The OCD Diaries

January 15, 2013May 31, 2015

I Was Wrong About Lance Armstrong

A few months ago I wrote a post called “Lance Armstrong Was Robbed,” in which I opined that he didn’t deserve to be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. I’m back to tell you I was wrong.

Like most Americans, I’m a sucker for stories about people who overcome serious adversity to achieve great things. Those stories have given me the extra push I needed over the years to bring my own demons to heel. That Armstrong won seven titles didn’t matter to me as much as the fact that he did it after beating testicular cancer. I also argued that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was beside the point; that without the raw talent and drive, all the drugs on Earth wouldn’t have pushed him to seven victories. Rightly or wrongly, I still believe that.

But I’ve had a change of heart about him being robbed after reading about his interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which he admitted to the doping. In fact, he reportedly told her that he started using performance-enhancing drugs to gain an edge in cycling in the mid-1990s — before he was diagnosed with cancer. USA Today reveals that Armstrong engaged in a cover-up that involved “attacking anyone who implicated him.”

According to the article, Armstrong’s admission that he started doping in the mid-1990s is consistent with the evidence revealed in October by the US Anti-Doping Agency.

Nobody likes to be wrong. But admitting you were wrong is better than attacking those who question you, especially when it becomes painfully clear to everyone that you’re covering something up.

I’d rather be a rational human being who can have a change of heart in the face of facts than a stubborn person whose pride won’t allow him to see the truth.

Lance Armstrong, 2005 Tour de France — Photo Credit: Joel Saget, AFP/Getty Images

January 14, 2013

Aaron Swartz and How to Deal With Suicide

I read many articles this weekend about the suicide of Internet prodigy and activist Aaron Swartz. Most were about how we should view his legacy in the face of charges that he used MIT’s computers to gain illegal access to millions of scholarly papers kept by JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals.

Mood music:

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Some call Swartz a hero who stood up for Internet freedoms. Others point out that he broke the law and had to be punished.

All that is beside today’s main point: The 26-year-old, co-creator of RSS and Reddit, was a tortured soul, the victim of a horrible illness many still fail to comprehend. It’s an illness I suffer from, and it claimed the life of my best friend 16-plus years ago.

Swartz, a man I never met, was open about his depression. Like other sufferers — like me — he wanted people to understand that it was a true illness, as dangerous to the body and the brain as cancer is when left unchecked.

Now he’s another tragic statistic, and those left behind have to come to terms with the nature of his death.

In the years since my friend’s death, I developed a code of conduct that allowed me to stop wallowing over that evil day in November 1996:

Don’t blame yourself; it’s pointless. No matter how many times you replay events in your mind, the fact is that it’s not your fault. For one thing, it’s impossible to get into the head of someone who is contemplating suicide. Sure, there are signs, but since we all get the blues sometimes, it’s very easy to dismiss the signs as a normal bout of depression. When someone loudly contemplates suicide, it’s usually a cry for help. When they say nothing and even appear OK, it’s usually because they’ve made their decision and are in the quiet, planning stages.
Don’t blame others; it’s equally pointless. Take it from me: Nerves in your circle of family and friends are so raw right now that it won’t take much for relationships to break apart. A week after my friend’s death I wrote a column about it, revealing what, in hindsight, was too much detail. His family was furious and most of them haven’t talked to me since. They feel I was exploiting his death to advance my writing career and get attention. What I’ve learned, and this is tough to admit, is that you’re going to have to let it go when the finger pointing starts. It’s better not to engage the other side. Nobody is in their right mind at this point, so go easy on each other. Give people space to make their errors in judgment and learn from them.
Don’t demonize the dead. When a friend takes their life, one thing that can gnaw at survivors is the notion that if they believe in Heaven and Hell, they believe those who kill themselves are doomed to the latter. I’m a devout Catholic, so you can bet your ass this one has gone through my mind. What I’ve learned, though, is that depression is a clinical disease. A person suffering from depression who then kills themselves isn’t in control of their actions, and Catholics, at least, don’t believe God punishes them for that.

