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A Love Affair With Fire

A couple days ago when I wrote about that OCD screening test I found, something from childhood came back to me. I’ve never forgotten about my fascination with matches and fire. But one of the questions made me realize that the childhood fascination may have been one of my earliest OCD habits.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0ydzdWYWIFlGBurhjEXwit]

The question was if I ever had an “overconcern with keeping objects (clothing, groceries, tools) in perfect order or arranged exactly.” Here was my answer:

As a kid I always had to have my Star Wars action figures arranged just right. I guess I got over that when my obsession turned to fire and I decided lighting the figures on fire was more important than having them arranged just right.

Funny thing about Star Wars. It always seemed to trigger my impulse to start a fire. One morning when I was in fourth grade, I was up at 5 a.m. playing with a model I had of the Millennium Falcon. It was one of those models assembled with highly flammable glue. I wasn’t thinking of that when I decided it would be cool to burn some battle scars into my ship.

I lit it on fire, right at the dining room table. Once it was blazing and black smoke from the burning plastic started wafting up to the chandelier, I decided it was time to put it out. I dumped a glass of water on it. Nothing. Imagine that? Burning plastic needs more than a glass of water to be snuffed out.

I panicked and threw the ship onto the cement floor of our front patio. Then I ran into my father’s room and told him I had opened the door to see something burning. He opened the front door and pitch-black soot came pouring into the house, staining everything in its path.

He grabbed a box of baking soda and dumped it on the burning ship, which managed to put it out.

Surprisingly, he didn’t beat the shit out of me. He did punish me, though. Looking back, the image of him in his underwear on the front porch cussing up a storm ALMOST made the punishment worth it.

When I hit puberty, I turned my attention to the rest of the Star Wars toys. I remember smiling as I put the match to Han Solo and watching his face bubble and melt. Most of the other Star Wars toys suffered a similar fate.

I also had an obsession with these big bonfires they used to have in the Point of Pines every July 3rd (I think they still do). The older kids would throw everything they could find into a pile: Old bed frames, pallets, chairs, logs. On the night of one such bonfire, a friend’s brother pulled out a large box of fireworks and brought it onto the beach across from his house.

We started by lighting them off one at a time. Then, somewhere in there, I decided the results weren’t spectacular enough. I picked up the still half-full box and tossed it into a barrel fire we had going. Fireworks exploded and shot out of the barrel in every direction.

One of my friends, a kid named Corey,  half-smiled as he yelled, “Billy…Billy…You’re  crazy Billy!” I was, of course. I just didn’t know it at the time. Some of the fireworks lit the dune grass on fire, and for the first time I worried that my fascination might someday land me in jail.

Looking back, I was using fire to feed all the aggression I was feeling over everything that had gone on in my life up to that point. It was sort of a precursor to the binge eating addiction. At least when I turned to that, I was only hurting myself. When I think back at the damage I could have cost, to people and objects, I cringe.

I was a miserable little bastard in junior high, around the time Def Leppard’s “Pyromania” album came out. That album was great, but it probably wasn’t the best thing for a teenage pyromaniac to be listening to.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIlgciJ8DTs&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Fortunately, I grew out of this obsession as I got older. I moved on to other insidious obsessions, but like I said, those were more damaging to me than anyone else.

I still love the look of a roaring fire and the sound of a match striking sandpaper. But it doesn’t go further than that.

Over the years, as I worked on my struggles with OCD and addiction, I found better things to fill that hole in my soul with. The right treatment for OCD. Abstinence from the addictions that almost destroyed me. A beautiful wife and children. Above all, God.

Fire? It just can’t hold a candle to those other things.

Not anymore.

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14 Years to Put Suicide in Perspective

I’ve written a lot about my old friend Sean Marley in this blog. Some of you may be sick of it, but I really have no choice. His death is too intertwined with my own struggles to avoid it. Today is the 14th anniversary of his death, and I’ve learned a lot of painful lessons since then.

