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A Relationship That Changed for the Better

Since my father’s stroke last month, I’ve had some long talks with Dianne, my step-mom. Those conversations illustrate how much we’ve both changed over the years. Or is it just me who has changed?

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/S4v-_p5dU34

Let me be honest: Ours has never been an easy relationship. I spent the better part of my teens and 20s resenting her to the core. Our quarrels had all the drama of a TNT series. The two of us in the same room was like throwing a match on gunpowder.

I’ve often wondered who was more at fault along the way. Knowing myself as I do now, I tend to think the trouble was more my fault than hers, because she had the misfortune of joining the family right as I was hitting my malcontented, conflicted and rebellious teenage years. I had a chip on my shoulder the size of an ashtray and I was full of hatred for a lot of reasons real and imagined.

A look at the broader picture shows how she was really at a disadvantage.

My brother died only a few months after she appeared on the scene, and she was home the night he had that final asthma attack. She plunged the adrenaline needle in him while waiting for the ambulance because that’s what you were supposed to do in the event of these attacks. But his number was up, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

She was also there a couple months before, in October 1983, when Michael had a similar attack that almost killed him that night. The doctors didn’t think he was going to make it that night, but he bounced back from the brink just in time, just like I bounced back from the brink more than once when the Croh’s Disease was attacking me so bad that the doctors were ready to pull out the colon and throw it in the trash.

I guess I was just a little luckier than he was.

Anyway, me and Dianne were always in conflict. I thought she was in the marriage with my Dad for his business success. I fought constantly with the step-sister she gave me. I was jealous of the step-brother she gave me because he was suddenly the cute youngest kid. Before my parents divorced it was Michael, Wendi and me, the youngest. Being sick, I was also spoiled rotten. Then the step-siblings came along and Michael died, making me the oldest son, a title that carried a lot of pressure.

I blamed it all on Dianne.

Of course, she also gave me a beautiful half sister in late 1985 who came along at just the right time, bringing joy to the family I never thought we’d see again. I was always grateful for that.

But still we fought. By the late 1990s we were barely speaking to each other. The resentment and hurt ran too deep on both sides. Then, sometime in 2000, things started to change. We met in a small breakfast place on the Revere-Malden border and talked it out, civil in a way that had been inconceivable just a year earlier.

I don’t remember the contents of the conversation exactly. But somewhere in there, we agreed that something had to change. I think the change really set in after Sean was born a year later. Becoming parents gave her a whole new respect for me and Erin. Actually, I think that for me, becoming a parent was when I finally started to grow up. A decade into parenthood, I get a lot of what she was trying to tell me back when I was a self-seeking kid.

Fast-forward to 2011. I know now that back then I was looking for people to blame for my pain and she was too good a target to pass up.

She has stuck by my father through all kinds of illness and turmoil. She loves him deeply, and worries about him constantly.

Nothing has made that clearer than the past month.

I’ve watched her push past the point of exhaustion and borderline madness to care for him.

She’s lost a lot of sleep and you can see it in her eyes. This month has been vastly more brutal for her than the rest of us, except, of course, for Dad. She’s gone over the cliff for him. That’s what love is all about.

I’m sorry I ever doubted her feelings for him when I was younger.

But that’s in the past. We talk to each other as grown-ups now. The respect is mutual. Things can never go back to the way they were.

Thank God for that.

OCD Diaries

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Screwing Your Kids In The Divorce, Part 3

This is one of those things that is technically none of my business. But when I see a beautiful little girl suffering the consequences of someone else’s stupidity, it’s hard to stand there and say nothing.

Mood music:

There’s a guy I know who is staring divorce in the face. This is a message for him.

When a marriage falls apart it’s never a one-way street. Husband and wife are both guilty of falling short in this union. But it happens. We’re all human.

Here’s the problem: When divorce is imminent, both parties tend to find ways to hurt each other, even when they don’t mean to. It’s simple, really: You hurt like hell because it didn’t work out. It’s easy to focus on your future ex’s role in the failure but hard to look at where you fell short.

