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A Suicide

The author’s message to some people mourning a friend’s suicide. He’s been there, so maybe these words will help.

Mood music for this post: “Murder in the City,” by the Avett Brothers:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE7rkSELM3I&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Some acquaintances in the information security community are currently dealing with something I know about all too well — a friend taking their own life.

I don’t know these people very well, and I never met the woman they are now grieving over. But given the road I’ve traveled, I wanted to say something that might be helpful. Here goes…

You’re probably feeling kicked in the guts by this. You may have known your friend was depressed, even suicidal, but it never really clicked in your brain that this friend would actually DO IT.

Now you’re beating yourself over it because you’re certain that you saw the signs in hindsight and should have done something to help this person. You feel you weren’t the friend you should have been. Or brother. Or sister. Or parent.

Your brain is spinning like an old record, skipping as you replay the last few months in your head, over and over again. “How could you have missed the signs?” you ask yourself.

As everyone in your circle second guesses themselves, tensions and hard feelings bubble to the surface.

It can be too much to absorb. And the hurt will be there for a long time.

But things will get better. They always do.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned in the nearly 14 years since my friend’s death:

–Blaming yourself is pointless. No matter how many times you replay events in your mind, the fact is that it’s not your fault. For one thing, it’s impossible to get into the head of someone who is contemplating suicide. Sure, there are signs, but since we all get the blues sometimes, it’s very easy to dismiss the signs as something close to normal. When someone is loud in contemplating suicide, it’s usually a cry for help. When the depressed says nothing and even appears OK, it’s usually because they’ve made their decision and are in the quiet, planning stages.

–Blaming each other is even more pointless. Take it from me: Nerves in your circle of family and friends are so raw right now that it won’t take much for relationships to snap into pieces. A week after my friend’s death I wrote a column about it, revealing what in hindsight was too much detail. His family was furious and most of them haven’t talked to me since. They feel I was exploiting his death to advance my writing career and get attention. I was pretty screwed up back then, so they’re probably right. In any event, I don’t blame them for hating me. What I’ve learned, and this is tough to admit, is that you’re going to have to let it go when the finger pointing starts. It’s better not to engage the other side. Nobody is in their right mind at this point, so go easy on each other. Give people space to make their errors in judgment and learn from it.

–Don’t demonize the dead. When a friend takes their life, one of the things that gnaws at the survivors is the notion that — if there is a Heaven and Hell — those who kill themselves are doomed to the latter. I’m a devout Catholic, so you can bet your ass this one has gone through my mind. What I’ve learned though, through my own experiences in the years since, is that depression is a clinical disease. When you are mentally ill, your brain isn’t firing on all thrusters. You engage in self-destructive behavior even though you understand the consequences. A person thinking about suicide is not operating on a sane, normally-functioning mind. So to demonize someone for taking their own life is pointless. To demonize the person, you have to assume they were in their right mind at the time of the act. And you know they weren’t. My practice today is to simply pray for those people, that their souls will still be redeemed and they will know peace. It’s really the best you can do.

— Break the stigma. One of the friends left behind in this latest tragedy has already done something that honors her friend’s life: She went on Facebook and directed people toward the American Association of Suicidology website, specifically the page on knowing the warning signs. That’s a great example of doing something to honor your friend’s memory instead of sitting around second guessing yourself. The best thing to do now is educate people on the disease so that sufferers can help themselves and friends and family can really be of service.

–On with your own life. Nobody will blame you for not being yourself for awhile. You have, after all, just experienced one of the worst tragedies there is. But try not to let it paralyze you. Life must go on. You have to get on with your work and be there for those around you.

Don’t take what I’ve just said as Gospel. It’s based on my own experience and no two experiences are the same. But if there was something in there that’s helpful, then I’m grateful.

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Waiting for the Sun

The author on how longer days mean less depression — for him, anyway.

Mood music for this post: “Waiting for the Sun,” by The Doors:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0kypyGSKsE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I’m starting to feel it. The mental release that comes with longer periods of daylight.