Mood music:

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

In the weeks leading up to his suicide, I knew he was badly depressed. I even had a feeling he harbored suicidal thoughts. I just never thought he’d do it. Or it could be that I thought I had more time to be there and help him through it. Instead, I stayed wrapped in my own world as he deteriorated.

On Nov. 15, 1996, he decided he’d had enough. It was a sparkling, autumn Friday and I was having a great morning at work. But early that afternoon, I got a call at work from my mother. She had driven by Sean’s house and saw police cars and ambulances and all kinds of commotion on the front lawn. I called his sister and she put his wife on the phone. She informed me he was dead. By his own hand.

He introduced me to metal music, taught me to love life, and his death has been one of the cattle prods for my writing this blog.

I had known Sean for as long as I could remember. He lived two doors down from me on the Lynnway in Revere, Mass. He was always hanging around with my older brother, which is one of the reasons we didn’t hit it off at first.

Friends of older siblings often pick on the younger siblings. I’ve done it. It happens.

Sean always seemed quiet and scholarly to me. By the early 1980s he was starting to grow his hair long and he wore those skinny black leather ties when he had to suit up.

On Jan. 7, 1984 — the day my older brother died — my relationship with Sean began to change. Quickly. I’d like to believe we were both leaning on each other to get through the grief. But the truth of it is that it was just me leaning on him.

He tolerated it. He started introducing me to Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen and other hard-boiled music. I think he enjoyed having someone younger around to influence.

As the 1980s progressed, a deep, genuine friendship blossomed. He had indeed become another older brother. I grew my hair long. I started listening to all the heavy metal I could get my hands on. Good thing, too. That music was an outlet for all my teenage rage, keeping me from acting on that rage in ways that almost certainly would have led to trouble.

We did everything together: Drank, got high, went on road trips, including one to California in 1991 where we flew into San Francisco, rented a car and drove around the entire state for 10 days, sleeping and eating in the car.

This was before I became self aware that I had a problem with obsessive-compulsive behavior,  fear and anxiety. But the fear was evident on that trip. I was afraid to go to clubs at night for fear we might get mugged. When we drove over the Bay Bridge I was terrified that an earthquake MIGHT strike and the bridge would collapse from beneath us.

I occupied the entire basement apartment of my father’s house, and we had a lot of wild parties there. Sean was a constant presence. His friends became my friends. His cousin became my cousin. I still feel that way about these people today. They are back in my life through Facebook, and I’m grateful for it.

There is a hero in this story, and that’s his wife, Joy. She was there with him day and night, holding him through every agonizing moment. She did everything to keep his spirits up. It didn’t work in the end, but she did her best.

I first met Joy 19 years ago. Sean had just severed what I thought was a poisonous relationship, and when he told me he was seeing this girl Joy, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. Here we go, I thought: Another fucked-up pairing.

It was nothing of the sort.

From the moment I met her, Joy was true to her name. She always made you feel good about yourself and treated you like an old friend even if she didn’t really know you.

She married Sean in 1994, knowing he had a sickness brewing inside. It didn’t matter. Love won out. I was best man, though they could have done far better with someone else in that role.

I was so self-absorbed that day, obsessing about the toast the best man is supposed to give, that I forgot the glass of champagne. The room stared back at me, puzzled. It was more of a speech than a toast, and a bad one at that.

I didn’t trick out their car with the “Just Married” stuff, either.

Fast-forward to the present. Thankfully, Joy found someone else to love and remarried. She has three kids and you can tell how much love she pours into them.

Her parents knew what they were doing when they picked that name.

Thank you, Joy.

The months following Sean’s death were among the worst of my life. I started binge-eating with vicious abandon, and just hated myself. I wrote a column about his death in the paper I wrote for at the time, and I left all the actual names in there. His mother and sister haven’t spoken to me since then. I can’t say I blame them.

I think I had to go through my own depression, mental breakdowns and addiction to understand what was going on in his soul.

