The OCD Diaries

May 28, 2010

Dirt Bag

The author admits he’s not a very good person when he lets the demons out.

Mood music for this post: “A Rat Like Me” by Motley Crue:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgiMffbYz1c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A liar. A hater. Thinking you’re better than other people. These actions describe me pretty well. Not so much today, Thank God. But when the addictions are out of control and the OCD is on full burn, this is who I become. That’s why I have to cling to my recovery for dear life.

This is a collection of entries that dive deep into the darker world I used to inhabit; a world I could inhabit again if I’m not careful.

The Liar’s Disease

The author endeavors to tell the truth about an uncomfortable fact: People with addictive behavior really suck at honesty.

The Ego OCD Built

The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire.

The Rat in the Church Pew

The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

The author goes to Church and comes away with a strange feeling.

Bad Behavior, Easily Defined

The author turns to his musical hero for some easy-to-remember descriptions of depression and addictive behavior.

Meet My Demon

Why the author treats his demon like an imaginary friend, and how it helps.

A Little Bitter

The author on three of the 12 Steps he keeps tripping over.

The Long Road Through Self Hatred

The author has learned that it’s damn hard to like yourself at the beginning of sobriety and abstinence. The feeling will pass. Eventually.

May 27, 2010

Prozac Summer, Part 2: Timing’s Everything

The author has a meeting with Dr. Prozac, and learns a couple things about dosage and timing. Turns out the two are connected.

Mood music for this post: “Show Me How to Live” by Audioslave:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXIK1xCRpY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

So I’m back from an appointment with Dr. Prozac, who I introduced you to this morning. I’m staying at the lower dose of Prozac until Aug. 1, then she wants me back on my winter dosage.

This surprised me. I figured I’d be on the lower dosage until at least October.

But what she said made perfect sense, and I’m kicking myself for not figuring this out for myself last year.

For cases like mine, where mood swings and depression are more likely during winter, the trick is to make any necessary dosage tweaks WHEN THE DAYS FIRST START TO GET NOTICEABLY SHORTER. Technically, the days start getting shorter after the first day of summer, which is the longest day of the year in terms of sunlight.

But the beginning of August is when we really start to notice the earlier sunsets.

That is the ideal time to prepare for winter, Dr. Prozac said.

Last time I didn’t have the adjustment until early January. The result was a game of body chemistry catch-up that left me with some made-for-TV mood swings that hit me all in one day. The next day I woke up feeling fine.

If I time dosage adjustments with the amount of daylight out my window, I can spare myself the mood swings, Dr. Prozac said.

As Spock would say, “Fascinating.”

So that’s what I’ll be doing.

To those who think I’m putting too much faith in an anti-depressant, I refer you back to the earlier posts in this blog.

The truth is I share the skepticism that’s out there when it comes to anti-depressants as a cure-all for everyone and every situation.

I resisted taking them for many years, which turned out to be a good thing because I focused on all the hard mental work I needed first. The first four years of treatment were about developing coping tools and learning to manage the OCD without chemicals. I only turned to the chemical at a very advanced stage of therapy, when I realized I needed it to push through that one last wall I couldn’t seem to crack without the extra help.

For some people, anti-depressants are the first line of treatment, and it ends up not working in the end because the patient didn’t start dealing with how they got the way they are first. For others, like my old friend Sean Marley, anti-depressants and all the adjustments one could make proved futile in the end.

No two people are the same, and that goes for how we respond to medication used to treat mental disorders.

I’m lucky, because I found the right balance. That’s very hard to do.

Now I’m learning that there are balances within balances to work on.

Confused? Me too.

May 27, 2010

Prozac Summer

The author on the tricky balance between Prozac and sunlight.

Mood music for this post: “Times Like These” by The Foo Fighters:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzmNRtIp8k&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

This post is a sequel to Prozac Winter, which I wrote back in January.

Back then, I was experiencing some hefty mood swings, which is pretty normal for me at the start of winter. I was listening Nine Inch Nails a lot, which is never a good sign.