Sure, everyone loves the longer days and everything else that marks the coming of spring. But in my case, longer days means a reduction in my Prozac intake. And that’s pretty freakin’ cool.

As I’ve written before, the cold grayness of winter and its shorter periods of daylight have a serious impact on my mental health. [More on that in Prozac Winter and The Mood Swing]

Ah, but the sunshine. It fires up every remaining cell in my brain.

It’s odd that I turned out this way. As a child, I used to prefer the winter and its shorter days. It was almost like a security blanket for me. It made me feel cozy as I hunkered down in my room.

Now it’s the opposite. I thrive on days where the sun starts rising around 4:30 a.m. and doesn’t set until close to 9 p.m.

Go figure.

The good news is that I didn’t wait until winter got the better of me. This time, in early December, I was waiting for it. I knew the Christmas season usually threw me into deep periods of depression, and when it hit this time I took action. I started this blog. And, I opened up about it with my therapist, who suggested an extra 20 MG of medication for the duration of winter.

It was a shaky start. One weekend I experienced wild mood swings where I was up one minute, down and angry the next. That was the brain readjusting to the dosage change.

It carried me through winter — still is — better than what I’ve lived through in previous years. [More on that in The Engine]

The goal now is to roll back the extra 20 MG I’ve been on later this month and go back to the previous level.

I think that’s going to work out just fine.

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Rain in the Wound

A couple months ago I told you about my friend Penny Richards, whose beautiful 25-year-old daughter was killed in a motorcycle accident in November. I read her blog every day, and let me tell you: The stuff she’s writing is going to help a lot of grieving people get through their melancholy in years to come.

I really wish she didn’t have to be the one to set the example because she has to carry around deep pain these days. But for those who suffer from depression, her experiences simply need to be shared.

And so I direct you to the latest in her blog, where she describes the depression she now feels:

“It’s another grey, cold day, and I’m more of a believer than ever that the weather influences your attitude. If the sun would shine and the temperatures feel warmer, it would go a long way to making the darkness retreat for a while.

“I’m sure there are many things tougher to endure than depression but one of them is living with someone who is living with their own depression. I used to think your dad was taking your death harder than I was. I used to think I wasn’t grieving the “right way” because he seemed so much more hopeless that I felt. His depression seems more consistently deeper than mine. It’s easier for me to put mine aside for a time. His settles in and stays for a while. Little things are triggers us both, but more often for him.”

Does weather impact one’s mental health? You bet your ass it does. My moods almost always hit the depths when there’s too much rain, snow, cold and darkness.

In the book “Lincoln’s Melancholy” by Joshua Wolf Shenk, we see how long periods of gloomy weather drove Lincoln to suicidal thoughts in the 1840s, two decades before he was president.

She’s also brutally correct in her assessment that depression hurts the people around the sufferer. Big time. It’s impossible for bystanders to get inside a depressed person’s head and truly understand. It is beyond one’s comprehension. That makes helping your friend or loved one pretty difficult. Meanwhile, your melancholy hangs on them like a stench.

My family knows this all too well, especially my wife. How she has dealt with it all these years is simply beyond me.

And years ago, when my best friend was sinking into a suicidal depression, I didn’t really get what was going on until after he took his life.

Penny has wisdom to share by the bucket. It just sucks that the buckets are filled with tears.

So learn from her, and take some time to learn about her daughter. I never really knew P.J., though I remember her hanging around the Eagle-Tribune newsroom all the time when her mother was a lifestyles writer and I was night editor.

But I’ve since been inspired by her life story, as told my many people. She died too soon, but when she lived, she really lived, and brightened the lives of everyone around her in the process.

It’s a story that really helps us understand how to spend the time God gives us, whether its 100 years or just 25.

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Friends Who Help You Heal

The following was written one winter in a moment of absolute clarity.

Mood  music:

[spotify:track:27xIf7tzHPQFX068pFYlAh]

Today was sunny and warm in San Francisco. After the never-ending winter back home, I got what I needed today: A walk all over the city with my good friend, Rob Westervelt.

