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Broken Souls, Emotional Breakdowns

I’ve been in a strange place lately. I’m fine and all, but I’ve been around a lot of broken people, and that has an impact on you after awhile.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3px0m1Y9Tuc&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I can’t get into the stuff that has brought these friends to the brink, but I can say there’s been a lot of crying. Given my own trouble with tears, it’s rather funny that I’d be in this position. But I’ll do anything for my friends, so it’s all good.

The reason I bring this up is because it reminds me of the emotional breakdowns I’ve suffered over the years. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve hit bottom several times, but the emotional breakdown is a slightly different beast in my eyes. Hitting bottom meant reaching a point of stinging clarity that I couldn’t go on as I was. The emotional breakdown takes it a step further.

I experience powerful anxiety attacks to the point where breathing is a struggle. My chest takes on the feeling of burning rubber, and I’m ready to bawl my eyes out. But as I’ve mentioned before, the bawling doesn’t really happen. I feel it in every way except the tears running down my face.

One of the worst breakdowns was around 2005, the week of Erin’s birthday. I was about six months into some hard-core therapy for OCD (though I was still about a year away from the official diagnosis).

It got so bad I had to call my boss. I know Anne Saita is a special woman because here she was, supervising me at work, and despite all my efforts at being the golden boy with ice-cold blood in the eyes of my bosses, I fell apart on the phone while she was on the other end. I did it calmly. But I did something I had never done before: I had confided in a boss that maybe — just maybe — my issues were going to fuck with my work performance.

I exposed the weakest part of me, and I felt it for days. If you read this, Anne, I just want to thank you again. I will never, ever forget what you did for me.

Going back 20 years, there was another emotional breakdown, and this time I exposed my most raw emotions to Sean Marley. He helped bring me out of it. It’s a painful irony, because six years later I utterly failed to do the same for him.

Last December, when I started this blog, I kind of felt the same rawness. I was starting to spill my guts publicly. And I felt a bit unstable and wobbly.

But in all of these cases, the rawness, the wobbly knees and the shame passed, and each time I came back stronger than before. Not perfect. Not healed for life, but better. 

I just felt the need to mention that to my friends who are hurting. You might feel a little ashamed and embarrassed right now, but it’s good. This stuff happens because you were in need of a good humbling, as I was back then.

Whatever happens with your individual struggles, you will get past what you feel now. And you will be much stronger for whatever happens next.

That’s how it happened with me, at least.

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Depression and Being Gay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong.

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

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

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

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

I have enough of my own to contend with.

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For A Brother and Sister

Two very dear friends of mine are in crisis. I’m not saying who they are because it’s no one’s business. But I’ll tell you what: I’ve had a lot of friends come and go in my life. Two of the closest friends died on me. It took a long, long time before I was willing to even consider getting close to anyone ever again outside my family.

These two managed to break into my hardened heart and soften it. Their friendship is among those that have helped me heal along the way. Now they are in pain, and it makes me heartsick.

So I thought I’d take a moment and ask you all to keep these two in your prayers.

Thanks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QOFQIhLUgk&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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Love Hurts, Love Stings, Love Endures

Yesterday I remembered something the priest said during his Homily at our wedding: “You marry the person you think you know, and spend the rest of your lives really getting to know each other.” Another priest at another wedding eight years later told the bride and groom: “Your job is to get each other into Heaven.”

Mood music:

[spotify:track:6iCCvEH7xhkcsFTXnLVLIK]

Sometimes you get to know each other and you don’t like what you see. Then things fall apart. Two family members I care a lot about are going through that very experience. Sometimes, it happens. Hell, Al and Tipper Gore split after 40 years of marriage. Nobody saw that coming.

It all makes me think of my own marriage and how lucky I am. But it hasn’t always been easy. I’ve learned that marriage is a lot of work, and it always will be. And it’s always a two-way street.

A deacon friend of mine once described helping out your husband or wife as “dying of self.” On the surface that doesn’t sound pleasant, but it’s actually a fabulous thing: It means taking on extra burden — chores around the house, for instance — so your spouse can get a break.

