The OCD Diaries

February 19, 2013

How To Avoid Becoming #RSAC Roadkill

Last year was a first: I had a stay-at-home vacation a week before flying out to a big conference. We took the kids to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and did a lot of relaxing. It worked so well I’m doing it again.

Mood music:

The kids are on their February school vacation, which was my main reason for choosing this week. That it fell the week before RSA — one of the biggest security conferences of the year — was pure luck. That it’s happening two years in a row is even luckier.

I always run myself ragged the week before a conference. A couple years ago it caught up with me. This time I have a chance to soak up some quality family time and rest my brain before getting on the plane.

That should allow me to be at the top of my game in San Francisco next week. It certainly did the trick last year.

Conferences have always brought out the the good and bad sides of my OCD. On a professional level it gives me the extra push to write more, network more, stay awake later for said networking, and get up and at ’em early. It also takes over the parts of my brain that manage my pacing and ability to stop and breath.

Not helping is that usually, the week before, I work in overdrive mode to get as much business out of the way as possible. In doing that, I’m already half burned before my plane takes off.

I won’t always get to vacation right before RSA like this. So I’ll be making the most of this week.

I’m especially going to need it this year, because a couple hours after the plane lands Sunday, I’ll be darting back and forth between BSidesSF, the hotel, the Moscone Center registration area and quite a few evening events.

February 18, 2013

What’s Your Phobia?

I’ve recently come across a couple of interesting phobia lists, and being the OCD head I am, I decided to carefully go through the lists to see which applied to me.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2b9lp5A6CqSzwOrBfAFhof]

The Phobia List is a straight-up dictionary of phobias, in alphabetical order. Here are some of the phobias that have applied to me at various points:

Agateophobia: The fear of insanity. Who’s not afraid of insanity?
Aviophobia or aviatophobia: The fear of flying. This used to be a big one in my book. The thought of being in a metal tube hurling across the sky with no safety net below terrified me. Because of that, there were many years I didn’t travel beyond what I could do by car. I got over it, though, and love flying today.
Brontophobia: The fear of thunder and lightning. This one dogged me as a kid. There was one storm when I was about 10 that made it pitch-black outside at 1 in the afternoon, and for a long time after that every clap of thunder hit me like a whip to the back. I don’t feel this one so much anymore, but there are still occasions where a good storm will rattle me.
Claustrophobia: The fear of confined spaces. I used to find confined spaces safe and cozy. Now I can’t stand them. I much prefer big, open spaces.
Iatrophobia: The fear of going to the doctor or of doctors. I avoided doctors for several years because of this. Then I went to the other extreme, running to the doctors for everything. I don’t fear doctors today, though I have met many who are so incompetent that they should be feared. But I’ve know some outstanding doctors, too.

Some of the items on this list surprised me and even made me laugh at first. Then I realized how cruel life would be to hand a person such fears:

Anthrophobia or anthophobia: The fear of flowers.
Bibliophobia: The fear of books.
Dendrophobia: The fear of trees.
Francophobia: The fear of France or French culture.
Geumaphobia or Geumophobia: The fear of taste.

The other site is The ABC of Fears: The Famous People’s Phobias. It’s actually the website for a leather-bound book of art focusing on different phobias. Here are a few pages:

web-a
web-666
web-o

It didn’t take long before I gave up scouring these sites; the lists are just too vast. We all have our little fears, and if you look long enough at a list, you’re bound to see a bit of yourself in many of the definitions. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think you automatically have a phobia if you tend to fear or loathe certain things. The question is whether they make our lives unmanageable.

If you never leave the house and avoid all human contact for fear of catching a disease, for example, it’s a safe bet that you have a phobia. If you simply find certain things unpleasant, such as doctors or certain foods, but you’re able to deal with them, it’s probably not a clinical phobia.

The good news is that phobias don’t have to dog us for life. Or so I’ve learned from personal experience.

web-COVER

February 16, 2013

Why I Skipped #ShmooCon — Again

Like last year, a lot of people have asked me why I’m not at the ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. After all, it is one of my favorite events.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3xMZrNrfyKUUqQVtoR13ml]

Simply put, it’s too close to the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco the week after next. Being away from home for multiple days for two weeks inside a month is simply more than my family can handle these days. Last year that realization was painful and I felt a deep sense of loss. The folks who attend ShmooCon have become cherished friends and I hate missing opportunities to see them.