Suicide is a tough concept for a Catholic like me. But I’ve learned a few things along the way:

–Blaming yourself is pointless. No matter how many times you replay events in your mind, the fact is that it’s not your fault. For one thing, it’s impossible to get into the head of someone who is contemplating suicide. Sure, there are signs, but since we all get the blues sometimes, it’s very easy to dismiss the signs as something close to normal. When someone is loud in contemplating suicide, it’s usually a cry for help. When the depressed says nothing and even appears OK, it’s usually because they’ve made their decision and are in the quiet, planning stages.

–Blaming each other is even more pointless. Take it from me: Nerves in your circle of family and friends are so raw right now that it won’t take much for relationships to snap into pieces. A week after my friend’s death I wrote a column about it, revealing what in hindsight was too much detail. His family was furious and most of them haven’t talked to me since. They feel I was exploiting his death to advance my writing career and get attention. I was pretty screwed up back then, so they’re probably right. In any event, I don’t blame them for hating me. What I’ve learned, and this is tough to admit, is that you’re going to have to let it go when the finger pointing starts. It’s better not to engage the other side. Nobody is in their right mind at this point, so go easy on each other. Give people space to make their errors in judgment and learn from it.

–Don’t demonize the dead. When a friend takes their life, one of the things that gnaws at the survivors is the notion that — if there is a Heaven and Hell — those who kill themselves are doomed to the latter. I’m a devout Catholic, so you can bet your ass this one has gone through my mind. What I’ve learned though, through my own experiences in the years since, is that depression is a clinical disease. When you are mentally ill, your brain isn’t firing on all thrusters. You engage in self-destructive behavior even though you understand the consequences. A person thinking about suicide is not operating on a sane, normally-functioning mind. So to demonize someone for taking their own life is pointless. To demonize the person, you have to assume they were in their right mind at the time of the act. And you know they weren’t. My practice today is to simply pray for those people, that their souls will still be redeemed and they will know peace. It’s really the best you can do. 

– Break the stigma. One of the friends left behind in this latest tragedy has already done something that honors her friend’s life: She went on Facebook and directed people toward the American Association of Suicidology website, specifically the page on knowing the warning signs. That’s a great example of doing something to honor your friend’s memory instead of sitting around second guessing yourself. The best thing to do now is educate people on the disease so that sufferers can help themselves and friends and family can really be of service.

–On with your own life. Nobody will blame you for not being yourself for awhile. You have, after all, just experienced one of the worst tragedies there is. But try not to let it paralyze you. Life must go on. You have to get on with your work and be there for those around you.

Life can be a brutal thing. But it IS a beautiful thing.

Seize it.

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Duncan Likes Pink. So What?

Duncan is raising a few eyebrows in church and school because his favorite color is pink. Apparently, it’s only OK for girls to like this color. Right off the bat I’m annoyed, because girls don’t get the same crap for wearing a so-called boy’s color like blue.

Duncan has a pink winter hat and a pink knitted coin pouch. When a priest saw him wearing the hat last year, a look of concern came over him. “Well, I guess there’s still time,” he said.

This past Sunday, Duncan showed the school principal his coin pouch. “That’s an interesting color,” she said.

By the way, that pouch was stuffed with coins Duncan couldn’t wait to put in the poor box.

I once asked Duncan why pink is his favorite color. His answer: “Because girls like pink. And I like girls.” Innocent words from a 7-year-old boy.

Here’s why I’m getting pissed off at people for making a big deal out of what I think is nothing:

This is how you start a child down the path of social anxiety, pain and dysfunction. You take something as innocent as a color choice and start suggesting there’s something wrong with him. The implication is that, because it’s a so-called girl’s color, he’s going to be gay when he grows up.

