The Lost Generation of Revere, Mass.

An old friend from the Point of Pines, Revere, sent me a note some time ago. He came across my post on Zane Mead and another on the Bridge Rats gang. For him, they brought up more memories of kids from the neighborhood who died young.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/jX-yuZFVm34

I’ll keep his name and certain details out to protect his privacy, but here’s some of what he wrote to me:

I came across your piece in your OCD Diaries about Zane Mead. It stirred up some old memories of growing up. I was actually friends with Zane until I left for the military in 1985. He was a sweet kid with a good heart most of the time. Occasionally he would be angry and self destructive. This was usually followed by an attempted suicide.

I had many talks with him about it. he never would say what was eating at him. Not sure why but I don’t think it was an issue at home. I feel like it was a personal daemon. As you stated, our life’s experiences at the time didn’t give us the ability to see the problem no less the wisdom to offer any real help. I often wonder if there was something more I could have done.

It seemed that I lost a lot of friends over the five years I was gone.

We lost your brother, Scott James, Mike McDonald. Kenny Page. It’s like we lost a generation. For years I thought I was a under achiever in my life. The more time moves on I think we may be lucky for just getting out of the city. Revere was just eating people up back then. Probably still is.

I also read you piece on bullies where you mention the Bridge Rats. I’m sincerely sorry for any part I may have caused in your distress.

Thanks for the memories. Good, Bad and Ugly. I guess they make us who we are.

Indeed they do, my friend.

I had forgotten about Mike McDonald and Kenny Page. As a teen I was so self-absorbed over my brother’s death that I didn’t realize how much loss our generation was suffering. After reading my friend’s note, I thought hard about his points about Revere eating people up. Was there some kind of curse hanging over the city in the 1980s? Were all my adolescent traumas part of that curse? Was my brother’s death and Sean Marley’s death part of it?

If you asked me that about six years ago, I’d have bought the theory straight away. Today I tend to doubt it.

It was a sad and unfortunate period, but it wasn’t a curse. We all had our share of childhood happiness in Revere in between the bad stuff. And I know now what I didn’t get back then: That we weren’t meant to live soft lives devoid of pain and struggle. These things are tossed in our path to mold us into what we can only hope to be: good people. It doesn’t always work out that way, of course. But let’s face it: Has life ever been fair?

As for the Bridge Rats, my memories are fond ones.

The last post I wrote about this gang suggested they were a band of bullies. But if you read all the way through the post, you’ll see some nostalgic warmth in my memories. As I’ve said many times, I was a punk like everyone else. I got picked on, but I did my share of picking on other people. For the most part, the Bridge Rats were a collection of pretty good kids. Some grew into happy, productive lives. Some didn’t.

That’s life.

I recently wrote about the time the Brenners nearly left Revere. There’s no question that for a time, I hated that city and would have done anything to get out.

But I stayed, and good things happened in the years that followed. A lot of good things. Precious, joyful things. I look at my kid sister Shira and the amazing, beautiful woman she is today. Would she have been that way if not for the Revere in her? Perhaps. But living there certainly didn’t damage her.

I’ve said before that Revere is where I survived and my current city of Haverhill is where I healed. That was and still is the truth.

But make no mistake about it: Revere helped make me who I am today.

And I’ll admit it: I like who I am today.

November 17, 2014March 18, 2015

18 Years After the Suicide

I’m doing the “Walk All Night Against Suicide Walk” in June to raise funds for suicide prevention programs. If you wish to donate, go here.

Eighteen years ago my best friend killed himself.

I knew he was badly depressed. I even had a feeling he harbored suicidal thoughts. I just never thought he’d do it.

I was wrapped up in my own world as he deteriorated. I was binge eating and working 80 hours a week, too worried about my career to see much else around me. Had I not been, I might have been able to make a difference. That’s what I believed for years after, at least.

Mood music:

On November 15, 1996, Sean Marley decided he’d had enough.

It was a sparkling, autumn Friday and I was having a great morning at work. But early that afternoon, I got a call at work from my mother. She had driven by Sean’s house and saw police cars and ambulances and all kinds of commotion on the front lawn. I called his sister and she put his wife on the phone. She told me he was dead.

I hated him for years after that, failing to comprehend why he would leave us that way, especially since he knew suicide meant a damned soul. That’s what we were taught. I thought he was a selfish fuck who took the easy way out.

I was especially angry because after my older brother died in 1984, Sean had become another older brother.

It took more than a decade before I was able to make peace with my friend and what he did.

