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RIP, Renee Pelletier Costa

This morning I received the sad news that Renee Pelletier Costa passed away after a long and courageous battle against cancer.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3UjJmliWxuobgMSdX5bN3R]

Updates: 

Renee’s memorial service will be held Saturday, March 23, 1:30 at Faith Lutheran Church, 360 South Main St., Andover MA 01810

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the:
Renee L. Costa Memorial Fund, account #8371787589
Care of: TD Bank
280 Main Street
Groveland, MA 01834 or any local TD Bank branch.

Meanwhile, a new site called “Live Like Renee” has been established to raise funds for her family.

***

The last time I saw her was over the summer, when she dropped off a huge collection of Legos her children had outgrown. She made Sean and Duncan very happy that day, and I think it reflects her life pretty well. In the short time I knew her, that simple kindness was evident.

She touched many lives in her short time on this Earth. For me, she offered an everlasting example of living in the face of immense suffering. It always floored me how positive and giving she was even as she was slowly losing to cancer. “Losing” might not be the right word, though. She did, after all, live with cancer for the better part of a decade. She certainly lived longer than she was expected to.

What follows is something I wrote about her more than a year ago. I think the sentiments ring especially true now.

My deepest condolences to Renee’s husband, children, friends and extended family.

***

Oct. 20, 2011:

Renee Pelletier Costa of Haverhill starts another round of chemo today. She’s been very public about her battle with cancer, and has been a sturdy, shining example of how to live in the face of adversity.

Cancer has put her body through the wringer, but has failed to stop her positive attitude and sense of humor. On Facebook this morning, she wrote:

“I begin chemo again at 9:30. Sean says he’ll go with me and stay long enough to make sure I don’t die from anaphylaxis, then he’ll go to work. That’s how it goes when this becomes old hat.”

Judging from the responses to that comment, she has a strong circle of cancer-fighting friends. That’s one of the strange things about terrible diseases. You gain friends you never would have met if not for the sickness.

She also has a lot of friends around here who are rooting for her.

But you can never have enough prayers in times like these, so please take a moment and do your part.

Thanks.

Renee

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What Do You Mean I Don’t Believe in God? I Talk To Him Everyday…

Here we are at the start of Lent, and I’m still at a loss as to what I should be sacrificing for the next 40 days. Alcohol? Food items? I’ve already permanently sacrificed those things.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3090goAxG6IlpCifA8m9xB]

Lent is a time to sacrifice habits you love, gain a true appreciation for the sacrifices Jesus made [which were well beyond anything mortal man can comprehend) and draw closer to God. [More on my Faith in Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, Rat in the Church Pew and Better Angels of My Nature]

Yet here I am, stuck at the starting line with no sacrificial pain to run toward.

Two years ago I gave up cigars for Lent. I got around it by smoking cigarettes, which set me up for more trouble later. Now I don’t smoke cigars or cigarettes, so scratch that from the list of options.

Coffee would be a major sacrifice, but nobody would be able to come within 10 feet of me without having to worry about me chewing them up and spitting them out. I could put my e-cig aside, but then I’d probably pick up a real smoke again. I don’t say that to sound defeatist. I just know what my weaknesses are and if the e-cig is a crutch that keeps me from the real thing, that’s how it has to be.

I’m starting to think I’m barking up the wrong tree when considering my Lenten sacrifice. Maybe it shouldn’t be about giving up a treat or a crutch. Maybe I should just take this a day at a time and just focus on being a better man.

I could always be more tolerant of other peoples’ quirks. I could always be taking better care of myself by getting the right mix of sleep and nutrition. Surely that would make me more pleasant to be around. It’s Ash Wednesday, and I figure I still have a few hours to figure out a game plan.

This much I know: I was lost before I found my Faith, and it has become everything to me. But I still sin. All the time. Not because I want to, but because I can’t help myself.

Hopefully, I’m better than I used to be.

Before my conversion — and for some time after it — the haze of OCD and the related addictions exhausted the mind and body and incapacitated me for days and weeks at a time. I was useless to my wife and children. I let friendships suffer because getting the binge and then collapsing under the weight of it was more appealing than being a good friend.

I became a nightmare for co-workers, especially during The Eagle-Tribune days, hovering over page editors and treating reporters more like a disease than the wonderful, talented and hard-working souls they were.

I lied to a lot of people about a lot of things and had the audacity to think I was above others, no matter how screwed up I was.

