God and Metal

Those who read this blog know two things by now: I’m a devout Catholic, and I have a passion for Metal music. Both have played a central role in my recovery from OCD and addiction. But the spiritual part has been getting the shaft lately.

I’ve been leaning hard on the metal lately. Earlier I spent two hours burning the most searing music in my iTunes library onto discs for tomorrow’s 12-hour trip south. I’m especially into The Runaways and The Stooges of late. They are not metal in the conventional sense, but those bands had a huge impact on many of my favorite bands today.

I’m especially hooked on this Runaways song:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI3RneGO_ks&hl=en_US&fs=1]

And this Stooges song:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Back to God. I’ve been giving him the shaft of late. I haven’t given up on him and he NEVER gives up on me. But my sinning streak continues, and my mind wanders during Mass more than it should these days.

There are reasons for my preoccupations. I’ve been ramping up several writing projects for the work I do in the security industry. Money has been tight and we’ve spent a lot of time putting the finances back in order. Thankfully, we’re getting there. And there’s the ongoing pressures of holding onto my abstinence from binge eating and sobriety from alcohol.

But those aren’t good excuses.

Sometimes I forget that my life would be nowhere without God. Only when I let Him in my life did the pieces start falling into place. It’s time I refocused on paying The Man more respect.

Some folks have noted that I’m serving God by sponsoring people in my 12-Step Program. True. But it’s not nearly enough.

This fall I’m going to pursue a 12-Step “Big Book” study because I’m ready for the next step of my recovery. That will force me to put more trust in my “Higher Power.”

I’m also going to help out with this fall’s R.C.I.A (Right of Christian Initiation for Adults) class at the church. That’s where I’ll be spending my Tuesday nights for nine months.

Good thing, too.

I need the refresher course.

A Lesson in Anger Management

As I’ve told readers before, I used to have a vicious anger streak. A big trigger used to be getting stuck in traffic. So I was surprised by my reaction yesterday when a sinkhole on I-93 North turned a 45-minute ride into a nearly 3-hour ordeal.

I left the SANS Boston conference at 1:30 p.m., planning to finish up some work projects from home for the rest of the afternoon. I hit the traffic jam and heard about the sinkhole on the radio. It was at Roosevelt Circle and the two right lanes were shut down.

Photo by Jim Davis, Boston Globe

Let’s rewind to about 21 years ago. It was registration day at North Shore Community College, where I was enrolled for the fall semester. I was just out of high school and angry at the world for a variety of reasons. I had been working long hours in my father’s warehouse in Saugus and was rubbed raw. I was frustrated because a girl I liked was getting cold feet about the idea of hooking up with a loose cannon like me. It didn’t take much to trigger a temper tantrum.

That day I was rattled hard by the long lines of college registration. I wasn’t expecting it and was full of fear that I wouldn’t get the classes I needed. Not that it really mattered, since my major was liberal arts.

Two hours in, I realized I had to give them a check for the courses I was taking. I had no money and panicked. They allowed me to drive to Saugus to get a check from my father. I was in full road rage mode on the drive there and back.

By day’s end, I was in supernova mode and breathing into a bag between the chain of cigarettes I was smoking.

There are many more colorful examples of my temper back then:

– Hurling a fork or steak knife at my brother in a restaurant on New Years Eve 1979 because he made a joke I didn’t like. The more dramatic among my family members say it was a steak knife, though I’m pretty sure it was a fork.

– Lighting things on fire out of anger, including a collection of Star Wars action figures that would probably be worth a fortune today. I would pretend they were kids in school who were bullying me. Never mind that I bullied as much as I got bullied.

–Throwing rocks through windows, especially the condominium building that was built behind my house in the late 1980s.

–Yelling “mood swing!” before throwing things around the room at parties in my basement. It came off as comical, as I intended, and nobody got hurt. But there was definitely an underlying anger to it. I was acting out.

– Road rage. Tons of it. I was a very angry driver. I would tailgate. I would speed. In the winters I would intentionally spin out my putrid-green 1983 Ford LTD station wagon in parking lots during snowstorms. While in college, I nearly hit another car and flipped off the other driver while my future in-laws sat in the back. Traffic jams would infuriate me. Getting lost would fill me with fear and, in turn, more anger.

There were a lot of legitimate causes of rage for me. The drug I took for Chron’s Disease had a lot of nasty side effects, including violent mood swings. A brother and two close friends dying — one by suicide — gave me a lot of anger. Being stuck in the middle of turf wars and working late nights while at The Eagle-Tribune certainly made me a a walking ball of fire.

I’m also sure the fear and anxiety that came with my OCD contributed to more anger.

So it was an absolute blessing for me that after three hours in traffic, my sanity was in check. Not once did I punch the steering wheel in anger or flip off someone in the car next to me or in front of me.

