The OCD Diaries

November 26, 2013

Find Yourself a Real Doctor

Written in June, 2010.

Here’s the thing: Asking me for medical advice is like asking Charles Manson how to be a pacifist.

Mood music:

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In the months since I started this blog, I’ve noticed something expected but weird nonetheless:

People are coming to me for medical advice.

Several people who saw my post on living with Crohn’s Disease sent me their phone numbers and asked me to call them. I always do, and the person at the other end will start listing a bunch of issues they’re having and asking me what I think.

In one of my posts about the binge eating addiction I mentioned that at the deepest depths of the addiction I would get chest pains and wake up in the middle of the night puking up stomach acid. Someone wanted to talk about how that’s been happening to them.

Then there’s the OCD itself. People will approach me in droves about their issues and how they think they might have OCD or some other mental disorder.

To be clear, I’m not putting down those who have come to me with this stuff. I respect them all and am glad they feel they can talk to me. Sometimes talking about your problems in and of itself is a huge step on the road to dealing with it. I’m more than happy to help. Heck, that’s one of the reasons I started this blog.

But before we go any further, I just want everyone to remember that I’m not a doctor and no two sufferers are the same.

I’m the last person you want to go to for a medical advice. That would be like going to Charles Manson for a better understanding of law and order.

It’s natural to ask someone who has been through something you think you might have for advice before seeking out a doctor. I’ve done it many times myself. The thought of seeing a doctor and going for a bunch of tests is scary.

But it’s necessary.

Had I not found the right doctors along the way, I’d be in bad shape today, maybe even dead (mentally dead, anyway).

All I have to offer is my personal experiences. I can tell you where I’ve been, what I’ve learned from the experience and how I got to the generally good health I enjoy today. But none of what I tell you will be rooted in medical certainty. There are people out there who have been through very similar experiences as mine. But everyone’s outcome is a bit different, especially when it comes to the treatment methods that work for the individual.

My solution to the binge-eating disorder was Overeaters Anonymous, a rigid food plan devoid of flour and sugar and a 12-step program. The combination has been a life saver for me, but probably wouldn’t work for a lot of other people.

One of my many tools for managing OCD is the drug Prozac. But the same drug will do nothing for the next guy and might even make matters worse.

This is tricky stuff.

And for that, you need a real doctor.

October 17, 2013

Depression Takes Another Friend

Thomas John “TJ” Leduc was a constant companion during my childhood in Revere. I swam in his pool and slept over his house. The first time I was weirded out by the sight and sound of Boy George, it was during one of those sleepovers, when we were eating popcorn and watching Solid Gold, puzzling over the girl on the screen who sounded like a man.

Mood music:

TJ had a sunny personality that was often tested by those who made jokes about his weight. TJ was a big guy. I was fat myself but still joked about his weight. Sometimes, I really earned my outcast status. More often than not, we were close buddies.

As we got older, I came to value TJ’s sense of humor. That dude could make people laugh. It was always small things, like referring to steroids as “roids.”

Over the years we lost touch, but I’d occasionally attempt to find him. I checked Facebook regularly, to no avail. It turns out he had moved to Groveton, NH, and was running a market with his father, who I knew well. Based on a news article from their local paper, the market was a popular hangout. TJ is described as a great storyteller with a bright personality and sharp sense of humor that kept customers coming back.

But somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong. TJ’s dad was diagnosed with leukemia and was quickly slipping away. As the senior Leduc lay in a hospital bed, TJ apparently learned that his father had accumulated a mounting pile of overdue bills. Maybe discovering that debt made him snap. Maybe it was the trauma of losing a father and business partner. It was probably a combination of both.

TJ died on October 1 at the still-young age of 40. His father died the next day, apparently unaware of his son’s death hours earlier. The newspaper article quotes police officers who labeled the death as a probable suicide.

If true, that’s the third friend from the old neighborhood to die that way. Before him were Sean Marley and Zane Mead.

Sad as I feel right now, I don’t feel the gaping hole in the heart that was there after Sean and Zane died. Part of that is because I’ve gained a lot of perspective about depression and suicide over the years, especially in light of my own battles with the disease.

I wrote a list of things I always try to keep in mind when someone dies this way. If you need some guidance, I direct you to “Death of a Second Sibling.”

Sean and Zane died young, with dreams and potential unfulfilled. It looks like TJ lived a good life and made many in his community happy. That article describes him as someone who cared for his customers and always had a free ear for teenagers who needed someone to talk to.

