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Me and My Wall

When I get tired and angry, I have this wall I put up. Erin is usually the one who crashes into it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpAbUvl3eTk&fs=1&hl=en_US]

She’s been building a freelance editing business for the past year, and the hours she puts in would kill a lesser person. I’ve taken on a lot of extra things around the house to help, and for the last week or so the fatigue and frustration has set in.

Not frustration with Erin. Frustration over the situation.

This is a much better situation than what we faced several months ago, when all the freelance work dried up and we couldn’t figure out how we were going to get all the bills paid. Now there’s a ton of work, and at the end of the day we’re both wiped out.

The problem is that I don’t immediately catch on that I’m frustrated. I figure it’s just me going into OCD mode. I’m just tired, I figure.

That’s when I become a prick.

Erin will try to engage me in conversation and I’ll shut down. I put the wall up. I don’t realize I’m doing it, and that’s a problem.

For all the sharing I do in this blog, sometimes it’s still ridiculously hard to open up to those closest to me. I’ve worked hard on fixing that in recent years, but I’m far from there.

One reason is that I’m still a selfish bastard sometimes. I get so wrapped up in my work and feelings that it becomes almost impossible to see someone else’s side of things. That eventually blows up in my face.

I also don’t like to be in a situation where there’s yelling. There was plenty of that growing up, and I tend to avoid the argument at all costs.

I’ve gotten better at this stuff, but I know I still put that wall up at times. Putting up a wall can be a bitch for any relationship, because sooner or later bad feelings will race at that wall like a drunk behind the wheel of a Porsche and slam right into it. Some bricks in the wall crack and come loose, but by then it can be too late. The relationship is totaled. 

I’ve come to realize this will always be a danger we have to watch for. It’s a danger in any marriage. Carol and Mike Brady never really existed. If they did, they could have used a few good fights. They wouldn’t have wasted so much time sitting up in bed reading boring books.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to put the big-boy pants on and get back to work on that wall.

Maybe one of these days I’ll tear it down once and for all.

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Passing Insanity to Your Kids

This weekend a friend asked if I worry about passing the “crazies” on to my children. The answer: Every day. But here’s why I don’t despair about it like I used to.

Mood music:

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

First, a few facts: Some of my quirks were definitely passed down to me from my parents. The OCD comes straight from my mother, and the emotional wall I sometimes put up to deal with it comes from my father. That binge eating would become the root of my addictive behavior should surprise no one. It runs deep in the roots of the Brenner family tree.

I see signs of my defects in Sean and Duncan every day.

Sean has more than a few OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.

Duncan, like me, gets a bit crazy when the daylight recedes. His mood will swing all over the place and he has the most trouble in school during winter time. To help remedy this, Erin recently bought me and Duncan happy lamps — essentially sunshine in a box. Despite the skepticism Duncan and I shared over it, the things actually seem to be working.

I don’t curse the fact that the kids inherited some of my oddities. As far as I’m concerned, those quirks are part of what makes them the beautiful, precious children they are.

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to purge this stuff from them. I just want them to know how to control it in ways I never could at their age.

To that end, they have a lot going in their favor: First of all, the traits they’ve inherited from their mom will be priceless weapons in whatever fights are before them. She has given them — and me — a spiritual foundation that can’t be broken.

The other big win in their favor is that I’ve gone through a lot of the pain and hard work so that they hopefully won’t have to.

I’ve developed a lot of coping tools to manage the OCD, and I can pass those skills on to them.

There’s also not as much stigma around this stuff as there used to be. There IS some, to be sure. But my kids won’t be written off as behavioral problems and tossed into a “C group” like I was. I won’t permit it.

There are no certainties in life except that we all die eventually. I can’t say Sean and Duncan will never know depression or addiction. A parent can put everything they have into raising their children right. 

But sometimes, despite that, fate can get in the way of all your hard work.

It’s not worth worrying about those unknowns, though, because you can’t do anything about it. All I can do is my best to give them the tools I didn’t have at their age and pray for the best.

One reason I don’t worry as much as I used to about these things: Sean and Duncan are much smarter than their old man was at their age.

That has to count for something.

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Out of the Closet, Into the Light

My kid sister-in-law told me a friend of hers has admitted to some hefty demons. I won’t mention the person’s name (I don’t know her, actually), but I know where she’s been.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:5F6rwEF15hN1jnhNk2YQHn]

This is a little message for her friend, in the event she someday stumbles upon this blog:

Outing yourself is a hard thing to do. When I did it, I was terrified at first because I thought my mental struggles would be used to define who I was. It gave me an appreciation for what it must be like when a gay person comes out of the closet.

I felt weird around my family at first. Ill at ease might be the best way to describe the feeling. I’m sure they felt the same. That I had OCD and related addictive behavior didn’t surprise them much. As my sister-in-law will tell you, I’ve always had an abundance of strange behaviors.

The people I work with were most surprised. I guess I did a good job of fooling them back in the day. But they have never defined me or treated me differently over what I’ve opened up about. I get the same fair shake as everyone else.