I’ve asked for and gotten a lot of forgiveness along the way, but for those of you out there who suffered in my wake over the years, I’ll say here that I’m sorry and ask you too for forgiveness.

Above all, though, I say a heartfelt sorry to The Man Upstairs.

I need to try a lot harder to get the sin out of my life. But I know I’ve probably got a lot of pissing left to do.

Sober and abstinent or not, we addicts have a natural-born tendency to let things get between us and our Higher Power.

Redemption is a lifelong journey.

I hope I get it right in the end.

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A Few Thoughts About Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve had 24 hours to absorb the news that Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down at the end of the month. I think he’s doing the right thing and showing some true fortitude. But I’m also glad because there’s an opportunity for the Catholic Church to right some wrongs.

Mood music:

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The Church has stubbornly held on to backward beliefs about the role of women, the status of a person’s Catholicism after a divorce, and its attitude toward gays. It has the evil legacy of sexually abusive priests and the cover-ups involved still hanging over it. Perhaps as a result, few men are joining the priesthood these days.

The current thinking in the Church is that these matters aren’t open for debate because the Bible lays out how things should be. I agree with some of that. I think the parts about loving your neighbor, feeding the hungry and receiving the Sacraments are timeless. But when it comes to how we treat people who are different and how we treat women, the old ways of thinking need to give way.

I’m hoping a new pope can steer us in the right direction. Meantime, I’m going to just keep trying to be the best Christian I can.

Pope Benedict XVI

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How Christianity Hijacked Pagan Holidays

Christian extremists like to blather on about a war on Christmas. Given that my post “Take Your ‘War On Christmas’ Talk And Shove It” has been getting a lot of traction on Facebook this week, I think it’s time for a history lesson.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0P2vAvvWni2tNXOdbH3JFk]

We hear a lot about how Christmas is a Christian holiday, which it is, but important facts are being forgotten. One is that Jesus wasn’t actually born on Dec. 25. Another is that many of our Christmas traditions—the lights, decorations and gatherings—originated with pagan cultures.

One reader, John Conner, commented to that effect yesterday. He said:

This whole controversy is bogus to begin with. Any biblical scholar worth his or her salt will tell you that Jesus WAS NOT born on Dec. 25. That is the date of the pagan feast of Yule, closely following the winter solstice a few days prior. Many, many traditions celebrate Dec. 25 as a holy day, not just Christians.

On the Christian History website, Elesha Coffman wrote that for Christianity’s first three centuries Christmas wasn’t even celebrated. She wrote:

If observed at all, the celebration of Christ’s birth was usually lumped in with Epiphany (January 6), one of the church’s earliest established feasts. Some church leaders even opposed the idea of a birth celebration. Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.

The Yule holiday is rooted in German paganism. Modern-day Wiccans still celebrate the winter solstice as a time of rebirth.

Coffman wrote that Dec. 25 also marked two other festivals: natalis solis invicti, the Roman “birth of the unconquered sun”, and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian “Sun of Righteousness.” Since pagans were already celebrating deities with some parallels to the true God, Coffman wrote, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.

Remolding pagan traditions into a Christian holiday was pretty clever. You might even say it was devious. Either way, it turned out for the good. December is now a time where a melting pot of faiths and cultures celebrate the best of humanity: our charitable instincts, a trust in a higher power and the desire to see good win out over evil.

I choose to celebrate as a Catholic grateful that Christ was brought into this world, giving us all a shot at redemption. But I refuse to embrace the notion among today’s Christian leaders that Christmas has been hijacked by a collection of pagans who deny Christ’s divinity.

It was the other way around, many centuries ago.

My more-extreme Christian brothers and sisters need to get over it.

Pagan Christmas

Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, andRituals at the Origins of Yuletide

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Modern-Day Pharisees

A very quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about me being of the Religious Left. My good friend Martin Fisher left a comment I want to elevate to the top of the heap because he says exactly what I meant, in a different but dead-on manner.

From Martin:

You didn’t put it this way…but I suspect you’d agree….that many on the “Christian Right” have become latter day Pharisees. They seem more interested in the process and procedure of religion and calling out those who “don’t obey” that they miss the entire point of what being a follower of Jesus is about…

Christ sacrificed Himself on a cross to save the world. That world includes people you may not like, people you disagree with, people who do things you think are icky. But He died for them just as much as He died for you. You don’t get to choose…that choice was made 2000 years ago.

