The OCD Diaries

September 29, 2020September 28, 2020

Mental Shore Leave: A Remedy for Uncertain Times

Low energy. A lack of creativity that partly explains why I haven’t written in over a month. A deepening sense of dread. I’ve spent weeks trying to put a name or definition to the feelings and fatigue.

I know the cause, and I know that I’m no special case. A lot of people are experiencing the same things, and the whys are many: We’ve had to hold our mental functionality together amid an unending pandemic, a breakdown of public discourse, civil unrest and now a looming presidential election where an unclear result and constitutional crisis are all but certain.

I’ve finally found the proper label, courtesy of Dr. Aisha Ahmad. More importantly, she has put forth a remedy to help us move forward.

Mood Music:

Dr. Ahmad, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, wrote a recent Twitter thread about the six-month wall she has experienced when working for prolonged periods in disaster zones and how, when you hit that wall, it seems like the darkness is permanent, that things will never get better.

The desire to “make it stop” and “get away” is “intense” and our impulse is to try and ram through the period of uncertainty, trying to be as creative, disciplined and hopeful as we may be the rest of the time. She has learned to stop doing that, to give in to the lack of creativity and drive and take a “mental shore leave.”

Series of tweets from @ProfAishaAhmad: "Also, don't be afraid that your happiness & creativity are gone for the rest of this marathon. Not true. I assure you that it will soon break & you will hit a new stride. But today, roll with it. Clear away less challenging projects. Read a novel. Download that meditation app. /7"; "Frankly, even though we cannot physically leave this disaster zone, try to give yourself a mental or figurative "shore leave". Short mental escapes can offer respite and distance from the everyday struggle. Take more mental "leave" until you clear the wall. /8"; "In my experience, this 6 month wall both arrives and dissipates like clockwork. So I don't fight it anymore. I don't beat myself up over it. I just know that it will happen & trust that the dip will pass. In the meantime, I try to support my mental & emotional health. /9"; "Take heart. We have navigated a harrowing global disaster for 6 months, with resourcefulness & courage. We have already found new ways to live, love, and be happy under these rough conditions. A miracle & a marvel. This is hard proof that we have what it takes to keep going. /10"

I’m certainly experiencing this wall. I find it harder to write (this is my first post in a month), and it’s getting harder to get out of bed in the morning. I’m finding it close to impossible to be patient with the unending social media screeds from the left and right political extremes.

I’ve had massive cravings for escape — watching YouTube clips from Star Trek, Babylon 5 and The West Wing. I’m reading more comic strips than news articles. And I doze off in my leather recliner a lot.

I thought these were signs of weakness, of caving and buckling under the weight of life in 2020.

But the more I consider Dr. Ahmad’s words, the more I think those activities might be a sign of strength — that I’m indeed capable of finding new waves of energy, creativity and resolve by simply letting the wall crash over me, resting in the rubble and then getting up and brushing off the dust.

We can expect many more months of chaos. Dr. Ahmad’s suggestion of taking mental shore leave is a tool to survive it. The key is to take mental shore leave without abdicating one’s responsibilities. We still have to get up for work. We still have to take care of our families. Obligations won’t go away while we pull ourselves together. So how do we maintain some semblance of balance? Here’s my plan.

Keep working, imperfection and all

I’m fortunate to remain employed, doing a job that matters. It’s a job that was already busy before the pandemic. Since then, the work has been more intense and, to be honest, I thrive in those conditions. In recent weeks, I find that I’m not as full of ideas and drive as I usually am. But getting up every morning and keeping all my initiatives on track gives me some mental stability. I may not be at my most creative, filling a whiteboard with thoughts and ideas in multiple colors as I’m known to do. But I can still keep all the balls in the air and keep the machine moving. And so I shall.

Ignore social media — to a point

Few things are more toxic to mental well-being these days than Facebook and Twitter. People are fixed in their world views and quick to tear down those with an opposing opinion. I’ve tried to spend my time on these platforms being a voice of reason, trying to steer people toward common ground. It increasingly seems like a pointless exercise. Yet I use social media for a lot of my work, so I can’t skip it altogether. Instead, I skip over political posts more often. My sharing is increasingly music-related, bits of rock ‘n’ roll history and video clips, and humor.

