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The Label on My Back is No Excuse

I was talking to a priest the other night about therapy and getting diagnosed with a mental disorder when he frowned. “Everyone struggles with something,” he said. “It’s not good to slap a label on them and make them be defined by it.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks8xhbNQw4g&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

He’s not the first priest to react this way.

Back in the fall I was going over a talk I was to give at an upcoming Cursillo retreat. I mentioned the words “mental illness” in there because my struggles with that are partly what brought me to my Faith. The priest stopped me cold:

“I don’t think you should use those words,” he said. “EVERYONE struggles with something. If you throw out labels someone will get offended.”

A few years ago, that would have pissed me off. I would have seen it as the priest belittling me as I was trying to be honest about myself. I also would have cursed him for not understanding the nature of mental illness.

But this guy deals with emotionally distraught people all the time. He has seen people act in rational and irrational ways in his day, and knows that sometimes we have to be careful with words.

It’s also commendable that they don’t want people to have labels.

Some people use the labels they’re given to limit themselves, even feel sorry for themselves. As a kid, I used my Crohn’s Disease as an excuse not to do a lot of things. I cried flare-up the day I had to get in a swimming race during gym class. I used it as an excuse when the stress was getting to me at The Eagle-Tribune and I opted to stay home than spend another night in the newsroom.

Later, after I was diagnosed with OCD, I was tempted to break out the mental illness card when I was scared to death of a business trip that required getting on a plane. I laugh when I think back at that one, because today I love flying. And besides, at that point I wasn’t about to out myself. I was still too afraid of the stigma.

But I disagree with those who say a diagnosis is a bad thing.

I resisted getting treatment for years because I was terrified of what a diagnosis would mean. But I sank so low at one point that I became willing to do whatever it took to be sane.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

–A diagnosis can be a useful thing, if you’re willing to use it to make yourself better.

–Using a diagnosis as an excuse not to do things is pathetic. To do that is to be a slave to fear. I only started to get better after I faced down the fears.

–A diagnosis isn’t a label that’s tattooed on your back like a scarlet letter. It only defines you if you let it. 

–Other people might still try to label you, but they’re just being stupid and they can’t stop you from achieving your full potential.

Yeah. I have a label on my back. But it’s not an excuse to get away with bad decisions.

It IS something that reminds me that I have to take care of myself.

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5 Signs I am Still an OCD Case

I write all the time about my recovery, but I sometimes neglect to mention that many of my OCD quirks continue, even though I’m not paralyzed and anxious like I used to be.

I don’t need an OCD screening quiz to know what I’m up against. Here are five signs that the condition is always there below the surface:

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX6QGHI6MrA&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

–1. The other day, after putting away a new pair of boots and new pants, I opened and closed the drawer two or three times to make sure everything was in place.

–2. When Duncan was doing his homework yesterday, the table cloth on the kitchen table kept wrinkling up. I knew it was pointless to fix until he was done, but I kept trying to do so repeatedly.

–3. Whenever the kids pull the bottom cushions off the couch, it makes me CRAZY.

–4. Whenever I get ready to leave my office in Framingham, I check the position of the chair once or twice to make sure the leather arms aren’t rubbing up against the desk.

–5. When I’m in the car, I put my Android phone in one of the empty drink holders. Obsessed with keeping it from going into locked mode, I repeatedly flick at the device with my index finger. 

Don’t worry. I’m fine. Though these little things persist, the insidious parts of the condition have not come back — namely the fear, anxiety and out-of-control worry.

Those are the things that make a disorder impossible to live with.

The rest I think I can handle.

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Am I Too Hard on Myself?

A friend asked that question yesterday. I’ve certainly been accused of being too hard on myself before. My step-mother reads this blog and told me I should give myself a break. Steve Lambert, former editor of The Eagle-Tribune, said I was too hard on myself when I wrote the “One of My Biggest Regrets” post.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0OXjHxbrmrkpvqudvzWlDR]

The short answer is that sometimes I am, most of the time I’m not.

When I was at my absolute worst, I knew my soul was in deep trouble and I hated myself for not having the will to do something about it. I call it my long road through self-hatred. Back then I would be hard on myself by wallowing in the corner or, more accurately, in my car, where I would go on many, many binges.

If I had the ability to cry it out back then, I would have probably binged less. But I’ve never been good at crying, so I’d let the rage fill me and I’d do my best to destroy myself. It’s not that I wanted to die. It’s that I hated and wanted to punish myself. Giving in to my addictions was a lot like taking a thick leather belt and lashing myself a few hundred times.

