The OCD Diaries

May 4, 2011

The Sinister Minister’s Definition of Normal

The news of Osama bin Laden’s death makes me wonder: Are we all hoping now that things will go back to normal, to the way life was before 9-11? I can’t help but think of wars of the past, and how there was always a craving to “go back to normal.”

Mood music:

One of the better examples of our craving for normal was in 1920. It was right after World War 1 and presidential candidate Warren G. Harding promised a return to “normalcy.” Normalcy wasn’t even a proper word, but Americans liked the sound of it. Harding was elected and went on to make history as one of the 20th century’s most useless presidents.

A lot of history has happened since them, of course. We’ve seen many more wars and economic upheavals. We all have our ideas of what normal is in the public realm. Normal doesn’t always lead to good things. Just look at the “normalcy” of the 1920s, which ended in the start of the Great Depression.

In our personal lives, it’s also true that grasping for “normal” hasn’t always led to good things. We have our ideas of what a normal life looks like: Working a 9-to-5 job, ball games on weekends, falling asleep in front of the TV at night.

Then we have our ideas of what normal looks like in individuals. The conventional kind of individual normal is usually described as someone who doesn’t look or talk funny, dresses in a way that doesn’t scream for attention and blends in. Normal people follow the latest fashions. A so-called normal person eats regular portions at mealtime and can make do with just a couple sips of wine. A normal person gets along with his or her family and listens to everything parents advise them to do.

Here’s the Wikipedia definition of normal:

“In behavior, normal refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average. The phrase “not normal” is often applied in a negative sense (asserting that someone or some situation is improper, sick, etc.) Abnormality varies greatly in how pleasant or unpleasant this is for other people. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “normal” as “conforming to a standard”. Another possible definition is that “a normal” is someone who conforms to the predominant behavior in asociety. This can be for any number of reasons such as simple imitative behavior, deliberate or inconsistent acceptance of society’s standards, fear of humiliation or rejection, etc.”

Of course, life doesn’t work that way. And thank God for that.

I’ve been thinking about our warped notion of normal a lot lately. The bin Laden story has just intensified those thoughts. I’ve also been thinking about it because of Nikki Sixx’s new book and accompanying Sixx A.M. album, “This is Gonna Hurt.” The project illuminates the beauty of people who don’t look like the conventional picture of normal. Some of Sixx’s photo subjects are missing limbs or suffer from serious deformity. But for these people, that is normal.

For me, a dysfunctional family, addictive behavior and mental disorder have all been normal. My normal. Binge eating isn’t considered a normal addiction, but in my world it is. It leads to the same normal self destruction that heroin and cocaine leads to. It’s just not as expensive and it’s legal.

My mother always tossed the word around when talking disapprovingly about something me, Erin or the kids did. “That’s not normal,” she would whine.

In her world, “not normal” is anything that fails to conform to her wishes.

Normal really is a bullshit word when you get down to it.

Most of us are different. And that’s how it should be. If God had created us all to conform to the average way, He would have been pretty bored.

I have a big nose and big ears. My waistline is up around the ribcage. People say I dress like a priest because I wear the cross around my neck where everyone can see it and wear a lot of black. Given the heavy metal I listen to all day and my studded boots, you could say I resemble something closer to a sinister minister.

Disclosure: I didn’t come up with “sinister minister.” It was actually the name of a local band from the 1980s. I wonder whatever happened to them? They sure as hell weren’t normal, but that made them a lot more fun to hang around with at parties.

Anyway, I just wanted to suggest that there is no such thing as normal or abnormal.

We’re all meant to be different as individuals. Our families are all meant to be different. Current events have never fit the description of average. Never for long periods, anyway.

Instead of scowling at the lack of “normalcy,” you should embrace it.

May 3, 2011

Had He Lived

Today would have been my brother’s 45th birthday. I sometimes wonder what he’d be doing and saying in the crazy world we inhabit today.

Mood music:

Let’s go back to 1984, the year he left us.

He probably would have been amused to find me hanging out with Sean Marley and listening to Motley Crue and Def Leppard. He would have noticed my widening girth and got on me about it. Despite his asthma he was a fanatical weight lifter. He’d be on my ass to join a gym. Just not his gym. Me hanging around his gym would have been gross.

Side item: Right after he died, I did join his gym, Fitness World. It was just down the street from our house, a short walk down a side alley. I wasted no time trying to be him, and lifting weights in Fitness World was as good a place as any to start my charade. I lasted maybe a week. Everyone there expected me to be him. I should have figured out then and there that there could only be one Michael S. Brenner.