My therapist and a woman I’ll call Dr. Prozac (she’s the anti-depressant specialist who works with my therapist) upped by dosage by 20 mg. for the duration of winter, which worked remarkably well. On balance, I had a pretty good winter. It turns out that winter, with it’s cold temperatures and shorter spans of daylight, knocks my brain chemistry out of alignment. It’s actually a very common problem. The sun provides nutrients the brain needs to function properly.

Now we’re approaching summer, with longer days, hot weather and all the rays I need. So my dosage is being rolled back to where it was before the winter.

I have to drive an hour to Dr. Prozac this morning so she can measure my progress. She’s done a great job up to this point. While I’m down there, I’ll go have lunch with a dear friend I haven’t seen in awhile.

It’s all good.

I’ve gotten a fair amount of questions about the true value of anti-depressants. I’m not a doctor, so don’t take my perspective as Gospel. Also remember there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. What I write here is based on my own personal experiences. What works for me may not work for the next person.

The more I read up on depression, mental illness and the drugs prescribed for it, the more I see the human brain as an engine. Comparing it to an engine makes this whole think easier to understand.

We know that the engine of a car is made up of many small parts and when one part gets worn out the rest of the engine can fail. We know that a car needs just the right amount of oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid etc. to function properly. If the oil runs out, the engine seizes up. If the brake fluid runs dry, the breaks fail. On the flip side, too much of these fluids can harm the engine.

We also know that the auto mechanic uses many different techniques to keep engines healthy or fix them when they break.

The brain works much the same way.

[ImgPet.jpg]

Think of the different drugs as different tools to deal with very specific problems in the engine.

In my case, Prozac addresses the very specific fluid deficiencies that spark OCD behavior. The effect is not as simple as the image below suggests (though I do like the image and need to find the artist so I can properly credit him/her):

It may also be useful to think of the therapist as the auto mechanic who is well versed in how to regulate the different engine fluids and pinpoint specific fixes for specific problems. It’s also true that there are good mechanics and bad mechanics who sometimes make the problem worse.

In the brain, when certain fluids are running low, the engine stops working properly. The result is depression and a host of other mental disorders.

Since OCD is essentially the brain pumping and spinning out of control, I like to think of my specific problem as a lack of brake fluid.

But the good folks at WebMD explain it much better than I ever could. Here’s some WebMD wisdom I included in Prozac Winter:

How Antidepressants Work

Most antidepressants work by changing the balance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. In people with depression, these chemicals are not used properly by the brain. Antidepressants make the chemicals more available to brain cells like the one shown on the right side of this slide:

Photo Composite of Neurotransmitters at Work

Antidepressants can be prescribed by primary care physicians, but people with severe symptoms are usually referred to a psychiatrist.

Realistic Expectations

In general, antidepressants are highly effective, especially when used along with psychotherapy. (The combination has proven to be the most effective treatment for depression.) Most people on antidepressants report eventual improvements in symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, and hopelessness.

But these drugs do not work right away. It may take one to three weeks before you start to feel better and even longer before you feel the full benefit.

And, just as weather can impair the performance of your car engine (myfather‘s car went for a swim when Revere got flooded out in The Blizzard of 1978 and never worked properly again), too much bad weather can keep the brain from working properly:

Why do I seem to get so gloomy each winter, or sometimes beginning in the fall?

You may have what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The condition is marked by the onset of depression during the late fall and early winter months, when less natural sunlight is available. It’s thought to occur when daily body rhythms become out-of-sync because of the reduced sunlight.

Some people have depression year round that gets worse in the winter; others have SAD alone, struggling with low moods only in the cooler, darker months. (In a much smaller group of people, the depression occurs in the summer months.)

SAD affects up to 3% of the U.S. population, or about 9 million people, some experts say, and countless others have milder forms of the winter doldrums.

So this worsening of mood in the fall and winter is not just my imagination?

Not at all. This “winter depression” was first identified by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1984. They found this tendency to have seasonal mood and behavior changes occurs in different degrees, sometimes with mild changes and other times severe mood shifts.