That’s what happens when mental illness and addiction burn wild with no management. You end up being hard on yourself, and nothing good comes of it. In fact, it just makes things worse.

Today I’m hard on myself in a different way. I come on here and write about what a shithead I was the day before, and in the process I fix my course and work on doing better. That’s much more healthy.

I was feeling stupid yesterday because I purchased a new pair of boots and a pair of pants on Amazon.com. I needed the boots, but not the pants. It was a splurge with money we don’t necessarily have. Call it no big deal, but I know better. Sometimes, when I’m not letting the food addiction or wine guzzling control me, I let the spending addiction control me. Or the Internet addiction.

That’s when I have to remind myself that I’m being a jerk. And then I try to do better.

When I put up my wall and fail to let family in, I need to come on here and remind myself that I’m doing something wrong so I can fix it. Same thing when I’m thinking about things in absolutes.

In the final analysis, I see nothing wrong with being hard on myself as long as it leads to self improvement.

It’s the brand that leads to self pity and self destruction that’s the problem.

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The Hole in Your Soul

A lot of changes to my program of sobriety and abstinence are under way, and I feel like I’m running on nuclear power. Last night was my first Big Book Step Study meeting, which is quite different from the speaker-discussion meetings I’m used to. It only took me a few seconds to realize why I had to be there.

Mood music:

A lot of times when someone sobers up or stops binge eating, it’s a white-knuckle experience.

It’s not just because you’re missing your junk and the momentary feeling it gives you. It’s because the hole in your soul — the thing that drove you to addiction in the first place — is still there. If you don’t deal with that hole, you might stay clean for a year or two. But sooner or later, you’ll fall right back into the old, insidious patterns.

Speaker-discussion meetings are a vital tool for the initial clean-up. You can’t start working on the hole until you stop the addictive behavior. It did me a ton of good and I still need to go to those events, but it’s no longer enough. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is all about dealing with the hole, and studying it more closely is a must if I’m going to stay clean.

Studying the pages will also pull me deeper into the meaning of working the 12 Steps.

I also have a new sponsor starting this week. Instead of me simply telling him my plan of eating for the day, we’ll talk about the deeper issues at the heart of sobriety and abstinence. I’m looking forward to it.

My life is full of Blessings. This program is the one that allowed for everything else.

I’m glad I’m starting to take it more seriously.

A guy at last night’s meeting noted that there are two types of addicts:

–The type who is doomed and DOESN’T KNOW IT, and

–The type that’s doomed and KNOWS IT.

The latter type has a better chance of escaping that fate, because in knowing you’re headed for disaster you might be willing to take action. I’m glad I was that type.

I had an advantage: Several years of brutal therapy for OCD. The tools I had to develop to manage that are a lot like those you need to clean up. And it was all about identifying the hole in my soul.

It’s still there, but I think it’s getting smaller all the time.

Because I keep working on it.

I’ll have to until the day I die.

url

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Talk Therapy: Sane or Satanic?

I touched a nerve with my post about the pros and cons of the therapist taking the patient through the same things over and over again. They didn’t slam my perspective outright, nor would they. But they flagged some dangers in this technique that are important to share.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZzus86pdls&fs=1&hl=en_US]

What makes their feedback so valuable is that they are therapists themselves. The following responses came my way by way of the LinkedIn NAMI group’s discussion board.

Thanks for sharing, my friends. Readers: See what they have to say and do what you will with the knowledge. There’s more than one way to skin this cat, as the comments show.

First, you should watch this video, which I put in that last post, because that’s what really hit a nerve.

In one of my favorite TV series, The West Wing, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman undergoes a long, brutal therapy session:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23dBqzo2aYY&version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1]

Kathleen Hockey, Author, Speaker, Mental Health Professional: It seemed to me Josh already knew what happened and the therapist was forcing him to be honest about it, to the therapist and thus to himself. This is good. However, I question the therapist who forces a client to hash over and over in his/her mind things in order to get at what is not remembered. That kind of digging is questionable practice. Also, not found in the West Wing piece (for drama’s sake obviously) is that the therapist’s next step would be to help Josh change his beliefs about the traumatic event and emotionally disconnect from the experience. Talking about the painful experience incessantly without this piece does make a client relive the experience, which is not good.

Me: All valuable points, Kathleen. I agree it’s questionable to rehash things just to get at what’s not remembered. From my experience as a patient, the rehashing was (or certainly seemed to be) designed to make me be honest about things I was dismissing on first and second brush. My experience is that a good therapist always seems to tell when I’m not being honest with myself. That’s when the rehashing happens. It was helpful to me, though I didn’t like it much at the time.That said, everyone is a little different in how they’ll respond to certain tactics. Thanks for your input.