Stick with the neighbors

A silver lining of this pandemic is that we’ve gotten more quality time with the neighbors in our townhouse complex. We take joy in the pets running around the yard, our gardens and the beautiful weather we’ve been having. I’m pretty sure there’s a wide range of political views among us, but we don’t talk much about it. The antics of the pets are a lot more interesting and a lot more fun. (Especially when you stuff them full of treats! –Ed.)

Take more naps

As I mentioned earlier, I’m dozing off a lot these days after dinner and sometimes before. For me, there’s no better escape than sleep. It gives me the mental shore leave needed to keep going the rest of the time.

Remember what has gone right

There’s been so much tragedy in 2020 that it’s easy to forget that things have happened that show that we humans have the capacity to endure. As Dr. Ahmad noted in her Twitter thread, people have adapted, learning to do groceries, go to work and even find ways to be happy during the pandemic.

The pandemic will be with us for months to come, but there are signs that we can absolutely live our lives and co-exist with COVID-19. As bad as the economic downturn has been, a lot of businesses have found ways to adapt and latch on to unexpected opportunities.

Surely, we can continue to do so amid political chaos that will not abate anytime soon.

I’m a big fan of this quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I’ve certainly tried to do so.

But even Churchill understood that it was OK to stop within bouts of depression — which he called his Black Dog — and let go.

August 18, 2020August 17, 2020

I See Villains. Time for a Gut Check

I recently caught myself failing miserably at a suggestion a friend made: “Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.”

My current anxiety level, measured by the anxiety rainbow, is red, fueled by anger over how people carry on amid the pandemic. Everything has become political to my eye, especially in those spaces I inhabit with people wearing their masks below their noses or not at all and the name-calling and other general nastiness on social media.

It makes me angry, which leads to self-righteousness, which leaves me feeling like a prick. I’m doing a gut check about it, because the last thing the world needs right now is another asshole.

Mood Music:

Seeing villains everywhere is unproductive and stokes hateful feelings. I don’t like being this way.

But I can’t tell you I’ll stop now that the epiphany has struck.

Believing as I do that the pandemic is real and knowing people who have been infected with COVID-19 and killed by it, I take all necessary precautions and feel other people should do the same, as a civic duty. When they don’t, I can’t help but see them as selfish pricks willing to put others at risk.

My friend is right. Much of the time, the people around us have conflicting goals but not a desire to do someone ill. People have a lot of concerns rattling around in their brains and why they do certain things can’t always be explained in black and white. We need to do a better job listening to each other.

Not seeing each other as villains is a good place to start.

Yet here I sit, unable to do so. I can’t stop feeling the way I feel. This pandemic has made me a far less patient, much angrier individual. I know I’m not the only one.

Am I weak and self-righteous, unable to get past my biases and giving in to blind rage? Is there a hole in the concept of not making someone out to be a villain?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I need to look deeper inside myself for a better way to manage my emotions and deal with people.

The work continues.

June 4, 2020June 4, 2020

Channeling Freddie Mercury’s Work Ethic

I liked the 2018 Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but one thing about it bothered me: It left out the part of Freddie Mercury’s life that inspires me as much as the music itself — his descent into illness and how, the weaker he got, the harder he worked.

In interviews, the surviving members of Queen recount how Freddie, barely able to stand up, continued to slave away on new music and videos. Guitarist Brian May tells of how he worried Freddie wouldn’t be able to handle the vocals for “The Show Must Go On” off the “Innuendo” album. Freddie, he explained, said “fuck it,” downed a vodka and nailed it:

The last video he did for that album was for “These Are the Days of Our Lives,” and you can see how frail and in pain he was:

The last song he ever recorded was “Mother Love.” The band has noted that in that period, Freddie was close to the end. During the recording he had to stop because he couldn’t do anymore. He planned to finish it but never did. That’s why May sang the final verses.

There have been times in my life where things have felt too hard, when staying in bed seemed the better option. Depression and anxiety makes you feel like that a lot.

But then I’d think of Freddie toiling away, getting out of bed and working. And I would get up and go to work.

We all experience diversity. We all have our deeply ingrained pain — scars of the past and present.