Even if you don’t believe in an afterlife, you might feel angry at your loved one for intentionally leaving you just when they did. It comes to the same thing: that person was sick and couldn’t make good decisions. My practice today is to simply pray that those souls will be redeemed and that they will know peace. It’s really the best you can do.
Break the stigma. One of the friends Swartz left behind has already done something that honors him: She went on Facebook and directed people toward the American Association of Suicidology website, specifically the page on knowing the warning signs. That’s a great example of doing something to honor your friend’s memory instead of sitting around second-guessing yourself. The best thing to do now is to educate people on the disease so that sufferers can help themselves and friends and family can really be of service.
Get on with your life. Nobody will blame you for not being yourself for a while. You have, after all, just experienced one of the worst tragedies there is. But try not to let it paralyze you. Life must go on. You have to get on with your work and be there for those around you.

Life can be brutal. But it is a beautiful thing. Seize it.

Aaron Swartz

January 11, 2013

Why Do Americans Die Sooner?

CNN reports that despite spending more per person on healthcare than any other country, Americans are getting sicker and dying younger than our international peers.

Why is this? Because Americans are too high strung and overworked. You could say the stress is killing us.

Mood music, ironically sung by a couple of Brits:

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Here’s the takeaway from CNN:

Data from 2007 show Americans’ life expectancy is 3.7 years shorter for men and 5.2 years shorter for women than in the leading nations — Switzerland for men and Japan for women.

As of 2011, 27 countries had higher life expectancies at birth than the United States.

“The tragedy is not that the United States is losing a contest with other countries,” the report states, “but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.”

I’ve had conversations about this with friends from Europe, and they always go on about how crazy we Americans are. We respond to job stress by putting in even more hours, trying to keep up with the ever-growing demands of our corporate masters. Some of us now work holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. We seek solace from the stress in all the things that are bad for us: Overeating, drinking, pills.

When Erin and I got married, we spent our honeymoon traveling around Ireland. The slower pace of life floored us. They took the first Monday of every month off for a “bank holiday.” In restaurants, people weren’t in a rush to put their orders in. Waitresses would talk for several minutes with patrons before taking down their orders. Accustomed to faster service, Erin and I didn’t like that much. We are, after all, Americans. Rushing ourselves and others is in the blood.

At the time, I was working at least 60 hours a week in a job that paid $28,000 a year. I was a ball of tension, and I comforted myself with food binges. I was 280 pounds on that trip.

I still put a lot into my work today, but it’s different because I love what I do. I’ve also spent a lot of time building a relationship with God, taking a mindfulness class heavy on meditation techniques, and playing guitar. I’ve slowly learned to enjoy life and not rush through it to the next pressure. But I still have a long, long way to go.

I’m not a unique case. Americans put ridiculous amounts of pressure on themselves over trivial things.

To be fair, I know a lot of Europeans who have bad habits and bad health. Americans are simply destroying themselves a little bit faster.

But I also have a lot of American friends who have fought back. One friend is a passionate weight lifter. Another friend does jujitsu. Many of them are now doing yoga. They’ve made radical and necessary changes to their diets. This gives me hope.

We may be dying faster, but in never giving up and trying to better ourselves, we have a pretty good shot at learning to live longer.

Man under job stress

January 10, 2013

Comparing Politicians to Hitler Is Stupid

The debate over firearms is bringing out extreme levels of stupidity in people. Right-wingers who think gun control means taking away everyone’s right to bear arms are comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler. Left-wingers did the same to President Bush over his war policies.

It’s the lowest common denominator; the dumbest of the dumb.

Mood music:

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On the Drudge Report, Obama’s picture was lumped in with images of Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin next to a story about Vice President Biden’s suggestion that Obama will target guns through an executive order. The Hitler comparisons have actually been going on since Obama’s administration began four years ago:

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When George W. Bush was in the Oval Office and debate raged over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the left put out the same suggestions:

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So if you disagree with the president, Republican or Democrat, it’s OK to compare them to a man who sent millions of innocent people to the gas chamber. Wanting to put controls on the type of weapon American citizens can access is suddenly on par with genocide. The logic seems to be that if Obama “takes away” your guns, he is going to invade a bunch of countries next.

I can’t say that I haven’t used the same tactics. Back during the first Gulf War, I used a writing assignment in my college poetry class to compare the first President Bush to Hitler. My professor, who was a lot further to the left than I was at the time, suggested in red marker that I was taking things too far.

When we get angry with our leaders, this is what happens. We go to the extreme.

