OO On A Simple Scale (Eg. a Java style Private Global)

I'm always running into an annoyance with TS that I'd like CS files to behave more like a class/object. I've been spoiled the last few years ( or 8 ) when I started programing in Java.

Primarly I'd like just to be able to declare a non-global variable and have it persist longer than a single use.

For an (overly) simple example it would make computing distance more easily

Pseudo Example

%IWantToLive = "" (Declared outside of a function)

(Other functions)

function playGui::Distance(%this, %pos, %start, %ray){

// find end of search vector
   %ray = VectorScale(%ray, 2000);
   %end = VectorAdd(%start, %ray);
   
   %searchMasks = $TypeMasks::PlayerObjectType ;

   %scanTarg = ContainerRayCast( %start, %end, %searchMasks );
   
   if( %scanTarg ) { 
      %selected = getWords(%scanTarg, 0, 0);
   } 

   if(!%IWantToLive $= "") {

      %distance = sqrt((%selected.x - %IWantToLive.x)^2 + (%selected.y - %IWantToLive.y)^2)
      echo(%distance);
   }
   
   IWantToLive = %selected;
}

Currently the only way that seems to work is to save it back to the object in C++ via console functions/methods or to declare a global which then is the same across all of torque or more importantly all of the instances of that class (AIPlayer type classes atm).

I guess what I want is the equivalent of a Java Private Global.

Can anyone point me in the right direction, I found a tutorial from TGA 1.2, but I'm hoping for something this simple there is something for T3D or atleast TGEA that I can update more easily.

Thanks.