When I was a kid, I got hassled over the more old-fashioned stuff, like being overweight. I also kept believing in Santa Clause longer than the other kids my age. Being fat meant being damaged, unworthy of the same respect everyone else got. In high school, I used to watch teachers belittle students who dressed like hippes. The kids were drug-injecting wastoids as far as some of the teachers were concerned. I knew some who were, but I knew others who were not.

Make a kid feel stupid over how they look or what they wear and after awhile they’re probably going to start believing they are damaged goods.

I’m not going to let that happen to my kids without a fight.

Duncan can like whatever color he wants to like. If you have a problem with that, you can come talk to the boy’s ugly, still overweight Dad.

I’ll probably tell you you’re being shallow and judgemental. You’ve been warned.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how schools tend to deal with kids who are different. Kids like the one I used to be.

The school we send our kids to, a private Parochial school, is wonderful on many levels. My favorite thing about it is the other families who send their kids there. Many people who have become dear friends. Most importantly, the kids are getting a daily dose of God there, which is something Erin and I care deeply about.

But I see something there that bothers me. It’s something that’s a problem in a lot of schools.

It’s the sports mentality. The idea that the ONLY way to measure a kid’s potential is by how he or she does in sports.

My children are not much into sports. Both are more focused on art, science (especially Sean) and music (Duncan’s passion). Some might call that different. And because sports is such a huge deal in their school, I don’t think their talents are being put to the test as they should be.

Last year, Erin pitched the idea of a “Mad Scientist” program for kids who love science. The program would cost the school nothing and the principal expressed interest. Then it went nowhere. Kids like Sean lose out on this one.

But the sports. Oh, how the school loves its sports. The teams win big. And that is encouraged at all costs, even if it means only a quarter of the kids on a team get to play while those who “aren’t good enough” spend all their time on the bench. The goal is to win. If you’re not good enough to make that happen, you take a seat. Not the best way to challenge kids to reach their full potential, even if their potential doesn’t look like much to judgmental, competitive eyes.

This isn’t just a problem where my kids go to school. Everywhere you look, it’s all about the sports. The football team. The softball team. The hockey team. The basketball team.

Sure, sports are important. Sports bring out the best in many children, and can be as important an outlet for troubled kids as music, art and writing was and still is for me.

If a kid doesn’t want to do sports, so what?

If a boy likes the color pink, so what?

God made all colors for everyone to embrace, not just some for the boys and some for the girls.

Get over it.

battle_scars_by_eddietheyeti
“Battle Scars,” by EddieTheYeti
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Asking to be Assaulted?

Sometimes people say things that make me feel sorry for them. A few years ago I might have called them an idiot or something more Revere-like. Today I can only shake my head and feel pity. Here’s an example from the NerdChic blog.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3NinwlX6A&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Noirin Shirley writes in her blog, NerdChic.net, that she was sexually assaulted during a conference late last week. She names the guy who allegedly did it to her, and goes on to explain a lot of things that has netted her post 150-plus comments.

Here’s an excerpt:

At some point, it was too late and too loud to reasonably continue. Everyone cleared out (Nick, you are a *god*, for spending the extra five minutes to clear the carnage, so that I could wake up in a room that showed no signs of what had happened the night before!), and we headed to the Irish pub next door that has become our local.

Some food, a few more beers. Squeezing everyone up so I could sit next to someone I wanted to talk to. Laughing at the events of the week, and the night.

And then I went to the loo, and as I was about to go in, Florian Leibert, who had been speaking in the Hadoop track, called me over, and asked if he could talk to me.

I’m on the board of Apache. I’m responsible for our conferences. I work on community development and mentoring. If you’re at an Apache event and you want help, information, encouragement, answers, I will always do my best to provide. So this wasn’t an unusual request, and it wasn’t one I expected to end the way it did.

He brought me in to the snug, and sat up on a stool. He grabbed me, pulled me in to him, and kissed me. I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t think I was less clear). He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling.

Now, if this did happen, it sounds horrible. But since it’s currently her word against his and everyone has a right to be deemed innocent until proven guilty, the fact that she mentions the guy by name is unfortunate. The place to name names is with the authorities, not the blog-reading public. That’s my opinion, anyway.

