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Gone Fishing (Sort Of)

I’m going on a little sabbatical in a couple hours. A weekend Catholic retreat, actually. I’m part of the team putting it on. Which means this is the last post from me until Sunday night or Monday.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0FP0JSvdHY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

It’ll be the longest I’ve stayed off the grid in a very long time. Well, I will have the BlackBerry nearby, but that’s just in case of emergencies.

For new readers, this is probably a good time to catch up on the older posts, which I’ve put in a nice little bundle below. I hope they’re of use to you. Have a great weekend and wish me luck!

The Long History of OCD

An OCD Christmas. The first entry, where I give an overview of how I got to crazy and found my way to sane.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill. How the drug Prednisone brought me to the brink, and how Prozac was part of my salvation.

The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom. Think you have troubles at work? You should see what people who worked with me went through.

The Freak and the Redhead: A Love Story. About the wife who saved my life in many ways.

Snowpocalypse and the Fear of Loss. The author remembers a time when fear of loss would cripple his mental capacities, and explains how he got over it — mostly.

The Ego OCD Built. The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire. Go ahead. Laugh at him.

Fear Factor. The author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

Prozac Winter. The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.

Have Fun with Your Therapist. Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.

The Engine. To really understand how mental illness happens, let’s compare the brain to a machine.

 

Rest Redefined. The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.

Outing Myself. The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.

Why Being a People Pleaser is Dumb. The author used to try very hard to please everybody and was hurt badly in the process. Here’s how he broke free and kept his soul intact.

The Addiction and the Damage Done

The Most Uncool Addiction. In this installment, the author opens up about the binge-eating disorder he tried to hide for years — and how he managed to bring it under control.

Edge of a Relapse. The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.

The 12 Steps of Christmas. The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory.

How to Play Your Addictions Like a Piano. The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?

Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility. As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he weigh in on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.

The Liar’s Disease. The author reveals an uncomfortable truth about addicts like himself: We tend to have trouble telling the truth.

Portable Recovery. Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.

Revere (Experiences with Addiction, Depression and Loss During The Younger Years)

Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies. The author reviews the imperfections of childhood relationships in search of all his OCD triggers. Along the way, old bullies become friends and he realizes he was pretty damn stupid back then.

Lost Brothers. How the death of an older brother shaped the Hell that arrived later.

Marley and Me. The author describes the second older brother whose death hit harder than that of the first.

The Third Brother. Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.

Revere Revisited.

Lessons from Dad. The author has learned some surprising lessons from Dad on how to control one’s mental demons.

The Basement. A photo from the old days in Revere spark some vivid flashbacks.

Addicted to Feeling Good. To kick off Lent, the author reflects on some of his dumber quests to feel good.

The lasting Impact of Crohn’s Disease. The author has lived most of his life with Crohn’s Disease and has developed a few quirks as a result.

The Tire and the Footlocker. The author opens up an old footlocker under the stairs and finds himself back in that old Revere basement.

Child of  Metal

How Metal Saved Me. Why Heavy Metal music became a critical OCD coping tool.

Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or Less. The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light. 

Rockit Records Revisited. The author has mentioned Metal music as one of his most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Here’s a look at the year he got one of the best therapy sessions ever, simply by working in a cramped little record store.

Metal to Stick in Your Mental Microwave.

Man of God

The Better Angels of My Nature. Why I let Christ in my life.

The Rat in the Church Pew. The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. The author goes to Church and comes away with a strange feeling.

Running from Sin, Running With Scissors. The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

Forgiveness is a Bitch. Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Pain in the Lent. The author gives a progress report on the Lenten sacrifices. It aint pretty.


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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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The Devil’s Music

Some readers suggest my Faith and love of heavy metal music are an odd combination. Some of the rock crowd think my religious beliefs are at odds with the spirit of metal culture. Some of my church friends think metal is the devil’s music. You’re both wrong.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/466VHt8KldM

You’ve heard my story. Faith has been central to my recovery from OCD and addiction. Metal was there for me as a confused, tormented kid, wringing out just enough of the anger to keep me from doing very bad things.