Many of us have grown fresh scars while dealing with life in a pandemic with a gut-wrenching dose of street violence thrown in.

I have plenty of role models who inspire my “stay the course” attitude: Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and FDR come to mind.

But lately, with a global health crisis fueling the things that make life toughest right now, it’s Freddie who is cheering me forward.

Two images of Queen front man Freddie Mercury: one with his cat and one of him in a blue suit

May 4, 2020May 5, 2020

Midlife Crisis in a Pandemic

Erin and I are big fans of the Netflix series “The Crown.” The other night we watched an episode called “Moondust” and it hit me where I currently live.

The episode is set during the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and shows Prince Philip (played by Tobias Menzies) grimly obsessed. The scale of human achievement has him in awe — and re-evaluating his life.

Mood Music:

The Duke of Edinburgh — as portrayed in this dramatization, anyway — is tortured throughout the series over the career he surrendered to be consort to Queen Elizabeth. He’s an adventurer who often must cast passions aside to carry out his royal function. Watching astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin pull off one of mankind’s ultimate achievements ignites a profound midlife crisis in him and he dives deep into his mind for meaning.

Spoiler alert: Prince Philip ultimately realizes one of his greatest problems isn’t a lack of adventure and moonshot-level achievement but of faith.

I can’t say I’m having a midlife crisis in the conventional sense. I’m grateful for the career I’ve built and have had plenty of adventure along the way. Aging doesn’t bother me. As I push 50, I often marvel that I’ve gotten this far, given past health problems.

But like pretty much anyone reading this, I’m going on two months of pandemic lockdown and often feel like an aging dinosaur whose life is passing him by. There’s no rationale for it. Yet as I spend most days at home, I feel caged, grateful as I am to be with my family — kind of like Philip locked up in his palace.

During this time, as good as my career has been, I fixate a lot on missteps along the way, what I’ve failed to accomplish so far and where I’m headed. I’m reflecting on the man I am overall — how well or not so well I’ve practiced my faith, how I’ve conducted myself as a parent and spouse (not always so well) and what my kindness level toward others has been (not very high).

This is not a self-flaying exercise. It’s simply where I am right now. I intend to use the lessons to better myself, something we all need to do sometimes.

I turn 50 in three months, and the self-critique was probably going to happen anyway. Current circumstances forced the introspection early.

In “Moondust” Philip finds his way through the crisis.

I’ll keep pushing myself toward a more positive evolution.

April 29, 2020April 29, 2020

Should You Worry About Another Great Depression?

Early in this crisis, a friend made pronouncements some of us called out as fearmongering. One thing he kept saying was that the virus would cause an economic depression.

My friend has been proven right about a lot of things concerning COVID-19 these last few months. Could he be right about this, too?

The word “recession” is uncomfortable. The word “depression” can be downright terrifying, especially when “great” appears before it.

Mood Music:

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the periods of economic distress I’ve lived through, particularly those of my adult working years.

There was the early 1990s recession that led to Bill Clinton’s election as president. I was in college, so it didn’t affect me as much. The recession that followed the dot-com bust and 9-11 terrorist attacks in the early 2000s was the first where I worried about layoffs. Then came 2008 and the Great Recession. I worried about my job then, as well. I was lucky and stayed employed through both downturns.

Am I worried about job security this time around? I’ll put it this way: I never take job security as a guarantee — in good economic times or bad.

I am confident that my industry is in a good position to weather the storm. With the pandemic sending so many people into work-from-home situations and state-sponsored hackers out to exploit the chaos, information security is more important than ever. Still, it would be foolish for any industry to consider itself immune.

Indeed, some of my industry peers are worried, particularly younger folks who were still in school during the last recession. This is the first time they’re worried about being laid off. And this may turn out to be the worst downturn America has seen since the 1930s.

With these worries, I’m hearing from friends experiencing anxiety and depression. Despite my own optimism about getting through this downturn, I’m feeling it, too.

This downturn started through an unprecedented sequence of events. But the underlying economy was strong, unlike past downturns where underlying economic fissures expanded and ruptured.