It kills me to hear that his life ended in despair. I pray that he’ll find peace in the afterlife. But I’m very happy to see that he made a difference before he left.

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TJ, with his dad.

September 7, 2013

9-11-01 Jumpers: A Suicidal Mystery

I remember the photo well. It was a man falling to his death in a zen-like pose that haunted me for a long, long time. It haunted us all.

Mood music:

Yesterday, I came across an entire documentary based on that one photo. The program, like the photo, is called “The Falling Man.” Associated Press photographer Richard Drew snapped a series of pictures of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:41:15 a.m. during 9-11-01. He was one of about 200 people who jumped from the upper floors, presumably choosing to die this way because it was better than a slower death by smoke and fire.

The program includes all the haunting footage you would expect. But there was something more, something that shook me to the core:

The family of Norberto Hernandez, the man initially identified as the man in the photo, couldn’t accept that it was him, because as Christians, they believe suicide in any circumstance is a mortal sin — a ticket straight to hell.

Though the identity is still not 100 percent certain, it is now widely accepted that the falling man was Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant.

The stigma around suicide is something I’ve wrestled with for nearly 15 years, since my best friend took his life. As a devout Catholic, I’m well aware of what the church says about suicide.

But I’m also a firm believer that when you’re in the grip of an out-of-control mental illness, you lose all sense of right and wrong. I think you enter a sort of dementia. Not in every case, but a lot of cases.

Then there’s the matter of people who know they are going to die and decide to go out there own way, as many 9-11 victims apparently chose to do.

Were they suicides, fitting the criteria of that mortal sin?

I would say no. I’m sure most of them didn’t wake up that morning with plans to die, especially by their own hand.

Terrorists sealed their fate, and, knowing they were going to die, made a choice on how to end it.

The episode:

We’ve heard a lot about courage that day, and there was plenty of it all around the world. Obviously, there were the firefighters, police officers and civilians who kept climbing the towers knowing they would probably die. They got other people out before thinking of themselves.

But there’s another kind of courage people often don’t think about. It’s the courage of accepting your fate and and dying with your dignity intact.

In the program, one survivor recalled looking up at the people hanging out the windows of the upper floors. She looked up, made the sign of The Cross, then lifted her arms and let go.

That’s not someone giving up and choosing suicide.

That’s someone with enough Faith to decide it’s ok to let go and let God.

August 23, 2013

Suicide in the Blood

A friend sent me a fascinating article yesterday about medical advancements in which a person’s severe depression and suicide could possibly be predetermined by biomarkers in their blood.

Mood music:

The article in Nature outlines how six biomarkers in blood can conceivably identify people at risk of suicide. Indiana University psychiatrist Alexander Niculescu and six of his colleagues published their findings in Molecular Psychiatry.

They identified nine men with bipolar disorder who are part of a larger, separate study. Between testing visits, the men had gone from no suicidal thoughts to strong suicidal thoughts.

These men’s blood samples were compared to blood samples from nine men who had committed suicide. According to the article, “This enabled [the scientists] to narrow their list of candidate biomarkers from 41 to 13. After subjecting the biomarkers to more rigorous statistical tests, Niculescu’s team was left with six which they [were] reasonably confident were indicative of suicide risk.”

The researchers have a lot of work left before they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that suicidal tendencies are detectable through blood tests. Still, I’m for any medical research that might speed the process of identifying people before they’re too far along in their suffering to be helped.

I don’t think it’ll ever replace the hard work a person now goes through to achieve mental wellness. Imbalances in blood and brain chemistry are problems that must be addressed. But it’s just as important for someone to identify the environmental and historical triggers that put them at risk.

My own challenges with depression have been shaped by personal history. I went through stuff as a child and young adult that will forever color how my mind perceives and reacts to life’s everyday trials. To get to where I’m at today, I had to talk to therapists about what I was feeling and untangle the web of memories that left me prone to out-of-control OCD and long stretches of melancholy.

Changes in diet and medication were also required.

To be fair, despite vicious bouts of depression, I don’t recall ever being suicidal. Whether my blood had the warning signs is anyone’s guess. It could be that I was lucky enough to get help before my problems became suicidal material. Or it could be that suicide was never something I was at risk for. Between my depression and watching more than one friend’s life end by suicide, it is a subject I’ve become obsessive about.

Maybe a blood test could have found signs of trouble in my friends and me earlier on. I’m not sure we’d have escaped the hardships that developed, but maybe we could have gotten treated sooner. Either way, it doesn’t matter now for us. They’re gone and I’ve found ways to manage my mental health through other means.

