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My Brain Is On The Pavement. But At Least I Showered

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment my recovery started getting wobbly and I started getting sloppy. I don’t know if it’s fully accurate to call this a relapse, but it’s pretty damn close.

Mood music:

One thing is certain: I’m in a shaky place lately, and this is as good a place to sort things out. Talking is always better, but sometimes I have to write it.

I’ve been very tired lately, and in my fatigue, my recovery program from binge eating and other addictions has gotten sloppy. Twice in as many weeks, I’ve forgotten to pack an abstinent lunch before leaving the house. When you’re recovery is on sturdy ground, that’s a mistake you NEVER make.

I haven’t been making it to many 12-Step/OA meetings of late, and I can’t remember the last time I called my sponsor. I guess I’ve been too tired and short-fused to go over the same bullshit, over and over again.

I haven’t gone on any binges, thankfully. But I know how it works. I’m not stupid. When you start getting careless, you open yourself up for the crash.

I’ve been going over the last few months in search of the moment things started to go wrong.

My father having three strokes was certainly a factor. It’s hard not to worry all the time when the guy who has been the strong man in your life is suddenly in a wheelchair, not able to do much for himself. But I decided early on to be strong, cool and rational for other family members.

To do that, I guess I felt I needed a crutch. I didn’t want to binge eat or drink, so I smoked. Then Erin found the cigarettes I was hiding, and I resolved to quit that, too. Then and there, much of my patience for people went down the garbage chute.

I won’t lie: It still pisses me off that I had to stop smoking. Sure those things give you cancer. But to me it seemed much safer then the other things, which leave me in a mental state that disrupts everything, even my ability to dress myself. And so I start wearing the same clothes repeatedly, so I don’t have to think much about my appearance.

And, in the last week, I’ve been quietly re-assessing the status of things with my mother. I think I’m finally ready to reconcile, though it’ll never go back to the way it was. It can’t go back to the way it was. And so I have to think carefully about how to do this. That makes me even more tired.

At least I haven’t stopped taking showers and brushing my teeth. I’ve done that before, and it’s not pretty.

My next actions are clear:

–I’m going to consider all this a break of abstinence and go back to square one.

–I’m going to get a new sponsor. The current one has done his best with me, but I haven’t returned the favor.

–I need to start getting to more than one meeting a week. Actually, one a week is a good place to start.

–I need to make an action plan to deal with my mother.

–I need to start being honest with myself and stop pretending I have perfect control over everything.

I’ll come out of this. I always do. This is part of managing my life. You go through periods when everything is running like a Swiss watch. Then there are times when the machinery falls out of its casing, scraping your wrist on its way to the ground.

Venting here is how I deal with it and keep upright. I do it publicly because there are many people like me out there, who have no answers and are looking for a place to start.

Take it from me: Writing it out is a great place to start.

From there, realize you can’t fix yourself without help. Next, go find that help.

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Clearer Language From The Catholic Church On Suicide

For those, like me, who struggle with suicide, particularly how the Catholic Church feels about it, I have something useful a good friend sent to me this afternoon, presumably after reading this morning’s post.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/jrRfoEEDENo

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“2282 Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide. 

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.”

Thanks to my friend for sharing.

I think the language shows that the Church doesn’t see this issue in the black and white way we often think it does.

So if you know someone who died by their own hand and it tortures you to think about where in the afterlife they are, take comfort in knowing that they may not be in such a bad place after all.

And do something to honor them, like doing things to raise awareness about mental illness.

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A 9-11 Obsession

It happens every time the calendar rolls into September. I start watching documentaries about 9-11-01 and can’t stop.

Mood music:

Most people do this in the days leading up to a 9-11 anniversary, but for me there’s the OCD element, where after I watch something I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll forget the rest of the world exists and just replay the scenes in my head over and over again.

I’ve been like this for the last couple of days. Thanks to YouTube I can watch all these documentaries at will.

I’ll get this out of my system. All these little compulsions pass sooner or later. But I wanted to direct you to one documentary that is worth watching obsessively, because you can learn a lot about the goodness man is capable of. It’s a Discovery Channel documentary called “Inside The Twin Towers.”