But this year I don’t feel the sense of loss. For once thing, I’ll see many friends at RSA. And, this past year I’ve learned a lot about making choices, sticking with what my gut tells me to do and not being all pissy pants about it. I’ve spent a lot of time this year learning to accept that I can’t do everything I want.

Ever since I shook myself free of the fear and anxiety that came with my earlier form of OCD, I’ve had a craving for these journeys, perhaps for the simple reason that I can go through an airport and onto a plane without feeling like nails are being hammered into my intestines.

I think there’s also a high I get from going to a security show and kicking ass with my writing. Writing conference stories used to leave me harried. No more.

But that liberation has come at a cost. Specifically, since the OCD still runs hot from time to time, I have a problem with balancing my professional cravings with life at home.

I started to figure it out at the RSA conference in San Francisco a couple years ago.

Something went very wrong on that trip. Professionally everything was fine. But below the surface a personal crisis was brewing. If you look at my OCD Diary posts from that week, you could see me coming unhinged. I wrote about discomfort I felt as everyone told me what an honest guy I am because I’m not always so honest. In fact, that week a lie was eating away at my conscience.

I came home to a wife who was understandably angry with me. I was also sick as a dog, burning with fever. We worked through it, but it woke me up to the fact that I can’t do it all, 24 hours a day like I sometimes want to.

I needed to find the middle speed, which is hard as hell when you have an obsessive-compulsive mind and an addiction or four to keep in check.

I re-realized that I had to be truer to my top priorities: God, my wife and children. I can’t stop doing all the things I do. My life has evolved this way because, I think, I’m meant to give a part of myself to helping others. At the very least, it’s payment for the second chance God gave me.

But, to use corporate business-speak, I need to do it smarter, and be willing to drop it altogether for family. That’s one of the truly sick things about OCD: You know who and what you should be paying attention to, but the mental pull still drags you to less-important things that seem awfully important at the time.

That’s my blessing and my curse.

Last year, ShmooCon coincided with Duncan’s first confession, a very important event in the life of a young Christian. There was no way I would miss that. Not even for ShmooCon. Being Sean and Duncan’s dad and Erin’s husband comes first.

Next week I’ll take vacation and be with the family. Then I’ll go to RSA, kick some ass and enjoy the company of friends.

I feel pretty good about my strategy.

Meantime, I wish all my friends at ShmooCon a fantastic weekend. Bruce and Heidi Potter always put on an awesome event, and a lot of the talks are video recorded, so I know I’ll still get to lap up the content eventually.

Onward and upward.

February 14, 2013

If You Saw It on Facebook, It’s Probably a Lie

People on Facebook love to get all self-righteous. That’s fine by me, as long as the emotion is based on truth. The problem these days is that people are increasingly gullible, accepting memes as gospel when they are in fact bullshit.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:1lnRSUq00nBW9fpNeICZQN]

One example is a picture of a letter reported to be written by a U.S. service man claiming, essentially, that Starbucks hates soldiers and won’t let them have their coffee. The letter reads:

Dear everyone: Please pass this along to anyone you know, this needs to get out in the open. Recently Marines over in Iraq supporting this country in OIF wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffee and try to score some free coffee grounds. Starbucks wrote back telling the Marines thanks for their support in their business, but that they don’t support the War and anyone in it and that they won’t send them the Coffee.

So as not to offend them we should not support in buying any Starbucks products. As a War vet and writing to you patriots I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this War might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn’t mean we don’t support the boys on the ground fighting street to street and house to house for what they and I believe is right. If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and I’ll never know. Thanks very much for your support to me, and I know you’ll all be there again here soon when I deploy once more.

Semper Fidelis, Sgt Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT RTO

The letter is actually not new; Sgt. Wright wrote it in 2004. But I’ve seen it on Facebook a few times in the past week alone, and people are posting it to their profiles with comments about how evil Starbucks is and how they won’t ever buy coffee there. I knew it was bullshit straightaway. I’ve bought a lot of coffee from Starbucks, and I clearly remember its campaign to send coffee to the troops. Customers were given the option of buying coffee by the pound that would then be sent to the front lines.