Symptoms can include:

Sleeping too much
Experiencing fatigue in the daytime
Gaining weight
Having decreased interest in social activities and sex

SAD is more common for residents in northern latitudes. It’s less likely in Florida, for instance, than in New Hampshire. Women are more likely than men to suffer, perhaps because of hormonal factors. In women, SAD becomes less common after menopause.

I’m still learning the science of mental illness, and remember I’m not a doctor. I just share my personal experiences and explain what works for me.

Class dismissed.

May 26, 2010

Just a Little Patience

I recently stumbled upon this live version of GnR’s “Patience” and wanted to post it here because it’s always been an inspirational song to me.

Being an OCD-wired control freak with a knack for impatience and endless attempts at recovery before I finally pulled it off, patience was a virtue I simply did not possess. It would be a stretch to say I’ve mastered it at this point in my life, but I at least appreciate it more than I used to.

I used to drop F-bombs to myself while driving every time I saw those bumper stickers that say things like “Easy Does It,” “One Day at a Time” and “Let Go and Let God.” Already seething in whatever traffic jam I happened to be sitting in at the time, those sayings would raise my anger level into orbit.

Years later, I understand those sayings and appreciate them in a way I never thought possible. My favorite is “Let Go and Let God,” just as the Serenity Prayer is one of my favorite prayers.

Anyway, I hope you get as much out of this song as I do:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjto02iDNZA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

May 26, 2010

It’s a Disease, Not a Choice

An open letter to those who are angry with a loved one whose addictions are off the rails.

Mood music:

This is one of those posts where I’m leaving names out to protect privacy. Still, the person this is meant for will know it’s for them, and he/she will be pissed at me. But that’s OK, because I’m saying something that needs to be said.

Right now, someone close to you has relapsed into alcoholism. This time it’s bad. You’re hurt and mad as hell because you remember a childhood where this sort of thing was a constant.

You might feel like hating this person right now because his relapse feels like a betrayal against you and you alone.

You’re wondering how the hell he could do this when he has so much to live for: grandchildren as far as the eye can see, a lot of the gifts he found a few years back when he got sober. It doesn’t make sense.

Here’s an attempt to explain it from someone who has been there. My problem was binge eating and a growing dependence on wine, further complicated by the variety of pain pills I was prescribed for the aches and pains caused, ultimately, by my bad habits. I was a less-than-ideal husband and dad. I couldn’t be relied upon.

I’d sneak around feeding my addiction and then cover my tracks. Sometimes I would blatantly lie about it. [See “The Liar’s Disease“] I didn’t lie to be evil. I did it because the shame was too much for me to handle.

You might also say I didn’t know any better.

One thing’s for certain: I didn’t wake up one morning and decide it would be a laugh riot to slowly destroy myself and hurt everyone around me in the process.

To you, looking at this loved one who is in relapse, you might feel that way. How the fuck could HE/SHE do this to YOU?

But here’s the ugly truth: Alcoholism — addictive behavior, period — is a disease. Nobody chooses it. They are chosen instead. It controls you like a puppet. You know as you’re doing that addictive action that it’s wrong and you hate every second of it. But your motor skills have taken over and you CAN’T stop.

Sure, we can shake it in time and find recovery, but relapse is a natural part of the disease. In fact, relapse is something I probably worry about the most, because I’ve been relatively lucky up to this point in my 12-Step program.

I know it can creep up on me and regain control at any moment, before I know what hit me.

In one of my favorite TV shows, “The West Wing,” Leo McGarry describes where the mind goes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma3d-YdLjCs&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“My brain works differently,” he says, followed by,” I don’t get drunk in front of people. I get drunk alone.”

It’s the same way for a food addict. You can’t have just one slice of pizza. It has to be the whole box. I once joked to a friends that I can’t eat just five. And when I really wanted to numb my frustrations in a bag of junk, I always went peddle to the metal out of sight from others; typically when I was alone in my car.

Yeah, the addicted brain works differently.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is this: Don’t hate the person who has fallen into relapse and disappointed you so badly. The person didn’t choose to be this way. He developed a disease a long, long time ago. And diseases have a habit of reasserting themselves from time to time. Sometimes the victim is not able to shake the relapse this time and it becomes the person’s demise.