Since people keep their demons hidden for fear of bad treatment at work, it was an eye opener for me when I got nothing but support for coming out with it.

After awhile, it’ll be like that with your friends. They’ll appreciate you more, and they’ll be grateful that you came clean. Some of them will learn from your example, even though they may not know they need it yet.

I understand one of your problems is compulsive lying. There’s no need to feel like a freak over this, because everyone with mental health struggles and addictions lies. I certainly have. Hell, I’ve never met a so-called normal person that hasn’t lied. It’s not something to be proud of or accept. Lies imprison us and make our troubles deeper. But when we can stop living the lie, there’s a new peace and freedom that’s very powerful and hard to describe.

When I decided to stop living lies, I felt 100 pounds lighter. Physical pains went away.

I understand you are looking at taking medication. I take Prozac and it works. But I’m convinced it works as well as it does because I went through years of hard therapy as well. That’s the most important thing you can do: Find the right therapist to talk to. Therapy will provide you with mental coping tools that will make you stronger. By that point, medication becomes the mop that wipes away the remaining baggage.

Things may get worse before they get better. When you start dealing with this stuff, you find yourself learning how to behave all over again. You will still go through periods of depression.

This is when any addictions you may have will tempt you. Fight it at all costs. I didn’t at first. I completely gave in to my addictive behavior and I paid dearly for it. Even if you don’t think you have an addiction, it might be worth considering a 12-Step Program. The tools you learn from that will help you cope with the mental struggles at the heart of your troubles.

Coming clean doesn’t mean you get to live happily ever after. But happily ever after has always been a bullshit myth. But you will have an easier time dealing with the tough times. That may not make sense right now. But it will.

Here’s the thing about one’s demons: When they hide in the dark, out of view, they own you. They’re too powerful to beat.

Opening the door and forcing the sunlight on them is hard as hell. But once you take that step — as you just did — the demons start to shrink. The light always kills demons. They turn to ash and you become a lot bigger than they ever were.

That’s what I’ve learned from my experiences, anyway.

Congratulations on taking that first step. I wish you the very best.

–Bill

 

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One More Thing About Being Depressed and Gay…

A lot of folks have left comments on my post about homosexuality and depression. All of them are excellent, thoughtful responses and I hope you’ll check them out. But there’s one response I’m puzzled over.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOx37_h0UH8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

It came from David Nedlin, operations manager at Beyond the 12 Steps. He left the following comment in the “Mental Health and Addiction Specialist” forum on LinkedIn, where I sometimes post my blog entries: “Ridiculous post – I thought this was a somewhat serious web site.”

Now, I’m familiar with Nedlin’s work with recovering addicts and I have enormous respect for him. I sent him a message asking what his issue is with the post, and for all I know it’s a good reason.

Whatever the reason, his reaction reminded me that I occasionally have to clarify what this blog is about. With that in mind:

–I tackle various issues around mental health and addictive behavior based on MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. I am not a medical professional, nor have I ever claimed to be.

–Like anything that’s based on one’s personal impressions, you should never take what I write as Gospel. Everything I write is based on my perceptions, which can be as flawed today as they were a decade ago.

–I figured this would be of service to some people because I reached the point where I can open up about embarrassing things I’ve done, so others may see it and realize they are not freaks and, more importantly, that there is light to be found at the end of the hellhole if you’re willing to walk toward it.

–The subject of homosexuality will always be a charged issue. I dove in because I’ve seen up close the pain friends and relatives experienced before they chose to come out of the closet.

–I also had to address it because it’s something that comes up a lot in my Catholic community. In one of the comments in Saturday’s post, a fellow named Nick put the matter in words that I think come closest to nailing it on the head.

All I know is this: I’m not sorry for tackling the subject, and those who don’t like it don’t have to come here.

One more thing: You’ll notice a lot of people wearing purple ribbons or posting pics of them on Facebook and Twitter. That’s in memory of the six gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and at their schools.

If you think harassing someone for their sexual orientation is an example of God’s love, you’re an idiot.

If you dismiss these kids as wasted souls because they committed suicide, I don’t agree. When pain and fear remove your sanity and sense of logic, a mental illness has taken hold and you are more likely to do things you know are wrong. It’s not as simple as going against God. I’ve seen suicide cases up close.

We’re all guilty of going against God at various points in our lives. But some are lucky enough not to get so far away that death is the result.

It’s a tragedy that these kids were pushed over that line.

My prayers are with them and their families, and with anyone who is going through the pain right now.

I’m sorry if this has been a preachy post. But I said what I felt I had to say.

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Depression and Being Gay

One of the big debates that has always irked me is about whether homosexuals are born that way or if they just wake up one morning and decide to be that way.

Having a gay sister, aunt and cousin-in-law, I have something to say about that.

I’m sure there are a few people who decide to give it a try as a lifestyle choice. That’s their business. But every gay person I’ve ever met didn’t just wake up on day and decide they were going to be gay. They had some serious internal struggles that brought them to the brink.

There was drug abuse. In my sister’s case, severe depression.