Back when Sgt. Wright wrote the letter, Starbucks contacted him to clarify its position. He then sent out another email, retracting his above statement:

Dear Readers,
Almost 5 months ago I sent an email to you my faithful friends. I did a wrong thing that needs to be cleared up. I heard by word of mouth about how Starbucks said they didn’t support the war and all. I was having enough of that kind of talk and didn’t do my research properly like I should have. This is not true. Starbucks supports men and women in uniform. They have personally contacted me and I have been sent many copies of their company’s policy on this issue. So I apologize for this quick and wrong letter that I sent out to you. Now I ask that you all pass this email around to everyone you passed the last one to. Thank you very much for understanding about this.

Howard C. Wright, Sgt USMC

The Facebook meme is someone’s rewrite of the letter, with facts changed and no mention of Sgt. Wright’s later retraction:

This whole thing illustrates a larger problem with Facebook: In our rush to show how morally upright we are, we users fall for just about anything we see. We essentially do what Sgt. Wright did back in 2004, acting on rumors without doing our homework first.

I include myself in this group; I’ve fallen for fraudulent memes in the past as well. It’s a human trait to take shortcuts, and memes are a shortcut. The lesson is that if you see statements of outrage on Facebook, you should research the matter before opining, because what you see is probably a lie.

February 13, 2013

Truth in Advertising at the Heart Attack Grill?

I admit to some laughter when I read the news that John Alleman, unofficial spokesman and mascot for Las Vegas’ infamous Heart Attack Grill, dropped dead of a heart attack outside the restaurant. “Talk about truth in advertising,” I thought to myself. Then I felt like an asshole.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4dIv6OPKSfGNfWuhv1hEDV]

Finding humor in someone’s death is bad enough, but I could have easily been this guy. Frankly, I still could be.

The Heart Attack Grill is typical of the excess that is Las Vegas. Its high-calorie menu includes the 9,982-calorie, 3-pound Quadruple Bypass Burger. The restaurant’s waitresses dress as sexy nurses and “prescribe great-tasting high-calorie meals including the Double Bypass Burger, Flatliner Fries, Full Sugar Coke, Butterfat Shake, and no-filter cigarettes!” according to the website. Its slogan is “Taste worth dying for.”

Alleman, a 52-year-old security guard, was featured on the Heart Attack Grill clothing line and ate at the restaurant daily. He was known for devouring so many burgers chased down with cream-laden milkshakes with a dollop of butter on top that the restaurant nicknamed him “Patient John.”

The poor guy collapsed outside the eatery while waiting for the bus. It’s really not the way a person wants to be remembered, is it?

I’ve walked past the restaurant during trips to Vegas for security conferences, but I’ve never gone in. As someone with a history of binge eating and overall food addiction, that would be unwise. But then excess is everywhere you go in that town, which is why I hate the place.

Need help with your relationship with food? Visit our Eating Disorders Resources page.

It would be easy to get on my soapbox and decry restaurants like this as an evil that preys on people like me, but I know that’s just not true. As I’ve said about McDonald’s, once my favorite binging hole, the problem isn’t the establishment. Healthy-minded people can eat there once in a while and balance it with a healthy lifestyle the rest of the time. The Heart Attack Grill is no different.

If someone can enjoy infrequent moments of total excess without letting those moments control and consume them, good for them. I envy them, because a disconnected wire in my brain prevents me from living that way.

It appears Alleman had the same problem. I’m glad it wasn’t me this time.

Heart attack grill

February 13, 2013

What Do You Mean I Don’t Believe in God? I Talk To Him Everyday…

Here we are at the start of Lent, and I’m still at a loss as to what I should be sacrificing for the next 40 days. Alcohol? Food items? I’ve already permanently sacrificed those things.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3090goAxG6IlpCifA8m9xB]

Lent is a time to sacrifice habits you love, gain a true appreciation for the sacrifices Jesus made [which were well beyond anything mortal man can comprehend) and draw closer to God. [More on my Faith in Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, Rat in the Church Pew and Better Angels of My Nature]

Yet here I am, stuck at the starting line with no sacrificial pain to run toward.

Two years ago I gave up cigars for Lent. I got around it by smoking cigarettes, which set me up for more trouble later. Now I don’t smoke cigars or cigarettes, so scratch that from the list of options.