Elena Yobaccio, Private Practice as Elena Yobaccio, MA – Psychotherapist: This therapist is fairly aggressive, which makes for good drama but effective trauma therapy does not (imo should not) progress like this and can be damaging. one of the theories behind “retelling” the traumatic event is that the therapist can help ground and moderate the client’s overwhelming emotions, help them take the story in digestable chunks of whatever size, and reintegrate the impossible-to-accept story into “normal” narrative memory so that it can finally be put to rest and associated memories and emotions, while painful, are no longer interrupting and disrupting life on an involuntary basis. i personally believe this is true and that our minds and hearts will only safely “remember” when we are strong enough, and with a safe enough person–not because we are pushed into it. with that said, encouragement, support and validation are all crucial to the process.

I have worked with many, many severely traumatized patients. I have rarely actually done actual trauma therapy because i have rarely been in a position to perform it safely. i have been through poorly done trauma therapy myself, and I have seen it done well and and done poorly with peers. I do know many people who have told me they avoid seeking therapy precisely because they are afraid they are going to be rushed into a feeling state they already know they can’t tolerate. or, they think that they are going to have some kind of massive cathartic remembering that is going to “cure” them so they try to hasten the process and succeed only in retraumatizing themselves. I think these kind of dramatic reenactments make for entertaining footage but don’t really help people understand what therapy actually is and does.

In terms of relational talk therapy, the key to successful trauma processing is not just remembering, it’s repairing the flow of memory so that the “trauma” is not sitting around un-inegrated in our minds. i think of traumatic memory as kind of an iceberg with big jagged edges free-floating and tearing through the fabric of the soul and the present moment. IMO talk-therapy dealing with trauma should and can only be done by a trained professional after a very strong alliance has been built with the client to provide them with the emotional bond necessary to endure and successfully experience and transform traumatic affect.

With that said, there are also alternatives to “talk therapy” for trauma, such as CBT and EMDR, which at least some people are reporting extremely helpful for PTSD treatment. CBT has never worked well for me, but I know it works well for some and has nothing to do with “telling and retelling” – it’s all about managing symptoms such as phobias and flashbacks; not my speciality either. And I have not personally tried EMDR.

I don’t know that any of this addresses your original point about repeatedly going over old ground, I just wanted to address the TV clip which is pretty representative of how media commonly portrays therapy and trauma therapy in particular.

Me: All great points. Thanks.

Gerry Hughes, Owner, Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center: When working with trauma or PSTD, our first rule is to NOT allow the client to associate in the memories and never allow the client to re-experience the emotions of the event. That type of ‘talk therapy is hack therapy, It is outdated and I think you could make the case that it is abusive. It is the very reason most sane people avoid therapy. 

There are solid techniques to release the emotional charge on traumatic events without re-traumatizing the client. EMDR can be extremely useful especially when the past events are mixed and confused.

NLP and TIME Techniques are awesome at releasing traumatic events. I average about 12 hours (4 sessions) to completely remove the fears, flashbacks, etc. associated with a traumatic experience.

Me: Thanks so much for the insight on NLP and TIME techniques. Fascinating and very helpful information.

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WTF Is That Shrink Doing?

A friend of mine recently started going to a therapist, and he’s puzzled as to why the therapist keeps making him rehash the week. Here’s my theory.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wASuHRuRo&fs=1&hl=en_US]

He’s asking a lot of redundant questions to dig up patterns. They seem like stupid, recycled questions. But when you have to answer the same, stupid questions over and over again, no matter how infuriating that is, something important happens. The stuff that’s really haunting you comes out.

You don’t even realize it’s happening. But it does.

One of my favorite TV series, The West Wing, captured this quite nicely in the episode where Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman undergoes a long, brutal therapy session:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23dBqzo2aYY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Josh didn’t want to answer Dr. Keyworth’s  question about how he cut his hand, but the doctor kept dragging him through it until the truth came out.

That’s a dramatic example. But it makes an important point:

When we’re troubled, we keep things buried deep within ourselves.

And it takes what seem like the dumbest, most repetitive questions over and over again to get the real pain to the surface.

Those stupid questions will last for years. Get used to it.

And be patient, my friend.

You can’t see it now, but it gets better.

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The Christmas Dispirit

Yesterday was a day for vicious mood swings. It started on a high note at work. I got a lot done and I’m loving this new newsy focus we’re transitioning to. But by the drive home, my mood grew as dark as the sky.