Frankly, I think both sides oversimplify things. In moments of anger, we turn off the part of the brain that controls reason.

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life when my anger turned off that switch. I made a lot of extreme statements about our political leaders. But somewhere along the way, I made an effort to grow up and not let my fear and anger override my reason.

I suggest the folks comparing Obama to Hitler do the same.

January 9, 2013

Two-Alarm Fire at My High School

There was a two-alarm fire last night at Northeast Metro Tech, the place where I attended high school. Back in my day, it was called Northeast Regional Vocational High School or, as most of us called it, the Voke.

Mood music:

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I have good and bad memories of the place. It’s where I:

Grew my hair long and cemented my love affair with metal music.
Truly started to understand, for the first time, that I could be capable of doing meaningful things in life if I would just fill in the deep chips on my shoulders.
Studied drafting and design. I didn’t become an architect, but I use the skills I learned there every day in my writing.
Swallowed a worm in the courtyard for a pack of cigarettes. Not surprisingly, you can’t smoke there any more.
Tortured and later befriended a kid everyone called Stiffy. I still shudder when I think of how mean I was to that kid.
Cut classes and smoked weed in the woods of Breakheart, the reservation that school sits at the edge of.

My time in the Voke included my last serious bout with Crohn’s Disease in 1986, during my sophomore year. I wasn’t hospitalized that time, but I pretty much lived on the living room couch. On that couch, I read “Helter Skelter” twice. I also got daily visits from a childhood friend who went on to become a thrice-convicted child molester.

I remember the teachers putting down the kids all the time. The jocks and nerds were embraced and nurtured. Everyone else was pretty much written off as damaged goods. This was especially the case in my shop.

A couple of years ago, my friend Kevin Littlefield coaxed me into a field trip to the Voke. It was my first time back in about 20 years, and it gave me more than a little hope for the future. The kids in our old shop that day were polite and appeared to work well together — nothing like the way we carried on in the 1980s. The big drafting boards had long since been replaced by flat-screen computers.

We also met some kids we graduated with who now teach there. One former classmate is the dean of students. Another, John Spagnola, is a teacher. Seeing him as a teacher was a trip. The kids really seem to connect with him. and his humor is as sharp as ever.

Back in our day it seemed like most teachers were always complaining that Generation X would never make it, that we were far to self-absorbed, spoiled and weak to carry the future. The teachers were right that we were a generation unprepared for the big challenges ahead. But many of us grew up. We got stronger. We learned to love people other than ourselves.

Now some of our children are going to that school, and they seem to be doing great. Generation X turned out fine, and our kids are going to do even better.

A few flames and a damaged building won’t prevent that.

Northeast_Metro_Regional_Vocational_School,_Wakefield_MA

January 8, 2013

Stop Whining and Learn From Your Pain

In my early 20s, I adored the Pretty Hate Machine and Broken albums from Nine Inch Nails. I still listen to them on occasion, but for the most part I grew tired of them because all Trent Reznor’s screaming about pain, loneliness, depression and rage got old. He never told us how to go from hopelessness to wisdom and personal growth.

Mood music:

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That’s how Kerry Cohen, an author I’ve come to admire, feels about Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation. In her latest Huffington Post blog entry, Cohen explains how important that Wurtzel book was to her at a fragile time in her life:

Wurtzel named a truth for us that psychology wouldn’t touch. We were a generation of depressives, of borderlines, of personality disorders. We were Generation Empty. I loved Wurtzel for how she made me feel less alone, seen.

But Cohen reached an impasse with Wurtzel:

My editor for Loose Girl summed it up when she said, “America loves a redemption story.” We wouldn’t settle anymore for emptiness that goes nowhere. People wanted to know how to get better. … There are times I wish I could call Wurtzel on the phone and tell her how much her work meant to me. … But until she has something new to say, something that is still truly about our generation, I wish she would stop.

I’ve never read Prozac Nation. I haven’t read Cohen’s books in their entirety, either, though I’ve dug into parts of Loose Girl and Seeing Ezra. I’ve mostly become a fan of her work through her blog posts and what she shares on Facebook and Twitter. This latest post hits my core.