Call me a whack job, but I’m pretty sure God put that music in my path to help me along, just as He puts certain people in my path today to help me along.

Sometimes I rely too much on the music and not enough on God to pull me through tough scrapes. I’m working on that.

I realize no two people are the same, and I may indeed be an anomaly. I’m a puzzling presence in other ways — a man of multiple personalities. My interest in politics and history don’t really fit the metal image, either.

But they are all tools in my arsenal of living.

I’ve been spending my Tuesday nights in planning meetings for an upcoming Cursillo retreat I’ll be on team for. During that weekend, I’ll be giving a talk on how study fits into my spiritual journey. Not study in the bookish sense, though that’s part of it. It’s more about study through experiencing things — the goodness of people who inspire me, the power of recovery and the purging of fear, and yes, metal WILL come up at some point. It’s too intertwined with the rest of the story. It’ll make for an interesting talk.

To those who call it the Devil’s music: True, there are bands that glorify evil, but most of it is just theatrics. You say metal has influenced murderers and suicides? Maybe. But I know of many evil people in history who were just as passionate about their Classical music, Jazz and Country-Western. If there’s evil in your soul, the musical tastes don’t matter. The evil you already had is what’ll make you do bad things. The Beatles’ “Blackbird” is a beautiful piece of music. But that beauty didn’t keep an asshole like Charles Manson from interpreting the lyrics to mean it was time to start a race war by killing white people and making it look like the Black Panthers did it.

I only know my personal truth: That my choice of music helped me through tough times and set me on a journey that grew more spiritual and grounded with time.

And besides, why the hell should Satan get all the good music?

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A Pastor Moves On

Dennis Nason, pastor of All Saints Parish, steps down Oct. 1. He’s struggling with cancer and decided to step aside so the parish can move on. He’s earned a tribute here. He made a believer out of me by coming clean about his own sins.

We have it in our heads that priests are supposed to be perfect and sinless. That’s why the sex scandal hit people so hard. We were taught to trust priests at all costs, and some of them betrayed that trust in evil ways.

When you’re a screw up like I once was — and still am in some ways — and you find someone you hope will help you out of the abyss, it’s a crushing blow when the mentor fails.

But as I’ve settled deeper into my Faith, I’ve realized those mistakes are part of the long journey out of Hell.

But for that theory to work, all parties involved have to have the capacity for honesty. That’s a big theme in the 12 Steps, too. Honesty is a bitch when you wrestle with addictions. I’ve said it before, addicts are the best liars on Earth. The depth of my own deceit was like a bottomless pit by the time I hit bottom.

That’s where Father Nason took me to school. He was an alcoholic who could have covered his tracks and carried on. Instead, he revealed everything to everyone. What follows is an older post I wrote about that very incident and what it has meant to me:

The Priest Who Came Clean

Originally posted on April 11, 2010:

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.

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.

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.

This post isn’t meant to put him on a pedestal. He is only human, after all, and he sometimes misses the mark like the rest of us.

It IS meant to thank him for the time he came clean, inspiring me to do the same.

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Never Forgotten

That post about Zane resonated with a lot of people. It’s comforting to know he hasn’t been forgotten. Being forgotten. It’s everyone’s fear. I often worry that people who end their own lives will end up that way.

Mood music:

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

Though I’ve had many an episode with depression, I’ve never once considered suicide. That makes me no better than those who have. In my case, Faith has always prevented that line of thinking. Suicide is a mortal sin, and as bad as life could get, who wants an eternity of suffering in the afterlife, right?

My brand of depression is also different from the suicidal stripe. Mine just makes me withdrawn and tired.

But I have no reason to be high-minded about it. When I was giving in to my addictions, I was slowly killing myself. I’m not sure that’s much better than killing yourself quickly. People around you still suffer.

Whatever the case may be, I feel the need to write about old friends who committed suicide because I don’t want them to be forgotten. Suicide cases are often swept under the rug. They end up being remembered more for how they died than how they lived.