I suffered through my own bouts of depression and started getting therapy. During therapy, I began to understand some important things about myself and about my friend.

Depression robbed me of the ability to see straight. Bad thoughts felt like reality, even though I knew better. Even now, 18 years later, that still happens. I’m going through a bout of depression right now, and I feel alone, unappreciated, and worthless. The reality is precisely the opposite. I have many blessings and a lot of people love me and need me around. And still, when the depression is at it’s worst, I feel like a zero.

That’s something people who don’t suffer from mental illness fail to understand. A cold blanket covers the mind and starts to suffocate it. In the process, you lose the ability to see the real around you and start to see the fake as truth.

That’s what my friend experienced. I get it now.

Why am I still here and he’s not?

Because he never got the chance to put depression into the right perspective and learn the tools to get beyond it. I did.

He also lived in a time when depression was stigmatized, misunderstood and not really talked about. Today, the fight is much more in the open.

I wish he could have lived to see that and benefit from it. But I’m mostly grateful that I’ve been able to benefit from it. I’ve learned a lot about depression and suicide, and I have the tools to get through it.

In a sick way, I think I was required to lose someone to suicide to help push me to where I am right now.

Halloween 1990: Sean Marley and Bill Brenner Sean Marley and me, Halloween 1990.

November 12, 2014

40 Years Ago in Amityville

Some of you have seen the “Amityville Horror” and instantly think of it as the story of a haunted house. I never believed it, but I’ve always been drawn to the murders that started the whole thing off.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the murders, in which Ronald “Butch” DeFeo was convicted of killing his parents, two brothers and two sisters. I’ve always had an interest in it because at its bare core, this is the story of a family so dysfunctional it couldn’t survive.

Filmmaker Ryan Katzenbach is about to release the final installment of his film series about the murders, with a huge focus being on the DeFeo family itself: Who each of them were, what they aspired to and what tore them apart.

Ryan released a video earlier in his project, paying respect to the family that bears sharing here:

Coming from a family with more than a little dysfunction, I always find myself grateful after thinking about this story. Family members will yell at each other, hit each other and stop talking to each other, but in most cases nobody gets shot over it. That’s something to be thankful for.

As for the DeFeo family, below is something I wrote about the case in 2010.

The Amityville Obsession

Posted on September 28, 2010

Part of my obsessive-compulsive behavior includes a study of the more morbid pieces of history. The Manson murders is one example. The Amityville murders is another. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the latter.

The match for the fire is a book I just read called “The Night The DeFeos Died” by Ric Osuna. The book goes a long way in crushing the bullshit hoax about the house being haunted. I watched “The Amityville Horror” as a kid and it scared the hell out of me. I’ve had an interest ever since. This book gets into the train wreck that was the DeFeo family. They were outwardly religious and close-knit. But the father was a rage-a-holic who apparently yelled a lot and beat his wife and kids, especially his oldest son Butch, who is now rotting in jail for the murders.

The book also reveals that the DeFeo family had mob connections. The toxic mix of dysfunction reached its climax Nov. 13, 1974. After a night of chaos in the house, Butch and his sister Dawn plotted to kill the abusive father and a mother they felt was an enabler.

Somewhere in the chaos, the story goes, Dawn killed their younger siblings. This apparently outraged Butch, who then blew her head off in anger. Investigators later found powder burns on Dawn’s nightgown, suggesting that she had indeed fired a rifle.

The only one who knows the real truth is Butch. But he has proven himself to be a serial liar, so the truth will remain in his head. My impression is that he got an unfair trial and that investigators covered up a lot of things in order to have a slam-dunk case. That’s certainly an argument Osuna makes in the book.

So why the obsession with this story? There are a few things worth noting:

–I don’t romanticize this stuff. The interest isn’t because of the brutal nature of the murders. I’ve seen the crime scene forensic photos for the DeFeo and Manson murders, and they made me sick to my stomach.

–It’s really part of my fascination with history.

Like it or not, this stuff is part of American history. The Manson story is a snapshot of everything that went wrong in the 1960s, where a counterculture born of good intentions — a craving for peace in Vietnam and at home — lost it’s way because there were no rules, no discipline and there was no sobriety. I agree with those who believe the promise of the 1960s died abruptly in the summer of 1969. I’m also fascinated because it shows how easily seemingly stable people can be brainwashed and controlled to the point where they would willingly heed orders to commit the worst of sins.

–The Amityville story is a case study of what happens when the head of a household abuses the rest of the family. Slap a kid around often enough and you just might turn him into the type of man who shoots heroin and plots the murder of some or all of his family.