Here’s part 1. If you start there, YouTube will play each 10-minute clip in order. There are 10 in all.

There’s a morbid aspect of the program where they show what it was probably like to be inside the towers as they collapsed. But this is mostly about people helping other people despite the risks to their own lives. You see a lot of strangers helping each other.

Once the haunting aspect of the documentary wears off, you’ll walk away feeling inspired.

And maybe — just maybe — you’ll realize that you are capable of great things, of touching a lot of people, regardless of your own personal demons.

Events like 9-11-01 are full of evil and sorrow. But, as Mister Rogers said in a show he did right after the attacks, the helpers ALWAYS come. Some are firefighters running up endless flights of stairs with 60 pounds of gear on their backs.

And some are stock traders who, when put in a certain place at a certain time, did something they were always meant to do.

God has a plan, alright. Sometimes it involves awful events. But it’s a plan that sorts the boys from the men, the girls from the women, and the good souls from the selfish and indifferent souls.

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This Is No Place To Make Amends

After running the post “Bully’s Remorse” a few days ago, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, writing it was a mistake. Or maybe it simply didn’t go far enough.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:5rpRzNcJZqKQXk9PIjreB6]

Like many topics in this blog, I wrote it to yank another skeleton out of the closet and acknowledge that as a teenager, while I was getting bullied and should have related to others who were bullied, I just turned around and kicked around someone I thought was weaker than me.

It’s not the first regret that I’ve mentioned here. In another post, “One of my Biggest Regrets,” I wrote about a New Hampshire reporter from my Eagle-Tribune days who I was terrible to. I called her early one morning to chew her out over a story that didn’t get done, knowing full well her husband was due to have heart surgery that very morning.

It’s a recurring theme here. I tell you about someone I was a awful to, and it’s like I’m making an amends to that person.

But I’m not, really. Amends can only be made face-to-face. In that regard, I’m stuck in neutral.

This all occurred to me after a friend with her own experience in being bullied sent me this message:

—

I remember being picked on from as early on as 2nd grade all the way through senior year of high school (alternative school, you know “short bus”, “the troubled kids”) I got there by trying to kill myself. I still remember what one of the intake workers said about my overdose: “Hey, you know that could get ya killed…hahaha”… trying to relate to the poor depressed girl. I replied, “Yeah, that’s the point.

Being tormented by my peers in one of the hardest things I have tried to let go of in my life. There is a pile of abuse material, neglect, alcohol and drug addiction (of my family), homelessness, being a foster child, being locked up in psyche…etc., that I could talk about…but, somehow being alienated by the people ( your peers), perhaps even those that could of helped you in that situation, hurt, and still does.

If you remember me from “around the neighborhood”, Bill, its probably because I was the scapegoat for a lot of other kids’ nastiness, including my own sister. So, am I crying in my tea (sorry, I don’t drink), here? I hope not. I’m doing the best to let you know how your “friend” probably felt: useless, self-hating, desperate, and alone.

I hope he was stronger than I was, I hope for you that he is doing well, and can laugh it all off.

My personal opinion is that you are making amends to make yourself feel better. If you want this person to know how you feel, that you are sorry, that you wish you had not done the things you did…..don’t write a blog about it, don’t say: ” hey if you happen to see so and so let him know I wrote a blog about him, cuz I’m so fucking cool … hire your own private detective, find the guy, meet him face to face, and make your amends. That’s being a man. Abuse creates monsters, and what children do to each other while growing up is abuse, sometimes with fatal consequences. I wonder if Columbine would of even happened if adults had a “no tolerance” reaction to any abuse, because they know, and they let it happen all the time.

—

The line that really cut me to the core was the suggestion that I wrote that post to make myself feel better.

Because in hindsight, it’s true.

Coming clean here is an important step. But I’m really not making my amends unless I’m doing it directly to the person who needs to hear it.

It’s time for me to put the process in motion.

There are many people I need to make peace with.

regret

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Screw Hurricane Irene. Let’s Rock!

On my facebook wall, an old friend, Taimee Leary Scarpa, posted this: “Hope you have a happy birthday. Hope you are able to fit in some fun before you start taping your windows for Hurricane Irene, lol.”