I don’t even think I dropped an F-bomb. I don’t remember doing so, anyway.

I got home, went upstairs and was just happy to see the kids. I emptied the dishwasher, folded some laundry and set the table for dinner. I was in OCD mode for sure. But sometimes it’s best to just let the OCD run hot. It always passes.

Just another example of how I’m not the same person I used to be.

Riding The Blue Pill

Today an experiment begins. Though it’s still summer, I’m going back up an extra 20 MG on the Prozac. The goal: Avoid the deep slide into depression that usually comes just in time for the Christmas season.

Mood music: “She Rides” by Danzig:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnizbRoqv84&hl=en_US&fs=1]

I was at 60 MG for the winter and most of the spring, but dialed it back to 40 in May. The reason I’m going back up, though I feel fine, is because August is when the days start to get noticeably shorter.The therapist believes upping the dose now will prevent a repeat of the usual blue moods that hit me when the sunlight becomes more scarce.

It’s interesting that this experiment would begin on Aug. 2. Twenty years ago today, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and all the talk about Saddam Hussein being a new Hitler threw me into a deep, fear-induced depression that August. Back then my OCD always manifested itself in a fear of current events. In fact, it was only about four years ago when that brand of fear eased off.

That summer was actually the closest I came to suicidal thoughts. Ironically, it was Sean Marley — a man who would take his own life six years later — who talked me back to a certain level of sanity.

Most recently, in 2005, I had a long panic streak over the bird flu in Asia, which was predicted to be the next great pandemic, as deadly as the one in 1918-19. I would read every magazine and every website tracking all these world events as if my personal safety depended on it. If a hurricane was spinning in the Atlantic, I would watch with deepening worry as it edged closer to the U.S.

Though those fears are gone now, I still have the blue-to-black moods to contend with from time to time, so it’ll be interesting to see how this experiment works.

If it goes well, I may actually have a Christmas season I can enjoy, instead of walking around alternating between haze and craze.

The trick, meantime, is to avoid the short-term mood swings that go with a dosage change.

We’ll see.

Friends Who Help You Heal, Part 2

For a lot of years, I didn’t have many friends. It’s not that people didn’t like me. It’s just that I chose to isolate from the rest of the world for a long time. People with mental illness and addiction do that sort of thing.

Mood music: “Damn Good” by David Lee Roth:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mIP7ySBXBg&hl=en_US&fs=1]

I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, because these days I seem to be spreading myself thin making plans with a lot of people. It’s a problem that’s well worth having. A blessing, for sure.

I’ve gotten some good quality time in this week with my friends,  the Littlefields. They’re staying in a beach house on Salisbury Beach and invited me over.

I spent all Wednesday morning there and some of last night. I’ve learned a few things about this family: Kevin’s oldest daughter, Courtney, has a razor-sharp wit. She keeps her old man on his toes, much to my entertainment. I’ve also learned that Matty, the 5-year-old, likes to run around outside in his underwear and that seagulls are terrified of him. He also kicks serious ass on the Xbox.

I’ve gotten the chance to catch up with many more friends this summer. Some of this is the Facebook effect, reconnecting with a lot of people from the past. But for me, there’s a lot more to it.

For a long time I preferred to hole up in my room or in my car. It was easier to go on a binge that way. People always get in the way when you’re obsessed with getting junked up.

It was also too painful to talk to people. I was way too self-conscious to pay attention to anyone else. I was 280 pounds at one point, and didn’t want to be seen that way. I also had little in common with people in general. I was so isolated that all I did was watch science fiction shows on TV. Life can be limiting when all you have to talk about is Star Trek or Star Wars.

I filled up the rest of my time with work, trying hard to please the masters and working 80-hour weeks. That too is a great way to isolate. You don’t have to talk to too many people when you’re holed up in an office all the time.

Why Erin stayed with me through that period is beyond me. But she did.

When did the isolation break? Probably a few years into my recovery. Once I reached a point in therapy where I could start to manage the OCD and shed the fear and anxiety that always hung over me, I suddenly found myself hungry to see new places and meet new people. I’d say that turning point came sometime in 2007. I haven’t looked back.

I travel frequently for work, and when I do I always make time to see friends who live in whatever area I’m visiting — San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Washington DC, New York, etc.

As time goes on, the list of people to visit is getting a lot longer.

I didn’t see that coming.

But I’m not complaining.

When to Let the OCD Run Hot

Sometimes the best way to deal with OCD when it runs hot is to simply let it run its course. That’s one of the things I’m learning about myself.

Mood music for this post: “Check My Brain” by Alice in Chains:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OK1HRqP-fg&hl=en_US&fs=1]

I’ve gotten pretty good at managing the disorder most of the time. Medication certainly helps, as do the therapy appointments and various coping tools I’ve developed over time. But even with those things, the OCD will kick in from time to time.