That’s something I’ve always done to the point of obsession: Clean the house, making the kids’ lunches and all those things husbands supposedly don’t do (though I’m told I’ve become more of a slob since starting my recovery). The problem is that I always thought that was enough.

To this day I can be an emotionally closed-off person. I probably get it from my father. He’s one of the most loving guys I know, but he has always had a tough time showing his emotion. I’ve seen him cry once in the last 40 years: when my brother died. I’m sure he’s done it other times, especially when my sister was having her troubles. But I only saw that one time.

I’ve also never been good at talking back during an argument with Erin.

Erin and I have a  strong marriage. I’d say it’s getting stronger by the day. My love for her is, anyway. But like every married couple, we argue sometimes about all the typical things: Money, how to parent the kids, etc. When it’s a routine day, I often keep my feelings to myself, and fail to SHOW her my feelings on a daily basis. Then, when we argue, I shut down and sit there like a stone as she tells me everything I’ve done wrong in the last day, week, or month.

A therapist once told me I needed to argue back. Not yelling back. Not name calling. Just calmly pointing out my own feelings and side of things. The first time I did it, I think Erin was really taken aback. That was scary. I was always afraid if I did that she’d leave me. That was never a danger, but I can be stupid sometimes. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at this stuff, but I know I still put that wall up at times. Putting up a wall can be a bitch for any relationship, because sooner or later bad feelings will race at that wall like a drunk behind the wheel of a Porsche and slam right into it. Some bricks in the wall crack and come loose, but by then it can be too late. The relationship is totaled.

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

This shit is so complicated. But this much I do know:

I’m not the same guy Erin married. She’s not the same woman, either. Much to my father-in-law’s chagrin, she’s become a lot more liberal in her political views.

If I were the same man I was back then — imprisoned by an OCD-fueled haze of fear, insecurity, self-loathing and self-destructive behavior — I’d either be dead or divorced. I had to change for this thing to work. The thing is, I wanted it to work badly enough that I started doing what I had to do in that cold, dark autumn of 2004, when all the cracks in my soul began spilling blood all over everyone around me.

I’m better now. But to say I still have a long way to go is an understatement. I still keep that wall in my closet next to the other skeletons, and sometimes I bring it out for some more trouble.

But as much as love can hurt, I’m going to do what I must to make it endure.

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Back in the Real World, Emotionally Drained

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

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

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/JpMt_YqVbhw

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

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

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

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

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

It wasn’t always this way.

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

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

Of course, the conversation always goes something like this:

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

Fast forward to 1993 when I met Erin.

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

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

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

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

Essentially, I was cutting class again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are guardian angels.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Father Nason rose to the occasion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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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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Sept. 11, 2001

Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. Here’s my own account.

Mood music:

I was assistant New Hampshire editor at The Eagle-Tribune and I arrived in the newsroom at 4:30 a.m. as usual. I was already in a depressed mood. It wasn’t a sense of dread over something bad about to happen. It was simply my state of mind at the time. I wasn’t liking myself and was playing a role that wasn’t me.

I was already headed toward one of my emotional breakdowns and the job was a catalyst at that point. By day’s end, I would be seriously reconsidering what I was doing with my life. But then everyone was doing that by day’s end.

I was absorbed in all my usual bullshit when the NH managing editor came in and, with a half-smile on his face, told me a plane hit the World Trade Center. At that point, like everyone else, I figured it was a small plane and that it was an accident. Then the second plane hit and we watched it as it happened on the newsroom TV.

I remember being scared to death. Not so much at the scene unfolding on the newsroom TV, but at the scene in the newsroom itself. Chaos was not unusual at The Eagle-Tribune, but this was a whole new level of madness. I can’t remember if my fear was that terrorists might fly a plane into the building we were in as their next act or if it was a fear of not being able to function amidst the chaos. It was probably some of each.

This was a huge story everywhere, but The Eagle-Tribune had a bigger stake in the coverage than most local dailies around the country because many of the victims on the planes that hit the towers were from the Merrimack Valley. There was someone from Methuen, Plaistow, N.H., Haverhill, Amesbury, Andover — all over our coverage area.