When she was a kid she badly wanted the whole fairytale family existence. She wanted THE wedding, THE husband and kids. She might tell the story differently, but I think the worst of her depression hit upon realizing she wasn’t that kind of person.

My cousin dove into years of serious drug and alcohol use.

Whatever the motives, I can tell you this: Only when they came out of the closet were they able to move forward and start living full, productive lives. Only then did the worst of the depression start to lift.

I don’t think a person who goes through that kind of hell just wakes up one day and decides they are going to be gay.

It’s in them at an early age, they try to keep the feelings at bay and become “normal” people. Hiding from your true self always comes with a price. 

I think some of the priests who went on to sexually abuse parishioners entered the priesthood in the first place to escape who they were. A life of celibacy would surely do the trick, right?

Wrong.

This has always been a sensitive subject for me. I’m a devout Catholic and there are people in the church who like to go on about the sin of homosexuality. It always makes me think of the people I know who are gay.

I’m not sure what else to say about the matter, except that I choose to love people based on WHO they are, not WHAT they are.

Having experienced depression myself, I don’t wish it on anyone.

My faith tells me we have to accept people for who they are, even if we don’t get it. I can like the individual even if I don’t like their sins. Hell, I’m the last one on this planet who is in a position to judge someone else’s sins.

I have enough of my own to contend with.

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Back in the Real World, Emotionally Drained

I’m back from a very powerful, emotionally draining weekend. It was absolutely wonderful. I came closest as I ever have to crying a few times. More on that later. For now, here’s the talk I gave Saturday morning.

I’ve embedded no links and all typos and rough edges are included. I’m sure you’ll give me a pass on that this time. Everything my new brothers shared this weekend stays between us. I’m only posting this because you, my friends, already know this stuff.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/JpMt_YqVbhw

The Rollo on Study, Men’s Cursillo Weekend, St. Basil’s:

Good morning, my brothers. My name is Bill Brenner, and this talk starts like many stories do: With a girl.

I live in Haverhill with my beautiful wife, Erin and our 2 boys, Sean and Duncan. This is largely a talk about them, because God put them in my path as a way of taking me to school. And, really, it starts with Erin.

First, though, let me confess that I chuckled when I was assigned this talk because I was always a bad student growing up. The dog always ate my homework. When they gave us aptitude tests I was like that Sean Penn character Jeff Spicoli in the film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” He sat there coloring in the little holes on the test form until it was in the shape of a shoe print. At the end of the film, Mr. Hand, his long-suffering teacher, visits his house and makes him go over all his lessons before he can go to the dance.
Instead of sending a teacher to my house, God sent me Erin and, later, my kids. It’s through them, not necessarily a stack of books, that I have studied my relationship with Jesus and realized why I need a Savior in my life.

That’s the Holy Spirit for you. IT acts through the people and experiences around ME.

It wasn’t always this way.

I grew up in a Jewish household. We followed Jewish traditions because that’s what my parents were taught. But since God wasn’t really part of the proceedings.

I did have conversations with God as a kid, but it was purely selfish on my part. I had a fierce case of Crohn’s Disease and often spent nights sitting on the toilet passing nothing but blood. The abdominal pains you get from this sort of thing are the type that MADE ME turn to God for help.

Of course, the conversation always goes something like this:

“God, I swear to you, if you make me better I will change my ways and devote my life to you. At that age, such a promise meant I’d share my toys instead of lighting them on fire to see what burning plastic looked like. Yeah, I was that kind of kid.

Fast forward to 1993 when I met Erin.

Like most love-struck guys, I would do anything to impress her. She was editor of the Salem State literary magazine and her staff had to read hundreds of submissions and decide which ones to put in the next issue. I did it even though it meant reading what I thought was a lot of bad poetry, until I read my own poetry a few years after writing it.

It also meant I would go to Church to impress her, because she went to Church every Sunday without fail. Her parents taught her well on this score, and now she would start teaching me. Not that we saw that as the plan. It just sort of happened that way. The Holy Spirit was taking me to my first class. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I can’t remember a word of what the priest said in his Homily. I just kept staring at Erin. Still, a feeling came over me in that church, a feeling of peace and belonging that I’d never felt before. It would be many years and many struggles before I understood what it was.

We dated for a few years and married in 1998. She kept going to church every Sunday. Not me, though. I was too busy getting a journalism career off the ground and on Sundays all I wanted to do was walk around the parking lots around the area of Chelmsford we were living in at the time, drinking coffee and pondering the week ahead. Other days, I preferred to lie on the couch and watch the talking heads on those Sunday-morning political news shows.

Essentially, I was cutting class again.

Then my son Sean was born, and I started going to church every Sunday. I wasn’t hungering for a more spiritual life. Indeed, my head was full of selfish things at that point and parenthood felt like more of an inconvenience at first. But something in me said I should go to church each Sunday and set a good example for my son. So that’s what I did.