Mood music:

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

Things got progressively worse at home. Sean and Duncan were high maintenance and I let it get to me much more than I usually do. I started thinking in absolutes, which is especially bad when it’s focused on all the negatives.

I was looking around at all the Christmas decorations with a scowl. I wrote the other day that Christmas doesn’t suck like it used to. But there are still days where I hate the holidays.

I love what it stands for.

I despise the capitalistic shit fest American culture has turned it into. And yesterday was a lot about all the things we HAVE to buy. I also get pissed off at all the Christmas shows that suggest this time of year be perfect, that we all be nicer to each other and be generous with our time and money so the less fortunate can have hope. The translation when I think in absolutes goes something like this: Be nice this month and we can all go back to being fucktards next month.

Public school systems do nothing to help matters and make the next generation kinder and gentler. Unless you’re in a parochial school Christmas is a secular affair. Keeping the Christ in Christmas might offend someone. So we focus on the decorations and the holiday spending. Hell, some schools don’t even allow the decorations anymore.

If you’re reading this and rolling your eyes because I’m suggesting the holidays should be more about Faith and that we should be nice to each other year-round instead of each December — and if you’re looking down at me because you think only the weak believe in God, I got two words for you, and it’s not “Merry Christmas.”

To be fair, those of my Faith can be assholes of a different sort this time of year. My favorite example is “Happy Holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas.” We Catholics get all pissy when someone says Happy Holidays, because there’s no Christ in there. So what if the saying is based on the fact that there are several holidays this time of year, covering multiple beliefs. “Happy Holiday” covers all the bases —Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, etc.

I still say “Merry Christmas” to people though.

Sounds hypocritical of me, doesn’t it? Getting on my high horse a few paragraphs above and lamenting at the lack of Christ in Christmas? But like I’ve said before, I can be a self-absorbed hypocrite with the best of ’em.

And that’s what I’ve been for the last 24 hours: Self absorbed. 

And there was no good reason for it, because in the final analysis my life is going fine. I’m blessed beyond anything I deserve.

I had a slip of the OCD. I let the dark weather and the holiday runaround get the better of me. That led to me obsessing about everything that’s wrong with the holidays instead of everything that’s right with it.

Classic OCD behavior. I guess you could call it a day in my life on the OC-D List.

Thank God I have a wife who knows the signs and moves in to help. Last night her and the kids did a bunch of my chores while I was at an OA meeting. She instinctively knew my load needed to be lightened.

It amazes me that she catches on the way she does, because I really suck at talking about it. I can write about it and the world sees in. But when it’s just the two of us, I have trouble opening up. I start channeling my father without meaning to. My Dad is a great man and I love him wholeheartedly. But he’s always had trouble opening up emotionally, and that characteristic seeped into my pores while I was swimming in the gene pool.

But I’m trying to be better. I’ll keep trying.

And now I’ll stop bitching, because I hate it when other people go on Facebook and bitch about the hard day they’re having.

Did I mention that I can be a hypocrite?

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The Diagnosis

A lot of readers have been asking me about when exactly I was diagnosed with OCD and how I reacted to it. Did it drive me into a deeper depression? Did I worry about being misdiagnosed? Let’s see if I can retrace those moments…

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4bKGlkCUp5hBEVT14oifgI]

The diagnosis was slow in coming, though I always assumed I had what I had. When I first started getting help in 2004, that first therapist resisted giving me a diagnosis. For one thing, it was still way to early to pin an acronym on my demons. The therapist also hated diagnosing people because she felt a diagnosis was just a label that never tells the entire story.

My third therapist finally gave me a diagnosis in the spring of 2006.

I sat there in her office, staring at the floor as I told her about the old therapist’s dislike of labels.

“Well, do you have obsessive thoughts all the time?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said.

“Does it make you do compulsive things?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said. “I binge eat all the time even though I know it’ll eventually kill me. I just can’t stop.”

“Does it cause disorder in your life?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Every day is an exhausting hell.”

“Well, then we may as well call it what it is,” she said.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Was I misdiagnosed?

It really doesn’t matter. I had a problem that was destroying me from the inside out. Putting a label on it helped me because instead of smoke and shadows, I finally had a way to see my struggle in a more concrete fashion. It had finally taken a form. I could see it, therefore I could punch it. Punch it I did, repeatedly.

It always gets back up and I have to keep throwing punches. But it’s better than trying to swing at shadows.

