The OCD Diaries

March 12, 2010March 17, 2015

In It for Attention and Fame

Since a big ego is often part of the OCD persona, the author has decided to see where Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter fit in.

People with big egos often think of themselves as beautiful, even when they’re not. And as I’ve told you before, we OCD cases have big egos. [See The Ego OCD Built]

As part of my recovery — and my larger Faith journey — I’ve had to deal with this issue head on. It’s the most unsettling of truths: For someone like me, mental disorder comes with a hole in the soul. Like anyone with that problem, I’ve tried to fill the hole over the years with addictive behavior.

I’ve kicked the binge eating and alcohol but still have the caffeine and, on occasion, cigars. And I have social networking.

There. I’ve said it.

Facefook/LinkedIn/Twitter etc. — all tools someone like me can use to fill that hole.

Look down the ride side of this blog. I made damn sure you had a way to connect to me in all these places.

A lot of this is for professional purposes. When you write for a living, you need to use these platforms to proliferate your articles. If nobody reads ’em, it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in.

But there’s a personal side as well.

I NEED to be part of whatever discussion everyone’s having online. I need to show off my work and family so those who thought I was careening down a dead-end street back in the day will know I made something of my life.

If you feel uncomfortable reading this, it’s probably because it’s the same way with you.

Remember a couple months ago when all the ladies were putting bra colors in their status updates? It was technically to promote breast cancer awareness, but let’s be honest. All anyone really thought of were the bra colors and the cup sizes. One female writer who did a column on it admitted she participated because she was looking for a little attention.

Some show off more than others on Facebook, but let’s face it: Everyone’s on there looking for friendship; someone who cares. There’s not really anything wrong with that.

But when you have something like OCD and addictive behavior, that impulse is amplified times 10. So I need to be careful. I know when I send out a lot of tweets I risk pissing someone off, especially since all my tweets go straight to Facebook. I know I’ve been dropped by people on Facebook and Twitter for that reason. And that’s fine. If someone can care less about information security articles, do they really want to be staring down the firehose I use to blast out content? I think not.

Since I’m aware that my presence on Facebook and Twitter can be a bit much, I’m trying to work on it. I’ll keep shooting out the work content, because it’s my job. If someone unfollows me for that, so be it.

On the personal side, though, I’m trying to be more measured, limiting my posts to amusing things my kids say and do and, when I really can’t help myself, the music I’m listening to or the amount of coffee I’m consuming.

I try to avoid putting people down or whining about my drama of the day. I also try not to make the posts all about me, though that gets tricky when you write and promote a personal blog. But I try not to shove my political and spiritual beliefs down your throat or get all high and mighty when somebody slips and falls on their own hubris.

If you see me failing on that score, call me on it.

Just in case I am screwing this one up, it’s always the first thing I bring up in the Confession booth. As I like to say, never leave the trash piling up in your soul. Nobody wants to be around a soul that’s rotting and stinking.

I leave you with a diagram I’ve used before, from Despair.com. For a little fun, have a study and see where you fit in:

February 22, 2010

Outing Myself

The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:1Qdnvn4XlmZANCVy3XjrQo]

A couple friends have asked why I “outed myself” in this blog. Wasn’t I afraid people would blackball me at work? Don’t I worry that I’ll be defined by my struggle with OCD above all else?

It’s a fair question.

First, let’s get the notion of “courage” and “bravery” off the table. Some have used those words to describe what I’m doing, and I appreciate that. But I really don’t think it’s that. Like I’ve said before, my grandfather parachuting behind enemy lines at the start of the D-Day invasion was courage.

I’m doing this more because the point arrived where, for the sake of my own sanity, I had to start being myself as openly and honestly as I can. Honesty can be tough for people who deal with mental illness and addiction. [More on this in “The Liar’s Disease“] But I decided I had to do better.

Admittedly, some of the motivation is selfish. We OCD types have overdeveloped egos and tend to go digging for attention. It’s hard to admit that, but it’s the truth. Being open about that forces me to keep myself in check. It’s also an invitation for those around me to call me out on acts of ego and selfishness.