Later in my teen years, he might have punched me in the face or broken my other middle finger (he had broken one of them in the back of my father’s van one day when I flipped him off) for wearing his leather jacket. It was a true biker’s jacket, with the zippers on the sleeves and scratch marks from a few falls he had off his motorcycle. He was one cool-looking motherfucker in that jacket. But when I put it on, it was two sizes too small. I wore it anyway.

He might have been jealous of the palace I made out of the basement apartment at 22 Lynnway. At the time of his death the place was being renovated and the plan was for him to move in there. Instead, my father rented it to a guy who was nice enough but always seemed to be fighting with his girlfriend. Since my bedroom was in the basement level at another end of the house, this often pissed me off. Sometimes I heard the make-up sex, and that pissed me off even more. It’s hard to get lost in your quiet, dysfunctional mind when people are making a racket on the other side of the wall. The guy moved out by late 1987 and I moved in.

He might have been annoyed when I decided not to pursue a career in drafting. I wanted to be a writer instead. The poetry I was writing at the time would have sent him into fits of laughter. It would send you into fits of laughter, too.

He was going to be a plumber, and he might have shaken his head back and forth in disgust at my inability to do anything useful with a set of tools.

What he would have thought of me in the 1990s, or of Sean Marley, for that matter, is probably not worth exploring. Had he lived a lot would have been different. I don’t know if Sean and I would have gotten as close as we did, and had that been the case, his death in 1996 wouldn’t have sent me into the self-destructive nosedive I found myself in.

He probably would have been pleased to see me get my demons under control in the last decade. He might even appreciate my decision to be open about it in this blog. But he might not have told me so.

One thing I’m pretty certain of: He would have loved his nephews, and they would have loved him.

I realize this post is a useless exercise. Things happen for a reason, and the past had to unfold as it did so I could be who I am today. You could argue that I would have missed out on a lot of experiences had he lived.

You could also argue — and I would probably agree — that he never really died. He played his part on this world and left, and the part he played is still shaping our lives today.

Whatever.

All I know is that this is May 3rd and he’s enjoying his birthday in a better place. This is my Happy Birthday to him.

May 2, 2011

Sarah Jones Memorial Service Cancelled

Just got a text from Deb Jones informing me that the Thursday afternoon memorial service for her daughter, Sarah, has been canceled “because of the ongoing investigation” into her death. There’s no word as yet as to when the service will happen.

This has to be a huge blow to the Jones family, and my heart goes out to them. Please keep them in your prayers.

For those wondering just what this is all about: Sarah was found dead nearly two weeks ago. Nothing is really known about what happened, other than that investigators are treating it as a homicide.

I first wrote about it because I’ve known the Jones family for many years and had been feeling like a jerk for dropping out of touch with them.

Twenty years ago, I would hang out with this family for days on end.

Jeff Jones (he goes by Geoff Wolfe today) was my fellow Doors freak, and I remember many pleasant afternoon’s and evenings in their back yard. I was there for July 4 1991, which I remember because someone slammed into my car and took off that night. The car, a 1981 Mercury Marquis, never ran right again. I got pretty smashed that night.

The next year, we celebrated the 4th by blowing up a mannequin with M-80s.

I remember their children, Josh and Sarah, running around the house and yard.

The last time I saw Geoff, Deb and Josh was at the funeral service for a mutual friend from back in the day, Bob Biondo.

Deb, Geoff and I reconnected on Facebook a couple months ago.

The family has been putting on a brave face since Sarah’s death. They seem to have a strong faith in God, which will certainly get them through these terrible days.

Here’s hoping they can lay their daughter to rest very soon.

May 2, 2011

Osama bin Laden’s Death And The Importance of Closure

I just wrote a blog post on @CSOonline about bin Laden’s death and how, in my opinion, it doesn’t change things. My good friend Alan Shimel read it and immediately took issue with what I said: “Sorry, it does change everything. A sense of closure that I didn’t even realize I was craving all of these years,” he wrote.

He can understand the craving for closure better than I can on this matter. He lost a loved one on that awful day.

Mood music:

He wrote to me, “I wrote something last night right after I heard the news, http://www.ashimmy.com/2011/05/the-night-the-usa-got-its-groove-back.html. But I have to tell you that Bonnie stayed up late to watch everything while we both had tears in our eyes. We felt like finally her sister could rest in peace. I didn’t realize how not catching him had effected me.”