And so, seething with anger and eager to land a few crushers, you do little spiteful things to get back at her.

Exhibit A: You both have a little girl and need to share custody. Who gets her three days a week? Who gets her for four? What works best for each work schedule?

You’re not working, so you can have her any time you want. So you pick your days and leave your ex with the days you know she has to work.

This forces your ex to find daycare for your daughter and it ensures mother and daughter will hardly get to see each other on what is supposed to be their time together.

Now, in the best of circumstances people work and family time often suffers due to crazy schedules. That’s life. But when you can prevent such a situation from happening, why wouldn’t you?

Because you’re a wounded animal, and you want to maul the person you feel put you there.

Your own faults are too big to face right now. In fact, you probably can’t even see them. Your faults are like the sky — so vast it’s hard to focus on every bird or plane that crosses it.

So fuck her, you say. Let her deal with it.

Here’s the problem: You’re not just hurting your ex. You’re hurting your daughter.

I’ve seen it for myself. She bounces from one relative’s house to the next. She gets all the love a little girl can get, but she misses her mom. And because her mom has to drop her and run, she’s upset and confused a lot.

I remember when my parents divorced 31 years ago. I was 10 years old — in a much better position to process things than your little girl is now. And I was still confused and angry when they shipped me off to summer camp. I felt unwanted, lonely and isolated. The scars burn me to this day. Then the custody battles intensified and I felt like a piece of paper tugged at from both sides. Grab at something fragile that way and you tear it down the middle.

And my parents’ intentions were good — they wanted to shield me from the court proceedings and ugliness that goes with it.

Your intentions are crap. You just want to stick it to your ex.

You love your daughter and want to protect her. I’ve seen that. Your feelings as a Dad are not in question.

But you’re hurting her anyway. She’s collateral damage in your little dance with stupidity.

Nobody can make you do things differently. It comes down to the future you want for your daughter and whether you want peaceful co-existence with your ex in the years to come.

People can help you with a lot of things, but nobody can make your decisions for you.

So here’s a little advice from someone who was burned by divorce as a kid and just spent the last few years facing down a bunch of personal demons:

–First of all, start dealing with your issues. You have serious depression going on. I’ve lived with depression for much of my adult life and I know it when I see it. Find a good therapist who can help bring it out of you.

–Try harder to find a job. Sitting on your brains all day is fueling your depression. You have talent. I’ve seen it. You can never feel whole if your abilities are stifled. Besides, as a dad you have financial responsibilities. That includes helping to pay for repairs around the house. You may not live there anymore, but your daughter does. Refusing to help pay for things because you were kicked out hurts your little girl. That is unacceptable.

–As you approach future divorce proceedings, think about what’s best for your daughter — not about what’s worse for your ex.

You didn’t help bring a kid into the world to kick her around and leave her adrift. That’s certainly not what you want, is it?

I’m also sure you want her to love you the way you love her. Trust me: If you don’t stop this bullshit, she will learn to hate you.

She’s a smart little firecracker and she catches on quick.

Once she sees your role in all of this, she will hurt you back. Trust me: I’ve been down this road. The names, faces, finances and geography were different, but the hurt and the effect it had on me as an adult is the same.

Don’t let it happen.

Sincerely,

Bill

OCD Diaries

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Me, Dad And The Kill Switch

My father was passed out cold during my visit to the rehab center yesterday, and I left feeling depressed. I hadn’t seen him in a week because I had a business trip to California, and I kept hearing about how much better he was. I wanted to see for myself.

Mood music:

But he slept the whole time. That’s probably for the best. The more sleep he gets, the better.

But the self-absorbed side of me was feeling cheated as my gaze alternated between him and the floor for more than an hour.

Sleep has never been a problem for Dad, and I’ve inherited that trait. Like Dad, I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I’m particularly susceptible to sleep during a wave of depression or anxiety. My brain has a kill switch that goes off in times of maximum stress.

I’ve learned to disable the kill switch in recent years, because I’ve learned it’s better to face your problems with both eyes open.

But I know that to a certain extent, Dad’s deep sleep is because he’s depressed. Who wouldn’t be after a stroke and nearly a month in the hospital?