She was referring to the events I described in the post “Fear and Duct Tape.”

Truth be told, Hurricanes stopped scaring me some time ago. Learning to ditch the fear and anxiety of my younger years is the main reason.

If anything, I’m feeling a mix of excitement — after all, a hurricane is something you don’t get to see every day — and slight irritation because we had some nice Sunday plans that are going to get spoiled.

But while the electricity is still on, I’m going to make the most of it and play some loud rock n’ roll. Feel free to join me:

http://youtu.be/Obfci1CIqq8

http://youtu.be/OI2COawqMJQ

OCD Diaries

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41 Years

Some people get depressed on their birthday. Not me. The fact that I turn 41 today is a freak of nature. But a year into my forties, I know I have more cleaning up to do.

Mood music:

Item: When I was sick with the Crohn’s Disease as a kid, I lost a lot of blood and developed several side ailments. I’m told by my parents that the doctor’s were going to remove the colon more than once. It didn’t happen. They tell me I was closing in on death more than once. I doubt it was ever that serious. Either way, here I am.

Item: When the OCD was burning out of control, I often felt I’d die young. I was never suicidal, but I had a fatalistic view of things. I just assumed I wasn’t long for this world and I didn’t care. I certainly did a lot to slowly help the dying process along. That’s what addicts do. We feed the addiction compulsively knowing full well what the consequences will be.

When I was a prisoner to fear and anxiety, I really didn’t want to live long. I isolated myself. Fortunately, I never had the guts to do anything about it. And like I said, suicide was never an option.

I spent much of my 30s on the couch with a shattered back, and escaped with the TV. I was breathing, but I was also as good as dead some of the time.

I’ve watched others go before me at a young age. Michael. Sean. Even Peter. Lose the young people in your life often enough and you’ll start assuming you’re next.

When you live for yourself and don’t put faith in God, you’re not really living. When it’s all about you, there no room to let all the other life in. So the soul shrivels and hardens. I’ve been there.

I also had a strange fear of current events and was convinced at one point that the world would burn in a nuclear holocaust before I hit 30. That hasn’t happened yet.

So here I am at 41, and it’s almost comical that I’m still here.

I’m more grateful than you could imagine for the turn of events my life has taken in the last six years.

I’ve learned to stop over-thinking and manage the OCD. When you learn to stop over-thinking, a lot of things that used to be daunting become a lot easier. You also find yourself in a lot of precious moments that were always there. But you didn’t notice them because you were sick with worry.

I notice them now, and I am Blessed far beyond what I probably deserve.

I have a career that I love.

I have the best wife on Earth and two boys that teach me something new every day.

I have many, many friends who have helped me along in more ways than they’ll ever know.

I have my 12-Step program and I’m not giving in to the worst of my addictions.

Most importantly, I have God in my life. When you put your faith in Him, there’s a lot less to be afraid of. Aging is one of the first things you stop worrying about.

So here I am at 41. feeling a lot better about myself than I did at 31. In fact, 31 was one of the low points.

But I’d be in denial if I told you everything was perfect beyond perfect. I wouldn’t tell you that anyway, because I’ve always thought that perfection was a bullshit concept. That makes it all the more ironic and comical that OCD would be the life-long thorn in my side.

I just recently quit smoking, and I’m still missing the hell out of that vice. I haven’t gone on a food binge in nearly three years, but there are still days where I’m not sure I’ve made the best choices; those days where my skin feels just a little too loose and flabby.

I still go to my meetings, but there are many days where I’d rather do anything but go to a meeting. I go because I have to, but I don’t always want to.

And while I have God in my life, I still manage to be an asshole to Him a lot of the time.

At 41, I’m still very much the work in progress. The scars are merely the scaffolding and newly inserted steel beams propping me up.

I don’t know what comes next, but I have much less fear about the unknown.

And so I think WILL have a happy birthday.

OCD Diaries

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A Call From My Mother

It’s Wednesday morning. I’m working from home, face behind the computer. My kids and two neighborhood kids are tearing though the house, overturning everything in sight. Then the phone rings.

Mood music:

“It’s been five years,” the voice on the other end says. “Can’t we fix this?”