I went through the motions of the Mass but didn’t really understand it. I had a still-undiagnosed case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at that point (I was officially diagnosed in 2006). So I’d go to church and sit their inside my head, focusing and seething over the merry-go-round of obsessive thoughts. Now, I don’t mean for this talk to be about those struggles. But MY struggles HAVE DEFINED ME and MY Faith, so I really have no way around it.

I started to really deal with the mental baggage and related addictions around the middle of 2004. And that’s where Erin and my children – and ultimately JESUS – come back in. This is where I REALLY started to study my Faith, and I haven’t been the same since then. I say that in a good way.

I dove into it in a very sloppy way. I tried studying my spirituality in all the wrong places. I drank a lot, thinking there was something about alcohol that brought me closer to God. I felt the same way about pot and pills. While intoxicated, I would discuss things like religion to my drunk buddies, but for all I know we were really talking about how to bake a cake.

I remember none of the conversation, except that we were getting into so-called deep stuff. My main addiction — compulsive binge-eating — took me as far away from God and the study of Faith as I could get.

All I was studying was how to stuff the biggest amount of food into my belly and then hide the amount I was eating and what I was spending on it from my family. God had nothing to do with it. It’s not that he didn’t want to show me the way. I just wasn’t letting Him in.

In the fall of 2005, I enrolled in my church’s RCIA program. That acronym stands for the Right of Christian Initiation for Adults. For nine months, I was immersed in study about the Catholic faith, I studied everything: Why Catholics believe what they believe, what all the rituals of Mass are all about, and – this was the biggie for me, the match that lit the fire in my heart – the concept of redemption, WHICH I needed. I had some fun along the way. On the first Sunday of Lent everyone in RCIA does what is called the Right of Election. We take buses to the Holy Cathedral in Boston and sign our names in a book. Cardinal Sean O’Mally presided over the ceremony. It was particularly cool because he had JUST been made a cardinal. Everyone was called to stand in front of the alter in alphabetical order, by name and by parish. Since MY parish starts with an A – All Saints – and my last name starts with a B, I got to be front and center, three or four feet in front of Cardinal Sean. I noticed him dozing off as the proceedings went on, and I chuckled. The poor guy was probably on his third big ceremony of the day, he had just been made a cardinal and he must have been toast by that point.

That was a powerful lesson. Service can be a tiring thing. It GIVES energy, but it TAKES energy as well. And even a bishop gets worn out. Because of that realization, the Right of Election was all the more special for me. I FELT LIKE JESUS WAS STANDING NEXT TO ME, TAPPING ME ON THE SHOULDER AS I CHUCKLED AT THE DOZING CARDINAL, REMINDING ME THAT WE ARE ALL HUMAN.

In April 2006 I was Baptized a Catholic. I had the crazy idea that this meant I’d be happy forever after. Nope. My deepest period of study has been in the time since then.

I’ve heard it said that when a junkie gets clean from their addiction, it doesn’t mean they instantly become a good, functioning member of society. Having been there, I know it’s true. But for me it can also be said that being Baptized DID NOT instantly make me a good Catholic. I still had too much baggage in my head to let Jesus in with complete abandon.

As the years have progressed, I’ve grown deeper in my Faith because I’ve been more open to studying everything around me.
God continues to put people in my path to HELP ME LEARN. I also believe he gave me the struggles of addiction and OCD to help me a long. Five years ago I would have seen these things as a cruel lesson. But that was before all the joys that have since come my way.

I needed the 12 Steps of Recovery to get me through that addiction and find my way. I can think of few areas of study that are as powerful and effective. THE 12 STEPS ARE BUILT ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPALS. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, I HAD TO LEARN TO SURRENDER MY WILL OVER TO THE CARE OF JESUS AND TRUST THAT HE WOULD LEAD ME OUT OF THE MESS I HAD CREATED.

The act of going back to people you’ve hurt and people who have hurt you back and mending the rifts, that is powerful stuff. It’s the Holy Spirit in action, and I’ll tell you something else: It’s like lightening in a medicine bottle.

My teachers are the people in program. JESUS WORKS ON ME, TEACHING ME NEW LESSONS EVERY DAY, THROUGH THESE PEOPLE. They are the people in church. And just as it’s been in the beginning, my wife is my homeroom teacher. I look at how she lives her life and it makes me want to be a better man.

My kids are teachers too. My kids blow me away with acts of kindness every day. It’s almost like they are there to remind me to do my prayers, get to church, get to those 12-Step meetings. WHEN THEY WERE SMALLER, THEY WOULD HAVE ME READ THEM THE CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATED BIBLE AT BEDTIME. IT MAY SEEM CRAZY – OR MAYBE IT DOESN’T – BUT THAT CHILDREN’S BIBLE WAS A HUGELY IMPORTANT STUDY GUIDE FOR ME AS WELL. I SOMETIMES GET LOST IN THE DENSITY OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGE, ESPECIALLY THE OLD TESTAMENT. BUT WHEN THE BIBLE IS LAYED OUT FOR YOU IN THE LANGUAGE OF A CHILD, A LOT OF THINGS BECOME CLEARER.

They are guardian angels.