We started by walking along Fisherman’s Wharf, then Golden Gate Park and covered a lot of ground in between.

It brought back memories of when I came here with Sean Marley in 1991. We flew into San Francisco, rented a car and spent the next 10 days driving all over California, sleeping in the car, going days without a shower and eating pasta from cans. We went as far north as Eureka and as far south as L.A., where we spent a weekend before driving back to San Francisco. Too bad I spent half the time letting my fears get the better of me.

I’ve said it before: Too much dreary, cold weather sinks me into a stretch of melancholy. Today was excellent medicine. Now I’m relaxing in the hotel room writing in this diary and listening to Danzig and The Decemberists.

It was especially good to spend the day with Rob. We’ve been friends for a few years now, having worked together at Searchsecurity.com. We were a potent team, creating a lot of great podcasts and video together. We’ve gone on long jaunts through San Francisco and Las Vegas. When we worked in the same building we’d get together for morning workouts in the office gym.

We’ve kept the friendship going strong since I left to be senior editor at CSO Magazine, having lunch frequently, sometimes once a week.

He used to be Catholic and converted to the Jewish Faith. I did exactly the opposite.

He’s one of those guys I can truly be myself around. We laugh a lot.

One of the many friendships God sent my way to help me through some of my greatest trials.

I truly believe that The Holy Spirit manifests itself in the people around you, those who stick with you when your spiraling downward and when you’re on the way back up.

That, my friends, is another tool of recovery.

There have been times in my life where I didn’t have many friends. Good friends moved away or died, so for a long time I was afraid to get too close to people.

Doing so in the last three or so years has been a big leap of Faith.

It has helped me recover and find a new happiness.

Tomorrow the RSA security conference begins and I’ll see many more friends from my industry.

It’s good to be alive.

 

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Powerless

That was one hell of a storm.

The power went out around 11 p.m. Thursday and is still out as I write this Saturday morning.

It gives me a new appreciation for what people went through after the ice storm in December 2008. No power for weeks for these people. Yeesh.

We spent the night at the home of dear friends, and that was what I’d call making the best of things.

But I won’t lie, folks: A power outage in my house is the stuff OCD overdrive is made of. Can’t fire up the laptop and get work done. Can’t make coffee. The second problem was hardest.

It’s a loss of control for someone who craves the ability to control things. So by mid afternoon, as I sat in my sister-in-law’s house, I was feeling edgy. It literally made me itchy. The laptop was having trouble getting onto the Internet, which made me just a little tougher to be around. I was obsessed with getting a security article written, even though I really don’t have to write it until Monday. Still, I sat there and wrote anyway.

Erin sat there knitting and told me I was “spiraling out.” That made me stop and realize I was being an idiot.

I think it was around 10 p.m. when, from the kitchen of our friends, I finished the article. It was after midnight when we finally went to bed.

Now I’m in their kitchen at 6:15 a.m., writing in the blog.

Despite my momentary relapse into insanity, I handled the day a hell of a lot better than the old me would have. I’d have been punching walls, weaving a tapestry of filthy language and binging on whatever food wasn’t spoiled in the refrigerator. I’d have gone in mad pursuit of some wine.

I did none of those things. That’s real progress.

Tomorrow I fly out to San Francisco for the RSA security conference. I hope the power is back on today, because I’ll hate leaving the family in that situation. It’ll be ok, though. I’ll figure out a plan for where to put everyone if the power isn’t back by then. I’ll deal with it and move on.

Now, time to go out and find coffee. No offense to my dear friends, but their coffee is far too weak for my blood.

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The Angry Years

The author can’t say his temper was a direct result of OCD, depression and addictive behavior. But dealing with those things did make it go away. Mostly.

I had one hell of a temper when I was younger. To call it a byproduct of OCD, depression and addiction would be a stretch, because I think the temper would have been there even without the mental illness.

Some of the more colorful examples of my temper:

— 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.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

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.