I hear you, brother. God Bless you both.

That day definitely had an effect on my state of mind, and I didn’t know any of the victims personally. I came very close to an emotional breakdown.

There are two types of head cases headed for a breakdown: There’s the type that tries hard to get him or herself killed through reckless behavior, and then there are those who cower in their room, terrified of what’s on the other side of that door.

I fell into the latter category. I started drinking copious amounts of wine to feel OK in my skin, and I went on a food binge that lasted about three months and resulted in a 30-pound weight gain. The still-undiagnosed issues I had going on beneath the service were the perfect target for terrorists.

I do know many people who lost loved ones that day, and the lack of closure did indeed send them into their own personal torment of addiction and depression. Alan mentioned that one of his relatives has struggled with depression since that day.

In my security blog on @CSOonline, I suggested that bin Laden’s death doesn’t change much because we made him irrelevant a long time ago by getting on with our lives instead of cowering as he wanted us to.

I firmly believe that.

But at the same time, I do recognize that this is a major moment of closure for a lot of people. And that’s huge.

In the past year, I’ve gotten closure on a friend’s suicide by reconnecting with his widow and making amends for my lack of helpfulness when she needed it most. Closure lifts a big weight from your heart. But the wound never goes away completely. And whether we get closure or not, we still have to get on with our lives.

That’s what Alan and Bonnie have done since 9-11. They stood straight and moved forward. Alan is someone I’ve come to admire in the security community.

I’m glad his and Bonnie’s steps are lighter now.

May 1, 2011

More Kid Wisdom

Children continue to simplify life’s complexities for me, and this time I have video to prove it. But let’s start with a little history, courtesy of my younger son:

The story of Duncan’s birth goes something like this: Erin’s water broke in the car as I sped over the train tracks on Rosemont Street in Haverhill. Once at the hospital, as Erin was propping herself up to get out of the car, I accidentally slammed the door on her fingers.

The story, as told by Duncan: “When Dad was taking Mom to the hospital to have me, they had a rough ride. First her water glass broke, then she cut her finger.”

***

At Sean’s 10th birthday party, his friend Lukas expressed his awe over my being a writer. “I didn’t know you had a biography,” he said, meaning this blog.

“I sure do,” I said. “You want my autograph?

Lukas smirked, grinned and said, “Yeah, right. You wish.”

***

Sean, after watching Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith: “This is the best day of my life. I got to watch a PG-13 movie.

***

Sean, explaining to his mother why he should be allowed to watch more violent movies: “I know what a real heart looks like, you know.”

***

My 3-year-old nephew, Chase, telling me to use my brain: “Think about it, will ya baby?”

***

My almost 3-year-old niece, Madison, letting me know what she thinks of my humor: “Stop talking and walk away, Uncle Bill.”

***

Duncan, informing me that Sean just questioned his intellect again: “Daaaaaad! Sean said my brain is empty and his is full!”

***

Madison, looking out for Cousin Duncan’s best interests:

May 1, 2011

Crohn’s Disease in Revere, Mass.

An old friend from Revere came over last night, and somewhere in the conversation the subject turned to Crohn’s Disease and why so many of our old friends have it.

I’ve had the disease since the 1970s, and my struggles with it are well documented in this blog. But my friend noted how many of our friends from the Point of Pines, Oak Island and elsewhere have taken bad turns with their health in recent years, and several have developed my disease.

I won’t name names for privacy’s sake, but besides me, we counted three other cases. Could it be something in the water? my friend wondered aloud. After all, a huge General Electric plant sits just across the water in Lynn. There’s also a trash-burning incinerator across the Pines River on Lynn Marsh Road.

Could those industrial sites be responsible?

Who knows? I’ve never seen any studies on the matter, so it would be impossible to trace all the illness to those places.

I do know that when we were kids, before the Deer Island water treatment plan was built, the water of every coastal town in the Boston area was polluted with a putrid mix of bacteria. We all swam in that water as kids, and who knows what the long-term effects of that were.

I have another theory: Doctors simply know a lot more about Crohn’s Disease today than they did back then.

When I was first diagnosed with it in 1978, very little was known or understood about the disease. I endured very long hospital stays and severe dietary restrictions that I don’t really see imposed on people today. People still end up having to take these measures, but it’s not as commonplace. Drugs have improved. The understanding of what makes the disease tick has improved.

Maybe that understanding has simply led to more cases being found and diagnosed.

Of course, it’s all speculation at this point.