I’m told Dad has always gone through depressed periods, and it’s always been somewhat surprising to me. He’s always been able to appear in complete command around us kids. Even after my brother died, he seemed to be in control of his emotions, though I did see him cry once during that period. I’m sure he cried more than that. But I almost always saw Dad in control.

Looking back, two things come to mind:

–That he could be in control as two of his three kids suffered sometimes debilitating illness (Michael’s asthma, my Crohn’s Disease) is amazing to me. After Michael died and I got sick a few more times, he got to deal with another child in crisis: My sister, who has gone a few thousand rounds against depression herself.

–His sleeping patterns have probably been driven at various points by his own depression. Call it his own kill switch.

Before my parents divorced in 1980, my mother regularly went out with friends in the evenings while Dad lay in bed, watching TV.

He’d fall asleep instantly. I always chalked it up to exhaustion, given his relentless work schedule. But looking back, maybe there was some depression in there and the kill switch was taking over.

I used to spend those nights watching all the bad TV the 1970s had to offer. Sometimes, I’d get into trouble, especially the kind that involved matches and plastic.

Recently, I had a conversation with Dad where he acknowledged that his orderly exterior often masked huge emotional difficulties when I was young.

That still floors me.

At the same time, it makes perfect sense.

Life is unfair. We have to be able to carry on in the face of adversity.

The kill switch was one of the coping tools in my father’s arsenal.

It’s a tool he passed down to me.

Like father, like son.

OCD Diaries

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The Problem With ‘One Day At A Time’

“One day at a time? You wouldn’t believe the crap that swirls around my head one day at a time.” –Anonymous

Recovering addicts have a saying burned into their brains: “One Day at a Time.” It’s important wisdom to live by. But when the recovering addict has OCD, there’s a big problem.

Mood music:

Let’s look at the meaning of “One Day at a Time.” In the world of 12-step recovery programs, the idea is not to be overwhelmed. Instead of trying to get your arms around everything necessary for recovery a week into the future or a month or year, we subscribe to the idea of just focusing on what we have to do today. Doing this a day at a time makes the clean-up tasks seem a lot less overwhelming.

The problem with an OCD case is that the disorder forces you to do nothing BUT stew over the future. You look at the next week or month and relentlessly play out the potential outcomes of that space of time.

The first time someone told me to take it a day at a time, my first instinct was to punch him in the face.

I had a business trip three weeks away to worry about.

I had a medical test planned for the following month and had all kinds of potentially grim outcomes to worry about.

That’s how guys like me roll.

So how have I managed to keep my addictions largely at bay for well over two years? Simple: I remembered another 12-Step saying (OA saying, more specifically): Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

The Powerfully Recovered website, based on the book of the same title by Anne Wayman, explains it better than I could, so let me share:

One day at a time doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan

I imagine that this is the very first slogan that found it’s way into the original Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Can’t you just picture a frantic newcomer talking about how difficult he (and yes, it was only men in the beginning – and the men didn’t think women could be real alcoholics, which is another story…) he was finding sobriety?

I can almost imagine the conversation:

Newcomer: What am I going to do? Next week I have to go to the office Christmas party – how will I ever stay sober there!

Oldtimer (early on, he might have been sober only a week): Slow down, it’s not next week yet. Take it One Day at a Time!

And a slogan is born – because it’s got some real wisdom in it. For in truth, each one of us has only one day at a time – or one hour or one moment. 

Abstaining a moment at a time

In the first few rocky days of recovery, just abstaining for that moment, hour, etc. is truly all we can do. If we can’t do that, there’s no point in worrying about tomorrow, or next week, or whenever. 

The One Day at a Time philosophy has benefits far beyond the early days in recovery. It can keep us grounded in the present – that Holy Instant that is so easy to miss in a busy and productive life.

Planning is okay

Unfortunately, some in 12 Step Groups have taken the philosophy to mean we shouldn’t plan. This is patently false. A major promise of the Program is torestore us to sanity, and that includes the very human blessing and curse – planning. We need to set goals, to make appointments, to design our lives.