A few months ago a friend of some friends died of suicide. I wrote something at the time that’s worth repeating now. It’s sort of like an instruction manual for someone who has just lost someone to suicide:

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

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

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

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

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

But things will get better. They always do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Happily Ever After Is Bullshit & That’s OK

Often, when depression slaps me upside the head, it’s on the heels of a prolonged period of good feelings and positive energy. Especially this time of year, when the daylight recedes early and returns late. These setbacks can be discouraging, but you can survive them with the right perspective.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/NqTuN-35580

It’s easy for people who fight mental illness and addictive behavior to go on an endless, futile search for the happily ever after, where you somehow find the magic bullet to murder your demons, thus beginning years of bliss and carefree existence.

I’m sorry to tell you this, folks: That line of thinking is bullshit.

There’s no such thing as happily ever after. If you want it that badly, go watch a Disney film.

I used to grope around for eternal happiness in religious conversion. But some of my hardest days came AFTER I was Baptized a Catholic. I eventually found my way to abstinence and sobriety and got a pretty good handle on the OCD. But there have been plenty of sucky days since then.

The slide back into depression this past weekend was an example.

I like to think of these setbacks as growing pains. We’re supposed to have bad days to test the better angels of our nature. We’re supposed to learn how to move forward despite the obstacles that used to make us hide and get junked up. When you can stay sober and keep your mental disorders in check despite a bad day, that’s REAL recovery.

This is where I consider myself lucky for having had Crohn’s Disease. That’s a chronic condition. It comes and goes. But you can reach a point where the flare ups are minimal.

It’s the same with mental illness and addiction. You can’t rid yourself of it completely. But you can reach a point — through a lot of hard work and leaps of Faith — where the episodes are minimal.

The depression flared up this weekend, just like the Crohn’s Disease used to. But I’m better now. And I didn’t have to take a drug like Prednisone to get there. I just needed a little extra sleep.

Prozac, therapy and the 12 Steps have helped me immensely. But they don’t take the deeper pain at your core away. These things just help you deal with the rough days without getting sucked back into the abyss.

The depression I experienced this weekend felt more like a flare up of arthritis than that desperate, mournful feeling I used to get. It was a nag, but it didn’t break me. It used to break me all the time.

That’s progress.

Maybe I’m not happy forever after, but that’s OK. My ability to separate the blessings from the bullshit has improved considerably in the last five years.

That’s good enough for me.

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Walking Toward Sanity

As a kid living on Revere Beach, long walks were my lifeline to sanity. At least once a day, I walked the entire length of the crescent-shaped coastline, from the edge of Revere Beach Boulevard to the city’s border with Winthrop. In more recent years, I haven’t walked much. But recent events are rekindling my love for it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwKEdFoUB0o&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I spent a lot of time walking around New York City this morning. I’m staying in Brooklyn for the CSO Security Standard event, but my hotel room wasn’t ready when I arrived, so I looked outside at the Brooklyn Bridge and decided to walk across it, just for the hell of it.

I walked into Chinatown for coffee with a couple friends, then I walked to Ground Zero. Being the day after the 9-11 anniversary, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Last time I was at Ground Zero I left in a pretty depressed mood, but this time, strangely enough, I felt inspired. A lot is happening on that site, including construction of two memorial pools in the footprints of the twin towers, surrounded by trees, with a new Freedom Tower rising up at the edge.

Also inspiring is that nine years later, the people of NYC are keeping the memories of the victims alive. One example is this shrine to the firefighters who lost their lives:

By the time I walked back over the Brooklyn Bridge to check into my room, five hours had passed and I was exhausted. But I felt like I did exactly what I was supposed to do before settling in to work.

Long walks like this have always restored my sanity.

During all those walks on Revere Beach, I’d be trying to think through all the childhood chaos and find a way forward. I always did.

When the kids were still small enough for the double stroller, I’d take them on a 3.5-mile walk in our Haverhill neighborhood.

I stopped walking in recent years because life just got to busy. Or at least that’s how I’ve rationalized it. The truth is, I think I’ve been making excuses.