I’m just glad my case of the disease is in check, and I hope some of the fellow sufferers are doing better with theirs.

I heard another theory from another friend a couple weeks ago, that Revere had a curse hanging over it that shot down a lot of people from our generation. Besides the Crohn’s Disease, there were multiple suicides and drug addictions that ended in death.

If you asked me that about six years ago, I’d have bought the theory straight away. Today I tend to doubt it.

It was a sad and unfortunate period, but it wasn’t a curse. We all had our share of childhood happiness in Revere in between the bad stuff. And I know now what I didn’t get back then: That we weren’t meant to live soft lives devoid of pain and struggle. These things are tossed in our path to mold us into what we can only hope to be: good people. It doesn’t always work out that way, of course. But let’s face it: Has life ever been fair?

I recently wrote about the time the Brenners nearly left Revere. There’s no question that for a time, I hated that city and would have done anything to get out.

But I think I would have developed the Crohn’s Disease wherever I lived. Bad things and good things would have happened wherever I lived.

Why?

Because that’s life.

April 30, 2011

Sean and Duncan Get A Lesson From The One-Armed Drummer

It started with Sean and Duncan doing what they usually do in the car — taunting each other. Sean told Duncan he has ADHD. Duncan didn’t like that.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/oF96Nvnf_IY

The fact of the matter is that we don’t know what Duncan has yet. He’s too young for an accurate diagnosis. Like everyone else, he has his challenges to overcome, and we’re working with him on it. Clearly, one of my weekend tasks is to take Sean aside and explain the role he needs to play. Task 1: Stop telling Duncan he has ADHD, and stop trying to set him off.

But I started the lesson right there in the car.

“You boys have heard about how I have Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, right?” I ask.

“Yeah,” they say in unison, their tone making it clear they’ve never really understood what OCD is other than an acronym that gets tossed around the Brenner home daily.

So I explain the basics: The mind that spins out of control with worry. The chest that tightens with anxiety. The fear and addictive behavior that goes with it, and the fact that I managed to get the right treatment and am doing well now.

I tell them: “We all have our struggles. That’s mine. Duncan’s is that he has trouble focusing and channeling his emotions. And Sean, one of yours is the inability to put down one of your Star Wars Lego ships before you’ve fixed a piece that came undone. You may not have OCD like me, but that kind of obsession is definitely an OCD trait.”

I tell them there’s nothing wrong with us for having these struggles. It doesn’t make us freaks. It doesn’t make us animals. It simply makes us human.

“True, I do have an issue with that (the Legos),” Sean says.

I drive home the point that we don’t have to let these struggles hold us back. Hell, I’ve managed to enjoy a successful career in journalism despite my struggles. And, I tell them, it’s the same with people who have other ailments and disabilities.

Then a Def Leppard song comes on the radio.

I remember that the drummer, Rick Allen, lost an arm in a car wreck many years ago. That didn’t stop him from drumming. He simply taught himself to use his foot to compensate for what he could no longer do with the second arm.

The kids have been getting into my music of late, so this gives me a good opportunity to make a nice teachable moment out of this.

I call up the Def Leppard albums in my iPod and let it play for the rest of the ride.

They like what they hear. Especially the drumming.

I spring the shocking truth on them: The drummer only has one arm.

That doesn’t stop him from being a good drummer.

The kids are more subdued for the rest of the ride, in awe of what they’ve just learned.

This won’t stop them from taunting each other. It won’t stop Sean from tossing acronyms around like sticks and stones.

But it’s certainly going to make them think a lot harder about who we all are and what we’re capable of, regardless of the challenges that dog us.

April 29, 2011

OCD and ADHD Linked? Maybe

I recently wrote about our challenges with Duncan and how I often curse myself for a lack of patience with him, given my own history with OCD. This morning I came across a column from Dr. Keith Ablow that might explain a lot.

Mood music (Still some coding weirdness with the video embedding, but the music works):

Let’s start with a few paragraphs from Ablow’s column:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are very different conditions, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—the “bible” of psychiatric diagnoses published by the American Psychiatric Association. Yet, my clinical experience tells me they may be linked.

OCD is characterized by unwanted and intrusive thoughts and behaviors. A patient might complain that she “can’t stop thinking” about germs and, therefore, feels compelled to wash her hands dozens of times a day. It is as though the mind or brain is doing senseless laps around a track the person very much wants to stop running.