Also unlike previous downturns, though, society abruptly applied the breaks, deeming social distancing necessary to manage COVID-19. Was that the right course? Time will tell.

A rapid post-pandemic recovery is wishful thinking for several reasons. Yet we won’t necessarily experience the protracted economic paralysis of the Great Depression. We’re in a different time and place. That’s cold comfort to the millions who have already lost their jobs, however.

Though I’ve been lucky at avoiding layoffs up to this point, more than a few colleagues and friends did lose their jobs in the most recent recessions. All went on to new opportunities and have achieved new levels of success. They networked, expanded their skill sets and persisted as new opportunities arose.

It’s an unsettled time. While we have past crises to guide us through, we can’t know exactly how things will go. They’ll probably get worse before they get better, because that’s how life generally goes.

But things will get better. Life generally goes like that, as well.

Keep the faith, and take things one day at a time, work your asses off and always — always — develop backup plans.

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020

Those Walls Closing In? You’re Not Crazy

For all my writing about being positive, throwing myself into work and taking care of myself, I’d be lying if I told you I had it together all day, every day. Being stuck inside — even when breaking it up with walks and hikes — is taking a toll. And we’re only a couple weeks into this.

Mood Music:

The last three days I’ve experienced frequent waves of crankiness. I get more impatient with my family, scowl whenever blue skies give way to overcast ones and feel like my skeleton is trying to rip itself out from beneath skin that doesn’t seem to fit quite right.

The waves pass and then I’m fine, but it makes me wonder what I’ll be like after another two, three or five weeks of this.

I’m not depressed. Depression is unmistakable to me, removing most of my motivation and filling my skull with fog that leaves me unable to connect the dots. Instead I remain focused and driven. That’s despite being on a much lower dosage of antidepressants than I’ve had in years.

No, in a world that’s now anything but normal, I think what I’m feeling is … normal.

I mention this because some of you may also feel the walls closing in. Surely some of you are feeling grim. All the Facebook memes about how our grandparents suffered worse in the Great Depression and WWII won’t change what we feel.

And that’s OK. When the unease overtakes you, allow it. Then keep showing up — for family and friends, for work, for community.

Even if much of that has to be on a video screen or chat window for now.

March 24, 2020April 9, 2020

COVID-19 Gratitude 2: Getting My Health Back

There are many things I’m grateful for amid this pandemic. My health is one of them. A year ago, I would have been at much higher risk of catching COVID-19.

Mood Music:

I’m certainly not bulletproof. No one is, based on the limited science we have on COVID-19 at the moment. But mentally and physically, I have much more fight in me.

This time last year, I was hovering around 290 pounds. I was on blood pressure medication, the CPAP was struggling to punch through airways under pressure from a fatty throat and I was getting migraines constantly. Weight-control measures that had worked in the past didn’t cut it anymore, especially the food plan and 12-step program I was following via Overeaters Anonymous (OA), which I wrote a lot about earlier in the history of this blog.

My experience is not a condemnation of OA or anything else that works for others. Many people need a 12-step program when addictive behavior is the root of their pain. It simply didn’t work for me. OA felt too much like a cult. I don’t like answering to people on a good day (except my wife), so calling a sponsor every day to report on everything I’d be eating didn’t work. I abandoned the program but kept the food plan and didn’t replace it with something better suited to my needs.

My health slid down and my weight shot up. It took me seven years to find something that worked better. My body paid a price in the meantime, as did everyone around me.

I had less energy, less patience, and a lot less clarity of mind. I fell into more frequent bouts of deep depression.

By May 2019, I hit bottom. My wife had found success using the Noom app and tracking her daily steps with a Fitbit, so I decided to give those things a try.

The combination has worked out because it’s allowed me to use data to manage my behavior. The numbers on the Fitbit tell me when I’m not moving around enough and compels me to get up and take walks. Noom allows me to track my calorie intake throughout the day to stay in check and has helped me make better food choices though its green-yellow-red classification system.

Using that simple combination, I’m down to 213 pounds — my lowest weight in more than a decade. I can’t remember the last time I suffered a migraine. I fit in airplane seats comfortably again (not that it matters at the moment), and I’m not getting winded every time I walk a few steps uphill. I’m at the point where I can maintain my weight and be in fighting form. I’m going to 210 just for the hell of it.