The biggest reason for doing this, without question, is my Faith. I realized some time ago that when you rip the skeletons from your closet and toss them into the daylight, they turn to dust. Big sinister stigmas become very small indeed. Then you can move on.

I didn’t arrive at that viewpoint easily. It took many years of dirty work.

With my Faith comes a need to do service for others. In this case, I accumulated experiences that might be of help to other sufferers. Sharing wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do. It’s something I HAD to do.

We’re all in this together. Many good people have helped me along the way. Trying to help someone else is the very least I could do. In the final analysis, we all help each other.

Getting it all out of the head and into this blog has certainly been helpful, so thanks for indulging me.

Was it a risk to my career to do this? I don’t think so.

I don’t think I’d be doing this if I still worked for The Eagle-Tribune. The culture of that newsroom wouldn’t have allowed for it when I was there. I have no idea if the culture has changed, but I suspect not.

I’ve gotten a ton of support from those I work with now. I’m definitely lucky to work with the folks in this office.

Does that mean everyone should put their demons out in the open as I have?

Difficult to say.

It’s not going to be the right decision for everyone to make. There are a lot of honorable reasons for people to keep their demons private. In many cases, the veil is what you use to protect others as well as yourself.

But my veil blew away in the storm that was my life. Walking forward without it was all I could do.

February 7, 2010

The Engine in Hyperdrive

It’s Sunday and I’m wrapping up my visit to the #ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. My compulsive tendencies are humming along at full throttle, which isn’t as bad as it seems.

True, the goal is to minimize the OCD overdrive as much as possible. Especially when it comes to giving in to one’s addictions. But sometimes it’s good to have that extra drive.

I’ve produced three articles and two podcasts from #ShmooCon, which is pretty prolific for covering a conference. And this is my third personal blog entry from the trip.

Here’s what I haven’t done:

–Consumed alcohol

–Consumed flower or sugar, the matter and anti-matter that fuel my addictive behavior

–Worried about the weather and getting our RV shoveled out in time for the departure we have planned. A few years ago that kind of worry would have unhinged me. Now I just don’t see the point of thinking about it. We’ll do our best and we will get home. Besides, it doesn’t look that bad:

–Worried about measuring up to the demands of covering the conference. I used to come home from these in pieces. The worry would always be on getting the next story covered, keeping up with the competition and keeping the bosses happy. This time, I cranked out the content for the sheer enjoyment of it.

And I did take time to smell the roses. Or, more accurately, to play in the snow.

Staying indoors through the entire blizzard would have meant missing cool moments like seeing folks cross-country skiing past the White House.

All in all, a good trip, and a POSITIVE use of OCD hyperactivity. I wanted to see it all, and I did.

Now, I’m eager to get back to the wife and children I adore so much.

Seize the day.

January 17, 2010

Strong Arm Of The Log

The author admits he stole the title for this entry from an old North Shore Sunday article because, well, he thought it was cool.

See the bald guy at the front of the picture above? That’s Mike Strong, an old friend of mine from the college days. I look up to him today. But there was a time when I hated his guts.

I met Mike back in 1993 at Salem State College. We were both writing for the college paper, “The Log.” We got along swimmingly at the start, as we had things in common. I was from Revere. He was from neighboring Lynn. We both spoke the same salty language.

But something strange happened that first year.

The editor-in-chief position at the paper was filled by election. Mike was running. So was a guy named Mike Murphy, a young-Republican type who was a member of the Student Government Association.

At the time, I was making friends in both camps. But the two camps were distrustful of each other. The path to disaster was paved.

On election day, I voted for Murphy. Truth be told, I did it because I was chummy with him and my brain was conflicted. I regretted the choice from the moment I put the vote in the ballot box. No disrespect for Murphy. I just realized I voted based on friendship and not who was best qualified.

My vote put Murphy ahead. The then-editor-in-chief had the brilliant idea of opening the ballot box mid-day to see how the vote was going. Murphy was ahead. The editor-in-chief decided Murphy would be a disaster and decided to rig the election in Strong’s favor.