ADHD is characterized in part by distractibility, forgetfulness and trouble organizing. A patient might complain she “can’t focus” and never seems to finish a task. It is as if the mind cannot stay on course and complete even one lap around the track the person very much wants to run.

Different medicines (in addition to various forms of therapy) are used to treat OCD and ADHD. Obsessions and compulsions seem to yield to medications like Prozac or Effexor that boost serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain. ADHD seems to improve more with stimulants, like Ritalin or Adderall.

But for several of my patients, their obsessions and compulsions seem to have developed as a counterproductive way of “dealing with” preexisting and severe attention deficit problems. Since they couldn’t select what to pay attention to, and since that meant their focus shifted painfully from one thing to another to another, their brains seem to have dropped anchor into rigid, repetitive thought and behaviors (obsessions and compulsions)—so that they began to think or do the same thing again and again and again, in order to stop the very distressing sense of drifting aimlessly.

Naturally, I find myself thinking back to childhood for evidence. I’ve written a lot about my childhood in this blog, including the parts where I believe the seeds of mental disorder were planted.

But it never occurred to me to scour the brain for times when I may have shown some ADHD tendencies.

Looking back, it’s still hard to know for sure.

I certainly had trouble focusing. I was one of the kids who went to a special class for kids who had trouble focusing. I was always daydreaming and staring out the window, but people with OCD do that, too. It’s just that we OCD types have brain-wrenching problems playing over and over in our minds. It’s not about dreams of flying pigs and fluffy clouds. Not that those things go through the mind of someone with ADHD.

I also used to imagine myself in certain scenes from movies and comic books, especially the Superman and Star Wars genres. I wrote about this in a previous post called “Hiding in Movies.” One time, in third grade, I got so carried away that I started to loudly hum the then-new theme to “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which had come out that year.

“Who’s humming?” the teacher asked. In unison, half the class answered, “Bill!”

Was that some ADHD working within me? Perhaps. But I’ll never know for sure. The time to determine it was in the 1970s. We obviously can’t go back there.

I always chalked up my elementary school tutors as byproducts of all the school I missed because of the Crohn’s Disease. I needed a lot of help to keep from repeating grades 2, 3 and 4.

Fast forward to 2011, where I’m a parent of two kids. One of them, Duncan, has something going on.

The boy has a heart of gold and a razor-sharp wit, but as I’ve written before, winter messes with his mind as badly as it does mine. He’s always had his quirks, as we all do. Some of them are disruptive enough that we decided to have him evaluated. My family history alone was reason enough to do it.

The meeting in February was fascinating, frustrating, confusing and illuminating all at once.

The doctor asked Erin about her family history, then turned his glare to me. Apparently the paperwork I filled out set off most of the alarm bells in this process. I knew it was coming. I expected it.

He asked about my brother’s death, my childhood illness, the state ofmy parents’ mental health back in the day and how it all shaped the addictive behavior and OCD I would struggle with as an adult. My sister’s struggles also came up.

After that line of questioning, the doctor calmly told us Duncan fit all the textbook criteria of someone with ADHD. He also has some serious trouble with fine motor skills, which helps explain his penmanship.

We’ve long had our suspicions on both counts. But to hear it from a doctor’s mouth was something else.

We talked a lot about how family dynamics could really shape a kid’s struggles and how various mental disorders end up manifesting themselves. My family dynamic growing up took the mental ticks in my head and molded them into something very dark.

The doctor talked about medication. The good news: The stuff they prescribe for ADHD is extremely effective in correcting the brain’s wiring. For a few minutes, I thought that would be the road we were taking.

I wasn’t afraid.

I’ve been on Prozac for four years and know better than most that it works without wiping away my feelings and personality the way I once feared it would. One of our relatives recently worried aloud that medication would kill Duncan’s personality and turn him into something of a robot.

It’s a fair concern, but I know better. I’ve done my homework and used myself as a test case.

But what the doctor said next shattered any idea of medication — for now, at least.

He said that Duncan’s ADHD-like symptoms could also be the very beginnings of something much different — bipolar disorder, depression, maybe even OCD.

ADHD medicines can make those other things much, much worse further down the line.

At this point, we have Duncan seeing a therapist we’re very happy with. Spring is here, so some of his quirks are easing off a bit.

Dr. Ablow’s column doesn’t change the game for us. But it does give us something more to think about.