It’s the whole cause-and-effect thing that keeps my obsession going.

My own experiences have given me an obsession with the key moments in a person’s life that determine if that person will turn to evil or come out of the adversity stronger and better.

I’m lucky because I’m a case study in the latter category. But I can’t help but feel bad for those who go the wrong way.

Some of the twists and turns are so random.

In the case of the Amityville murders, I don’t believe for a second that the house is haunted. Several families have lived there happily over the last 30 years. Sure, a couple of the future residents had bad things happen to them. But bad things happen to everyone.

You don’t need a haunted house to give your life ups and downs.

Sometimes, all it takes are the ghosts in your head.

Addendum, Nov. 14, 2011:

I recently came across photos of what the house looks like now. It really is a beautiful place. More recent owners have put a lot of work into the house, and it’s bright and cheerful decor almost make you forget what happened there.

August 13, 2014

Was Robin Williams Suicide a Selfish Act?

The death of actor Robin Williams has left many in shock, myself included. I can’t imagine a world without his talents, and the nature of his death has brought all my old memories of depression and suicide back into focus.

A couple friends have suggested that Williams committed a selfish act that will ravage his friends and family for years to come. I can see where that line of thinking comes from. After my best friend killed himself in 1996, I felt the same way. I resented and hated him for doing it. But my perspective is different today.

Mood music:

My friend’s suicide and my own struggle with depression over the years compelled me to do a lot of research about what makes the brain tick. One lesson: Those who commit suicide are under such distress that they are essentially severed from reality. Much like an addict feeds the demon because they can’t help it, even though they know they could die, people with severe depression are compelled to throw the kill switch because they are blinded to everything around them. The brain is essentially broken, no longer able to process things as they really are.

I have no idea what Williams was going through in recent months, but I suspect this is what was happening to him.

Need help? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255
You can talk to a trained counselor 24/7.

Was he selfish for wanting to end it? To the extent that he wanted peace for himself and to escape the noise in his head, yes. Was he selfish to his family and friends for forcing them to deal with the pain his passing will cause? That’s a lot harder to parse.

I don’t think anyone with depression sets out to hurt people and leave them behind. When pain overwhelms and chokes off reason, you tend to lose the ability to see those around you.

I’ve never contemplated suicide, but I’ve been depressed enough that I couldn’t see the people in my presence. They could be there talking to me, but all I’d hear is the wind. The brain completely turns in on itself, causing a destructive, sometimes unstoppable chain reaction.

Only Williams knows what was going through his head at the time of death, so I’m not going to judge.

I’m just going to appreciate the life I have today and live it to the full. That will include the regular enjoyment of all the great movies the actor left behind.

Robin Williams in The Fisher King, one of my favorites among his movies.

April 11, 2014

SecBurnout: Much Ado About Nothing?

At the SOURCE Boston security conference yesterday, I ran a session with former colleague and friend Josh Corman on the topic of security burnout. It’s an issue I’m increasingly dedicated to, given my own history with mental illness and high-profile deaths in the community.

When I think of the suicide of Aaron Swartz and the accidental overdose of Barnaby Jack, something in me screams out to act. I’m also inspired by the efforts of people like Amber Baldet and Akamai colleague Christian Ternus and want to help.

But some think this effort is a curious sideshow.

Mood music:

After reading about the session, one infosec practitioner took to Twitter and asked, “How many of us have lost it and started shooting up a place?”

It’s true there hasn’t been an explosion of people in the industry losing it and gunning down a bunch of co-workers. Therefore, he feels, the problem isn’t worth the efforts some of us have embarked upon. He added, “Something is wrong, alright. But let’s not make a big deal here.”

My skeptical friend isn’t the only one to make these points. Others have pointed out that the SecBurnout effort is a waste of time because antisocial, caustic behavior is a staple of the profession. Nobody will change those people, nor should anyone try to.

Those who can’t handle it simply need to grow a set of balls or go do some other kind of work.

I agree with that — to a point.

As Corman noted yesterday, this effort isn’t going to “cure cancer.” We can’t tell people how to think, and we don’t want to. We’re advocating more kindness and civility in the profession, but we know the more negative elements will always be there.

Also true is that you can’t cure things like depression, bipolar disorder and OCD. We can learn to manage these things better, however, and keep them from controlling us.

But all that is beside the point of SecBurnout and similar efforts.

We don’t expect to change the world. We do believe it’s worth trying to suggest a better approach. If we can inspire just a few security shops to adopt a more humane environment that inspires people instead of crushing them — and if that leads to fewer cases of depression and suicide — it will be worth it.