It’s mostly the little things these days: Obsessively picking toys off the living room floor even while the kids are still playing, re-checking and re-checking again the various project lists I have at work. Stuff like that.

When I first embarked on my effort to bring the OCD under control, I had the faulty notion that I could beat the disorder and drive it from me completely.

Six years on, I know that was a stupid notion, though I don’t beat myself over it. It was still a worthy goal.

But the lesson I’ve learned is that you never get rid of a mental disorder completely. You just learn to manage it and make sure the bad days are the exception to the rule. I’ve definitely won that battle.

I don’t spend every moment from sunrise to sunset spinning a web of mental chaos over every big and little thing that’s bothering me. I’m able to live in the precious present most of the time, and that’s a blessing.

Reigning in my addiction to compulsive overeating has been an enormous help on that score, because the brain works a lot more efficiently when it’s not all gummed up with processed flour and sugar.

But I now know and accept that there will be days where the mind spin is tougher to control, especially when I run into a big stress factor like family finances. There’s a little OCD in all of us, and I think it’s perfectly normal for people to get fixated on their troubles when they are particularly vexing.

In learning to accept that I’m going to have my occasional depressed or angry days, I’m able to get on with life and have a good time doing it.

Nothing is ever perfect. Some people are still more irritating than others. Worry still comes and goes.

I’m OK with that. And that’s progress.

Get Up and Live: A Playlist

Treat this post as a media player. The playlist is made up of songs that to me are about seizing life by the throat. Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJDDxHIaaVk&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFG820EwvUQ&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8vzTsnPps&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXIK1xCRpY&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTiZB0wjs0&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WkJ-ZB–G0&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eRiAnZt24&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_C4rV7x-Y&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfRUYUkq_0&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2dI_a3GpS0&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Lessons of a Thirty-something

The author is reflecting a lot on things that happened in his 30s.

Mood music: “Lunchbox” by Marylin Manson:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Fo57AXW3w&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Since my 40th birthday is next month, I’m thinking a lot about the last decade. In many ways, I’m not the same guy I was when I was staring at my 30th birthday. This has been a decade of healing, with a lot of broken scabs along the way.

At the start of my 30s, I started to come undone. The symptoms of what would eventually become an OCD diagnosis suddenly grew in intensity. The binge eating addiction entered a new era of viciousness. Some relationships imploded while others were renewed.

In my early 30s, the OCD manifested itself in some insidious ways. I was obsessed with pleasing people, especially my bosses at The Eagle-Tribune, and my mother. I was also obsessed with keeping my weight down in the face of the binging. So I exercised like a madman. In the process, I was just masking a physical decline.

At 31, I was busy being something I’m not good at — a hard-ass. My bosses demanded it. I would get wound so tight that I became impossible to work with. I was also busy trying to keep my mother and step-father happy, which was almost always impossible, especially when it came to their personalities clashing with that of my wife, who had given birth to Sean a year before.

I celebrated my 31st birthday with my mother, stepfather, in-laws and Erin at the Legal Seafood in the Peabody mall. I didn’t want a cake. My mother went nuts about it, because on someone’s birthday you give them cake. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t want it. She was going to ask the waitress to bring me a cake anyway, but Erin put her foot down, because, as I said, I didn’t want a cake.

The next day, my mother called:

Ma: “I just wanted to apologize for not having a cake for you.”

Me: “But I didn’t want cake.”

Ma: “I tried to get you one, but YOUR WIFE wouldn’t let me.”

It always came back to Erin. She was always the scapegoat for decisions I made that my mother didn’t like. And yet, I pressed on, trying to make everyone happy.

By 2006 I was long gone from The Eagle-Tribune, but was still obsessed with pleasing the masters at TechTarget. And I was still trying to please my mother. It was getting a lot harder to do, since I was two years into therapy, newly diagnosed with OCD and spending a lot of time digging back into an abusive past for clues on how I got the way I did. A lot of it came back to her. And so in the summer of 2006 that relationship broke apart.

Why go on about these things? Because some important lessons emerged from the experiences that were instrumental in my healing.

First, I realized that no matter how hard you try, keeping people pleased is impossible.

Second, I realized that the only way to achieve mental health is to be true to oneself. For me, that meant surrendering to a higher power and dealing head-on with the addictions. It also meant being honest about my limited ability to control OCD without medication.

And while some relationships fell apart, others that were damaged in my 20s started to heal in my 30s, especially in the last year.

To that end, I think of Joy, Sean Marley‘s widow. She’s remarried with kids and has done a remarkable job of pushing on with her life. She dropped out of my world for nearly 14 years — right after Sean’s death — until recently. The contents of our exchange are private, but this much I can tell you: I was wrong all these years when I assumed  she hated my guts and wanted nothing more to do with me.