So, I think, the question is: What do you do now? Do you take this gift and try to see who is allowed to have some or not? Or do you let the light of Christ seep in and through you and help show others the way?

When we go to Mass we hear a lot about the Pharisees in the Bible readings. They are portrayed exactly as Martin portrays today’s Religious Right.

Thanks, old friend.

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My Name Is Bill, and I’m with the Religious Left

I’ve been on a spiritual high for the last several years. I became a Catholic in 2006 and since then have tried to live my faith to the fullest. I’ve been on three Catholic retreats, one as a team leader, and have spoken up about my beliefs regularly in this blog.

I’ve worked hard to become a more peaceful person instead of the Bill who would flip people off on the highway and throw rocks through windows when he was young and stupid. I’ve allowed God into my life as part of my battle over personal demons like addiction and bitterness toward some individuals. I’m still a long, long way from perfect. But I’m better than I used to be, and that counts for something.

But it’s been getting harder.

 

A lot of people who claim to be Christians do the very thing Jesus taught us not to do: Judge other people, in stark black and white. Sinners are complex beings, but the so-called Religious Right keeps telling us it’s pretty clear: If someone does everything to live a good, Christian life — feeding the poor, frowning upon war and violence in general and being kind to neighbors and strangers alike — they may still go to Hell.

Why? Because that person votes for Democrats.

Democrats tend to consider themselves pro-choice or, as the Religious Right calls it, pro-abortion. To be pro-choice is to embrace the murder of unborn babies. The Religious Right has taken over the Republican Party, and God-loving candidates go on about protecting the sanctity of life, meaning the unborn, while embracing the death penalty, something the Catholic Church itself opposes.

I have a lot of dear brothers and sisters in my home church who would give you the proverbial shirts off their backs and drop everything to help a neighbor in need.  We don’t always agree on politics, but we agree on the things that count. There are a few in my church who are also judgmental and arrogant as all hell, but they tend to be a minority.

Beyond my home church, though, you see a religion taken over by powerful people whose only interest is in getting obedience from the masses. They may do some good things, raising money for charity for example, but then they do the worst of the worst: They point to certain segments of society and telling their followers that it’s OK to look down on them as some subhuman blob of sin incarnate.

Gays.

Immigrants.

Women.

The poor.

Liberals.

In short, the leaders of the Religious Right tell us anyone who isn’t just like them are bad.

There’s this notion that to be a “true” Christian, you have to be a Republican and frown upon government programs. The welfare of the poorest among us must be taken care of by charitable organizations alone. To allow for government assistance is to support government control of every facet of our public and personal lives. In other words, being a Democrat means you support a socialist regime that allows intrinsic evils like abortion. You also don’t support freedom of religion.

What a bunch of rubbish.

I know a lot of conservatives and liberals, and they tend to feel the way I do on the following:

  • Abortion is never a good thing. Those who support the status quo (Roe v. Wade) aren’t for killing babies and never were. They don’t see it as an acceptable form of birth control. They simply want women to have a choice when they’ve been raped or their health is in mortal danger because of a problem with the pregnancy. I’ve never met someone who chose abortion upon learning their child might have serious developmental issues. They’ve brought those children into the world and have loved them as parents should love their children. They also tend to vote for president based on all of the candidate’s platform, not just one plank. To vote for a candidate on abortion alone is considered ridiculous, especially considering that four of the last six presidents have been staunch pro-lifers. They tried to put like-minded justices on the Supreme Court when the opportunity came to them, and yet Roe v. Wade has not been overturned.
  • Being gay is not a disease. Nor is it a lifestyle choice someone casually decides to make one day. I have gay family members and love them as much as the heterosexual family members. All I ask is that they be good people, live life to the fullest and pay their taxes like the rest of us. Every gay person I know meets all the criteria.
  • Government should leave us alone, for the most part. I don’t want to live under a socialist system, certainly not the variety we saw in the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. I want the government to be there when it counts: during a natural disaster or economic crisis in which millions need a helping hand through the bad times until they can get back on their feet. That 47 percent Mitt Romney talked about? I’ve never met them. Most of the people I know, regardless of party, work almost to excess to keep themselves and families afloat. They don’t want the government to build it for them, but they wouldn’t mind a little help along the way on things like taxes and zoning laws.

I’m tired of right-wing extremists controlling my religion. I know Jesus. He’s with me through every success and failure, never quitting me. He looks nothing like the finger pointing, arrogant people I see everywhere now.