Maybe this isn’t a big deal to you. If that’s the case, congratulations for staying above it all. But if you or your friends and colleagues are casualties of burnout, it’s a big deal.

I do see progress. When I was stuck in the deepest depths earlier in my career, you simply didn’t talk about this stuff. It was a sign of weakness and could get you fired.

That’s not as true today. I and many others are talking openly about our demons, and it’s making a difference. As a community we’ve recognized there’s a problem. Amber Baldet took it a step further by sharing suicide intervention techniques.

The next step is to attack the conditions that fuel depression in the first place, to tear at the roots of the problem so fewer people reach the point where they need an intervention.

And so we press on.

lighting a row matches

March 27, 2014

Tapping into Infosec’s Human Side

In my day job, I host the Akamai Security Podcast, an audio program about all things information security. On occasion, the topics of my profession bleed into the focus of this blog.

In the following podcast, I chat with colleague Christian Ternus, a member of Akamai Infosec’s Adversarial Resilience Team. He’s been the driving force behind Humanity in Security, an effort to address burnout, depression and stress in the security community.

One of his main messages is that people in the industry need to be kinder. He touched on this some months back in a post from his “Adversarial Thinking” blog. He wrote about what he sees as infosec’s jerk problem, where cynicism and negativity run so deep that it poisons the atmosphere in many a security shop, dampening spirits and causing burnout and depression across a team.

He stressed that if you practice kindness, good things will follow.

We talk about that in much more detail. Listen to the full podcast.

Bill Brenner's podcasting equipment

March 26, 2014

Seven Insights into Dealing with Depression

I got this question from a reader over the weekend, after he read my “Suicide in the Blood” post:

I was just curious after reading this article: As much as I think about suicide and sometimes homicide, am I capable of carrying this out? I’m bipolar and have very serious depression also. Bipolar personality disorder and ADHD make it very hard to keep my mood swings down and my mind focused. I really need some perspective on this. Please help. Thanks.

It’s not an easy question to answer, as no two head cases are the same. I have my own experiences but what worked for me won’t necessarily help everyone. Still, those personal accounts are what I have to offer. These are my experiences with depression, from the circumstances and feelings to the tools I acquired for coping with the demons.

May it help you find some answers.

Mood music:

Depressed But OK With It: You can learn to keep living even when depression bears down hard.

Happily Ever After Is Bullshit & That’s OK: When depression slaps me upside the head, it’s on the heels of a prolonged period of good feelings and positive energy. These setbacks can be discouraging, but you can survive them with the right perspective.

The Mood Swing: When moods shift with little warning, the risks are severe. As with most problems, knowing you have one is the first step to better management.

Metal Saved Me: Hard rock is one of my most powerful coping tools. It’s not for everyone, but there’s a common element: Music heals.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill: I resisted medication for a long time. Here’s why I finally took the leap of faith. Most importantly, here’s what I’ve gained as a result.

Debunking the Shrink Stigma: Many people resist the idea of getting therapy. But in the battle over one’s demons, a shrink is a powerful ally.

Happy Depression: Can you be depressed and happy at the same time? I can.

depression

January 30, 2014

Death by Regimentation

I lead a pretty regimented life. I’ve gotten good at juggling multiple activities at once and sticking to carefully mapped out schedules. Regimens are good for me. I need specific plans for eating, exercise and career/family management.

But I have to admit, all that regimentation is like a noose around my neck lately.

Mood music:

I recently reined in my eating plan and got back to exercising because my health was beginning to drift. I have a new therapist and a new doctor. And though the going has been tough, we’re adjusting to the boys’ new school.

All in all, good progress.

Yet I’m almost constantly on the road. I drive to and from work. I pick up the kids from school. Then it’s back out for this appointment or that activity. This is the grind multiple days per week usually.

It’s all good. It’s what I signed up for, so to speak. But I’m realizing more than ever that my shoulders aren’t as strong as they should be to carry the weight.

I don’t need or want a change in routine. But I do need to find a better way to manage it all without feeling beaten down.

Better eating and steady exercise is a big step in the right direction. My sleep needs work. I’ve yet to figure out why I keep waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for an hour or more at a time. Better sleep would most definitely make everything else more manageable. I use a CPAP that sometimes feels like more trouble than it’s worth because the mask doesn’t fit right. One more thing to work on, which means more appointments.

I don’t tell you all this to complain. This is more an exercise in self-assessment. I need to make more adjustments to how I live my days, and posts like this usually mark the turning points.