But planning doesn’t mean we have to leave One Day at a Time behind – the trick is to watch for expectations. 

It’s one thing to plan and quite another to demand that the plan work out the way we require it too – in that we have no control at all. When our plans bring unintended results – and the often do – all we need do is reevaluate, accept where we are in this moment, and start anew. 

There are a lot of contradictions when you put the sayings “One day at a time” and “Fail to plan, plan to fail” together. It’s like a warm front running into a cold front. You get thunder, lightening and worse. Cars are picked up and wrapped around trees.

But in the end, life is unfair like that. We have to learn to deal.

So even when the OCD in me is planning, planning, planning, I do remember to take my recovery — especially the food plan that helped me break the binging spell — one day at a time.

I can digest life much more fully when the pieces are broken up.

But the push and pull still makes for plenty of confusion.

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Fear and Resentment. Resentment and Fear

For mental defects like me, a lot of what goes wrong is driven by fear. One thing I’ve learned in a 12-Step program for addiction is that the root of many fears is resentment.

Mood music:

You don’t have to be an addict to have resentments, of course. Most typical families, work environments and fellowships come packed with people you’re inevitably going to clash with. The more you disagree with someone, the more you’ll resent them.

Then, whenever you face situations where the one or more people you resent are present, you’ll be filled with fear: Fear about potential arguments, fear over whether you’ll look “normal” enough to avoid their ridicule, fear over how you’ll perform in public.

I have plenty of my own examples.

–Fear of arguments when dealing with my mother got so bad I had to put the relationship on ice for the sake of my sanity.

–Fear of Erin leaving me kept me from saying what I needed to say when we’d have the arguments that are part of every marriage.

–Fear of getting jumped and kicked around kept me from continuing my walks along Revere Beach in my early 20s, after the October 1991 incident.

–Though I’ve gotten very close to my stepmom in recent years, we used to clash all the time, which gave me a fear of any family event that required me to be in her presence.

Those fears filled me with all kinds of resentment toward those people and situations. In response, I plunged into addictive behavior with ultra-reckless abandon.

Fear and resentment are what keeps the hole in your soul from closing up. Until you deal with it at the roots, you will never truly be free or sane. That’s why as part of working the 12 steps, we’re supposed to write down all our resentments and work to make amends whenever and wherever possible.

Chapter 5 of the AA big book covers this extensively. Here’s an excerpt, along with an illustration about resentments:

—————-

Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principle with who we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self- esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships, (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were “burned up.” On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambi tions, our personal, or sex relations, which had been interfered with? We were usually as definite as this example:

I’m resentful at: The Cause Affects my:
Mr. Brown His attention to my wife.Told my wife of my mistress.Brown may get my job at the office. Sex relations
Self-esteem (fear)
Sex-relations
Self-esteem (fear)
Security
Self-Esteem (fear)
Mrs Jones She’s a nut – she snubbed me.
She committed her husband for drinking.
He’s my friend.
She’s a gossip.		 Personal relationship.
Self-esteem (fear)
My employer Unreasonable – Unjust – Overbearing –
Threatens to fire me for drinking and padding my expense account.		 Self-esteem (fear)
Security.
My wife Misunderstands and nags.
Likes Brown.
Wants house put in her name.		 Pride – personal sex relations – Security (fear)

We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong w as as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As i n war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenanc e and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look for it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol.

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tole rance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.”

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.

Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tr ied to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.

———————

I’ve done a lot of work to overcome my resentments and, at the very least, keeping those resentments from destroying me.

I’ve been able to path up a lot of relationships with old friends I had lost touch with after one petty falling out or another. I’ve worked at being a better arguer with my wife, though she’ll tell you — and I know — that i still have a lot of work to do. And I’ve done specific things to overcome fear: Getting on planes, walking alone in areas I had feared.

You know the saying: Face your fears.

The issue with my mother is one of the few left unresolved at this point.

Fear hasn’t left me. But it no longer controls me.

I owe much of that to strong support from my wife and children, friends and that 12 step program.