THAT CHILDREN’S BOOK HAS OPENED ME TO A DEEPER STUDY OF SCRIPTURE AS WELL. I WILL ADMIT THAT THE NEW TESTAMENT SPEAKS TO ME MORE CLEARLY THAN THE OLD. BUT ONE OF THE GIFTS OF BEING A LECTOR AT MASS IS THAT I HAVE TO STUDY AND READ 2 READINGS – ONE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ONE FROM THE NEW. THEN I NEED TO PAY CAREFULL ATTENTION TO THE HOMILY, WHICH MOST OF THE TIME WILL TIE THE TWO READINGS TOGETHER.

I ALSO HAVE A GROWING APPETITE FOR EVERY READING I CAN FIND ON ST. PETER, THE ROCK OF THE CHURCH. HE MADE MANY BAD DECISIONS IN HIS LIFE BEFORE GETTING IT RIGHT IN THE END. BOY DO I IDENTIFY WITH THAT.

Our pastor just DIED OF cancer, BUT BEFORE CALLING HIM HOME, JESUS USED HIM TO MAKE a permanent mark on me.

It’s not that he was a brilliant Homilist. He’s WASN’T ALWAYS. It’s not that all his decisions as pastor WERE perfect. They WEREN’T. But he set the ultimate example and gave me the ultimate education in honesty and striving to be better. I’ve met many priests, some good and some not-so-good. People criticize priests because they’re athiests or they’re angry about the sex abuse scandal. Father Dennis Nason made a believer out of me by coming clean about his own sins.

HE LAID HIS SINS BARE AND ACCEPTED JESUS’ LOVE AND FORGIVENESS.

You would have to be sick in the head NOT to be outraged by the sex abuse, and especially of the cover-up. In the end, though, people forget that priests are human, with all the sin-making embedded into their genetic code just like the rest of us.

When a priest is able to lay his own flaws bare for all to see, I think it takes an extra level of courage, since there has to be a lot of pressure around the lofty standards they are held to. BUT THEY ARE LIKE THE REST OF US. THEY NEED JESUS’ LOVE AND GUIDENCE. THE KEY IS IN ACCEPTING JESUS’ OUTSTRETCHED HAND.

Father Nason rose to the occasion.

I met Father Nason about 11 years ago. He took over our parish, All Saints, when several other churches were closed down and consolidated into the All Saints Community.

He had a lot of angry people on his hands. One’s church becomes home, and when you close it and force them to go someplace else, trouble is inevitable.

Then the priest sex abuse scandal burst open like an infected sore, shaking the Faith of a lot of people like never before.

I started going to All Saints regularly in 2001, the year my oldest son was born. It would be another five years before I chose to convert, but by then the church had become a source of comfort at a time where my mental health was starting to snap off the rails.

At one point over the summer, Father Nason vanished. Few knew why.

Then at one Mass, the deacon read an open letter from him.

In the letter, Father Nason revealed that he was in rehab for alcoholism. It would be several months before he emerged from rehab, and while he was there the sex abuse scandal really began to explode. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks also happened around that time, and people’s souls were tested like never before.

Once he did emerge from rehab to rejoin his parish, there was a new sparkle in his eyes. It was like a weight had been lifted. Then another weight dropped on him. It turns out one of the priests in our parish was one of those sexual predators we had read about in the papers.

Something like that would test the sobriety of anyone forced to come in and deal with the mess. Father Nason met it head on.
He was angry with his archdiocese over the fact that pedophile priests had been enabled for all those years; cases swept under the rug like dust. You could hear the anger in his voice and see it in his eyes. He would rage about it in more than one Homily.

His reaction is a big reason I stuck with the church instead of bolting.

Around that time we also had trouble hanging onto the other priests. One left after less than two months, apparently freaked out by the amount of work this parish demanded of him.

Through it all, Father Nason kept it together and brought his parish through the storm.

I don’t always see eye to eye with him. Sometimes I think his administration is disorganized and that his Homilies are all over the place; though when he nails it, he really nails it.

But those are trivial things. When he came clean about his addiction, it hit me deep in the core. At the time, my own addictions were bubbling in my skull and preparing to wipe out what was left of my soul. I just didn’t know it at the time.

His honesty kept me going. And now that I’ve spent the last few years getting control of my own addictive behavior, I have a much better appreciation for what he went through.

God gave me another teacher, and to show you God has a sense of humor, it happens to be someone who came to me for help. He needed a sponsor in Overeater’s Anonymous, and there I was. But he has probably taught me more than I’ve taught him.

In 12-Step programs anonymity is a big deal, especially in OA, because there’s an extra level of awkwardness that comes with being a binge-eating addict. So I’m changing this friend’s name to Dan.

I first talked to Dan on the phone a few months ago. He got my number from someone else in program and called me out of the blue. I picked up the phone and heard the following:

“Hiya Bill. My name’s Dan and I’m a compulsive overeater!”

The exclamation mark is appropriate, because that’s how he said it.

He proceeded to tell me that he needed a sponsor and I was it.

“Uh, ok,” I said. I had just started sponsoring and this guy was asking for help, so in I went.