Yesterday morning Sean wanted to do that 3.5-mile walk with me because it brought back special memories for him. So that’s what we did.

Between that walk and todays stroll around NYC, I’m starting to realize walking was an important tool for me.

It’s time I dusted that tool off and started using it again.


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Surrender Does Not Mean Give Up

In my journey through Faith and recovery, I hear the word “surrender” over and over again. I used to hate the word for the same reason you might hate it. To surrender means to give up, toss in the towel and go home defeated, right? Not exactly.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e04OBJzbvc&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Let’s see if I can sort it out by the end of this entry.

If you look up the word in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, you see all the wrong descriptions:

1. a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand (surrendered the fort)
b : to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another
2. a : to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner
b : to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence)

 

2 b comes closest, but it’s not enough.
They are accurate descriptions, mind you. They just don’t do justice to what the word means in faith and recovery.
Here’s what I’ve learned about the word so far: It DOES NOT mean to quit life and stop trying to be better and stronger. In the context of Faith and the 12 Steps of Recovery, it DOES NOT mean  that you stop thinking for yourself.
It IS about admitting you can’t control everything and that you need the aid of a higher power. For many of us (for me, anyway), that higher power is God. It IS also about putting your trust in others.

As addicts in the grip of the demon, we trust nobody. We picture everyone with a knife in their hand, ready to stab us in the back. We see someone trying to tell us to clean up our act even though they could not possibly understand what it’s like to be truly out of control. We also watch over our shoulders because we expect someone to swoop in and steal our junk at any moment.

When we start to realize we have a problem, we labor unsuccessfully under the delusion that we can clean up on our own, without any help. In that regard, we refuse to surrender. We think our will is enough to get the job done, even though the art of will power has eluded us repeatedly. That’s the insanity of being a control freak.

I tried all kinds of things to clean up from a binge eating addiction. I thought I could tame the beast by chain smoking and drinking 14 cups of black coffee per morning. I thought I could do it by fasting twice a week. I even thought I could do it by drinking wine instead of eating.
Since I grew up with a chip on my shoulder, I looked at the word surrender with pure hatred. To surrender meant to do whatever my mother told me to do. Since her desire was for me to always play it safe and never take risks, it would have been the wrong thing to surrender to.
To surrender also meant to do what my father told me to do, which as a teenager simply didn’t fit into the joys of staying up all night getting high. He had a lot of good things to teach me, but no fucking way was I going to heed his advice. That would mean surrendering.
Surrendering to God seemed like the worst idea of all. That meant giving up my free will and following some unseen being over the cliff.
Motley Crue bassist and lyricist Nikki Sixx once described a similar reaction when he was asked to get on his knees and pray for help to break his heroin addiction. His reaction went something like this: “Fuck God!”
Let go and let God? Screw you.
As I got older and my addictive behavior was about to destroy all my hopes and dreams, I reached a point where I was willing to do anything to stop the pain.
Some would call that giving up, and I guess that’s what it was.
One time I was at a party listening to a group of moms talking about the pain of childbirth. Someone noted that in that moment of agony you lose all modesty. You just want that baby out of there. After a while, you stop caring if the doctor is male or female.
I wouldn’t know, but it is a pretty decent description of an addict who has maxed out their tolerance for pain.
Suddenly, the word surrender doesn’t sound so bad.
Professional life coach Rich Wyler nails it in his write up on the 12 Steps. He brilliantly boils it down to this:
–Effecting a spiritual awakening in which God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, as we humbly submit our self-will and our heart to his will (Steps 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 11).
–Overcoming pride and resistance to change through rigorously honest self-examination (Steps 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10)
–Making amends and repairing the harmful consequences of our self-destructive behaviors – especially the harm we’ve done to others (Steps 5, 8, 9, 10 and 12).

There it is, all laid bare. To surrender isn’t to give up and stop thinking for yourself. It’s exactly the opposite. It means doing a gut check, finally being honest and realizing you need help. When you surrender to God, you’re letting in the people who can help you.

It’s about honesty, trust and taking a leap of faith.