OCD Diaries

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Cooking With Dad

It was one of those rare occasions where all the Brenner siblings were in one room. We were at the hospital awaiting word on some emergency surgery my father was having. We started trading stories about some of Dad’s antics, especially his eating habits.

Mood music:

I’ve mentioned before how I inherited my binge eating addiction from family, and how a lot of it came from my father. I’ve also given examples of my own binges. Last night’s conversation was about some of Dad’s more colorful efforts to down massive quantities of junk.

The discussion started with my younger brother, Brian. He’s the professional chef in the family, and I’m always awed by his ability to not only explain how to cook something, but also how to tell you the history of certain dishes and how you harvest various things, like bananas. Shira, the youngest, started that line of talk because she’s done that one. She has traveled extensively, and has done all kinds of weird but awesome things.

From there, Brian said he had a lot of great memories of Dad and food. There was the freezer full of Hostess Snowballs (the pink ones), the frozen blueberry blintzes, the bags of chocolate-covered raisins. Stacey remembered the boxes of frozen pizza and I remembered the massive trays of stuffed cabbage, which my father could down in one sitting.

Brian never cared for the stuffed cabbage. Shira said it was good with ketchup. Brian then told us about the history of ketchup.

I often lament about how I inherited the eating problems from my parents. But the insidious behaviors have their amusing side. Last night was a time to celebrate that part.

The good news: The longer we discussed Dad’s eating habits, the more grossed out I became. My food program is pretty strict today. It has to be that way for my survival. No flour. No sugar. Everything I eat goes on the scale for portion control. And I control it with a 12-Step program, just like a drunk does AA.

When discussing Dad’s eating habits makes me feel sick instead of wanting to go binge, that’s progress.

Dad will never control his eating that way. He’s not the type. That’s partly why he’s in the dire straights he’s in.

But I’m not going to cuss about that. He’s a great guy, and last night we celebrated that.

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A Recovery Under Pressure

The coming days and weeks are going to put my recovery program to the test like nothing I’ve experienced since getting the OCD under control and bringing my binge-eating addiction to heel.

That’s not a complaint, or a cry for sympathy. It’s simply the way it is. It’s life. By being honest with myself about what’s coming, I stand a better chance of holding it together.

Yesterday I visited my father, who’s been in the hospital since having a stroke two weeks ago. As is the case with stroke patients, recovery is a long road with a lot of ups and downs.

This past weekend he sounded more lucid than he had in a long time. That was an up. The ups fill you with a lot more hope than you should have when the best thing to do is take things one day at a time. Such hope makes it all the more devastating when a down day comes.

Yesterday was a down day.

He was seeing and talking about things that weren’t there. He kept telling us he wanted to go to the Beth Israel where he needed to be, not really buying the reality that he was already there.

He kept reaching out to us to hand us his keys. Of course, he had no keys.

He kept telling me to take a folder from his hand and put it on the table next to him. I pretended to take the folder that wasn’t really there. Then I was pissed with myself for playing along. But when I’d tell him the truth — that the things he saw weren’t really there, he grew agitated. The IV bags full of various liquids above him became hazardous chemicals in his mind, and he started pulling at the chords.

In that scenario, the only thing you can feel is helpless.

Physically he seems OK. The blood pressure is up and down, but his breathing and heart rate appear good. For him, the big crisis is in the brain.

I’m used to mental illness. I have a lot of personal experience there. But this is different. This is something that was sparked by a stroke, whereas my issues were the much more gradual result of disjointed brain chemistry and rough experiences growing up.

That’s my territory, and from that perspective I can give a person advice until hell freezes over. But the thing with my father is out of my league.

When something is out of my league, I feel out of control. When you have OCD, control is something you desperately crave, especially when the going gets tough.

I’m not feeling the urge to give in to my addictions, which is usually what this state of mind leads to.

But I know it’s coming.

That’s the test in front of me.

Now that I’ve acknowledged it, I feel more ready to keep it all together.

I have my tools: An OA sponsor, a network of friends and family, a food plan that’ll keep me out of trouble as long as I cling tight to it, and my faith. Whatever happens, Jesus has my back.

