The OCD Diaries

December 28, 2014

The Sister Who Saved Her Family

My youngest sister, Shira Beth Brenner, was born 29 years ago today, sending rays of sunshine into a house that was in darkness.

You might think it’s hyperbole for me to say she saved the family. We were surviving, after all. But we were surviving badly, reeling from the death of my brother barely two years before.

Shira helped us smile again.

Mood music:

I was a bitter 15-year-old home sick with the flu and a Crohn’s flare up the day she arrived. She was an especially adorable baby and was a welcome distraction from everything that was going on at the time.

She’s quite a kid. If not for the big chip on my shoulder, I might have been more like her in my 20s. I’m happy with how my life turned out and believe I had to go through the dark stuff to get here. But Shira has really been an inspiration to me. She crisscrosses the globe without fear and has an easygoing way about her that’s nearly impossible to crack. I know, because I’ve tried.

I’ve always been the teasing sort of brother. I tell everyone who will listen that I remember when I could fit Shira in a beer mug. I remember once, when she was about 4 or 5, she told me to stop teasing.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I tease you cause I love you.”

“Then don’t love me,” she shot back.

I told everyone about that exchange, and with more than a little glee.

Around the same time, I was having a lot of parties in the basement of the Revere house. The morning after, Shira would often make the rounds, stopping at the various friends who would be passed out asleep on my bed, on the couch or on the floor.

Even back then, no matter how much I drank the night before, I would always wake up early so I could sneak cigarettes without being seen.

I’d always enjoyed watching her make the rounds. My guests didn’t always enjoy it, but that was fine with me.

In more recent years, as she traveled and I got absorbed with work, marriage and parenthood, we didn’t see much of each other, save for some holidays and a couple birthday dinners.

But I’ve seen a lot more of her this year in the last three years, as my father’s ailments forced us all closer together.

At one point soon after a series of strokes, we siblings worked in shifts, helping to keep Dad out of trouble. He may have trouble seeing, swallowing and walking, but he still likes to keep everyone busy. Shira usually got the task of sleeping over on Saturday nights. She never complains and always smiles.

I’ve heard it said that a kid like her lives life on a rainbow, always in a zen-like state despite all the hard reality around her.

In Shira’s case I think that’s true. And it’s something we can all learn from. She’s not oblivious to the reality around her. She just handles it with a lot more grace than the rest of us.

You could say she’s doing for the family today what she did the day she was born — giving the family color and light at a time when we need it most.

Happy Birthday, kid.

December 26, 2014

Don’t Sweat That Christmas Pageant Performance, Kid

My kids participated in a Christmas Eve pageant at our church, and a highlight for me was one girl’s performance of the song, “Mary Did You Know.”

The young lady’s performance made my neck hairs stand up. I saw her sing it twice: Christmas Eve, and at a rehearsal the night before.

During the Christmas Eve performance, she sang a bit too high toward the end. She still sounded awesome. But she was pretty upset.

As someone whose work involves a lot of getting up in front of people — in writing and in person — I wanted to share a few thoughts.

First, some background:

I’m a pretty public guy. I write this blog and two others as part of my work life. As part of my work, I frequently do public presentations. I’m also a lector at church.

I used to be terrified of getting up in front of people. The thought of doing such a thing used to make me sick. My anxiety level would go into high orbit. It was part of a larger struggle with fear and anxiety.

I eventually decided to face down that fear and, now that I have a lot of experience, public engagement doesn’t make me nervous anymore.

Given that background, I have enormous respect for those who get up in front of a big crowd. Especially singers.

I know what it’s like to bomb in front of people, and let me tell you something: You didn’t bomb. You didn’t even come close. I know what it’s like to truly bomb.

I once gave a talk to a room full of hard-nosed security professionals and they didn’t buy what I was saying. That was pretty awkward. (Rather than repeat that story here, you can read it about it in another blog if you wish.)
I sang in a rock band when I was younger, and we did a few performances along the way. Some went really well. But the most important performance we had up to that point was a complete bomb. We were out of tune at the opening, and it threw us off for most of the performance.
I’ve enjoyed success as a writer, but I’ve also written stuff that in hindsight makes me cringe.
As a lector, I’ve messed up many times. Since we go to the same church, you might have seen it happen. I’ve mispronounced names of the sick and dead, and once bungled narrating Christ’s Passion so badly I thought I’d be banned from ever lectoring again.