Coffee would be a major sacrifice, but nobody would be able to come within 10 feet of me without having to worry about me chewing them up and spitting them out. I could put my e-cig aside, but then I’d probably pick up a real smoke again. I don’t say that to sound defeatist. I just know what my weaknesses are and if the e-cig is a crutch that keeps me from the real thing, that’s how it has to be.

I’m starting to think I’m barking up the wrong tree when considering my Lenten sacrifice. Maybe it shouldn’t be about giving up a treat or a crutch. Maybe I should just take this a day at a time and just focus on being a better man.

I could always be more tolerant of other peoples’ quirks. I could always be taking better care of myself by getting the right mix of sleep and nutrition. Surely that would make me more pleasant to be around. It’s Ash Wednesday, and I figure I still have a few hours to figure out a game plan.

This much I know: I was lost before I found my Faith, and it has become everything to me. But I still sin. All the time. Not because I want to, but because I can’t help myself.

Hopefully, I’m better than I used to be.

Before my conversion — and for some time after it — the haze of OCD and the related addictions exhausted the mind and body and incapacitated me for days and weeks at a time. I was useless to my wife and children. I let friendships suffer because getting the binge and then collapsing under the weight of it was more appealing than being a good friend.

I became a nightmare for co-workers, especially during The Eagle-Tribune days, hovering over page editors and treating reporters more like a disease than the wonderful, talented and hard-working souls they were.

I lied to a lot of people about a lot of things and had the audacity to think I was above others, no matter how screwed up I was.

I’ve asked for and gotten a lot of forgiveness along the way, but for those of you out there who suffered in my wake over the years, I’ll say here that I’m sorry and ask you too for forgiveness.

Above all, though, I say a heartfelt sorry to The Man Upstairs.

I need to try a lot harder to get the sin out of my life. But I know I’ve probably got a lot of pissing left to do.

Sober and abstinent or not, we addicts have a natural-born tendency to let things get between us and our Higher Power.

Redemption is a lifelong journey.

I hope I get it right in the end.

February 12, 2013

A Few Thoughts About Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve had 24 hours to absorb the news that Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down at the end of the month. I think he’s doing the right thing and showing some true fortitude. But I’m also glad because there’s an opportunity for the Catholic Church to right some wrongs.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2C9RcoXlyJEV0IJUNWWCVM]

The Church has stubbornly held on to backward beliefs about the role of women, the status of a person’s Catholicism after a divorce, and its attitude toward gays. It has the evil legacy of sexually abusive priests and the cover-ups involved still hanging over it. Perhaps as a result, few men are joining the priesthood these days.

The current thinking in the Church is that these matters aren’t open for debate because the Bible lays out how things should be. I agree with some of that. I think the parts about loving your neighbor, feeding the hungry and receiving the Sacraments are timeless. But when it comes to how we treat people who are different and how we treat women, the old ways of thinking need to give way.

I’m hoping a new pope can steer us in the right direction. Meantime, I’m going to just keep trying to be the best Christian I can.

Pope Benedict XVI

February 11, 2013

The Information Technology Burnout Project

The Information Technology Burnout Project, created by friends in the security community, addresses something most of us experience at one point or another: work-induced depression.

Mood music:

The website is only part of the project. Project members have also held panel discussions about job stress and burnout at various security conferences across the United States. During those discussions, people have been open about the depression, despair and hopelessness they’ve traveled through in the face of mounting job stress. We know that stress has led to suicide in the IT world. Aaron Swartz is just one of the latest examples.

When I started this blog, I worried about how I’d be perceived in the infosec community. By that point my need to rip the skeletons out of my closet overrode such concern, but I held my breath and sweated it for a few days. I didn’t expect the eventual response, though I probably should have.

My work community started opening up about their own struggles with depression, anxiety and the resulting addictions. These were and still are people that are tough as steel, which was actually comforting. If people like that could let cracks in their armor show, perhaps I wasn’t so crazy after all.

The work of breaking the stigmas around mental illness took on a more intense urgency for me, and here we are, more than three years later.

I’ve had my bouts of job burnout and all the depression and anxiety that goes with it, though most of it was before I started focusing on infosec. As an editor at a daily paper, I struggled to keep newsroom politics from getting to me. I tried to stay above all the backstabbing, criticism from upper management and side effects that came from working late-night hours. I failed, at least for a while, and conducted myself in ways I’m ashamed of to this day.