I just have to remember that.

I also have to remember that, as Mister Roger’s mother once told him, in times of trauma always look for the helpers, because they are always there.

At the same time, I need to be one of the helpers, because others will need that from me.

I’m still trying to figure out the best way to be a helper.

I figure God will lead me in the right direction.

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The ‘Woe Is Me’ Disease

Funny thing about us OCD-addict types: When the going gets tough, we blame it on someone else. Call it the Woe Is Me Disease, where the sufferer is an eternal victim, forever screwed by everyone but his or her self.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/-q-MorIES5I

It used to be that it was impossible for me to see the problems as my own. It was always the result of something someone else did to me or failed to do for me. Eventually my disease settled into a pattern where I blamed myself for everything, to the point where I just kept beating myself instead of doing what was necessary to move on with life.

My Mom, who passed many of her OCD tendencies on to me, is a textbook example of victim-based OCD. This isn’t meant as an insult or criticism. It’s simply the way the problem manifests itself in her.

She lacks the ability to see things she doesn’t like as the simple way of life. Nothing is ever her fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. She is the perfect victim. In her own mind, anyway.

Seeing yourself as a victim every time the going gets tough is probably one of the worst things you can do. It holds you back, keeps you from improving yourself and makes you look pathetic in the eyes of people who don’t understand where the emotion comes from.

I’m reminded of this after getting a message the other day from an old friend who has been fighting his own battle with OCD. I won’t tell you who he is, but I’ll share what he wrote to me, because he is choosing to do something about his problem:

I recently finished my PHP for my OCD. It was a great program and glad my wife recommended that I enroll. So many things helped me change my way of thinking. One of the most important things I learned was to find ways to be proactive and a problem solver (where before I would be reactive and put my head in the sand).

Additionally, I realized that I suffer from “victim” type of thinking (such as this is not fair, I can’t handle this, etc…) and I need to think more like a “survivor” (I can handle this). I could go on and on about what I learned. I still plan on writing a “guest” column about my experience. I haven’t had much time to put my thoughts down on paper and it’s really important to me to do justice to describing my PHP experience.

I have a huge folder of handouts that I need to organize. I do know that just because I went through the program doesn’t mean I’m miraculously cured. From here I on out, I have many “tools” in my toolbox to handle whatever life throws at me.

I’m looking forward to that guest column.

He’s also right that people like us are never miraculously cured. We simply gather up a series of coping tools and pull them out when we need the help.

As a result, we stop being victims and become, as he put it, survivors.

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Hospital Phobia

During visits to my father in the hospital, I find myself jittery and all-around uncomfortable. It’s not the sight of my father, who is starting the long road to recovery after a stroke. Sure, he’s looked better. But you could say that of anyone stuck in a hospital bed.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/C6LCttYOO9Q

The discomfort, I’m starting to realize, has to do with the hospital itself.

He’s at one of the best hospitals in Boston, and the staff I’ve talked to are friendly and compassionate. He’s definitely in good hands.

But the sights and smells get to me. The machinery and the sounds they make unsettle me. I had forgotten these things.

It’s a phobia of sorts, the kind that always kept me from visiting my grandparents whenever they were in the hospital, which was a lot. I regret not visiting them as much as I should have, but there’s something about walking into those places that makes you take a hard stare at your own mortality.

I find it odd that I would have this problem, considering I was a frequent resident of Children’s Hospital as a kid.

I figure that should have desensitized me a long time ago. Yet here I am, confronting this reality.

I noticed my father had a swollen hand when I walked in his room. The sight would freak some people out, but I immediately knew what it was: The swelling you get when an IV needle has been in your vein for too long. It used to happen to me all the time. Could it be that it’s not really a phobia, but something even more unsettling — the discomfort of looking at the machines, beds and gray-beige walls and floors and feeling, in an odd sort of way, like I’m home?

Most of us feel the periodic pull of our old neighborhoods. We like to visit the places where we grew up. Even if we had a bad childhood, we feel the need to revisit the scene of the crime. I often do, and can never fully explain why. Maybe I should go visit my old floor at Children’s Hospital. Maybe it’ll break the spell.