It’s a tricky thing, because in plenty of cases people do get misdiagnosed and the results are damaging. It can lead to prescriptions that don’t get at the root problem, making you worse.

In my case, the diagnosis was accurate. The treatment turned out to be right on, at least.

I think it was more of a relief than cause for a deeper spiral into depression. Because I had something to call it, I could move on to the next phase of recovery.

I still had many bad days after that. Some of my worst days, in fact. It would still be another two years before I could bring my addictions to heel.

The anxiety attacks didn’t cease until I started taking Prozac in early 2007.

But slowly, I got better.

It would be stupid for me to tell you not to freak and backslide after getting a diagnosis. It can be a frightening thing.

The biggest fear is that everyone will define you if you go public. That didn’t happen to me. At work, I’m judged on how I do my job, not on my disease. Of course, the OCD sometimes fuels some of my best work, which makes that less of a problem.

To me, the lesson is to not let a diagnosis be the excuse to live a less than worthwhile life and give in to your darker impulses.

Like anything else in life, you gotta make the best of it.

Obviously, that’s easier said than done.

Diagnosis-Easier

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The Rudolph Conspiracy

I just got done watching a pretty warped video on YouTube that merges “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” with “Full Metal Jacket.” It got me thinking about what that kid’s Christmas special says about society.

I always get a kick out of how Santa is portrayed in this one. He’s the typical asshole authority figure, shaming someone because they’re different. He’s cranky. He’s feeling the pressure. I’ve always related to this guy.

Then there’s the lead elf, really busting down Herbie because he doesn’t like to make toys. Whenever someone gives my son crap for liking the color pink, I think of Herbie the elf. The head elf actually reminds me of a guy I used to work with in my newspapering days.

I relate to the misfit toys as well. They’re sitting on that cold wasteland of an island, dejected and alone. I’ve felt dejected and alone in my day, but I never had a cool Hoth-like island to hide on.

Then there’s the snow monster. Everyone hates him, but he’s the most misunderstood guy in the room.

The cool thing about this Christmas special is that all the assholes learn their lesson and the misunderstood become understood.

It’s another reminder that there’s hope for all of us.

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Christmas Doesn’t Suck Like It Used To

The Christmas season remains an uncomfortable time of year for me. I’m used to going into a deep depression the second December starts. But something’s different this year. For the first time in a long time, I’m not dreading it.

Mood music:

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

Life isn’t perfect. It never will be. Not supposed to be. But I’m finally starting to move past the idea that Christmas is supposed to always be perfect, sparkling and free of pain and strife. Given my tendency to think in absolutes, it used to be that if I had an argument with someone or work was stressful that it was all the fault of the season.

Not helping was the chemical imbalance that set in when the days got shorter. A dark sky for me is usually a dark mood.

What’s different is that I’m looking at a lot of painful, hard work in the rear-view mirror. Years of intense therapy, the decision to bring my addictions to heel, letting God in and going on medication. In the last couple of years, all that toil has been starting to pay off and I’ve felt joys I could never feel before.

In the last year, I’ve also fought back hard against the daylight problem. I went up 20 MG on the Prozac last winter, dropped back to the old dosage for summer and moved back up Aug. 1, when the days become noticeably shorter. I also started using a special lamp — sunshine in a box, as I call it — and that has diminished the extreme moods.

They still come and go, but they’re not nearly as intense as they used to be.

I think the biggest reason I’m not dreading Christmas this time is that my perspective has changed. I’m not craving a “Pleasantville” atmosphere where everyone kicks back and smiles all jolly. I’m not expecting things to be idyllic. I guess you can say I’ve lowered my expectations.

People are still going to fight. Cars will still break down. Loved ones will still die. That no longer means Christmas is destroyed.

A lot of this is based on my deepening Faith.  

This time of year is about celebrating the birth of Christ. I love the glow of a lit Christmas tree as much as the next person. But I don’t care so much about all the gifting back and forth. It feels good to give, but I’ve realized the best thing I can give is my time for a friend in need or a family that’s always there for me.

If not for the sacrifice Jesus made for us sinners, I’d be in a world of shit. For all I know I still am. Purging evil behavior is a complicated task and I very much doubt I’ve mastered it.

Celebrating His birthday is wholly appropriate, regardless of the twists and turns life will inevitably take. Because that birth was our second chance — my second chance.

If you’re a skeptic and think I’m getting into crazy talk, I don’t care. I know I’m no better or worse than you, though in my delusional moments I like to think I am.

This is where my road has taken me, and I’m grateful for it.

And so, I think I can get up the courage to say these two words:

Merry Christmas.