Despite all that, I’ve been able to keep doing it all, mostly without incident. And in most cases, people don’t notice or remember the mistakes. And yes, the mistakes still happen.

Nobody is going to remember that you went up an octave or two too high.

People will remember that you threw your heart and soul into the performance.

They’ll remember that you had the guts to get up in front of them and perform. Many are too afraid to do such a thing, and see it as a courageous act.

They’ll look forward to seeing you perform again. I certainly will.

Keep singing and performing. Know that you will screw up from time to time, and that it’s ok.

You’ll learn from those experiences.

Thanks for the beautiful singing, and Merry Christmas to you and your family.

December 18, 2014May 29, 2020

Woe-Is-Me Disease

Funny thing about us humans — especially those of us with mental disorders: When the going gets tough, we blame it on someone else. Call it the Woe-Is-Me Disease, where the sufferer is an eternal victim, forever screwed by everyone but themselves.

Mood music:

We all have people like that in our lives. They are clinically incapable of seeing their own role in the thing that goes wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault. They whine a lot, and when you suggest that they are whining, they call you the whiner. They repeat the same stories about how they were victimized over and over again.

They always seem to be involved in a bunch of projects but never seem to follow through on any of it — usually because of something someone else did or didn’t do.

I’ve fit that profile in the past, especially in my angry teens and 20s, when many of us might fit that profile.

It used to be that it was impossible for me to see the problems as my own. It was always the result of something someone else did to me or failed to do for me.

Seeing yourself as a victim every time the going gets tough is probably one of the worst things you can do. It holds you back, keeps you from improving yourself and makes you look pathetic in the eyes of people who don’t understand where the emotion comes from.

I was reminded of this a few years ago after getting a message from an old friend who was fighting his own battle with OCD. Here’s what he wrote to me at that time:

I recently finished my PHP for my OCD. It was a great program and I’m glad my wife recommended that I enroll. So many things helped me change my way of thinking. One of the most important things I learned was to find ways to be proactive and a problem solver (where before I would be reactive and put my head in the sand).

Additionally, I realized that I suffer from victim-type of thinking (such as “this is not fair,” “I can’t handle this,” etc.), and I need to think more like a survivor (“I can handle this”).

I have a huge folder of handouts that I need to organize. I do know that just because I went through the program doesn’t mean I’m miraculously cured. From here I on out, I have many tools in my toolbox to handle whatever life throws at me.

He’s right: people like us are never miraculously cured. We simply create a set of coping tools and pull them out when we need the help.

As a result, we stop being victims and become, as he put it, survivors.

December 17, 2014

If People Treated Physical Illness Like Mental Illness

The cartoon below, posted on the Robot Hugs website, nails the misperception some people have about mental illness.

For those lucky enough to be free of mental illness, it can be impossible to understand how the depressed mind works. That leads to a lot of unhelpful advice and opining about how the mentally ill should just get off their asses and stop feeling sorry for themselves.

Maybe this will lead to better understanding.

December 16, 2014

Inside the Ruins of a Saugus Institution

Those who came of age with me in the Revere/Saugus area will remember Weylu’s, the imposing palace of a Chinese restaurant perched on a hill overlooking Route 1. The place closed some 15 years ago, but the building still sits there, slowly rotting away.

North Shore photographer Brian Cummings went inside this past weekend and took some stunning shots of the ruins. Check it out here.

And be sure to check out more of Cummings’ work on that Facebook page. Beautiful stuff.

December 15, 2014July 18, 2020

Turning Mental Disorder into a Superpower

Instead of fighting some mental disorders, such as OCD or ADHD, picture yourself accepting and even embracing them. Then learn to use your disorder to your advantage.

It’s kind of like Luke Skywalker learning to use and control the Force instead of it controlling him, or Superman learning to control his super-senses.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/KFr3ih6Xu_8?list=PLsa4SxpfFe_q8QcwjC3kru7fW9y8U0Rm1

This won’t work for every disorder, of course. Some are more serious than others, like PTSD and schizophrenia. But Edward (Ned) Hallowell, psychiatrist and co-author of Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction, has advocated for years that some disorders can be an advantage, if approached correctly.

In my battle with my own demons, it’s an approach that works.

I’m not the only one. A few years back a friend told me, “Dr. Hallowell shaped a lot of my perceptions about ADHD and how to live with it rather than fighting it.”