But here’s the good news: I don’t feel that anger anymore.

Sure, there are days where I’m feeling pissed off and some profanity might drip from my lips. And yes, there are days where I might raise my voice over something the kids did.

But I no longer punch walls (I never hit people; just walls). I no longer throw things. I no longer set toys ablaze. And I’m a much calmer driver. In fact, I actually enjoy the quiet time I get from long drives. Even the profanity isn’t close to what it used to be, which is no small achievement for a guy from Revere.

The reasons are pretty simple. The coping tools I developed to manage the OCD also made for some excellent anger management. Losing the fear and anxiety in turn made me less angry. And my religious conversion was a huge force for calming my soul.

Finally, I thank God for the metal music. It’s great therapy for when I’m having a frustrating day. And when I was a kid, it was an outlet for my anger that almost certainly kept me from acting on much darker impulses.

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Metal to Stick in Your Mental Microwave

As I’ve written before, heavy metal music has been an essential tool for my recovery from OCD and the related addictions. Some would say this is in conflict with my Faith. After all, isn’t heavy metal the Devil’s music?

To that I say that all musical genres have their light and dark sides.

A lot of classical music will take you to a dark place and some of history’s more evil players loved Classical.

True, there is a lot of metal that would conflict with my religious beliefs. But most of the metal out there has had a positive impact on me. The aggression of the music hammered out a lot of anger I carried around as a kid — anger I might have otherwise acted on to hurt someone or myself. At worst, the stuff is harmless.

And so, here’s my own personal top-10 albums of all-time, and why…

1. Motley Crue: Shout At The Devil.

I started listening to this one right after my brother died. The aggression tapped into the anger and horror I was feeling. Tommy Lee is one of the best drummers of all time. Nikki Sixx couldn’t really play his bass back then, but his lyrics spoke to me.

Favorite song: Knock ‘Em Dead kid:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYHr1Y_U7E0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

2. Metallica: Master of Puppets.

I got into this album in late 1986, right after my last real tussle with Chron’s Disease. I was feeling a hundred kinds of frustration. The disease and the dietary restrictions it led to further corrupted my relationship with food. The required medication was sinking me into madness. And the angst of this album spoke to me, as if to let me know I wasn’t alone.

Favorite song: Welcome Home (Sanitarium):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awDMZq27PGE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

3. Van Halen: Fair Warning.

This is my favorite Van Halen album probably because it’s the band’s deepest, darkest, most soul-searching album. It wasn’t one of their most popular releases, probably for that very reason.

Favorite song: Mean Street:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKBKRt5xl3k&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

4. Def Leppard: High and Dry.

This was back when the drummer had two arms and the band had not yet been seduced by candy-coated pop. I continued listening to them after this album, in part because I respected Rick Allen for overcoming his loss of arm to keep drumming. But High and Dry is their most raw and, to me, most inspiring.

Favorite song: Let it Go:

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

5. Henry Rollins: The End of Silence.

Henry’s lyrics always inspire me. He speaks directly to the misfits of the world, the folks with the bad skin and shy disposition. His songs are about overcoming those things and grabbing life by the throat.

Favorite song: Low Self Opinion:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28dyt7w3As&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

6. NIN: The Downward Spiral.

I think I’m drawn to this album because it was recorded in the house where Sharon Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family. The album came out around the time I became aware of my friend Sean Marley’s mental illness, and I was feeling rather depressed myself at that point. it was a time of transition from college to career, and that made life a bit frightening. This was an ideal soundtrack.

Favorite song: The Becoming:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaX4Ac2-Fww&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

7. Marilyn Manson: Portrait of an American Family.

This album was produced by Trent Reznor of NIN and also recorded in the Sharon Tate house. It came out the same year as the Downward Spiral. It’s sort of the second of a 2-part soundtrack to my life at the time.

Favorite song: Snake Eyes and Sissies:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2qcVSPiALM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

8. Guns ‘N Roses: Appetite for Destruction.

These guys hit me in the same way Motley Crue did with its Shout at the Devil album. The lyrics and their image were dangerous. And in the 1980s, the music was as close to danger as I was willing to go.