I’m not leaving the Catholic faith over it or rejecting the sacraments. I love and need those. But I can make it known that I’m not going to follow the intolerant herd. So, from here on out, I’m considering myself a member of the Religious Left.

God bless you.

Man with flag and bible

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Strong Too Long, Or Weak Too Often?

There’s a saying on Facebook that depression isn’t a sign of weakness, but simply the result of being strong for too long. Somewhat true — though weakness does feed the beast.

Mood music:

I’m feeling it this morning.

I’ve always taken a certain level of satisfaction from my ability to stay standing in the face of death, illness, family dysfunction, depression and addiction. Sometimes, I get an over-inflated sense of survivor’s pride.

People love to tell you how awesome you are when you emerge from adversity stronger than before. The victor is placed on a 10-foot pedestal and life looks hunky-dory from up there. But it’s only a matter of time before the person on top loses balance and crashes to the ground.

I’ve fallen from that pedestal a bunch of times, and my ass is really starting to hurt from all those slips off the edge.

All this has me asking the question: How much can you blame depression on being strong too long when many times it comes back because the victim has been weak?

I don’t think there’s a precise answer. I only know this: I feel like I’ve been trying like a motherfucker to be strong 24-7. But I don’t seem to have the fortitude to maintain it, and I give in to weakness.

In the past, that weakness would involve indulging in food, alcohol and tobacco until I was too sick to function.

Today, the weakness involves getting angry and self-defensive and distant at the drop of a hat.

For all the progress I’ve made in managing my OCD, there are still moments where I go weak, put the blinders on and do some stupid things.

It’s the compulsion to keep staring at the laptop screen when one or both kids need me to look up and give them some attention.

It’s stopping in the middle of a conversation with my wife because the cellphone is ringing or someone has pinged me online.

It’s spending too much money on food and entertainment for the kids because it’s easier to me at the time than  cooking the food myself and playing a board game with them instead.

I’ve been working double-time at bringing my compulsive tendencies to heel, going through some intensified therapy. The short-term result is that I’m an angrier person than I normally am.

My therapist made note of that anger at our last meeting. The trigger in the room was him taking me back to my younger years in search of clues to present-day debacles. I thought I was done with sessions like that five years ago.

But I’m learning that the road to mental wellness is not linear. It goes in a circle. It’s like driving to the same place every day for work. The drive to work and back is a loop of the same landmarks, the same traffic patterns and the same behind-the-wheel thinking sessions.

I’m learning that managing my issues is going to involve frequent trips back and forth from the past to the present. This pisses me off. But I know I have to keep at it.

I guess I’ll always have my weak moments because of the events that shaped me.  But you can still be strong throughout it, learning to regain your footing more quickly  and being better at the kind of discussion with loved ones that prevents endless miscommunication from adding up to a mountain of pain.

I don’t know when I’ll truly reach that level of strength. But for now I’m leaning hard on all my coping tools, including the music and the praying.

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Don’t Let Anger Blind You To What Really Matters

The front office at my kids’ school is mad at me and another parent for complaining about something on the school’s Facebook page. I don’t think they saw yesterday’s post in this blog. That would make them angrier still.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/RVFgxkL_vuk

I’ll admit I was angry when my wife told me the principal and office administrator got after her about my behavior. It’s not like I jumped up and down on Facebook yelling obscenities and calling people names. I simply agreed with the other parent’s dismay over a specific matter of the school not following up with parents on a school closing next week. I think I was more ticked off that they gave Erin trouble, because she did nothing wrong.

I make no apologies, because, as I said yesterday, we practically break the bank every month paying the tuition to send our kids there. In essence, we parents are the customer. The customer is not always right, contrary to popular belief. But school administrators should respond to them as if they were, unless the parent is way out of line, which we weren’t.

On to the main point of this post.

There’s a lesson here for everyone, whether you’re dealing with difficult people at your kids’ school, in your workplace or on your street. Anger should never blind us to what’s truly important.

Some are probably asking why we would continue to go to a church and send our kids to a parochial school where there’s dysfunction. My answer is simple:

–For me, going to church is about getting closer to God. Everything else is second fiddle.

–Our children’s education is far more important than squabbles with parents and administrators, though it obviously becomes a problem if the latter has a negative effect on the former.