But if it makes a difference for people in the future, then the work of these researchers is something to celebrate.

Blood Viscosity

August 22, 2013

Years Wasted, by Things Large and Small

When writing about depression, it’s easy to go into so much depth about the myriad causes and effects that the bigger picture is lost on some people.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/fvVFg1wLtBs

My last two posts about a sleep apnea diagnosis and the its probable effects on my depression over the years led one friend on Twitter to say this:

I think there might be confusion about cause and effect here. Also, depression is not just a mood you experience some times.

I bristled at that for a moment, because I’ve been pretty open about my long battles with depression and, to my recollection, have never suggested it was a little mood I sometimes find myself in. We went back and forth a bit more on Twitter and reached a consensus of sorts. He thanked me for clarifying, adding, “Too often I see people treating depression like a paper cut.”

It’s easy to feel that way when someone starts picking at the various causes of depression from around the edges. In the case of sleep apnea, the lack of proper sleep isn’t the primary trigger for my bouts of melancholy. For me, a variety of triggers feed the larger monster.

But over time I’ve found it important to stop and ponder every little piece of the puzzle. The sleep apnea is just one more discovery, and the treatment could be a new arrow in a quill that’s grown fatter over time.

Along the way, I believe I’m improving myself and making the depressive episodes smaller as I go. I’m getting a constant education and I try to apply those lessons to my daily life.

I’m not going to stop doing so, even if people occasionally suggest I’m letting small details get in the way of the bigger picture. I know the big picture all too well.

The depression I’ve experienced amounts to wasted years, long periods where I hid indoors, lying in front of the TV, eager to escape the real world. I missed out on a lot of quality living in those years.

Thanks to the right mix of medication, years of intense therapy and other lifestyle changes, I’m a different man today. I don’t fear things like I used to, and I’ve racked up many priceless experiences in the last half-decade as a result.

I still suffer from periods of depression, especially in winter. But my time no longer goes to waste.

If picking around the edges keeps me from sliding backwards, so be it.

Depression

August 13, 2013

The Paul Revere Owl of Rage

A friend of mine from Revere found a drawing I did in junior high school. I had totally forgotten about it, but once I had a look yesterday, I remembered what it was about.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/JCGvONbVCa0

I was asked to draw something that could be used for the Paul Revere School eighth-grade graduation program. I was a misfit back then, a fat, slovenly kid who sucked at sports and verbally fought with just about everyone. But I could draw, and my peers appreciated the skill. My drawings were one of the few things I’d get praise for. So, naturally, I drew a lot of pictures.

This one was modeled after the scholarly owl in the 1970s kids program New Zoo Review. I decided to inject my attitude into the creature’s face, however, and you can see it best in his angry eyes. The picture is a bit blurry, but the eyes come through clearly enough:

Bill drawing from 1984
To be fair, I was just getting into heavy metal music at the time, and that had some influence on this “owl of rage.” But 1984 was also the worst year of my life up to that point. My brother had just died, and it was the first of my two years at Paul Revere School, where I didn’t fit in the way I had at the Roosevelt School in the Point of Pines.

One thing I remember clearly: My drawings always reflected how I was feeling. And at that time, I was feeling rage.

More on this time period in “Seeds Of Rage At The Paul Revere School

The rage lasted all through high school and beyond, though it moderated and mixed with the chaotic emotions found in all teenagers.

I eventually found God, a stable family life and a career, and today I can’t relate to the look in that owl’s eyes as well as I used to.

This makes me happy.

August 6, 2013

Assessing Suicide Risk and Learning Intervention Tactics

Having lost my best friend to suicide in 1996 and suffered my own bouts of depression over the years, I’m grateful for those who rise up to stem the tide of this often-misunderstood scourge. In my industry (information security) I’ve met a lot of good people who suffer in silence. Among them are folks who refuse to sit back and take it.

And so we’ve seen the rise of such endeavors as the Information Technology Burnout Project and talks at a series of hacker conferences on how to spot someone with depression and intervene before it’s too late. One such talk happened at the DEF CON 21 conference in Las Vegas last weekend. The talk was given by Amber Baldet, who has also given the talk at such events as SOURCE Boston.

Mood music:

Baldet wrote of last weekend’s experience on her Idiosyncratic Routine blog and has graciously shared her presentation with me and others who couldn’t make it to the talk. You can view the full slideshow here, but let me give you the highlights.

