Posted on

Out of the Closet, Into the Light

My kid sister-in-law told me a friend of hers has admitted to some hefty demons. I won’t mention the person’s name (I don’t know her, actually), but I know where she’s been.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:5F6rwEF15hN1jnhNk2YQHn]

This is a little message for her friend, in the event she someday stumbles upon this blog:

Outing yourself is a hard thing to do. When I did it, I was terrified at first because I thought my mental struggles would be used to define who I was. It gave me an appreciation for what it must be like when a gay person comes out of the closet.

I felt weird around my family at first. Ill at ease might be the best way to describe the feeling. I’m sure they felt the same. That I had OCD and related addictive behavior didn’t surprise them much. As my sister-in-law will tell you, I’ve always had an abundance of strange behaviors.

The people I work with were most surprised. I guess I did a good job of fooling them back in the day. But they have never defined me or treated me differently over what I’ve opened up about. I get the same fair shake as everyone else.

Since people keep their demons hidden for fear of bad treatment at work, it was an eye opener for me when I got nothing but support for coming out with it.

After awhile, it’ll be like that with your friends. They’ll appreciate you more, and they’ll be grateful that you came clean. Some of them will learn from your example, even though they may not know they need it yet.

I understand one of your problems is compulsive lying. There’s no need to feel like a freak over this, because everyone with mental health struggles and addictions lies. I certainly have. Hell, I’ve never met a so-called normal person that hasn’t lied. It’s not something to be proud of or accept. Lies imprison us and make our troubles deeper. But when we can stop living the lie, there’s a new peace and freedom that’s very powerful and hard to describe.

When I decided to stop living lies, I felt 100 pounds lighter. Physical pains went away.

I understand you are looking at taking medication. I take Prozac and it works. But I’m convinced it works as well as it does because I went through years of hard therapy as well. That’s the most important thing you can do: Find the right therapist to talk to. Therapy will provide you with mental coping tools that will make you stronger. By that point, medication becomes the mop that wipes away the remaining baggage.

Things may get worse before they get better. When you start dealing with this stuff, you find yourself learning how to behave all over again. You will still go through periods of depression.

This is when any addictions you may have will tempt you. Fight it at all costs. I didn’t at first. I completely gave in to my addictive behavior and I paid dearly for it. Even if you don’t think you have an addiction, it might be worth considering a 12-Step Program. The tools you learn from that will help you cope with the mental struggles at the heart of your troubles.

Coming clean doesn’t mean you get to live happily ever after. But happily ever after has always been a bullshit myth. But you will have an easier time dealing with the tough times. That may not make sense right now. But it will.

Here’s the thing about one’s demons: When they hide in the dark, out of view, they own you. They’re too powerful to beat.

Opening the door and forcing the sunlight on them is hard as hell. But once you take that step — as you just did — the demons start to shrink. The light always kills demons. They turn to ash and you become a lot bigger than they ever were.

That’s what I’ve learned from my experiences, anyway.

Congratulations on taking that first step. I wish you the very best.

–Bill

 

Posted on

One More Thing About Being Depressed and Gay…

A lot of folks have left comments on my post about homosexuality and depression. All of them are excellent, thoughtful responses and I hope you’ll check them out. But there’s one response I’m puzzled over.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOx37_h0UH8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

It came from David Nedlin, operations manager at Beyond the 12 Steps. He left the following comment in the “Mental Health and Addiction Specialist” forum on LinkedIn, where I sometimes post my blog entries: “Ridiculous post – I thought this was a somewhat serious web site.”

Now, I’m familiar with Nedlin’s work with recovering addicts and I have enormous respect for him. I sent him a message asking what his issue is with the post, and for all I know it’s a good reason.

Whatever the reason, his reaction reminded me that I occasionally have to clarify what this blog is about. With that in mind:

–I tackle various issues around mental health and addictive behavior based on MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. I am not a medical professional, nor have I ever claimed to be.

–Like anything that’s based on one’s personal impressions, you should never take what I write as Gospel. Everything I write is based on my perceptions, which can be as flawed today as they were a decade ago.

–I figured this would be of service to some people because I reached the point where I can open up about embarrassing things I’ve done, so others may see it and realize they are not freaks and, more importantly, that there is light to be found at the end of the hellhole if you’re willing to walk toward it.

–The subject of homosexuality will always be a charged issue. I dove in because I’ve seen up close the pain friends and relatives experienced before they chose to come out of the closet.

–I also had to address it because it’s something that comes up a lot in my Catholic community. In one of the comments in Saturday’s post, a fellow named Nick put the matter in words that I think come closest to nailing it on the head.