I also share it because a lot of you have the same pressures. There’s no getting around the craziness, but it always helps to know that you’re not alone in the struggle.

You could also say misery loves company.

Or, as Red Green likes to say, “I’m pullin’ for ya. We’re all in this together.”

red green

December 9, 2013

So Many Appointments, So Little Sanity

This year’s seasonal depression comes with a twist. It’s not necessarily something new, but it’s something I’m more aware of these days: The calendar is filled with too many appointments.

Mood music:

When you have kids and a busy job, a lot of running around is expected. Lately, though, it seems like running around is all I do. Last week was a pretty good example: A medical appointment for me, two for Duncan (his therapist and new a new psychiatrist), a Scout meeting for each son and the school drop-offs and pick-ups.

It’s all normal, necessary stuff. I have to take care of my health, and we have to take care of our children. The school commute is the result of our choice to put the boys in a new school, and every parent these days is a taxi driver, running kids from one activity to the next. I don’t regret any of it. All the appointments for Duncan have especially been worth it, because we’ve gotten a clearer fix on his challenges and the best remedies.

But with the darkness of the coming winter and the rushing and running that come with the holiday season, each appointment feels like a hot pin prick to the eye.

I long for a week where I can just exist at home once the work day is done. It’s not going to happen, so I have to fall back on my coping tools.

It’s a funny thing about this time of year: I have a huge box of mental tools and know how to use them, but I’m so mentally tired that I have trouble finding the discipline to open the box.

I can’t let that continue, so I’m making a big effort to jolt myself out of the funk.

Last week I started increasing the breathing exercises I’ve learned. When commuting, my habit has been to use the tool of music therapy exclusively, cranking the metal to 11. But I have to add some variety, so I’m trying to do the music for part of the ride and the breathing exercises for the other part.

I’m making a point to play guitar for at least 30 minutes a day.

I’m re-introducing exercise into my regimen. In recent years I haven’t exercised much beyond walking because my food plan kept the weight in check without it. But I changed my eating plan earlier this year because I was getting bored. I didn’t up the exercise to match the increased portions, and as a result I’ve gained 15 pounds. I’ve started jogging laps around the garage, but Erin and I are looking to either buy an elliptical machine or get a gym membership. My new doctor is pushing me toward exercise, too; he isn’t happy with my borderline blood pressure and cholesterol.

Finally, I have a new therapist who is determined to help me build a fresh regimen for using all the tools. Appointments to see her involve 45-minute commutes back and forth, which adds to the overall stress. But she’s good, and I’m betting that the coaching she gives me balances things out.

It’s going to be a long winter. But with some luck, prayer and effort, it’ll be a healing one.

Gremlins

December 2, 2013

Infosec’s Mental Health Role Models

This weekend some friends asked about the reaction this blog has had in my industry. Truth is, I was unprepared for what followed the blog’s launch four years ago. In hindsight it makes perfect sense.

Mood music:

Friends asked if my information security colleagues were weirded out by the blog and whether it had an adverse effect on my ability to interview people.

In fact, the opposite happened.

By the time I was done baring my soul, people I had known through my business life were sharing stories about their own run-ins with mental illness. I didn’t expect that because I had been accustomed to dealing with some pretty tough characters. But people who had previously intimidated me were opening up, and I made dear friends when I least expected to.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, because the security industry is full of high stress and paranoia. More importantly, those who are drawn to the world of hacking and infosec have complex personalities and brain chemistry and are given to depression, feelings of loneliness and self-destruction.

Obviously, this isn’t something limited to the infosec community. People from all walks of life are prone to these challenges. But infosec is the world in which I’ve had the most experience observing the human condition.

As someone who has struggled with plenty of mental trauma, I’m thankful as hell to be part of the infosec community. I’ve witnessed extraordinary resilience and honesty among my peers, and they have inspired me to be a better man, constantly working to deal with the ghosts that still haunt me on occasion.

I’m grateful to infosec friends who haven’t taken the scourge of mental illness lying down. There are those who started and maintain The Information Technology Burnout Project to help those suffering with work-induced emotional and psychological distress.

And there are people like Amber Baldet, who has taken her suicide hotline skills to another level with a presentation on suicide prevention tactics that she has given at least twice at security conferences. Her presentation can be viewed online, as well.

Now more than ever, I believe I’m in the right industry. I’ve learned a lot about the technology and culture. But more than that, I’ve learned a lot about how to carry on in a world of perpetual adversity.

Skeleton Headache