It sucks. But it’s how it is.

Be mad. Be frustrated and hurt. But try and remember this person didn’t set out to hurt anyone.

Go easy on him/her, and yourself.

May 25, 2010

Shamed to Death

Why do people with mental and physical illness choose a slow, painful death over recovery?

Mood music for this post: “Estranged” by Guns N Roses:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpmAY059TTY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Last week I went on a tirade against firms putting limits on coverage for mental health care. It’s the same sorry song that ratchets up the fear level for those suffering from depression, OCD, bipolar disorder and the like, and The Boston Globe’s Kay Lazar shed light on a a particularly galling case.

It’s true that the healthcare industry and many employers make it hard for sufferers to come out into the light. There’s the fear of getting fired or blocked from career advancement. There’s the fear of people defining you by your illness.

But even when there’s a workplace full of loving, supportive people and friends willing to accept a person no matter their issues, it can still be hell for a sufferer to break free, because no matter how accepting their environment, embarrassment is a powerful wall.

It’s like people who are too embarrassed to get a colonoscopy because of how the procedure is done. No one has to know about it except their doctor and maybe a couple family members. But they avoid the test anyway because they still find it embarrassing. Then they end up dying of colon cancer a few years later.

Embarrassment is a powerful thing. It keeps a person from seeing things as they really are and keeps them from facing their demons.

It’s not always bad to be embarrassed. God put the emotion in us for a reason. If we’re a jerk to someone or we get caught doing something unethical, we should feel shame.

But we shouldn’t feel shame over an illness and shouldn’t be embarrassed about getting help.

Morris L. Roth, president and CEO of Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group, made the point in a recent column he wrote on how mental health is essential but often misunderstood:

One in 17 suffers from a serious mental illness. And only 40 percent of those will seek treatment.

You are likely to encounter someone in your family, workplace, school, church or community who is experiencing mental health challenges. If you don’t, you’re still impacted by the cost to our society in unemployment, disability, incarceration and homelessness associated with untreated or misdiagnosed mental illnesses.

Many cases of mental illness, even mild depression, go untreated because of the shame and discrimination connected to a long-ago era when mental health patients were locked away in insane asylums, sometimes for their entire lives. Patients were considered “defective” and “incurable” due to a lack of effective treatments. At times, treatments were barbaric.

We’ve come a long way in treating clinical symptoms of mental illness. For most, symptoms can be easily managed. But we’ve made far less headway with societal discrimination. Consider the 2001 Canadian study of people with schizophrenia that found that social withdrawal had a “great impact” on their lives, while the hallucinatory and delusional symptoms of the illness had the “least impact.”

Today, our clients are living proof that persons with even the most severe of mental illnesses can function normally and contribute to society.

Our experience as the community mental health provider in the Pikes Peak region is that a person with a mental health disorder, whether lifelong or temporary, is capable of many remarkable things, if given an opportunity.

Amen to that.

As someone who has been through years of mental therapy and as a lifelong Crohn’s Disease sufferer who has had to have the unpleasant test mentioned above too many times to count (my colon is basically a tube of scar tissue, so they have to keep an eye on it), I’m going to share a couple secrets with you:

1. Most of the people around you have medical procedures all the time that would seem embarrassing on the surface. It’s a necessary part of life. The body is a machine that needs frequent maintenance. It’s as simple as that. There is absolutely no reason you should feel ashamed about taking care of yourself. OB-GYN appointments are never fun for women, but most of those I know have the scruples to keep their appointments. Cervical cancer is not a good alternative. Suicide isn’t a very good alternative to therapy, either.

2. There is no need to feel embarrassed in the presence of a doctor. If you think this stuff is fun for them, you’re out of your mind. Therapists have heard things from their patients that are probably a lot more off the wall than anything you will tell them. They’ve heard it all. Doctors in general have seen it all.

3. If you never seek help, you’ll never know how good your life could be.

Just some thoughts from someone who has faced embarrassing situations more than once.