When I finally got out of the mainstream news business and landed in a much more supportive office environment, I remained on edge. On the surface I appeared calm, and the bosses were happy with the work I was doing. But inside I was dying, one traumatized molecule at a time.

I eventually found my way out of it. But when someone in my work circle is going through something similar, I can spot it from a mile away.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who can.

I’m proud of the friends who started the Information Technology Burnout Project. They are breaking the stigma and, through the website, offer coping tools and inspirational stories that can and will make a difference.

One such friend noted last week that the project has lost some momentum since last year’s RSA Conference, mainly because everyone is increasingly busy with work projects. He’s hoping to rekindle the earlier momentum and asked for help.

Count me in, starting with this post.

Burnt match

February 8, 2013

Naming Winter Storms: Good Intentions, Bad Idea

Here we are, waiting for another “potentially historic” storm to strike the Boston area. Two feet of snow is expected, along with high winds and five-foot snow drifts. Fair enough. It’s winter and we haven’t had a significant snowfall yet. But I’m baffled by the logic behind naming these storms.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2JsiEwxDXXPAf0WFnE142f]

The weather forecasters have named this storm Nemo, presumably in honor of the clownfish from Finding Nemo, a movie that has nothing to do with blizzards. Apparently the weather experts decided after Superstorm Sandy that every single storm should have a name. One storm following Sandy was called Athena.

The good folks at The Weather Channel came up with the idea, explaining on their website:

During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season The Weather Channel will name noteworthy winter storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.

I can respect the logic behind this. But there are unintended consequences: One person’s mental preparedness is another person’s nervous breakdown.

For those who suffer from fear and anxiety, named winter storms bring up the worst weather images of the past. A name makes one think of hurricanes and the destruction they cause. In the mind of the fearful, naming a storm is tantamount to declaring doomsday. This is especially true for children.

Also see: “For Parents With Kids Freaked About Winter Storms” and “Fear, Anxiety and Storms: From the Blizzard of ’78 to Sandy“

Take it from someone who once suffered from crippling fear and anxiety: Living through this stuff is hell. If someone has lived through Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy, such promotion brings back the bad memories and nightmares.

Given all our advances in long-term weather forecasting and the heightened mindset of preparedness we’ve had in recent years, naming storms strikes me as overkill.

Hopefully, I’m wrong and the overkill won’t hurt anyone.

Finding Nemo over winter storm map

February 7, 2013

The Boy Scouts of America Acted Cowardly

Yesterday I opined that the Boy Scouts of America should allow gays into the organization. I suggested that the organization was being cowardly by leaving it up to individual chapters to do the right thing, but a friend disagreed.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3SHPJOuQ357m5S1AjyNpKU]

Wrote my friend:

At a local level, the scouts are heavily supported by churches and religious groups. An all-out and immediate change would result in a mass exodus of sponsoring organizations, which would lead many troops packs to shut down. By taking this approach, the scouts are looking at evolution vs. revolution, which is probably the best we can expect from a 100-year old organization and which would allow new sponsoring groups to step up and take the places of any group that does not want to continue its association with the Scouts. While not a perfect solution, I think it’s actually the most workable in the short term.

Shortly after he sent that message, the Boy Scouts of America’s executive board voted to put off its decision, sending out this curious statement:

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy. To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.

It’s curious because Boy Scouts has already spent years kicking this issue around. My friend responded to the announcement with this follow-up email to me: “Now I agree with your cowardly comment.”

This isn’t rocket science. It’s about recognizing that people come in all stripes, and that we all deserve the opportunity to make a positive difference. The Scouts is a fabulous resource for helping people reach their full potential so they can contribute something positive to society. Keeping certain people out because they’re gay, something that’s more a matter of mental and physical development than personal choice, is wrong.

The Boy Scouts are assuming, just as the military did, that a person’s sexual orientation will prevent them from focusing on their duties. That’s horse shit.

The national organization had a golden opportunity to set an important example and allow in people who could really contribute to society with Scout training. It hasn’t wasted the opportunity yet, but yesterday’s delay was embarrassing and shameful.

Boy Scout Discrimination Comic