–This is our home, and I don’t believe in pulling up stakes and leaving because of dysfunction in the institution. I’d rather stick around and try to be part of the solution. That’s not always possible and sometimes it’s best to leave. But I don’t see this as an example of that.

–If you leave and go to another community, you’ll find dysfunction there, too. Where there are humans, there is dysfunction. That’s life. It may not be fair, but no one ever promised life would be fair.

Since this is an issue within our parish family, I can’t help but bring my faith into the remainder of the post. If religion isn’t your bag, leave now.

This is Holy Week, where we remember the sacrifice Jesus made to give us all a shot at redemption. It’s incredibly easy to forget the core message when we get busy arguing with each other over matters that are more political than spiritual.

I officially became a Catholic at Easter of 2006. I was in a pretty dark place at the time, struggling with a binge eating habit that had me shot-gunning $40 worth of fast food on the drive from the office to the house every day. I was crazy with fear and anxiety, the result of OCD out of control. I was a depressed, disgusting mess inside, and it was slowly working its way to my outward appearance.

Finding my faith was a major step in bringing those demons to heel.

But it remains a struggle sometimes, especially when you have disagreements with people in the community. So I wrote up the following manifesto to help bring me back to the center. I’ve used it several times in this blog, but it bears frequent repeating.

These are the bullet points. Click on any of them to see the full explanation.

1. Don’t Succumb to “Happily-Ever-After” Syndrome.

2. Peace IS NOT The Absence of Chaos. It’s a State of Mind (or, if you really want to get technical, a state of being in God’s Grace).

3. What You Get is Only As Good As What You Put In

4. Don’t Let Politics Get in the Way

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

Keeping my head and heart on those personal items is much more important than besting church and school officials in an argument.

And so I move on.

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New OCD Diaries Banner

We’ve been working feverishly on the new OCD Diaries site. Spotify-based mood music? Check. New design and platform? Check. Now, we have a new banner.

The idea was to replace the background — which symbolized OCD and addiction, specifically — with something that more accurately captures the broader, darkness vs. light flavor of the blog.

Many thanks to Andy Robinson for coming through with a kick-ass design — again.

For a look at more of Andy’s work, check out his website.

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‘Shattered Hopes’ Director On My ‘Learned Helplessness’ Post

Ryan Katzenbach, director of “Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders,” sent me a note on Facebook yesterday regarding the post I wrote on one of the themes of the film: Louise DeFeo’s “learned helplessness.”

Ryan always responds to his fans when they have questions or comments on the documentary. Given his high profile and workload, it amazes me how accessible he is. Anyway, I wanted to share what he wrote to me, because it really captures the purpose of this piece of work:

Bill, this was truly great reading. When we finished with Part I, and in watching the subsequent installments through the editing process, I had wondered if our film would actually help anyone out there who finds themselves caught in a similar situation of domestic, be it verbal or physical, abuse. Originally, this started as a means of understanding the family dynamic of 112 Ocean after hearing stories, like those of Peg Giambra, the juror from the case, when she told of the horrifying stories that she encountered while sitting through the trial. 

For me, growing up in a home that was never dysfunctional or abusive, there was a huge gulf between understanding WHY people stay and WHY they don’t leave. When you grow up absent any such environ, you simply don’t understand. I would ask myself “given the means of the Brigante family, why didn’t Louise do something?” Part of that answer, I would learn, was due to the era. We didn’t recognize domestic abuse as we do today; it was hushed, it was quieted, and essentially, it was a man’s right as the king of his castle. But then, when Drs. Hickey and Puckett began to apply clinical psychology to the situation, it really came into focus. Part of what they did was help us understand the tumultuous cocktail of dysfunction and WHY and HOW it happened. The next part of what they’re going to do is help us understand the psychology behind murder itself, and reviewing the elements of our forensic study encapsulated in Part III, it is, in many cases chilling. There are passages that cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up, still. Far, far more haunting and disturbing than Jodie The Demonic Pig. Because this stuff is REAL.

I hope that maybe as a residual, perhaps….MAYBE….somehow…some person who sees our film and finds themselves in this type of domestic abuse situation will be able to summon strength from the story of the DeFeos to do something in a proactive approach to escape their personal insanity. If just ONE person were to learn from what has been presented and get out of their situation, then perhaps the DeFeo family did not die in vain…..maybe their lessons will impact others and from this, we can draw a positive from a story that is otherwise dark and negative.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback, Ryan.