I had to turn things around under normal circumstances. That I have maintained it amid this unprecedented global crisis makes me feel grateful and lucky.

Life is always hard. Better to have more strength for the fight.

That may be obvious, but it’s not always easy to follow. Times like these show us that we must try harder.

March 23, 2020April 9, 2020

COVID-19 Gratitude 1: Work That Matters

I’ve always been driven by my work — as a journalist, as someone responsible for completing the business my father left behind five years ago and especially in the role I play in the cybersecurity industry.

Work is certainly keeping me going during this pandemic. Amid physical distancing, there’s extra time to reflect on the last couple years.

I’ll talk more about the family business another time. For now, some words about my main job.

Mood Music:

I’m fortunate to work in information security. I get to do my part, however small, in fulfilling several of society’s fundamental needs: keeping businesses running, keeping society safe from bad guys who would do us harm through our web-based tools and keeping people healthy.

In the past month, my company has released a lot of research on business continuity, protecting vital tech infrastructure from attackers looking to exploit our preoccupation with the pandemic. It’s also released research on helping medical institutions keep cyber threats at bay as they try to treat a growing influx of patients. Our content is usually for paying clients, but we’ve made all COVID-19 research publicly available.

The crisis adds fresh clarity to why I took this particular job two years ago.

I’ve always thrived on challenge, going for roles outside my comfort zone in a desire to push my personal evolution to the limit. I had a successful job as an infosec journalist but wanted experience actually doing the things I wrote about. That led me to Akamai Technologies, where I helped with incident response, in-house security training and development of a security research machine. I wanted to immerse myself in content marketing for a security vendor, so I went to Sophos, working with lab researchers to put their findings into writing. My current role at IANS returned me to familiar territory: I’m in an editorial director role, this time with security professionals who are members of our faculty.

This current role is probably the hardest, most rewarding I’ve ever had. I work directly with the company CEO — a career first — oversee development of a curriculum and work a lot more closely with clients than past roles allowed.

My mental wiring isn’t a natural fit for this work. But I’ve learned a ton and have certainly pushed my evolution to new heights. Through it all, I’ve been fortunate to be able to help people manage complex problems. I’m immensely grateful for that. Whatever this pandemic brings in the weeks ahead, I’m all in.

The more uncertain life gets, the harder I work. The more I see opportunities to help to society, the more I will double down.

I see enough people determined to do their part, whether they work in tech or as food-delivery drivers, medics or bankers, to know that society will get through this. We may even emerge on the other side better than we were. (I always try to be optimistic. I see no reason to stop now.)

No doubt there are many who aren’t as lucky and can’t lean on their work right now. My heart aches for everyone who lost their jobs at hotels, movie houses, restaurants, airlines, hair salons and other businesses forced to shut down as people shelter in place.

The fact that my industry isn’t so drastically affected (so far) means I’m simply going to work even harder. I simply must.

Thanks to those who make it possible for me to keep working, and thanks to those who continue to teach me new things along the way.

April 3, 2017

I Was Lost But Now I’m Found

Firestorm in the shape of a fist and the middle finger

There are plenty of reasons I haven’t written in this blog in a long time. The easy reasons are that my career has been busy and I’ve been managing a family building on the side. I also decided awhile back that I shouldn’t write unless I had something to say. To be honest, I just didn’t feel like opening up like I used to.

But lately my willingness has returned.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/Uia2EzrZMTE

The last year has included some of the best and worst times of my life. My wife and kids continue to make me proud with all they do, and I absolutely adore my still-new job. Though I never wanted responsibility for the family real estate, I found ways to make the best of it, and I’ve certainly learned a lot. I’ve also always been a sucker for trying to fix things that are broken, and in that building I found no greater challenge.

But somewhere along the way, I lost myself.

I started trying to be my father and do things the way I thought he would have. For a while, I was paying more attention to that than my real job. Sometimes I had no choice, because the property has a huge environmental cleanup attached to it.

My mental and physical health deteriorated. The frequency of migraines shot up, I gained weight and started slipping into my habit of being a people pleaser.