The first time I met him in person, I was picking him up for a Saturday-morning OA meeting. He needed help getting the seatbelt on. His legs were purple from diabetes.

“This guy is going to be a lot of work,” I thought.

Then, at the meeting, I start to realize that he knows a lot of people there. He was greeting and hugging people like it was old home week. It turned out that he had been in OA before.

What’s more: He was a 20-year veteran of AA. He had done it all. He was once a drunk and a drug addict. He shot heroin. He had lost just about everything. After kicking booze and drugs, he turned to the food. He needs a truck scale to weigh himself and last time he did, he was an even 400 pounds.

But it didn’t matter. He was and still is one of the more cheerful people I’ve ever met.

And since then, of all my sponsees, nobody works the program as hard as he is. We talk every morning. Sometimes we talk several times a day. He’ll bend your ear for hours if you let him. Sometimes, it can get exasperating.

Here’s the problem: I can still be selfish AND egotistical. It’s not hard for me to think I’m better than other people. I’m pretty sure that’s why God put Dan in my life. That’s what He does, I know: put people in MY life who will help ME, but he sneaks them in as people who need MY help.

Ever see “It’s a Wonderful Life?” It’s like the angel Clarence. He dives in the water and acts like he’s drowning so George Bailey, who is standing on the bridge contemplating suicide, will jump in and save him.

I guess you could call what I’m experiencing the Clarence Syndrome.

Dan, you see, is teaching me a lot more than I’m teaching him. I may be his OA sponsor, but he’s my own Clarence. 

So for me study hasn’t been about burying my head in a pile of books. It’s been a study of people. To that end, each of us is a book to be studied.

I’d like to conclude by sharing some of the things I’ve learned through my studies. This is something I wrote for the 2010 RCIA class at my church. I was trying to drive home the fact that Faith is all about study – every moment of every day. I focused on the things I’ve learned SINCE becoming a Catholic:

1. Don’t Succumb to “Happily-Ever-After” Syndrome.
Even though I knew deep down that it wouldn’t be the case, I approached the days leading up to my conversion in a high of sorts; feeling like it would be happy forever more once I was Baptized. In some ways that is how it turned out. But for me, things got a whole lot worse before they got better.

The sins I had accumulated up to that point were forgiven that night, but the demons remained a few steps behind me, ready to trip me into another garbage can. I continued to suffer from the paralysis of OCD. I continued to give in to my self-destructive impulses. I continued to indulge my over-sized ego and stay absorbed in all things me. Oh, yes: Some of my most self-destructive, addictive behavior took place AFTER my Baptism.

It turns out school was still in session, and the lessons could be a real STRUGGLE.

2. Peace IS NOT The Absence of Chaos. It’s a State of Mind
My own world used to be pure chaos. Self-loathing dripped from my pores and I had a craving for peace. I wanted all the violence and worry to go away. It didn’t. But that’s OK.

I’ve learned that peace is a state of mind, not the absence of chaos. It’s a feeling and mental clarity that comes over ME as MY Faith deepens. It didn’t just smack me in the back of the head one morning.

It’s a state of mind that slowly grew over time, with lots and lots of study about the church and the people I knew who were living an active Faith life. Learning that also meant I had to shut my mouth and listen to what the priests were telling me.

3. What I Get is Only As Good As What I Put In
Here an open secret: spiritual well-being isn’t just handed to ME like an entitlement or a birthday present. I have to work hard at it everyday.

Working it takes many forms. Service is a big one. Getting to Mass every week is important. But I have to do more. I have to go on retreats like Cursillo, which will be as life-changing an event for those who go as the Baptism was.

I’ve been on two retreats since my conversion: Cursillo and an ACTS retreat the year before that. The soul searching and sharing I do on these weekends is priceless. It is study in the purist form. Then there are programs like ARISE, where I keep studying Scripture and discussing it in a group, in context with my daily life struggles. I’ve gotten a lot from lectoring as well.

By getting up in front of everyone and doing the readings, I’m better able to actually understand what the readings mean. And when I actively participate in the Mass, I’m less likely to fall asleep. And I go to Confession often.

I can’t believe how good it feels to get rid of the mental trash until I do it. In purging MY sins, I learn a little more about yourself and God’s love.

4. Plan to Fight the Good Fight to Your Dying Breath

I’ve come a long way in my spiritual growth. With God’s help I’ve overcome crippling addiction and depression and I know more peace today than I ever have.

But boy, I can still screw up with the best of ‘em. Each screw up is another lesson, not that I’m trying to justify my bad decisions as a pursuit of study. Truth is, I usually learn a lesson without setting out to do so.

My most destructive addictive behaviors are under control, but I’m always tap dancing from one habit to another. There are still days where I come to church with a crappy attitude.

My mind will be on everything else but God. I still let my ego get the best of me especially in my career as a journalist. I’m easily distracted by shiny objects. They are all things I need to work on. I can do so much better than this. But I used to be a lot worse.

In summary, it’s a life-long journey. We keep making mistakes.

