socially, which had as well a direct as a long term effect on my subjective well being.

Bert J.

‘Hello you motherfucker’ used to be Bert’s cordial greeting during many years when we initiated a phone call. Often, I became so deeply emotionally involved that I was stumbling about to start crying, and sometimes I got some kind of minor hallucination. Being able to say: ‘Motherfucker’ in such a way that it feels like emotional support, there is no more than Bert, who has been capable of. In 1968 he came in as CEO of Spirella and when he put his feet with shoes with rubber soles on the desktop then I was not the only one to wonder what it was all about. It did not take more than a year, and he had lifted me out of the clerk chair and moved me to the sales department, made sure that I got a modern sales and sales management training and sent me on the ground to kick-start the ‘beldames’ corset sales. The step that followed soon afterwards was to build a new direct sales organization, selling fashion clothing called "Democratic clothes." Appetite grows with eating and the appetite for career achievements created during Bert’s leadership years at Spirella did that I discovered a world of business outside Spirella. The fact that Spirellas new owners did not submit the same confidence as Bert made it easier when I decided to leave for my next fortune in Denmark.

From a leadership point of view during my last four years on Spirella, Bert was a boss and mentor who gave unconditional emotional support. He for sure believed me when I told him that I had epilepsy, and his belief that it would not hinder my career as a sales manager quickly became my own, and my doubts dispelled. The fact that Bert had an impact on my health and welfare then, during future joint collaborations, as well as in all the years that we have kept a personal contact cannot be overstated.