I grew obsessed with saving my father’s dream of selling the building and leaving his kids a financial cushion. I desperately tried to make everyone proud, especially my sisters, who co-own the building with me.

As I worked to put the property back on its feet and rent out the spaces, I found myself trying to put my trust in the various contractors who came along, when I should have been eyeing everyone skeptically and asking tougher questions. When a property needs work, it’s stunning how the sharks smell blood and start circling.

By year’s end, I was bitter and resentful, angry with my father for dumping this mess on me. I resented being left on my own without the necessary business experience. Most importantly, I started to realize I wasn’t being myself.

In mid-2016, I left one job to go to another. The role turned out to be different from what was discussed early on. I found myself with little to do, so I took that as a reason to focus on the building even more.

That didn’t last long, because I’ve never been one to phone it in with work, and the fact that I was doing so was eating at me.

Then I found another job, and in the process found I myself again — remembering what I did for a living and why I was on this planet. The person I was began fighting the person I had become.

As I fell back in love with my real work, my resentment of the family responsibility grew. Some questioned how I was doing things, which made me angrier, since I felt everyone was happy to leave it all on me in the beginning. I started to get sicker.

At the bottom of that pit, things started getting clear again.

I remembered some important things:

My first responsibility is to God, and, by extension, my immediate family — specifically my wife and children.
My life’s work is in information security, not real estate.

A few months ago I took all my confusion into the confession booth. The priest suggested I practice prudence — using reason to govern myself. In my case, prudence meant putting the added responsibilities in their proper place, behind the things that are more important.

That’s what I’ve been doing.

I asked my sisters to start taking on some of the building responsibilities, which they have. I began limiting the days at the family building to once a week and spending most of the time each week at my company’s office. It’s made things better.

There’s still a lot of turmoil right now. I can’t fully escape the building. I still have to do better at doing right by my family. But my life has come into clearer focus, and I’m grateful for that.

The time for people pleasing is over. If my father is watching, I hope he understands that I can’t be him and that I never should have tried.

Some will be taken aback by the choices I make going forward, but they’ll have to deal with it. If something doesn’t fit into my top priorities, I won’t spend any more time on it than I have to.

If that makes them angry, so be it. It’s time I got back to being me.

March 24, 2017July 16, 2020

Thought I Was a Security Rockstar. Was Just Stupid

In pretty much every industry of late, people of great talent, drive and achievement are being labeled rock stars. I certainly see it as I work in the information security industry.

Those who get the label tend to deserve it. But there’s a dangerous side-effect: The term rock star can bloat the egos of those it’s bestowed upon. It leads to big heads and bad attitudes. I’ve watched many handle it with humble grace. And I’ve watched a few fall into the trap.

Exhibit A: me.

Mood music:

As a security journalist who posted new content almost daily, I got a lot of praise and, yes, some called me a rock star. This snowballed when I started The OCD Diaries.

I found myself on more than one “security influencers to follow” list. People kept praising me for my supposed raw honesty. So I did what any good addict does: I drank it up, tied all my self worth into it and started to believe it all.

Don’t get me wrong. I think I’ve accomplished a lot of good stuff, and I’ve certainly been lucky in my career. But a rock star? Looking back on it now, I don’t think so.

I believed it when people told me, though. My head grew larger, while my brain went stale. I stopped trying. I truly believed I could pull off anything with little effort.

Of course, the real world doesn’t work that way.

I eventually found myself growing snobby, moldy and stagnant. Somewhere along the way as I bought into my own hype, I started to fail.

I lapsed into old habits. I began dialing in my work. The praise became chains, weighing me down like Scrooge’s old business partner in A Christmas Carol.

Sometime last fall, I went from being a rock star to the office jerk. It left me off balance and in a depression that deepened over the winter. I started to worry about being found out as an impostor. Worse, I found myself losing my usefulness.

Since then, I’ve been working hard to return to my roots. I feel like I’m starting to make real progress, but I still have a ways to go.

As for those in my industry who remain honest and humble, I aspire to be more like them. And I don’t fault those who are kind enough to put the rock star mantle on others. I simply see as lessons for all of us:

Never stop working your asses off.
Never stop seeking truth.
Don’t be like me — not too much, anyway.