But if we keep our heart and head in the right place and stay in school, so to speak, everything else will fall into place.

ENDING SONG: “Holy and Anointed One.” Performed by Robbie Barton


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43 Years Through The Minefield

Today is my sister Wendi’s 43rd birthday. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the day than to explain what she’s been through and how far she has come.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MceneYWgPc4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

A Sister’s Battle with Depression

This blog is chock full of my own experiences with depression and addiction. I even hint here and there about how the addictive behavior runs in the family. But I’ve avoided the story of depression among siblings until now. This post is about my older sister, who had it much harder than me.

I haven’t mentioned it up to this point because it’s her story and her business. I didn’t want to violate her privacy. But recently I’ve realized her story is an important part of my own. So I sought and received her permission to tackle it head on. Hopefully, this post validates the trust she’s putting in me.

Since this blog focuses on my own experiences, I’m not always effective at pointing out other people’s success stories. But Wendi is a success story, whether she realizes it or not.

Growing up, me, Wendi and Michael had our individual problems. I had the Crohn’s Disease, Michael had the asthma that eventually killed him, and Wendi had the misfortune of catching abuse from a mother flustered by all the chaos.

I remember the routine at 22 Lynnway well. Early in the morning, before school, Wendi was required to do a lot of chores. I particularly remember the sound of the vacuum. To this day, I get rattled by the sound of a vacuum because of the memories it brings up. If she missed a spot on the rug, she caught my mother’s physical and verbal wrath. Because me and my brother were sick so much, we also got a lot of the love and attention while Wendi was off on the side trying not to piss my mother off.

When my parents divorced in 1980, things seemed to get worse. When my brother died, things got worse still. In my mother’s defense, there was a lot of hell and heartbreak she had to live through, and to be honest I’m not sure I would have handled it much better if I were in her shoes. Mental anguish makes you do stupid things.

When my stepmother came along, my mother’s jealousy grew worse, and so did the abuse. Wendi caught the brunt of it.

Like me, Wendi had a lot of ups and downs with weight. Like me, she tried to control it through reckless means.

Sometime around 1991, things started coming to a head for my sister. She started plunging into deep depressions. Between 1991 and 1998, I can remember three occasions where this led to her hospitalization. She talked openly about wanting to kill herself. One such occasion, in 1998, was a couple months before my wedding. Since it was only two years after Sean Marley’s suicide, this made me more angry than anything. My anger was a selfish one. How dare she get suicidal and hospitalized and put me through this all over again. And how dare she do this while I was getting ready for my wedding.

I realize something now that I didn’t realize back then: Depression and the collateral damage it causes to others is never really in the sufferer’s control to stop. And it can care less about timetables. Mental illness doesn’t take breaks for holidays and weddings, for the convenience of others. Given my own battle with depression in subsequent years, I get it now.

I’m sorry for getting angry with her back then.

There’s something else I feel sorry about: Because of my own mental turmoil, I chose to avoid situations that made me uncomfortable. Wendi’s depression made me very uncomfortable. The result is that I wasn’t the helpful younger brother I should have been.

In 2003, Wendi caught a bizarre infection the doctors couldn’t make sense of. She spent a couple weeks in ICU and pumping her full of antibiotics didn’t seem to help her much. A couple times we were certain she wouldn’t make it. But since then, things have gotten better for Wendi. Not easier. Maybe not even happier. But better.

A couple years earlier, she had announced to the family that she was gay. It took some family members by shock, but not me. When I thought about a couple of the more “normal” relationships she had tried to nurture in past years and the depression she went into when things didn’t work out, it all made perfect sense to me. She was trying to live a life that didn’t gibe with her true nature.

When she came clean about that, her life didn’t get easier. But I suspect, because she found a way to be truthful with herself, that some things got easier to deal with. She’s been through her ups and downs since then. A marriage didn’t work out. She suffered some nasty complications from gastric bypass surgery. But she has moved on from those difficulties much more quickly than in past difficulties.

Like I said, dealing with one’s issues doesn’t mean you live happily ever after. Putting up with difficult people doesn’t get any easier. Peace is never an absence of conflict.

But when we get better at facing those challenges, life in general becomes a little sweeter.

That’s what I’ve learned from my own struggles. And I think that’s what Wendi has learned as well.

I know a lot of people who have fought the demons and gotten bloodied and grown a hell of a lot stronger in the process.

Wendi is one of them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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Say Hello to My New Limit

Another mood swing this afternoon. The dark, brooding sky appears to be rubbing off on me. The happy lamp helps, but if I sit in front of it too long I get the sweats. And it’s not the same as sunshine.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMWhk4u2c4g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I’ve been having a lot of these episodes lately, and it worries me. It’s most likely the result of my sleep pattern being out of whack. I alternate between too much sleep one day, not enough the next.

The clouds don’t help. It seems like we’ve had a lot of gloomy weather lately, and too much of that will fuck with my head every time.

My biggest concern is that something’s off with the medication, though probably not. One thing I’ve learned is that if you don’t take care of yourself in other ways, like having a consistent sleep pattern, it will blunt the effectiveness of the drug.