Favorite song: Night Train:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gu3gDhESRY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

9. Thin Lizzy: Live and Dangerous.

The band pioneered the double lead guitar sound and ringleader Phil Lynott was a genuine storyteller. I love his tales of bar fights, hanging out with the boys and getting into trouble and living on the road.

Favorite song: Southbound:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1tGeAm_fLE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

10. The Ramones: Pretty much anything. These guys were always great for helping me get my ya-yas out. And it didn’t matter which album I had on. After all, every song is built around no more then four chords. You just can’t lose!

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsHTmHSqQEg&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
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In Defense of Patrick Kennedy

The youngest son of Edward M. Kennedy has often been criticized as a lightweight Congressman who gets away with things other people would get arrested for. But the author salutes him anyway. Here’s why.

Patrick Kennedy, the youngest child of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, announced yesterday that he won’t be running for re-election to the Congressional seat he has held since 1995.

US Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island announced that he will not seek reelection, capping a 16-year career in politics. Patrick, the son of the late Senator Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy, said his father's death caused him to do some soul-searching about his future. With Kennedy's departure, this will be the first time in more than six decades the Kennedy family will not have a member in Washington. Scroll through this gallery for a look at how the Kennedy lineage has impacted politics and public life.

Some will tell you it’s just as well. The Congressman, after all, hasn’t done much except for living off his family name and crashing cars into roadside barriers while high on narcotics. That’s often what I hear from my more conservative friends, who hate everything having to do with the Kennedy name.

Stew Milne/AP Photo

But as someone recovering from OCD, depression, a binge-eating disorder and other addictions, I have plenty of reason to defend this man.

In my view, this fellow has gotten some pretty unfair treatment. Let’s start with Laurence Leamer’s book, “Sons of Camelot.”

In this book, Patrick is described as a spoiled kid who has accomplished nothing in Congress other than repeatedly winning re-election. He’s described as someone who blindly follows the Democratic leadership.

Some of that may be true. But Patrick has done some courageous service for those who suffer from mental illness.

Kennedy has been open about his own struggles with bi-polar disorder and the addictions that go with it. He has been in and out of addiction treatment centers and once noted how his addictive behavior could latch onto anything from pain medication to something as simple as cough medicine.

What’s more, he did one of the hardest things people like us can do: He lived in the spotlight as a public servant, where critics can be cruel and a lot of people like to hate the Kennedys just for the hell of it.

Patrick has carried a lot of pressure being a Kennedy. There’s the pressure to match his father’s towering legislative record and live up to the legendary stature of his uncles.

Some would have dropped to the floor long ago, curled in a fetal position, over the pressure. Some would not have survived. One of Patrick’s cousins, David Kennedy, one of RFK’s sons, didn’t survive the battle with the demons. He died of a drug overdose in 1984.

RFK Jr. also struggled with addiction. So did Christopher Kennedy Lawford, who wrote an excellent book of his own on the subject: “Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption.”

I loved Lawford’s book for a variety of reasons. He recounted his sordid tale with humor and was brutally honest about something addicts are all to aware of: When you quit the thing you’re addicted to, it doesn’t automatically turn you into a good person.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060732482.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

In fact, recovering addicts often become big jerks before they find their footing. They’re learning how to behave in public without being drunk or high. A deep depression often sets in because years of abuse leaves the brain with deep chemical imbalances that hit you like a brick to the head once the booze, food or narcotics exit the picture.

Patrick has dealt with all of these realities and still carried on in public service.

He continued to show up for life when life was at its most unbearable.

It gave people like me a little inspiration when we needed it most. So as Patrick prepares to exit the public stage and embark on a new life, I thank him for his service and wish him the best.

It’s easy for people to pass judgment on him for his flaws.

But people who do so often forget about their own flaws.

None of us are truly without sin. But we like to cast the first stones anyway.