He got caught, of course. Another election was held, and this time Strong came out on top. I voted for him this time. But by then, most of the staff were suspicious of my first vote, especially Strong. I guess that meant my being elected managing editor was a laughable thing. There was no way Strong was going to trust me as his managing editor. I didn’t blame him.

The next semester started out as rocky as I expected it would. Truth be told, I was slacking. I was enjoying that I held the position. But I was doing nothing to earn it. Mike eventually called me on it. I resigned and decided to focus full-throttle on writing and reporting.

At that moment, the relationship changed. Over the course of the year, our friendship deepened.

He was a harsh editor. He would toss stories back at you and tell you it needed work. That’s where the North Shore Sunday reporter who wrote about The Log came up with the “Strong Arm of the Law” headline. I don’t thing Strong liked the headline very much. I thought it was excellent.

The article described a revolving door of students who would come in wanting to write, only to flee in frustration soon after because they couldn’t handle the Strong treatment.

I thought it was funny, in part because I knew it was exaggerated. Sure, a lot of students couldn’t handle it, but a lot of students could and did. And they became attached to the Log office and Strong himself.

It’s funny we would be so attached to that office. The place was filthy and constantly smelled horrific because of a leaking grease pipe in the ceiling above that ran from the campus cafeteria.

As a reporter, I dug deep into Student Government affairs in search of corruption. I poured over financial records and made much of a couple junkets members had gone on. Strong kept on me during that story, settling for nothing but ironclad reporting. In the space of 2 weeks, I gained 15 pounds and was waking up in the middle of the night with flop sweat.

You might say that was an early sign of one of my OCD quirks — making myself rabid in the effort to be a people pleaser. I’m glad I got over that habit.

After graduation, Strong and I were in and out of touch. In the last couple years we have been in constant contact, thanks to the miracle of Facebook.

Mike has gone on to do wonderful things. He’s the director of Par Fore the Cure, an organization that, according to its website, does the following:

We honor the lives of those who have succumbed to brain tumors (and, by extension, all cancers) and offer hope to those still affected by cancer. We raise awareness and fund research through contributions to the Jimmy Fund. We run our events efficiently, ensuring our annual donations increase while our guest costs remain affordable. To date we have donated more than $265,000 for brain tumor research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Research in Boston.

Strong’s tireless drive keeps this machine humming smoothly along, and in the process lives are being made better.

We also have Faith in common. Both of us have become devout Catholics, and share stories of our Faith frequently.

I’m not sure I have a point for this tale. I guess he was on my mind because we’ve been talking a lot in recent days about the special Senate election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. He’s pushing hard for Scott Brown.

Friends like him give me the inspiration to press on when I’m feeling down. As a result, I’m feeling Up much more often.

December 16, 2009

The Stormy Present

A week and a half into this blog, I have most of the backstory etched in. There’s a little more backstory to come, particularly on how Faith has played a central role in my recovery and about how the signs of my craziness were there in my early 20s. More humor is yet to come as well.

Response to this blog has been tremendous, and I thank those who are taking time to comment.

Until the next entries, I’d like to direct your attention toward the right side of this page, where I’ve been fleshing out the Blogroll. There are two worth paying special attention to, both from former Eagle-Tribune colleagues.

Penny Writes, Penny Remembers is not an easy read. The author, Penny Morang Richards, experienced the worst kind of hell imaginable last month: The death of her only child in a motorcycle crash. The wounds are still fresh, and she writes about her grief with the same soulfulness I remember in her E-T columns back in the day.

That she can even face the keyboard every day and etch the pain in stone tells me that she’s ultimately going to emerge from this with a purpose that many, many people will benefit from. It’s a great blog about stumbling forward — falling and crying along the way, but moving forward all the same.

The Sweetest Reasons is Olivia Gatti’s chronicle of family, including her husband and two precious daughters. It warms the heart and is chock full of photos (she is, without exaggeration, one of the best photographers I’ve worked with in the last 16 years).

Taken together, the blogs are an excellent snapshot of the darkness and light we all experience in our life’s journey.