The other problem is that I’ve overextended myself, being on team for a Catholic retreat, doing a lot of extra service in my 12-Step program and keeping busy on the work side, along with all the activity that comes with having a first and fourth grader.

Since shaking off the fear and anxiety and cleaning up my act a couple years ago, I’ve had a limitless appetite for new experiences. And so I’ve gone on the road a lot and taken on many projects in and outside of work.

It’s been a blessing. It still is. But it’s possible I’m starting to find my new limit. Perhaps I’m a victim of my own success. There are far worse problems to have.

This is actually a good thing. It’s healthy.

The trick now is in figuring out how to stop over-reaching and achieve the right balance.

It’s too bad I suck at balance.

But it’s never too late to learn how to do it right.

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Debunking the Shrink Stigma

A friend was telling me yesterday that he can relate to this blog. In a whisper, he said, “I see a therapist.” When people tell me that, it’s usually in the same hushed tone. Clearly, we have another stigma to shred.

I’m not sure why people are so hush-hush about this sort of thing. Maybe it’s because I outed myself so long ago. But I just don’t think people should be embarrassed about seeing a therapist. And yet people are embarrassed, like they’re being treated for the clap after a reckless night in a whorehouse. It’s the kind of shame that does you no good. Take it from a guy who has been there.

It’s a funny thing when I talk to people suffering from depression, addiction and other troubles of the mind. Folks seem more comfortable about the idea of pills than in seeing a therapist. After all, they’re just crazy “shrinks” in white coats  obsessed with how your childhood nightmares compromised your adult sex life, right?

I’ve been to many therapists in my life. I was sent to one at Children’s Hospital in Boston as a kid to talk through the emotions of being sick with Chron’s Disease all the time. That same therapist also tried to help me and my siblings process the bitter aftermath of our parents’ divorce in 1980.

As a teenager, I went to another therapist to discuss my brother’s death and my difficulty in getting along with my stepmother (a wonderful, wonderful woman who I love dearly, by the way. But as a kid I didn’t get along with her).

That guy was a piece of work. He had a thick French accent and wanted to know if I found my stepmother attractive. From the moment he asked that question, I was done with him, and spent the rest of the appointment being belligerent.

That put me off going to a therapist for a long time. I started going to one again in 2004, when I found I could no longer function in society without untangling the barbed wire in my head. But I hesitated for a couple years before pressing on.

The therapist I started going to specialized in dealing with disturbed children and teenagers. That was perfect, because in a lot of ways I was still a troubled kid.

She never told me what to do, never told me how I’m supposed to interpret my disorder against my past. She asked a lot of questions and had me do the work of sorting it out. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what a good therapist does. They ask questions to get your brain churning, dredging up experiences that sat at the back of the mind like mud on the ocean floor. That’s how you begin to deal with how you got to the point of dysfunction.

She moved to Florida a year in and I started going to a fellow who worked from his house. I would explain my binge eating habits to him, specifically how I would down $30 worth of McDonald’s between work and home.

“You should stock your car with healthy foods like fruit, so if you’re hungry you can eat those things instead,” he told me.

That was the end of that. He didn’t get it. When an addict craves the junk, the healthy food around you doesn’t stand a chance. The compulsion is specifically toward eating the junk. He should have understood. He didn’t. Game over, dumb ass.

The therapist I see now is a God-send. He was the first therapist to help me understand the science behind mental illness and the way an inbalance in brain chemistry can mess with your thought traffic. He also provided me with quite an education on how anti-depressants work. Yes, friends, there’s a science to it. Certain drugs are designed to shore up the brain chemicals that, when depleted, lead to bi-polar behavior. Other meds are specifically geared toward anxiety control. In my case, I needed the drug that best addressed obsessive-compulsive behavior. For me, that meant Prozac.

That’s not to say I blindly obey his every suggestion. He specializes in stress reduction and is big on yoga and eliminating coffee from the daily diet. Those are two deal breakers for me. Yoga bores the dickens out of me. If you’ve been following this blog all along, I need not explain the coffee part.

I also find it fun to push his buttons once in awhile. I’ll show up at his office with a huge cup of Starbucks. “Oh, I see you’ve brought drugs with you,” he’ll say.

Thing is, he’s probably right about the coffee. But I’ve given up a lot of other things for the sake of mental health. I’m simply not putting the coffee down right now.

I think part of this is about testing him, too. I can’t help but push the buttons sometimes just to see what I can get away with.

But on balance, it’s a productive relationship that has helped me to find a lot of peace and order in my life.

There are good therapists and not-so-good therapists, just like there are good and not-so-good primary care doctors; just like there are good cops and bad cops.

But if you feel like you need to talk to someone objective and you hold back for fear of being in the same room as a quack, well, then you’ll never know what you could have accomplished.

I chose to talk to a professional despite my deepest reservations. I’m grateful that I did.

Why the hell should anyone be ashamed for doing the right thing?

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The Amityville Obsession

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.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72rWAe0pUdQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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.