Here’s the truly whacked part: In doing so, I suddenly experienced more freedom than I ever had before.

I stopped being afraid to leave my room, getting on airplanes, taking on challenging work assignments that previously would have made me sick to my stomach, and I stopped being afraid to get up and talk in front of a room full of people. I also stopped being afraid to speak up when I disagreed about something, particularly in work.

In other words, I finally started becoming the man I wanted to be.

I still have a long, long way to go. But this beats the hell out of what life was like when I was clinging to that old, stupid will of mine.

Yeah, I surrendered. I gave up the idea that I could go it alone, without people who know better and without God.

Some might think that makes me weak.

I don’t care.

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In God’s Hands: My Search for Redemption

Some people don’t like to discuss religion. I can’t avoid it. It’s central to my recovery from OCD and addiction. These posts are about my struggle to find a moral compass and learn to “let go and let God.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFjz6O7ewwg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

The Better Angels of My Nature

How a Jew became a Catholic, and what it has to do with overcoming mental illness and addiction.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2009/12/18/ocd-diaries-12-18-the-better-angels-of-my-nature/

Forgiveness is a Bitch

Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/03/19/forgiveness-is-a-bitch/

Running from Sin, Running with Scissors

The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/02/24/running-from-sin-running-with-scissors/

The Priest Who Came Clean

The author on a priest who had the courage to open up about his sins.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/11/the-priest-who-came-clean/

The 12-Step Survival Guide of Life

For those who need a 12-Step Program, here are a few lessons from the author’s personal experiences.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/06/01/the-12-step-survival-guide-of-life/

Pissing on God

The author gets a description of sin he’ll never forget.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/03/27/pissing-on-god/

God and Metal

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

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/08/07/god-and-metal/

The Trouble With Wanting It All

Ever since I got over my fear and anxiety I’ve had a bottomless appetite to do it all. I want to travel everywhere. I want to see everything. And I want to participate in as many events as possible. Sometimes that gets me in trouble. Here’s an example.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/08/15/the-trouble-with-wanting-it-all/

Selfish Bastard

The author has found that service is an excellent tool for OCD management. Simply put, it forces him to stop being a selfish bastard.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/01/30/ocd-diaries-selfish-bastard/

The Rat in the Church Pew

The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/01/24/ocd-diaries-the-rat-in-the-church-pew/

The Rewards and Risk of Service: A Cautionary Tale

Service is a major tool of recovery. But it can also be dangerous.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/29/the-rewards-and-risk-of-service-a-cautionary-tale/

We’re All Broken

The author finds that sometimes his church family is too judgmental.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/19/were-all-broken/

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One of My Biggest Regrets

Yesterday I saw many old friends from my Eagle-Tribune days at the retirement send-off for legendary editor Cheryl Rock. It was a great afternoon. But one of the people I saw there brought back the powerful memory of one of the worst things I ever did.

I didn’t talk to Sally Gilman. I guess I felt too awkward and nervous. She didn’t say anything to me, either. She probably doesn’t remember me. But what I did to her was awful.

It was sometime in late 2000 or early 2001. I was the assistant editor of the paper’s New Hampshire edition and I reported to a manging editor who made my brand of control-freakism look like a minor, passing cold. I’ll keep his name out because I’m about to say some not-so-nice things about him.

I was warned about him when I was about to take the N.H. job. One editor said I would have to play good cop to this guy’s bad-cop style. That was very good advice that I didn’t take.

Instead, I gave in to my instinct to please my masters — this particular master, anyway. His attitude was that all the reporters were children who needed their ears slapped back on a regular basis, and he expected me to carry out his will. It was against my instincts, because I wanted to be known as a nice guy. But I pushed on. When he told me to take a reporter to the woodshed because that person wasn’t performing as he felt they should be, I did.

Sally was one of those reporters who was always in his sights. It was ridiculous, because she was older and wiser than we were. She had been covering New Hampshire for many years. She lived there. We should have just let her do her thing, because it was good enough.