I have to be careful with this last reconnection. I still have a lot of questions about Sean’s final years and the OCD in me wants to know everything now. If I’m lucky, some answers will come in time. But I’m not going to push. I have no right to.

Besides, simply being reconnected is, as Joe Biden might say, “A big fucking deal.”

I used the Marilyn Manson song above as my mood music today because I think of “Lunchbox” whenever I get angry about my limitations. By the time the song is over, I usually feel a lot better.

But while the kid in the song has his metal lunchbox and is “armed real well,” I got my tools of recovery. So you could say I’m armed much better than that kid.

The Perils of Service, Part 2

Volunteering can be a bitch, especially when you forget who you’re there to help.

Mood music for this post: “My Way” by Limp Bizkit:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ8Qi86i82s&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Once a month, I spend a couple hours on a Saturday volunteering in the food pantry run by our church. It can be a frustrating endeavor.

Part of the frustration is my own fault. I should be there more often, but I’m only there once a month because I’m spread so thin these days between family, work and sponsoring people in my 12-Step program.

A lot of new people are working the pantry these days. They’re not that new, mind you. They just seem new to me because I’m not there enough to be used to them. They’re good folks, but in my head — when the rush of people come in for their food — I pick apart how they do things. I’ll get annoyed if they try to process multiple orders at once because the bags of food get mixed up and chaos ensues. One guy is very serious and doesn’t laugh at my jokes.

The Saturday crew is always bitching about the Tuesday crew leaving a mess. The Tuesday crew is always bitching about the Saturday crew for the same reason.

And there I am, on my own perch, picking apart how everyone does things because I want everyone to do it my way. I am a control freak, after all. Not that I have a right to be.

These people are there every Tuesday and Saturday. I show up once a month.

If anything, they should be annoyed by me, and they probably are.

Clashing egos is pretty common among those who do service. On the recovering addict side, everyone in the room suffers from compulsive behavior. People like us usually have bloated egos. Mine is especially bloated. This makes me an asshole at times.

But I press on and do what I need to do, and things always work out.

The friction that’s always present among the volunteers at the start of a shift always eases off and we’re all getting along midway through. You can pick on how different people do things, but they’re all giving up their time to make something work.

And once I get out of my own way, things start to fall into place.

At some point in the shift, it hits me. The people in line are there because they can’t afford groceries. They’re down on their luck and doing the best they can.

And when you hand them the bags of donated food, they are GRATEFUL.

And they help me as much as I help them. When I see people who need to live on donated food standing tall, helping each other carry bags to their cars, picking up food for someone who may live at the other end of town from where they live, enjoying time with the children they have in tow, they bring me back to Earth and remind me what life’s all about.

The other volunteers — the ones who are there practically every week while I just breeze in once a month — help me too.

When I see how dedicated they are, it makes me work harder at being a better man.

Songs to Knock You Back on Your Feet

When life seems overbearing and unmanageable, the following songs help me regain my footing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDRopoYh144&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eRiAnZt24&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFG820EwvUQ&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXIK1xCRpY&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rer-B4g6TPc&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka_sHy9cVH0&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks8xhbNQw4g&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XByR0wVIYkU&hl=en_US&fs=1]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIP1okixlfE&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Coping With Tired: Tools of a Reformed Addict and OCD Case

Several writings about how the author copes with exhaustion.

Mood music for this post: “I’m So Tired,” from The Beatles White Album:

Someone who saw my “songs to play when tired” post asked what I do about being tied besides music and coffee. People with addictions and mental disorders are often tired — even when in recovery. These writings cover how I keep exhaustion at bay:

Rest Re-defined
The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/02/02/ocd-diaries-rest-re-defined/

The Bright Side of Exhaustion
For someone with OCD, a little exhaustion can be just what the doctor ordered.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/03/26/the-bright-side-of-exhaustion/

Somewhat Damaged
Sometimes the author lives in overdrive. The result is pain.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/26/somewhat-damaged/

The Rewards and Risk of Service: A Cautionary Tale
Service is a major tool of recovery. But it can also be dangerous.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/29/the-rewards-and-risk-of-service-a-cautionary-tale/

This is Your Brain on Restlessness
The author has hit a wall with his recovery. It’s not what you think.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/27/this-is-your-brain-on-restlessness/

Writing to Save My Life: The author on why he became a writer and how it shaped his recovery from mental illness and addiction.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/06/02/writing-to-save-my-life-the-ocd-diaries-for-6-2-10/

How I Became the Easy Parent
Here’s a side of my recovery that the kids enjoy: I’m more of a push-over than I used to be.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/06/06/how-i-became-the-easy-parent/