All I know is this: I’m not sorry for tackling the subject, and those who don’t like it don’t have to come here.

One more thing: You’ll notice a lot of people wearing purple ribbons or posting pics of them on Facebook and Twitter. That’s in memory of the six gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and at their schools.

If you think harassing someone for their sexual orientation is an example of God’s love, you’re an idiot.

If you dismiss these kids as wasted souls because they committed suicide, I don’t agree. When pain and fear remove your sanity and sense of logic, a mental illness has taken hold and you are more likely to do things you know are wrong. It’s not as simple as going against God. I’ve seen suicide cases up close.

We’re all guilty of going against God at various points in our lives. But some are lucky enough not to get so far away that death is the result.

It’s a tragedy that these kids were pushed over that line.

My prayers are with them and their families, and with anyone who is going through the pain right now.

I’m sorry if this has been a preachy post. But I said what I felt I had to say.

Posted on

Maybe People Pleasing’s Not So Dumb After All

One of the more popular posts I’ve written in this blog is about how stupid it is to be a people pleaser. Lately, I’m having a small change of heart.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFl0nlHaWa4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I still stand behind much of what I said. When it comes to trying to please the overlords of corporate America or the abusive parent in hopes that you won’t get hit again, people pleasing IS futile.

Here’s the dark side of people pleasing — at least from personal experience:

I wanted desperately to make every boss happy, and I did succeed for awhile. But in doing so I damaged myself to the core and came within inches of an emotional breakdown. Actually, looking back, I crossed the threshold and broke down more than once.

It caused me to work 80 hours a week, waking up each morning scared to death that I would fall short or fail altogether.

You know what? No employee ever gets back 100 percent of what they put in from the corporate machine. Sure, you can make your direct bosses happy, but the folks many layers above them in the food chain still won’t know who you are or care that you work 80 hours a week. That doesn’t make them evil. It’s just a reality where it’s impossible to have an intimate understanding of every toil of every employee.

I learned this the hard way at Community Newspaper Company, where the pay was criminally low, and at The Eagle-Tribune, where the pressure on everyone was so intense back then that it was every man and woman for themselves. Some excellent people have worked there, and still do. But we all behave in strange ways when we’re staring down the nose of a gun. I was no different to those below me who wanted to keep me happy with their work efforts. I’m certain I hurt some people along the way.

I wanted to make every family member happy. It didn’t work, because you can never keep everyone happy when strong personalities clash. That’s not a swipe at the family members. It’s just a fact of life.

To this day, my relationship with some family members is on ice. Part of the problem is that I failed to keep them happy and take care of others I needed to be paying attention to. I reached a breaking point that has caused a lot of pain on all sides. I’m not happy about it, but it’s how things have to be right now.

So when did I reach the moment of truth? It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment. I don’t think there was one defining event. It was just a gradual realization that if I kept trying to please everyone, I wouldn’t be alive much longer. I would have had a complete breakdown and plunged into my addictions until they killed me with a heart attack or a blood clot to the brain. 

To put it another way, this was a simple matter of survival.

If I’m trying to please every boss, friend or family member, I can’t be present for my wife and children. And I certainly can’t be present for God.

That last point is what brings me to this follow-up post. Everything I’ve just said fits my personal truth. But as I live each new day, I start to realize that sometimes IT IS OK TO BE A PEOPLE PLEASER.

I want to please my wife and children because I want them to be happy. I still want to please people at work, but it’s different now. I don’t want them to think I’m the golden boy who can do everything. But I DO want to do the best work I can for readers who need to tap into what we know. And, because I work with so many stellar people, I want to return the favor and be stellar to them. I guess it’s more about paying it forward than people pleasing.

Even with this sense of clarity, I know there are going to be times where I’ll fail at the good kind of people pleasing. And even when the feeling is there, pleasing someone who may deserve your love isn’t the right answer at the time.

I’ll just have to keep trying.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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


Posted on

Say Hello to My New Limit

Another mood swing this afternoon. The dark, brooding sky appears to be rubbing off on me. The happy lamp helps, but if I sit in front of it too long I get the sweats. And it’s not the same as sunshine.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMWhk4u2c4g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I’ve been having a lot of these episodes lately, and it worries me. It’s most likely the result of my sleep pattern being out of whack. I alternate between too much sleep one day, not enough the next.

The clouds don’t help. It seems like we’ve had a lot of gloomy weather lately, and too much of that will fuck with my head every time.

My biggest concern is that something’s off with the medication, though probably not. One thing I’ve learned is that if you don’t take care of yourself in other ways, like having a consistent sleep pattern, it will blunt the effectiveness of the drug.