I got over the shame, and I’m better for it.

May 24, 2010

Pills Can’t Kill Pain at the Source

The author has written much about his binge-eating addiction, but not so much about the pills — until now.

Mood music for this post: “I Don’t Like the Drugs But the Drugs Like Me” by Marilyn Manson:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EefPcht54c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A fellow addict in OA recently asked me how pills fit into my overall haze before I found recovery. She asked because when sharing my story I mention how taking Prednisone as a kid for Crohn’s Disease started me down the road to a food obsession.

Truth is, I never think of pills as part of my core problems in the past. But in hindsight, they certainly do play a role.

In addition to the mental pain I’ve had my share of physical pain. Migraines have been a frequent companion. So has back pain.

A lot of my troubles on those fronts were in my head; anxiety attacks and depression made me feel all kinds of aches and pains, including migraines and sensations in the chest I was convinced were heart attacks. They weren’t, but I could believe just about anything when the fear and anxiety took over.

The back pain was very real. One time in 2003 paramedics had to cart me from my house because I was in so much pain that I couldn’t get off the sofa in our third-floor loft. I spent much of that week out of work and on the couch. The OCD and depression were already starting me on the deepest slide of my life and I was missing a lot of work anyway, but that’s the only time I can remember taking a ride in the back of an ambulance.

I would spent a lot of time incapacitated from lower-back pain, and one specialist after another would fail to pinpoint the problem until I found a chiropractor who within a day had pinpointed the source of my problem to three rogue vertebrae in the mid-back that kept closing shut on the nerves that are threaded through the middle. The pain would collect in my lower back, which left other doctors looking in the wrong place.

Since then, I go to the chiropractor every other week. He mashes the vertebrae back into place with his elbow and it’s all good from there.

But during the worst of the back pain I was on all kinds of pain medication. And naturally, they were addicting.

The doctors had me trying so many things I can’t remember most of the names, though one was Celebrex and another was Flexeril. The former was basically the equivalent of four Advils and the latter was a muscle relaxer. Taken together, they send you to la-la land.

At one point, I was on those two pills and a third, the name of which I can’t remember. I’d drive to work before taking them, because I noticed that when taken together with coffee, the mixture was buzz the hell out of me. It was a functional buzz that allowed me to do my work, but like all buzz-inducing fixes I found I needed it long after the drugs stopped working on the back pain.

I gave myself what in hindsight was an amusing panic attack once when, during a morning of house cleaning, I thought it would be an excellent idea to make the best of having to do chores by downing a Celebrex with two glasses of wine. I was buzzing nicely by the time I was scrubbing the counter in the upstairs bathroom. Then I remembered that there had been recent news reports about Celebrex carrying a heart-attack risk.

I freaked out, convinced I was going to be found dead on my bedroom floor. Erin was at her friend Sherri’s house at the time, and I called over there, remembering that Sherri is a nurse. I told Erin what I did and she asked Sherri for an opinion. Sherri said I’d be fine and to get back to cleaning. That’s what I did.

After going on Prozac I had some surgery on my throat to control snoring that was fed more by my obesity than my any problem in the throat. They gave me Vicodin do get through it and I would lie on the couch in bliss while under it’s spell. But I learned something that week: Pain meds can screw with the Prozac and keep the latter drug from working.

That led to a couple bad months of depression that took me into the Christmas season, which always screws with my head without chemical help.

I often wonder how much of the pain was depression induced — in my head, as my father-in-law might say. The reason is that in recovery I haven’t needed any of those pills.

In fact, one day I decided to clean out the cabinet where we keep most of our medication and I found several bottles of the pills I had been given for back pain. One of them had morphine in it, and when I chose to stop taking that one I remember lying on the couch in agony with withdrawal (and that was only after a couple weeks of taking it). The pills I found were mostly expired. Throwing them in the trash was a wonderful thing. It was like breaking out of a cage I never thought I’d be able to leave.

Today I only take one drug: Prozac. Yes, it works for me, though I believe it wouldn’t be working as well had I not gone through all the therapy and development of coping tools first.