It’s my mother. I saw her at my cousin’s wedding two weeks ago but we largely avoided contact. We’re six years into an estrangement that I think is the result of shared mental illness.

Can we fix this?

I really don’t know.

I want to. I’ve never been happy about what happened, though I felt and still feel that the split was necessary.

Some folks think this stuff is simple. Life’s too short not to get along, they say. But life is far more complex than that. Relationships with a history of abuse? That’s one of the most complex and confusing beasts of all.

I’ve had a lot of love and blessings in my life in the last few years. I’ve come far in overcoming addictions and mental illness. Even the family discord has served a purpose. Somewhere along the way, I’ve found myself.

It would be nice if I could mend some more relationships. But I have to be careful.

At the wedding, my Uncle Bobby, the last of the siblings that included my grandmother, took me aside at one point and said life is too short to hate.

He is absolutely right.

But hate has nothing to do with it.

Mistrust, hurt feelings and deep disagreements over right and wrong? Absolutely. But not hate.

If it were about hate, all this would be cut, dry and easy.

I’ll have to do some hard thinking over this one.

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You Can’t Be Everyone’s Friend

I once wrote about an obsession with the Facebook friend count. I worried about offending people who de-friended me. Lately I realize it’s ok if I can’t be everyone’s friend. I’m even warming to the idea.

Mood music:

I’ve always had this stupid idea that I needed to be everyone’s friend. Even when I was bullying someone, I’d turn around and try to be their friend. I always wanted everyone in my family to like me, even when I was busy hating them.

I’ve carried that into adulthood and got obsessed about it with things like Facebook. This morning I glanced at my friend count and it was 1,713. I could have sworn it was 1,715 a few days ago. So I started looking around to see who might have gotten mad at me. I noticed that three relatives had disconnected from me. A year ago that would have bothered me a lot more than it did this morning.

“At least my ‘friends’ seem to be sticking around,” I thought to myself.

Sarcasm aside, I do think I’m turning a corner with this whole like-dislike thing. Slowly, it’s sinking in that I need to do a better job at listening to my own words. At the beginning of this blog is a post called “Being a People Pleaser is Dumb.” I wrote about how I wanted to be the golden boy at work more than anything back in the day, until I realized it was absolutely impossible to please everyone all the time. In fact, some people are unworthy of the effort.

I’ve had to learn that lesson all over again in the social networking world.

When people walk away from me online, I figure it’s because they don’t particularly enjoy this blog. So be it.

You can’t be everyone’s friend. You shouldn’t be everyone’s friend.

I’m slowly warming to the idea that if some people don’t like you it’s because you have the stones to take a stand on the things you believe in.

You either like me or you don’t. It’s all good.

I’m connected to a lot of people I’m not particularly fond of these days. It’s nothing personal. I just find find the whiny, woe-is-me status updates grating. Facebook is full of that stuff, along with all the self-righteous, pre-manufactured statements people wrap their arms around.

But it’s your profile.

Do what you want with it, and I’ll do what I want with mine.

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Cold Turkey Has Got Me On The Run

More than a week after I quit smoking cold turkey, I’m pissed off.

It pisses me off that other people can enjoy a drink or two, the occasional cigar or feast without letting it take over everything else in their lives.

Mood music from the debut EP of Pull Trouble From The Fire:

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/pulltroublefromthefire/06-dead-wait”]

It pisses me off that I have to learn to behave and pretend I don’t wish I had some of what everyone around me has.

It pisses me off that I have to keep explaining to people why I can’t eat flour or sugar — ever — why I can’t have a glass of wine or a beer — ever — and why I can’t just have a cigar on the weekends and be done with it.

When I wrote about the smoking last week, a friend asked me the following question, with a comment mixed in:

“Just out of curiousity, how many cigars do you smoke? One or more/day? Do you opt for a toro (6 or 7? cigar) or a robusto? If you’re having a robusto a couple times each week (or even a toro every day), isn’t that moderation?

“While I’ve never tried them, I’ve seen how cigarettes can pull you in and you can go from one cig to a pack/day in a short time. Not that I’m condoning it, but I think an occasional cigar is like a good scotch. It a treat more than a habit.