Hallowell has written about mental disorder being the stuff legends are made of. The thinking is that you have to be a bit crazy or off-balance to do the things that change who we are and how we live. He often uses ADHD as an example, but it’s also true of people with OCD, like Harrison Ford, Howie Mandel, and the late Joey Ramone.

Early on in my efforts to get control of my life, one of my biggest struggles was that I didn’t want to completely rid myself of the OCD. I knew that I owed some of my career successes to the disorder. It drove me hard to be better than average. I needed that kick in the ass because being smart didn’t come naturally to me. I had to work at it and do my homework.

There was a destructive dark side, of course. When stuck in overdrive, the OCD would leave me with anxiety attacks that raised my fear level and drove me deep into my addictive pursuits. That in turn left me on the couch all the time, a pile of waste.

My challenge became learning to develop what Hallowell calls a set of brakes to slow down my disorder when I needed to.

My deepening faith has helped considerably, along with the 12 Steps of Recovery, therapy, changes in diet and, finally, medication.

You could say those are the things my brakes are made of.

I still need a lot of work and the dark side of my OCD still fights constantly with the light, but I’ve come to see the OCD as a close friend. Like a lot of close friends, there are days I want to hug it and days I want to launch my boot between its legs.

But I am in a happier place than I used to be, so it’s a trade-off I’m willing to accept, even if gets me into trouble sometimes.

“Bipolar” by EddieTheYeti

December 11, 2014

Torture Was Another Bad Response to Fear

The CIA’s use of torture during the Bush era was more insidious than previously revealed and did nothing to prevent terrorist attacks, the Senate Intelligence Committee says in a report.

No surprise there. I’ve said it before: The fear that drove us after 9/11 led to a lot of inhumane behavior in the name of safety and security. And the American people — scared out of their wits — were perfectly fine giving government carte blanche to do what it wanted. In the process, American ideals were compromised.

Mood music:

The report is long, but here’s the synopsis from CNN:

The majority report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a damning condemnation of the tactics — branded by critics as torture — the George W. Bush administration deployed in the fear-laden days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The techniques, according to the report, were “deeply flawed” and often resulted in “fabricated” information. …

“In many cases, the most aggressive techniques were used immediately, in combination and non-stop,” the report says. “Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.”

To be fair, America is imperfect and has done more right than wrong in wartime. Also, good people will argue that brutal enemies need to be stopped by any means possible, and that the torture of suspected terrorists was nothing compared to the carnage unleashed on 9/11 and in subsequent years, as terrorists beheaded innocent Americans and shared video footage with the world.

I’m not an expert at this level of intelligence gathering, nor do I pretend to be. Vilifying the CIA may be fun sport for some people, but it doesn’t solve anything.

And, remember, we the people essentially ordered the government and military to do whatever was necessary after 9/11.

Fortunately, as the years pass and more evidence of wrongdoing is revealed, more people have come to their senses. We’ve seen that with all the backlash against things like warrantless wiretapping and many other things revealed in the Snowden leak.

Yet no matter the danger we face, torture contradicts our ideals. It feels wrong in my gut. It didn’t always feel wrong, but then I was under the spell of fear like many other people.

So what do we do with the information contained in this Senate report?

Many will use it to say they told us so and as a reason to bash all of government and the CIA in particular. That’s human nature and it’s fine by me. But after that, we need to find a better way forward. We need to come up with better examples of a more humane approach. We need to build a discussion around that and keep up the pressure until government heeds our will.

In the final analysis, the government and its activities are a reflection of us, and we have to take responsibility for what went on in the last decade.

That includes me.

American Flag Spy

December 10, 2014July 28, 2015

Remorse? I Have It

Recently, I started exploring the feelings that EdditTheYeti’s art raises in me. On Monday, I focused on “Prayer” and “Pierced.” Today, I’ll look at “Remorse.”

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/-hkmxKA-rK4

“Remorse”

This picture was created with ink, wine, lime juice, coffee, tea, cola, soy sauce, hot sauce, and, as Eddie writes, a thought about what has passed. The creature in the picture hangs its head low, eyes too mired in the past to see the present.

Regrets? I have them.

Some people say they have none, but I never believe them. Even when life has worked out for the best, there are still those moments in life we would happily see erased.

Some of my biggest regrets:

That I didn’t see the full depth of a best friend’s depression until it was too late.
That I’ve been an asshole at certain points in my career, especially during the newspaper days.
That I couldn’t do more to end some family estrangements — impasses in which I was far from blameless.
That I didn’t get more time to learn from my older brother.
That I’ve fallen to addiction so many times.