Which sort of summarizes the big lesson for me: You can fill the hole in your soul with all the food, booze and pills you can get your hands on and the numbing part feels nice at first. But then you learn that nothing can dull pain that starts in the soul for long.

The only way out is to take the fight directly to the source of that hole.

May 23, 2010

Howie Mandel Fights The Stigma

Truth be told, I’ve never been much of a Howie Mandel fan. I liked his brand of humor in the beginning but eventually lost interest.

But I give him a lot of credit for being open about his own struggle with OCD and taking the fight to The Stigma:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZ84SZcPps&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

May 23, 2010

Hitting Bottom: Songs and Backstory

Hitting bottom is the moment of truth for an addict, whether the shackles are made of heroin, booze or food. I’ve been there. You have a choice: Clean up your act or die a painful death that can be either quick or slow.

People ask me all the time about my big moment. The answer is that there wasn’t that one dramatic moment of hitting bottom.

It was more a series of bottoms. It was a multi-staged crash.

One crash was a couple months after my best friend took his life. I was binge eating with more zeal than ever, and I don’t think I cared at that point if my heart gave out. I was too crushed to care much about anything.

I had just been handed the job of editor for the Lynn Sunday Post, a paper that was already dying. I would be its pallbearer. The job included double duty as a writer for North Shore Sunday. I worked 16-hour days, six days a week.

Work was all I had at that point. Erin and I were engaged (realizing life is too short, I proposed a month after Sean died), but I was still trying to please my masters, so work came first. On Sundays, my only day off, I was sleeping through the entire day.

By the summer of 1997, I realized I had to push back or end up in an institution somewhere. Fortunately, my boss at the time saw that I was physically deteriorating and stepped in.

In December 1998, I was 285 pounds and collapsing under the weight. My father was too, and wound up getting quadruple bypass surgery. That was another slap in the face to warn me that I had to clean up. I lost 100 pounds, though I did it through unhealthy means that would explode in my face several years later.

In late 2001 I realized that I was never going to please the managing editor I worked for at The Eagle-Tribune. He was forcing me to be the type of manager I didn’t want to be — an asshole. So I told him I was going higher up the food chain to get reassigned. And that’s what I did. They put me back in the night editor’s chair, which helped for a short time.

By late 2004 I was out of The Eagle-Tribune and in a job I loved. But I was putting enormous pressure on myself and the physical toll was showing. All my personality ticks were in overdrive: the obsession with cleanliness. The paranoia over my kids’ safety. A growing sense of fear that kept me indoors a lot.

That was probably the deepest bottom to date, the one that made me realize I needed to get help from a therapist; help that led to my OCD diagnosis.

The next bottom was in late 2006, when I had developed many of the mental health tools I use today. But my brain chemistry was such a mess I couldn’t get past the fear and anxiety attacks. That’s when I decided to try medication, which has worked far better than I ever thought possible.

The last bottom was in the summer of 2008. I was finally finding some mental stability, but I surrendered to the binge eating during therapy and was back up to 260 pounds. And it was hurting my health in a big way. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, choking on stomach acid. I couldn’t find clothes that would fit me. I was getting depressed again.

And so I started checking out OA and by October was headlong into my 12-Step Program of Recovery.

I immediately dropped 65 pounds, and have maintained the same healthier weight of 198 pounds for more than a year.

All these events were bottoms.

I hit bottom for different things.

Hopefully, I’m done.

The whole back story is here.

One thing I do to remind myself of why I never want to go back there is listen to songs about hitting bottom, coming clean and getting punched in the face by the truth. Here are four favorites:

“Cold Turkey” by Cheap Trick (covering John Lennon):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e04OBJzbvc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Girl With Golden Eyes” by Sixx A.M.:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKPbi-K6nNQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Under The Bridge” By Red Hot Chili Peppers:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsaubMAVHV8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Coma” by Guns N Roses:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CnSTSixzcg&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

May 22, 2010

Prozac or Potatoes: Which is Better?

The author votes for some of each. Though only 2 ounces of potato at a time.