In my early 20s, I reveled in my depression. I filled notebooks full of poetry about my emptiness. I somehow thought it made me cool. I hit upon something that I felt “normal” people couldn’t experience. This somehow made me smarter, better. I was just stupid. I’ve searched everywhere for those notebooks. Not because I think I’ll find some brilliant spark from the past to feed my creativity today, but because I think I’d get some cheap laughs from it.

I remember going on a date in 1989 and spending the whole dinner telling the young lady about how bitter I was toward my parents and how dark I saw the world. That relationship didn’t survive the first date.

Eventually, I realized that the pain wasn’t going to send me anywhere in life unless I used it to gain a better understanding of who I was and what kind of good I was capable of. The ancient Greek scribe Aeschylus described the need to use suffering for personal growth this way:

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart

until, in our own despair, against our will,

comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Robert F. Kennedy, who recited that poem to a shocked and angry crowd the day MLK was assassinated, understood all too well. I’ve tried hard to take those words to heart. In this blog, I’ve tried to always explain how, in my personal experience, things get better. If all I did here was complain, this blog would go nowhere. I must always remember that.

Thanks for the reminder, Kerry.

ProzacNationBook

January 7, 2013

The Shame a Binge Eater Feels

As a recovering binge eater, I don’t necessarily see my own habits reflected in a recently released University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) study about the weird concoctions food addicts ingest. But I relate to the emotions study participants describes all too well.

Mood music:

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The study says food concocting — making strange food mixtures like mashed potatoes and Oreo cookies; frozen vegetables mixed with mayonnaise; and chips with lemon, pork rinds, Italian dressing and salt — is common among binge eaters. The full study was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, but here’s an excerpt from the UAB site:

According to the study, people who concoct are more likely to binge eat than those who overeat without bingeing. Those who concoct reported the same emotions as drug users during the act; they also reported later feelings of shame and disgust, which could fuel an existing disorder.

Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychology and primary investigator of the study, said study participants self-reported their emotions while concocting. The answers revealed a vast majority felt “excited” and “anxious” during the process.

“While they are food concocting and binge eating they report being excited, in a frenzy, and high, but afterwards they feel awful about themselves,” said Boggiano.

I never thought of the junk I craved as weird concoctions, but I also never made the kind of mixtures described in the study. I went for the traditional junk, the sweet stuff. I’d go in a gas station and buy a mix of Hostess cake products and a variety of candy, particularly Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Twix. In the same binge, I’d go for the salty stuff, including chips and fast food.

I always considered those choices normal. In hindsight, I guess eating all those things in one sitting fit the concocting mold. In fact, some of the mixtures described in the UAB report sound healthier than what I would consume.

One thing is for certain: The excitement and shame study participants described fit me perfectly. There was always a certain thrill in hunting down and obtaining my fix. I’d feel a short period of intoxication during the act of eating. Then it would all be followed by intense, even debilitating feelings of shame.

Not because I ate a massive quantity of weird shit, but because I had thoroughly lost control of my mind and actions. I let an invisible demon possess my mind and body, too weak to do anything to stop it.

Read more about what the process is like in “Anatomy of a Binge.”

I eventually did gather up the strength to stop binging. Doing Overeater’s Anonymous and treating the behavior like the addictive impulse it is helped a lot. Giving up flour and sugar and measuring all my food has also helped.

But a recovering binge eater is always one bite away from being reclaimed by the demon, and I’ve had my share of close calls in the last four years.

All you can do is fight it one day at a time.
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January 4, 2013June 1, 2015

Defending Joe Biden (Updated June 1, 2015)

Updated June 1, 2015: The Vice President, who has suffered a lot of loss in his life, has more character and depth beneath his outward image of buffoonery than most people know. With news that his son Beau has died of brain cancer, I’m remembering the post below, originally written in 2013. I also recommend this column from Ezra Klein on Biden’s grief perspective.

I’ll surely get a boatload of criticism for what I’m about to do: defend Vice President Joseph Biden.

As you know, the man who’s a heartbeat away from the presidency tends to run his mouth a lot and get into trouble. During the signing ceremony for Obamacare in 2010, the mics were on as he told President Obama that “This is a big fucking deal.” During the 2012 presidential campaign, Biden told a Virginia audience that “we won North Carolina in 2008 and we can win it again.” That was the same event where he told everyone that the Republicans “want to put you back in chains.”