The other problem is that I’ve overextended myself, being on team for a Catholic retreat, doing a lot of extra service in my 12-Step program and keeping busy on the work side, along with all the activity that comes with having a first and fourth grader.

Since shaking off the fear and anxiety and cleaning up my act a couple years ago, I’ve had a limitless appetite for new experiences. And so I’ve gone on the road a lot and taken on many projects in and outside of work.

It’s been a blessing. It still is. But it’s possible I’m starting to find my new limit. Perhaps I’m a victim of my own success. There are far worse problems to have.

This is actually a good thing. It’s healthy.

The trick now is in figuring out how to stop over-reaching and achieve the right balance.

It’s too bad I suck at balance.

But it’s never too late to learn how to do it right.

Posted on

‘Mental Illness’ Must Die

I’ve used the term mental illness in this blog a lot. Doing so has made perfect sense, since Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a form of mental illness that has sparked plenty of depressive episodes in my life. But I’m thinking it’s time to stop packaging my struggle this way.

In fact, from here on out, I’m using the word “struggle” where I would normally use “mental illness.” I’m starting to realize a couple things: One is that EVERYONE has their special struggle, whether it’s depression, alcoholism or an addiction to gambling and pornography. I’m also starting to realize that the term “mental illness” is too limiting and defining for people.

I’m learning this in two places: My 12-Step program and the Cursillo group I’m in. Go to both places and listen to people for awhile and it’s clear everyone has their cross to carry. For one man, it’s a severely disabled daughter. For someone else, there’s the estrangement from a child. For another, it’s a battle with cancer.

For me, it’s been OCD, a binge-eating addiction and the struggles of Crohn’s Disease and the early death of friends and family. In OA, everyone with a binge-eating addiction tells a similar life story of difficulty.

God’s taking me to school again. With each new experience, I realize I’m no more special than anyone else. We all struggle, we all fail and we all grow whether we want to or not.

Since we’re all so much alike, using labels is becoming too problematic for me.

This isn’t a new concept. I know therapists who refuse to label patients with the diagnosis of a certain mental disease. The worry is that those patients make it a handy label to show off whenever the going gets tough.

Call it a case of me getting over myself.

Or simply learning something new and adjusting my tactics as any smart person would do.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

The OCD Curse Meets the OCD Blessing

Something interesting happened yesterday. The OCD was running hot all afternoon and kicking my ass. Then, when I wasn’t expecting it, it gave me a second wind that worked out for everyone.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4AAwBktkUB8LXGy5xNW3Rc]

I was running around trying to get things done before going to a National Information Security Group (NAISG) meeting and the kids were in their usual state of after-school chaos. Duncan was sitting over his homework, not really getting anything done, and he kept messing up the table cloth.

That table cloth, wrinkled and out of place, drove me absolutely insane.

In a classic moment of OCD run ragged, I repeatedly walked up to the table and fixed the cloth. Duncan would immediately get it rumpled up again (not on purpose — the thing just doesn’t fit the shape of the table and is easily knocked out of place) and I just kept coming back and trying to fix it.

I was fully aware that I was having an OCD episode, which is progress in itself, because once upon a time, an OCD attack would overtake me without my knowing what hit me. Erin came into the kitchen and, before she could point out what I was doing, I looked up and acknowledged that the table cloth was freaking me out.

Then Duncan finally got his homework done and the tablecloth was back in place.

As I wallowed in the tired moment, the phone rang. It was my sister-in-law. She needed a babysitter in a pinch. She was upset about it, too. Grandma was already coming to watch the boys, and I told her to bring the niece over.

When something like this happens, my first instinct is to make things as easy as possible on the babysitter. So the OCD kicked in again and before I knew it, I was getting everyone’s dinner on the table  and shifting around the bedtime routine to make Grandma’s life easier.

By the time everyone got here, the food was on the table and I was ready to head to my NAISG meeting.

I’m glad I could do that.

It just goes to show what a two-faced bitch OCD is.

Most of the time she makes life unmanageable and fuels my self-destructive behavior.

Then she turns around and gives me the extra push I need to move forward. When she does that, it’s like I have super powers.

And that is my curse. I have to keep the OCD at bay because it would destroy me if left to run hot around the clock. I went through all kinds of hell to bring it under control.

But every once in awhile, I’m glad I have it, because it can come in handy.

I don’t want it most of the time.

But sometimes, I’m afraid of what life would be like without it.

Posted on

Walking Toward Sanity

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

Mood music:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long walks like this have always restored my sanity.

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

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

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

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

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

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