When the first World Trade Center tower collapsed on the TV screen mounted above Editor Steve Lambert’s office, he came out, stood on a desk and told everyone to collect themselves a minute, because this would be the most important story we ever covered.

Up to that point, it was. But I was so full of fear and anxiety that my ability to function was gone. I spent most of the next few days in the newsroom, but did nothing of importance. I was a shell. I stayed that way until I  left the paper in early 2004. In fact, I stayed that way for some time after that. I should note that the rest of the newsroom staff at the time did a hell of a job under very tough pressure that day. My friend Gretchen Putnam was still editor of features back then, but she and her staff helped gather the news with the same grit she would display later as metro editor.

I remember being touched by a column she wrote the next day. She described picking her son Jack up from school and telling him something bad happened in the world that day. His young response was something like this: “Something bad happens in the world every day.”

Sometimes, kids have a better perspective of the big picture than grown-ups do.

I got home very late that day and hugged Erin and Sean, who was about five months old at that point. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of world he would grow up in.

In the days that followed, I walked around in a state of fear like everyone else. That fear made me do things I was ashamed of.

A week after the attacks, Erin and I were scheduled to fly to Arizona to attend a cousin’s wedding. The night before were were supposed to leave, I gave in to my terror at the prospect of getting on a plane and we didn’t go. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.

There are two types of head cases headed for a breakdown: There’s the type that tries hard to get him or herself killed through reckless behavior, and then there are those who cower in their room, terrified of what’s on the other side of that door. I fell into the latter category. I guess I tried to get myself killed along the way, but I did so in a much slower fashion. I started drinking copious amounts of wine to feel OK in my skin, and I went on a food binge that lasted about three months and resulted in a 30-pound weight gain.

A few months ago I found myself in lower Manhattan for a security event and I went to Ground Zero.

Gone were the rows of lit candles and personal notes that used to line the sidewalks around this place. To the naked eye it’s just another construction site people pass by in a hurry on their way to wherever.

I was pissed off at first. It wasn’t the thought of what happened here. My emotion there is one of sadness. No, this was anger. I was pissed that people seemed to be walking by without any thought of all the people who met their death here at the hands of terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. It was almost as if the pictures of twisted metal, smoke and crushed bodies never existed.

As I started to process that fact, my mood shifted again.

I realized these people were doing something special. No matter where they were going or what they were thinking, they were moving — living — horrific memories be damned.

They were doing what we all should be doing, living each day to the full instead of cowering in fear in the corner.

Doing so honors the dead and says F-U to those who destroyed those towers and wish we would stay scared.

It reminded me of who I am and what I’ve been through. I didn’t run from the falling towers or get shot at in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Baghdad. But the struggles with OCD and addiction burned scars into my insides all the same.

I was terrified when I was living my lowest lows. But somewhere along the way, I got better, healed and walked away. I exchanged my self hatred and fear for love of life I never thought possible.

It’s similar to what the survivors of Sept. 11 have gone through.

They reminded me of something important, and while some sadness lingers, I am grateful.

So here’s what I’ll be doing this weekend, the ninth anniversary of the attacks:

I’m getting on a plane and going to New York. CSO Magazine’s Security Standard event is Monday and Tuesday, and I’ll be there doing what I do best: Writing.

A few years ago I would have found a reason to stay home. Getting on a plane on the anniversary of 9-11? No way.

Today, nothing can keep me away.

In a twisted sort of way, I’m going to honor the dead by doing what they can’t do: Live.

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The Ballad of Joe Zippo

Back at Salem State College there was a friend I would smoke cigarettes with outside the commuter cafeteria. We’d talk about everything from politics to Nirvana, his favorite band at the time. This was back when Kurt Cobain was still alive.

He eventually picked up a guitar and teamed up with my friend and fellow journalist Greg Walsh, forming the band Zippo Raid.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/nnyVCQrFN7Q

I lost touch with him after college, but I’m thinking of him lately. Joe Kelly, affectionately known as Joe Zippo, died in his sleep earlier this month.

I feel awful for his friends and family. One of my close friends, Mike Trans, told me he was planning to go hunting with him soon.