April 28, 2011

Sarah Jones Memorial Service

Since writing about my old friends, the Jone family, and the death of their daughter Sarah, some readers have asked what I knew about a memorial service. This morning, Deb Jones posted some details on Facebook:

We finally have a day and a location for Sarah’s memorial service. It will be Thursday, May 5th, @ Bisbee – Porcella Funeral Home, 549 Lincoln Avenue, Saugus, MA, 01906. It is most likely going to be early evening, but I will have a definite time by either later today or tomorrow and will post it.

That is also the address for flowers.

I plan to be there. It’s the least I could do.

April 28, 2011

Over-scheduled Kids: It’s Not The Activity, It’s The Parents

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday about all the activities our kids are involved in these days. Boy Scouts. Sports. Martial Arts. Are we over-scheduling our kids these days? We couldn’t help but wonder.

Mood music (Pardon the coding gibberish around the video. There’s a glitch I haven’t figured out yet, but the music plays just fine):

As a kid, I resisted activities like those offered at the Jewish Community Center off of Shirley Ave., Revere. I preferred walking the streets or reading comic books.

The difference between then and now is that back then I had a choice. Kids today don’t seem to have a choice.

That’s how it looks sometimes, anyway.

I hated the kids involved in all the usual activities back then, so I chose to be a loner. Smoking cigarettes under the General Edwards Bridge connecting Revere and Lynn was a much better way to spend time, I firmly believed. There was a cool network of catwalks right below street level and you could hide up there all day and do all the things a reckless kid will do.

A few years ago, my then-boss Anne Saita was telling me about all the activities she had to shuttle her daughters around to later that day. I asked why her kids were so crammed with activities. I noted that I didn’t do that stuff as a kid and I turned out OK.

“The difference is that the world is a much more dangerous place today,” she said.

I brushed it off at the time. Every parent thinks their kid is living in a more dangerous world than the one they grew up in.

Now here I am, with kids who are older, and it seems they are involved with everything. Both are Scouts, which often has us running out to meetings and activities more than twice a week. There are talent shows and plays with constant rehearsals. I see friends’ kids running to Scouts meets from their martial arts meets.

In the case of my kids, I don’t mind. They seem to enjoy it all, though there are times they lament over the lack of free, unstructured time.

I do find myself wondering about how we schedule our children’s time, though: Are we creating an environment that’s too fast and stress-filled for them in an effort to keep them out of trouble?

Are we putting them under the kind of strain that will lead to drug abuse and suicide later on?

Like most things in life, there’s no easy answer to that question.

Would I have been spared an adulthood of OCD and addiction if my time were more structured and disciplined as a kid? Probably not.

Are we damaging our kids by making them do too much now? I tend to doubt that, too. My kids certainly didn’t complain about getting to camp on a battleship for one Scouts outing.

I’m no expert, and I have no interest in peppering this post with all the research that’s available on this question, because at the end of the day, I think there’s a simpler point to make:

It’s not the activities we have to worry about. It’s us. The parents.

I look at myself and see a guy who went through a lot of rough stuff as a child. I desperately want it to be better for my children.

That’s good in that I have a golden opportunity to raise them happy and raise them right. That’s bad because as a man with OCD, there’s a real danger that I’ll push them too far. Parents have a habit of trying to live vicariously through their children and I’m no exception.

My wife is better at thinking through the schedule, so I’m thinking Sean and Duncan have a better-than-average chance at surviving a childhood of hyperactivity.

On the other hand, I’ve seen parents that push their kids to the brink all the time. God help the kids if they don’t win an award every month. God help them if they lose a game. Remember the dad who went to prison for beating another kid’s father to death over a hockey game? That’s when the activity has gone well past something fun for the kids to do and learn from.

My parents didn’t push me to do more activities as a kid. My father kept recommending I do more at the community center, but in the end I got to make the choice. My mother was too absorbed in her own world to advise me one way or the other.

It would be easy to say it was a different time and place, but I have no idea how things might have been different if I were forced to live by a more disciplined schedule.

Since the mental disorder I eventually struggled with is tied to a problem with brain chemistry, I think I would have put all the stress on myself and been a lot sicker as a result.

It’s even possible that all the unstructured, even reckless time as a kid helped me survive the adult struggles later on.

Only God knows for sure.

All I know now is that I have to keep an eye on my children’s schedule. I have to make sure they enjoy what they’re doing and that they’re learning about life in a way where they’re not stressing too much over the little things.

As a parent I can push them off the cliff, or help them build the future they want.

I’ll end this one with a request for feedback. To the readers who are parents, what is your kids’ schedule like and do you feel strongly about them having a busy schedule vs. a more unstructured one?