But here’s the thing about regrets: You can’t change what’s in the past. You can let the memories rip you apart, or you can learn from the experiences and invest it in being a better person.

The beast eventually has to raise its head, refocus its eyes and move on. Otherwise, it will wither and die.

I chose the former to the latter long ago. The thing is, despite my regrets, I really wouldn’t change a thing. Those experiences made me the man I am today. And despite the flaws that remain, I like who I am.

December 9, 2014

To the Cop Who Stopped Dimebag’s Killer

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the murder of Pantera/Damageplan guitarist Darrell Lance Abbott.

For metalheads like me, the loss of “Dimebag Darrell” was painful. But for James Niggemeyer, the cop who stopped shooter Nathan Gale before he could kill anyone else, life has been hell.

Mood music:

More people almost certainly would have died that night at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, where Damageplan was just beginning to play as the shooting started. Jeff “Mayhem” Thompson, the band’s head of security, was killed tackling Gale, as was Alrosa Villa employee Erin Halk. Audience member Nathan Bray was killed while trying to perform CPR on Abbott and Thompson.

Niggemeyer has been called a hero since firing the kill shot that ended Gale’s rampage, and he certainly deserved to be called that. But he hasn’t felt very heroic.

He told The Columbus Dispatch that he’s no longer a police officer. According to the article, he remained on patrol for three years after Dimebag’s murder, but the city eventually decided, with the advice of doctors, that he shouldn’t be a first responder. He was transferred to the robbery section as a detective. He told the paper:

I found out real quickly that you don’t have any control over your brain. It’s going to do what it’s going to do. Cops are regular human beings. Things affect us the same way they affect everyday citizens. We relive it and have to deal with the aftermath.

I was going to write an open letter to Niggemeyer, telling him how great I think he is. but I’m down and people try to buck me up by telling me how appreciated I am, it tends to make things worse. I appreciate the sentiment, but it usually leaves me wondering why people feel that way when I feel like such a mess.

And I don’t have PTSD. I suspect Niggemeyer feels that way times 10.

So I’ll end this post with a prayer for the former officer. I hope and pray he finds peace and a way forward and that he is able to appreciate his blessings more easily with the passage of time.

James Niggemeyer

December 8, 2014

An EddieTheYeti Christmas

Every year, I have trouble finding my Christmas spirit. I’ve written a lot about why that is, and this year is no different. But I feel like God is throwing me more clues than usual.

Mood music:

The first clue came from my wife. We were discussing my father’s ongoing health problems and I noted how that was contributing to what I see as the same old pattern of shitty things happening during the holidays.

Erin noted, rightly, that this season isn’t about having a constant warm glow in the belly and not having a care in the world. It’s about celebrating the second chance Christ’s birth gave humanity. A lot of people have a hard time with the concept and the faith, but it is what Erin and I believe. She’s just better at seeing it than I am this time of year.

The second clue came as I was reviewing some works from Eddie Mize, known in the infosec and art communities as EddieTheYeti. I recently vowed to do a series on his art and the feelings it stirs in me. My faith is a good place to start.

A disclaimer before I go further: My take on Eddie’s art won’t necessarily be the same as what he was thinking and feeling when making these works. We haven’t discussed religion, and I don’t know what his beliefs are. This exercise is about what his work brings out of me. The results may well be light years from what he intended.

Which brings me to two of his works.

“Prayer”

The look on the angel’s face is sad, not at all characteristic of an angel. I’ve carried that frown a lot lately, even I feel like the warm glow of Christmas should be shooting out from my fingertips. I still believe that if I keep Christ close everything will work out.

The angel reminds me that in the face of sadness and despair, there is always hope. I’m a flawed person, but Christ never gives up on me.

“Pierced”

For those who don’t believe, it’s a hard concept to wrap the head around: Christ allowing himself to be killed in one of the most brutal ways imaginable. Yet I believe that Christ suffered and died to give us all a second chance. It opened a path by which sinners could find redemption.

He saved us by sacrificing Himself. No matter how much I screw up, He has my back.

That will strike many of you as bat-shit crazy. I’m not going to debate the truth and science of it all. It’s what I believe, and I don’t have to defend it.

Eddie’s art has no warm, glowing Christmas tree lights. There’s no mistletoe, no Santa Clause and no chestnuts roasting on a fire. It’s bleak and dark. But it gives me more clarity about the purpose of the season than any Rockwell painting could.