As I read up on what Joe was doing in all the years since Salem State, it’s clear that he lived his life full throttle and touched many, many people.

I’m breaking from my usual tales of mental illness and addiction to honor his memory and shine a spotlight on some folks who are doing the same.

Another Salem State classmate, Stu Ginsburg, is planning some benefit shows along with other folks. Here’s the Facebook page for one such event.

When life gets me down, I think of folks like Joe, who plow through life’s challenges and show others how to live. That’s one way I find the strength to forge ahead.

The full obituary is below. Thanks, Joe, for being my friend in college, and for spreading rays of sunshine across a lot of other lives.

Joseph S. Kelley, Jr. (he was known around Boston as Joe Zippo / played in bands like Black Barbie; Zippo Raid; The Jonee Earthquake Band; Joe Zippo & the Raiders; etc)

January 10, 1970 – August 8, 2010

STEWARTSTOWN, NH – Mr. Joseph S. Kelley, Jr., 40, of Stewartstown, NH, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, August 8, 2010, at his home.

Born on January 10, 1970, in Malden, Mass., Joe was the son of Joseph Kelley, Sr. and Marie (Valley) Kelley. Joe was a graduate of Malden High School, and he attended college at Salem State in Massachusetts. He was a sponge for knowledge and loved being in school.

Joe was a person who loved to help people and that drove him into the field of healthcare. For many years, he served as an EMT in Salem, Mass., and he was in the process of becoming licensed as an EMT in New Hampshire. For a time he also worked as a dialysis technician for the Fresenius company in Mass.

He also loved nature and to be outdoors, and he enjoyed hunting and just walking in the woods whenever he could. He also adored his two nieces who will miss him dearly. Joe also was a man of deep faith, and loved his church.

Joe is survived by his parents, Joseph, Sr. and Marie Kelly of Stewartstown, NH; his sister, Jennifer Doucet and husband David of Barton, Vt.; his godfather and uncle, William Kelley of Woburn, Mass.; his godmother, Patricia Piazza of Florida; his two special nieces, Rebecca and Annabelle Doucet; as well as numerous aunts and uncles and cousins, all of whom he loved.

There are no calling hours. A memorial Mass will be held on Friday, August 13, 2010, at 11 a.m. at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church in Colebrook with The Rev. Craig Cheney as celebrant.

Expressions of sympathy in Joe’s memory may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105.

Condolences may be offered to the family on-line by going to www.jenkinsnewman.com.

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Riding The Blue Pill

Today an experiment begins. Though it’s still summer, I’m going back up an extra 20 MG on the Prozac. The goal: Avoid the deep slide into depression that usually comes just in time for the Christmas season.

Mood music: “She Rides” by Danzig:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnizbRoqv84&hl=en_US&fs=1]

I was at 60 MG for the winter and most of the spring, but dialed it back to 40 in May. The reason I’m going back up, though I feel fine, is because August is when the days start to get noticeably shorter.The therapist believes upping the dose now will prevent a repeat of the usual blue moods that hit me when the sunlight becomes more scarce.

It’s interesting that this experiment would begin on Aug. 2. Twenty years ago today, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and all the talk about Saddam Hussein being a new Hitler threw me into a deep, fear-induced depression that August. Back then my OCD always manifested itself in a fear of current events. In fact, it was only about four years ago when that brand of fear eased off.

That summer was actually the closest I came to suicidal thoughts. Ironically, it was Sean Marley — a man who would take his own life six years later — who talked me back to a certain level of sanity.

Most recently, in 2005, I had a long panic streak over the bird flu in Asia, which was predicted to be the next great pandemic, as deadly as the one in 1918-19. I would read every magazine and every website tracking all these world events as if my personal safety depended on it. If a hurricane was spinning in the Atlantic, I would watch with deepening worry as it edged closer to the U.S.

Though those fears are gone now, I still have the blue-to-black moods to contend with from time to time, so it’ll be interesting to see how this experiment works.

If it goes well, I may actually have a Christmas season I can enjoy, instead of walking around alternating between haze and craze.

The trick, meantime, is to avoid the short-term mood swings that go with a dosage change.

We’ll see.