But he wanted more. If an idea wasn’t something you could turn into a multi-story enterprise package with seven sources per story, then it was crap. Community journalism was a mark of laziness, apparently.

He was always on Sally to come into the North Andover, Mass. office to work more often. She resisted, because New Hampshire was where the action was. She lived there. She once noted that the New Hampshire plates on her car increased her credibility with sources, and she was right.

Still, it became my job to push her to come to the office. It seems absurd in this day and age, where you can easily work from anyplace that has a wi-fi connection. But even back then, e-mailing in a story was simple enough.

But we wanted the stories inputed directly into the newsroom’s Lotus Notes-based system. We felt we shouldn’t have to reformat copy on deadline. Perhaps we were the lazy ones.

One morning, Sally filed an incomplete story. I can’t remember exactly what the problem was. But the boss was pissed off about it, and he told me to give her a kick in the ass. Her husband was having some serious surgery that day and we both knew it. But he ordered and I got on the phone and gave her a talking to.

An hour or so later, Steve Lambert, the top editor, called me to his office. I went in there to find him, my direct boss, and editor Al White. Considering what I had done, they went pretty easy on me. There was no yelling. Steve just asked me what happened and I told him. The N.H. managing editor sat there with a very red face. It was always red, mind you. But it was particularly glaring in Steve’s windowless office.

It turns out that Sally had called to complain. She was really upset. How dare an editor call her early in the morning to give her a hard time about something trivial on a day when her husband’s life was hanging in the balance.

Steve agreed with her, as well he should have. But he was still calm about it. He told me I needed to ease up. He didn’t want reporters to see me as the newsroom ass-clown. I said I’d keep that in mind and left his office, feeling like I had just been simultaneously stabbed in the side of the head and slammed in the gut with a brick.

Ten-plus years later, the way I treated her is one of my biggest regrets.

Some could try to absolve me of fault because I was carrying out orders. But the truth is that I could have stood up to this managing editor and told him that was not the day to push this poor woman.

I could have been the good cop, smoothing out the rough feelings reporters were having over his management style. It would have been insubordination on my part, but it would have been the right thing to do. Instead, I was just another bad cop, no better than he was.

I badly wanted to tell Sally I was sorry yesterday. But I couldn’t get up the courage to approach her.

I’m going to find her phone number and let her know how sorry I am.

One more note about that managing editor: I eventually reached my breaking point with him and asked for a transfer. Al sent me back to the night editor’s chair. Al was always a hard guy to read, but I think he knew I was a pile of rubble at that point, so I thank him for giving me that second chance.

One night after I returned to that position, I was asked to help the New Hampshire desk process election results from the various towns we covered. Around 4 a.m., the managing editor started to go into a diabetic shock. Another reporter called his wife and I hit the streets in search of a store that was open so I could get him some orange juice.

He later recovered enough to drive home. I stuck around and finished his work. It wasn’t hard, because I’d been left to finish his work many times.

I’m not proud of this, but there were moments after that where I would think about that orange juice I got him and regretted doing so. Maybe, I thought in my delusional mind, I could have saved reporters a lot of future suffering. Fortunately, I’m not the kind of guy who would do such a thing. If someone’s life is in danger, you help them. Pure and simple. That I had those thoughts still fills me with shame.

He’s still in the business, but I have no interest in connecting with him. The feeling is mutual, I’m sure.

In hindsight, that incident with Sally was a classic case of OCD run wild. Back then the condition hadn’t yet been diagnosed, but it was there, eating away at my brain, making me do bad things.

I don’t think I can ever apologize enough for some of the things I did in that job.

I was really coming undone at that point, but I hadn’t yet hit the series of bottoms I had to reach before I realized I needed help.

Today, the lessons are clear to me:

–Treat everyone as you wish to be treated yourself because that’s what God wants and it’s right.

–People who report to you will always do more for you if you skip the hard-ass bit and be more caring and nurturing.

–Finally, being a people-pleaser is just plain stupid, whether it’s a family member, a friend or a boss. People-Pleasing never works. You can never make everyone happy.

When you try, you do really stupid things.