Early in the slideshow, Baldet describes suicidal behavior as a contagion that “directly or indirectly (via media) influences others to attempt suicide.” I never attempted suicide myself, but my experience is that the depression of a friend, colleague or loved one can rub off on those who inhabit the same environment. It can deepen someone else’s depression and, if that person is so inclined, it can make them suicidal. Media coverage adds fuel to that fire, as noted in this slide:

Another slide focuses on the clinical aspects, conditions that lead to depression and, in some, suicide:

There are a lot of traits in the security community and beyond that spark depression and suicidal behavior. One is the tendency of hackers to stay up all night as they follow one code-based rabbit hole after another. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, too busy CRUSHING IT,” as Baldet puts it.

There’s also a high degree of paranoia in our community. Paranoia is a disease I know well. I’ve lived it and watched my best friend get eaten alive by it.

The most valuable slides focus on specific ways to help others:

I highly recommend you check out the full presentation, Suicide Risk Assessment and Intervention Tactic.

Thanks for sharing, Amber.

DefCon 21

July 26, 2013

An #InfoSec Burnout Survey

As many of you know, I’m a big supporter of The Information Technology Burnout Project, created by friends in the security community to addresses something most of us experience at one point or another: work-induced depression.

A friend who is part of that effort, Dan Ward, is exploring the possibility of conducting a professionally-proctored Areas of Worklife Survey and Maslach Burnout Indicator survey. In his blog, Ward writes:

In an effort to continue our understanding of burnout in the InfoSec community, I am investigating conducting a professionally-proctored Areas of Worklife Survey and Maslach Burnout Indicator survey. The Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) was created to assess employees’ perceptions of qualities of worksettings that play a role in determining whether they experience work engagement or burnout. Recognized for more than a decade as the leading measure of burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) incorporates the extensive research that has been conducted in the more than 25 years since its initial publication.

Once the data is collected, I will make it available to the community at large and procure a professional group analysis of that data to provide a broad picture of the state of our industry.

Please go to his blog and give him feedback. Thanks.

Burnt match

July 23, 2013

Dennis Wilson and the Manson Family

As someone long fascinated by the Manson Murders case, I’ve taken a special interest in the late Dennis Wilson, drummer of The Beach Boys and one-time friend of Charles Manson.

His time with Manson scarred his mind and soul for the rest of his life, something that’s evident if you listen to the entirety of his solo album from the ’70s, Pacific Ocean Blue.

The story of Dennis Wilson is an extreme case study in what happens when you make sex, drugs and booze the center of your world. In this case, it’s the story of a guy whose off-the-rails pleasure seeking led him into the baddest of the bad crowds. His troubles began when he picked up two girls who were hitchhiking on the side of the road. He took them home and had sex with them, and in short order the entire Manson clan moved into his house.

One of those girls, Patricia Krenwinkel, would end up with a lot of blood on her hands, participating in two nights of murder, first at the home of Sharon Tate and then at the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Wilson didn’t mind having the family around at first. They provided him with a steady supply of sex and drugs. Manson wanted to use Wilson’s connections as a way into the music industry so he could become a recording star and spread his apocalyptic visions in his songs. He particularly wanted help from Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day.

Wilson introduced them and there was talk of a record contract, but Melcher was immediately creeped out by Manson and never came through on the promises Manson claims he made. Melcher was the resident of 10050 Cielo Drive immediately before Sharon Tate moved in, and though Manson knew Melcher was no longer living there, the speculation is that he picked that house to scare Melcher.

Long after Manson and his core followers went to prison, guilt continued to eat away at Wilson. He had something of a career comeback as a solo artist, but his substance abuse continued until late December 1983, when he drowned.

I sympathize with Wilson. Having had my own bouts of addictive behavior, I’ve always considered myself lucky that I was able to find my footing, remember where my priorities belonged and ditched the friends who were most likely to get me into trouble. Many are not so lucky, and when your soul is damaged all the money in the world won’t fix it.

Below is the first in a series of YouTube videos called “Cease to Exist.” It tells the story of Wilson and the Manson family in details never before covered, giving viewers a deeper insight into the world of addiction and depression. I highly recommend you watch the whole thing when you have time.

Wilson and Manson

May 10, 2013

Yeah, This Is EXACTLY What Depression Is Like

I’ve long been a fan of the blog Hyperbole and a Half, in which the author expresses herself through a combination of words and art. After a long hiatus, she returned this week with a post called “Depression Part 2.”

Having experienced more than my fair share of depression along the way, I can tell you that she nails what it’s like. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen it explained so clearly.

Enough from me. Go to her post and be educated.

Hyperbole and a Half Header