The vice president also has a habit of violating the personal space of those he’s talking to. Yesterday, as he swore in new senators, he embraced the wife of Maine Sen. Angus King a bit long for the comfort of some. He also told the husband of North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to “spread your legs, you’re going to be frisked.” Biden said this after the photographer asked them to drop their hands for the photo. “You say that to somebody in North Dakota they think it’s a frisk,” Biden joked. “They think you’re in trouble, right?” (The Atlantic Wire has more on these incidents.)

People like to call him Uncle Joe, and not in a good way. One of my friends compared him to the crazy, creepy uncle everyone tries to stay away from during family gatherings. If you’re a Democrat, he’s just a lovable old-timer who has no verbal filter. If you’re a Republican, he’s an idiot and borderline sexual predator.

I agree the guy runs his mouth too much and gets in a bit too close to people. President Lyndon Johnson used to do the same thing. It’s famously known as The Johnson Treatment.

But I also think people make a bigger deal out of Biden’s antics than what’s deserved. A lot of politicians get in close during hugs and handshakes, especially the older folks. He’s also not the first politician to forget which town he’s in during a speech. When you travel all the time, that’s going to happen.

But here’s the main reason I’m going to defend the man: He’s been through a lot in his life and has worked his ass off despite it all. Whether you agree with his politics or not, take a look at his history, and you’ll have to admit he’s done some inspirational things in his life:

In 1972, a few weeks after he was first elected to the Senate, Biden’s wife and one-year-old daughter were killed in a car wreck while Christmas shopping. Biden’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, were critically injured in the accident but made full recoveries.
To keep close to his kids, he commuted from Delaware to DC every day by train — 90 minutes each way. He did that his entire 35 years as a senator.
In 1988, the same year he first ran for president, Biden suffered a series of aneurysms and at one point was given last rites. He recovered and continued to work tirelessly as a senator in the years that followed.
As senator he led the fight to pass the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. That law had several measures and provided billions of dollars to help women suffering from domestic violence and other gender-based crimes.
He was also among the first to call for action when a genocide was unfolding in the Balkans. Specifically, he fought to get Bosnian Muslims weapons and training to defend themselves against the mass slaughter taking place. Those policies eventually helped end the Bosnian war.

Having been through plenty of adversity myself, I have a soft spot for people who overcome devastating personal setbacks to make a positive mark on the world.

Call him Crazy Uncle Joe if it makes you feel better. In my opinion, his good points far outweigh his lack of filter.

Joe-Biden1-e1344976178397

January 3, 2013

Partisan Politics Is a Mental Health Threat

Like everyone else, I’ve watched the debate over the so-called fiscal cliff with a combination of disgust and anxiety. I can’t remember a time when the nation’s economic health was so threatened by political partisanship.

Mood music:

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It threatens our jobs and our ability to feed our families. And it’s a threat to our mental health.

I feel fortunate that this shit is happening now. Up until a few years ago, this type of thing would have left me lying in a fetal position on the couch, with so much anxiety and fear over economic calamity that I’d be unable to function. I’d eventually get up from the couch and go to work, but my brain would continue spinning and I’d carry on like a zombie.

I’ve made enough progress on my mental health in recent years that I can put my worries on the shelf and carry on with life. I enjoyed the holiday break with my family instead of brooding in a corner the whole time. I’m grateful for that.

But I won’t bullshit you: I checked the various news sites online a lot more obsessively than I have in a long time. I worried about this a little bit more than other recent political battles, including the 2011 debt ceiling fiasco.

When there’s this much drama and suspense in Washington, it can’t help but fuck with your psyche after a while.

I can still get on with life, but I have no doubt there are plenty of people out there who can’t. They feel like their very lives will depend on what happens in Washington. I remember that feeling all too well.

I feel for those people, and I pray for them.

But more than anything else, right now, I feel anger. And I suspect that most other Americans do, too.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer as to what we can do about this national threat to mental health. One easy answer would be to throw all the bums out, but we keep re-electing the people who cause the problems. Another easy answer would be to crack down on the special interest groups that corrupt politicians with money, but where do you start?

The best way to deal with it is to control what we can control in our daily lives. I got help for my addictions and mental defects, and that at least gets me through these storms.

I truly think that’s about all you can do.