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When the Back Breaks…

The author offers words of encouragement to a friend going through a rough patch.

An old friend of mine — I won’t name the person here — is going through a rough time with some very painful back problems. This post is my attempt to cheer that person up.

I won’t get into all the “everything’s going to be ok/I’ve been through similar stuff” talk. We’ve done that already. Nope. This time, I’m just going to make an attempt at getting my friend to laugh. Laughter is, after all, excellent medicine.

First, some vintage Bloom County:

http://www.platypuscomix.net/otherpeople2/blmd830918.gif

Or maybe some Spinal Tap:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeGteg74mjw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Or a King Diamond Christmas song:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a5fHMlb4V0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Savage Chickens is always good for some comic escapism:

Savage Chickens - Carl Jung Valentine

That new “Creature Double Feature on WLVI 56” Facebook group is good for a laugh, and plenty of nostalgia to make you forget about that back — for a while, anyway.

And if all this fails, gimme a call.

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OCD Diaries: The Office Mom

The author salutes Anne Saita, a former co-worker who showed me how to stand up to people and face down my fears — and whose blog is a must-read.

I’ve been reading the blog Run DMZ a lot lately.The main reason is that it’s chock full of excellent content on how to eat and exercise properly. The other reason is that the author is someone near and dear to me: Anne Saita, my former boss at SearchSecurity.com.

She’s an avid runner, an inspirational Mom to her two daughters and to people like me, and one of the best writers I’ve ever seen. [Side note: She sends Christmas cards each year featuring her daughters, and last time my six-year-old saw it he declared: “Wow. They’re really, really pretty.”] The boy is a flirt and knows what he’s talking about.

With her I’ve power-walked along Lake Michigan in Chicago and gallivanted with her on the rainy streets of San Francisco during security conferences.

She literally rescued me from a job that was killing me (because of the late-night hours and the still undiagnosed impact of OCD).

At SearchSecurity.com, she was a nurturing soul. She encouraged me to make time for family, something I wasn’t yet good at. She knew I feared travel at the time, but gently coaxed me into doing more of it. Now I love travel. She showed me what courage is by constantly standing up to the TechTarget/SearchSecurity brass when she felt the brand’s reputation was being compromised by stupid marketing ploys. At the time I often thought she was being stupid. But at the time I was also so obsessed with pleasing my masters that I didn’t know any better.

I always got a chuckle out of her gift for gab, especially when she was offering up explicit details on a medical procedure she was having.

Because of her motherly disposition, I was able to come clean with her in late 2004, when I was inches from a nervous breakdown and realizing for the first time that I needed some serious help. The morning after I had my first appointment with a therapist, I told her about it, along with the rest of my warped behavior. She didn’t flinch. She urged me on, and in the coming months, when I was pushing up against depression and emotional breakdowns, she gave me the room to fall apart and then pick up the pieces.

When I started to react to the pain of therapy and digging deep into a sordid past by embarking on the most vicious binge eating stretch of my life, she saw that the weight was piling on but didn’t shame me over it. I was feeling shame in her presence anyway, because she had once told me that when checking my references before hiring me, the deal was sealed when a former CNC co-worker told her about my singular determination to lose 100 pounds in the late 1990s.

That kind of toughness impressed her, and there I was, losing that toughness as I packed on each pound.

Unfortunately, I only started to gain the upper hand on my demons after she left SearchSecurity.com for another job.

But thanks to the Internet and our two blogs, we still keep in touch regularly.

She’s gone through a lot herself, with physical injuries that kept her from running, blinding headaches that came and went without explanation, and the loss of a job she loved last year, as the Great Recession gunned down millions of jobs.

But she always comes back. Stronger than before.

In the photo above: Anne at the right, with Dennis Fisher, another former [and good] boss and avid runner, after a run in San Diego.

If she didn’t know before how much her friendship means to me, I think she’ll understand after reading this post.

She may also yell at me for revealing a bit too much about her. But then I always did enjoy the motherly rebuke that only she can provide.