Yeah, probably not.

Whatever is behind the uneasiness, I’m not staying away this time.

For one thing, I can’t let something so stupid keep me from doing the right thing.

Also, it’s what a good son should do.

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The Killer — And Opportunity — In Every Marriage

Several divorces in our circle of family and friends has made Erin and I a little uneasy in recent months.

Mood music:

There are the usual reasons for this: Complications develop when you’re close to both people in the marriage that’s breaking up. But something else happens: You start to worry if your marriage is next.

We’ve been together for nearly 18 years and probably love each other more today than we did the day we got married in 1998. We’ve each done a lot of work to make ourselves better people and, as a result, a better couple, in recent years.

But, as they say, marriage is hard work, and we’re no exception.

As the years march on, things happen. Work and children fill up all the hours in a day and couples end up so focused on family business that it starts to become just that — a business. You forget to share the simple or the deepest thoughts with each other. Let that go on long enough and the relationship decays before you know what hit you.

I carried on for a long time thinking everything was just perfect because I considered myself better than the average husband. After all, I did a lot of chores around the house. Surely that was enough.

It wasn’t, of course.

I wasn’t communicating. I wasn’t telling Erin what was in my head. And, because I feared she would take off if I pushed too hard, I always kept things inside when something she did made me angry. Do that long enough and you become a brutally passive-aggressive time bomb.

Mix in the fact that my OCD and addictions were running wild and you get a large marriage problem.

I eventually confronted those demons head on, and after several more years I emerged free of the fear and anxiety that had crippled me.

I’d think to myself that that’s enough self improvement to make the marriage perfect again. I even got up the courage to push back during arguments. Monumental improvement, wouldn’t you say?

Well…

More time goes on.

Erin quits her job and starts a business. I urge her on. And when the going gets tough and she’s putting in so many hours that we lose out on quality time, I grow impatient, forgetting about how patient she was while I was spending years gluing the pieces of my shattered brain back together.

Naturally, I keep those frustrations to myself for a long time, until I explode about everything in one argument.

We talk about it a lot and settle into a new, stronger pattern. I think we’re all set, and then I go on a couple business trips close together. Somewhere during that trip, I realize I forgot to sign and seal the Valentine’s Day card and, before I know what I’m doing, I lie about it.

Naturally, I get caught. She’s furious with me for that and because I appear to be enjoying the road a little too much.

We do a lot of talking in the weeks that follow. I tell her I feel like I’m competing with her business. She gets it. We resolve to work on it and we do so. Things get better.

Then we get busy again, and one night she tells me she misses my sharing things with her.

The statement floors me. Of course I’ve been sharing. I tell her everything.

Only I’m not, really.

I write everything in this blog, and in telling the world everything, I have it in my head that I’m telling her everything. So we work some more on how to better communicate.

And the battle rolls on.

I don’t tell you all this to complain. The reality is that this is something EVERY married couple deals with. I don’t care how perfect you think your marriage is. Chances are, you and your spouse have been through all these things and more. It’s the way it is.

Marriage is hard work. You either want it badly enough to keep working on it, or you stop trying and things fall apart.

Here are a few things we’ve learned. It is by no means a complete to-do list, because like you, we’re still learning new things all the time — whether we like it or not.

For one thing, communication is always something we can be doing better.

We have to learn to speak our minds, even when it means an argument might develop. We have to remember to share the loftier ideas in our heads.

One thing I’m making a point to do is share my blog ideas and drafts with her before posting them.

Did I send this one to her for feedback before posting? If I hadn’t, I’d be in some deep trouble right about now.

Another thing we’re remembering: Like any married couple with kids, we need our date nights and weekend getaways. We just had one and it was great. We walked around Salem, Mass., one day and drove to Hartford, Conn., the next day to see Mark Twain’s house. We traded some good project ideas in the car and took turns with the musical selection in the stereo.

But we know the work goes on.

It’s worth it.

Because we love each other.