“I’ve found that you need to pick the vices your going to ween off carefully, or it will be at everyone’s peril. Wouldn’t it be better to set boundaries so you can enjoy a vice while preventing overindulgence? Doesn’t forced moderation ultimately help strengthen the psyche (I don’t know, just asking)?

“I guess what I’m asking is whether you’re being too hard on yourself at the expense of others? As you say, you can’t do anything in moderation, but it seems you may not be able to implement a fix in moderation either. Kick the cigs. Save the cigars. Don’t be a miserable bastard!”

It’s a fair question, and he’s right that a person who is cold turkey will make others miserable. That’s why people like us are at our nastiest as human beings after we first clean up.

He is wrong when he asks: “Doesn’t forced moderation ultimately help strengthen the psyche?”

I can see where he’s going with this. Even in sobriety people like me live to an extreme. But in our world, moderation doesn’t exist.

That’s the core problem of our disease: The part of the brain that regulates moderate behavior was obliterated somewhere along the way. Therefore, it has to be all or nothing.

In the AA Big Book on which the 12 Steps of Recovery is built, the opening chapter is called “The Doctor’s Opinion.” In it, Dr. William D. Silkworth outlines the physical defects of the disease and how it impacts our behavior. He literally describes it as an allergy. Once we take a drink or engage in a food binge, a demonic craving kicks in that shuts off the sanity switches in our heads.

“We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.

“Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.”

The doctor uses alcohol as the example, but the same applies for all addictive behavior.

To those who think it’s weird when a man or woman can’t enjoy something in moderation, I get your skepticism. The problem — or the blessing in your case — is that your brain doesn’t work like mine. You have a gift a lot of us would kill for: The ability to realize when you’ve had enough of something.

My wife can buy a six-pack of beer and make it last two months. I wouldn’t be able to last two hours without downing it all. Then I would need more. The difference between us is one of brain chemistry.

Weening off the comfort substances was not an option for me for the simple reason that I have to have it all. Trying to have smaller amounts of something each day or week won’t work in that environment.

So I’ve had to go cold turkey.

It’s hell the first week. The second week, which is where I’m at, is one of more muted irritability.

From there, it gets easier, and we get better. Much better.

I’ll be glad when I get there after this latest round of cold turkey.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/pulltroublefromthefire/05-trainwrecks”]

OCD Diaries

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I Pet My Peeves Until They Become Triggers

I really hate all those pre-written, self-righteous Facebook posts. I told Erin I was going to write a post flaming all those stupid sayings.

Mood music:

“Tell me what that has to do with OCD?” she asked, giving me that stare she gives me when she’s certain that I’m full of shit.

“It’s a trigger,” I said, not really meaning it.

“It’s not a trigger. It’s a peeve. You going to go pet it now?” she asks, still giving me that stare.

She’s on to something, though.

Before I go further, let me share some of the Facebook blurbs that set me off this morning. Hold your nose and read on:

“I was RAISED, I didn’t just grow up. I was taught to speak when I enter a room, say Please & Thank you, to have Respect for my elders, lend a helping hand to those in need, hold the door for the person behind me, say Excuse me when it’s needed, & to Love people for who they are, not for what you can get from them! I was also taught to treat people the way I want to be treated! If you were raised this way too, please re-post this…sadly, many won’t, because they weren’t, and it shows~Thank you”

Then there’s this little chestnut:

I may not be the most beautiful girl or the sexiest girl nor do I have a perfect body. I might not be everyone’s first choice, but I’m a great choice. I do not pretend to be someone I’m not, because I’m good at being me. I might not be proud of some of the things in my past, but I’m proud of who I am today. So take me as I am, or watch me as I walk away! ? 

OK. I’m walking away now.

When people post this stuff, it’s like they’re telling the rest of us that we don’t respect our elders and don’t love the right people.

OK. I pet the peeve. On to Erin’s point.

I do sometimes obsess about peeves until they become OCD triggers. I think a lot of people do, but since this blog is about my own blemishes, it seemed like a good idea to put this one in the archives of insanity.

Have a nice day.

http://youtu.be/_7EQlfprV9E

OCD Diaries