Mood music for this post: “We’re All Gonna Die” by Iggy Pop and Slash:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ5Rmt7jYhQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

At the suggestion of my friend Christy Hubbard, I decided to check out Kathleen Des Maisons’ book “Potatoes Not Prozac.” She suggested I take a look after reading a couple of my previous posts about being a Prozac taker. [More on that in The Engine, Prozac Winter and The Bad Pill Kept Me From The Good Pill.]

I haven’t read it from cover to cover, but I’ve digested enough of it to get the point.

Google Books gives a pretty good overview:

You’re not lazy, self-indulgent, or undisciplined. Many people who suffer from sugar sensitivity don’t even know it — and they continue to consume large quantities of sweets, breads, pasta, or alcohol. These foods can trigger exhaustion or low self-esteem, yet their biochemical impact makes those who are sugar sensitive crave them even more. This vicious cycle can continue for years, leaving sufferers overweight, fatigued, depressed, and sometimes alcoholic.

Dr. Kathleen DesMaisons came up with the solution and published it in her revolutionary book Potatoes Not Prozac. It gave you the tools needed to overcome sugar dependency, including self-tests and a step-by-step, drug-free program with a customizable diet designed to change your brain chemistry…

All in all, this is a very good self-help book. The author is deadly accurate in her assessment of sugar as a drug that’s as bad as cocaine. I know it’s true, because my own addictive behavior was fueled by large quantities of sugar and flour. And my recovery program includes a diet that shuns all foods with flour and sugar in the ingredients. I do eat potato, but only 2 ounces per meal.

Here’s my problem with the book. Well, not really a problem, but…

I admire any plan designed to bring a person to sanity without medication. Nobody WANTS to take anti-depressants. But sometimes you have to. I certainly had to. So when someone pitches a plan designed to avoid it, I grow skeptical.

I have no doubt there are people who have successfully recovered from mental illness on diet alone. But I tried that and it didn’t work. After several years of therapy, learning various coping tools and dietary tweaks, I still needed Prozac to balance out the chemicals in my brain.

I also got burned pretty badly a few years ago when I tried to do another drug-free program. You might have heard of Lucinda Bassett, star of the “Attacking Anxiety” infomercials and president of Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety.

I watched her infomercials over and over again at the deepest depths of my anxiety and depression and, desperate to try anything, I got on the phone and bought the tapes, books and DVDs that encompass the program.

More than $500 later, I found that while useful, the program wasn’t nearly enough to help me.

And I felt burned because I got hit with extra costs that weren’t as advertised. One day a packet of vitamins came in the mail. I didn’t ask for them, and they were expensive as hell. I called the Midwest Center and told them I didn’t want the vitamins and I wanted a refund for the money they sucked out of my bank account. They essentially told me no refunds and that I should have read the fine print.

The problem with that is that when a person is messed up mentally and seeks out a program in desperation, it’s easy to take advantage of them. A desperate person is easily roped into extra costs that weren’t made clear to them during the purchasing process.

So in my mind, the center took advantage of me and suckered me out of extra money, then refused accountability. It didn’t matter in the end that the program included some useful tools — some of which I eventually adopted through the 12 Steps. I was burned, and that ruined the whole thing.

I still have the tapes and books. I’m going to gather ’em up and donate them to the local library someday so people can use it for free. I can’t think of a better way to say “fuck you” to the Midwest Center.

For me, the ultimate lesson is that there is no cookie-cutter path to mental wellness. Some tools work perfectly for one person but prove inadequate for the next guy.

In my case, it took a combination of therapy, diet change and, in the end, Prozac to make everything click.

When people suggest to me that such medication is a sham, I want to tell them they have no idea what they are talking about. Usually I just nod my head and move on, though.

Prozac worked for me, though I know drugs do nothing for other people. In some cases, the medicine can make things worse. I was lucky because I found a therapist who was up front from the beginning and took me through a very gradual process of dosage tweaks.

The big point here is that no two head cases are the same, nor are the solutions that work for each individual.

When taking the fight to mental illness and addiction, an open mind is essential.