On to the comments:

A lot of people have dissed this woman for her own bad behavior that night, for dressing in a supposedly provocative way, putting herself in a situation for this to happen, etc.

Let’s look at the comment from “LOL@you” —

“Get over it, some jerk groped you and now your whole life is ruined? You’re an attention whore who got the wrong sort of attention, that’s how it is sometimes. Calling this guy out is fine if you want but recognize that you’re clearly an idiot. There is “what’s right” and what is smart, as an adult you ought to know the difference by now you big baby. Keep waiting for the law to intervene and clear away all the jerks and pervs and you’ll live a long, sad life only to learn in the end that the cops, lawyers and politicians you think give a shit are the biggest pervs/jerks out there and will only help you to help their career. Just stop being such a drama queen/attention whore and you’ll be fine … “bicycle shorts under my skirt” …LOL. Do you realize what a social misfit you are?”

Whoever you are, LOL@you, I feel sorry for you because you lack the stones to say who you are. When you call someone a whore and say she deserved it for how she dressed, at least show yourself. Failure to do so makes you a coward.

I don’t care how Noirin was dressed. You simply don’t touch another person without their permission, man or woman. If this guy really did what Noirin claims, he deserves to be held accountable — in a court of law, should she choose to press charges.

To suggest she was asking for it is a clear indication that your understanding of right and wrong is severely underdeveloped.

That’s how I feel about her claim and some of the responses. Now that I got that out of the way, I have a bigger point to weigh in on.

Some of those who commented called her a baby for bringing up something like this. My view is that she could have done it more tastefully, mentioning all the details but not naming the guy, but if she was traumatized, she should be able to express herself.

If you don’t like that she did it in her blog, you don’t have to read it.

I can’t claim to be better than her when it comes to naming names. I’ve done it before, with disastrous results.

When my friend Sean Marley died, I mentioned in a newspaper column less than a week later that it was a suicide. I went into too much detail about how he did it. The price is that most of his family won’t talk to me today.

In that case, I could have handled the telling of the tale better.

I could have let a certain period of time pass before naming him and the nature of his death like I did, for all to see.

I’ve mentioned him a lot in this blog, and by now everyone knows he took his life. But the dust was left to settle for several years in between. I write about him now to honor his memory. 

In fact, in the last few years I decided there was a stigma around depression and addiction and that I had to try and break it.

In doing so, I’ve told you things about myself that some have deemed risky. I’ve been asked if I worry about losing my job for acknowledging my struggles.

Acknowledging that you were sexually assaulted is risky, too. If you in fact were assaulted and you refuse to be quiet about it, you are taking a risk. But it’s a courageous risk, which is hopefully done with class.

Since she chose to name names, I hope she is telling the truth. If she is, I commend her, despite some of the sloppiness in the process.

If all this is a lie, then I can only feel sorry for her, too.

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Me and My Wall

When I get tired and angry, I have this wall I put up. Erin is usually the one who crashes into it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpAbUvl3eTk&fs=1&hl=en_US]

She’s been building a freelance editing business for the past year, and the hours she puts in would kill a lesser person. I’ve taken on a lot of extra things around the house to help, and for the last week or so the fatigue and frustration has set in.

Not frustration with Erin. Frustration over the situation.

This is a much better situation than what we faced several months ago, when all the freelance work dried up and we couldn’t figure out how we were going to get all the bills paid. Now there’s a ton of work, and at the end of the day we’re both wiped out.

The problem is that I don’t immediately catch on that I’m frustrated. I figure it’s just me going into OCD mode. I’m just tired, I figure.

That’s when I become a prick.

Erin will try to engage me in conversation and I’ll shut down. I put the wall up. I don’t realize I’m doing it, and that’s a problem.

For all the sharing I do in this blog, sometimes it’s still ridiculously hard to open up to those closest to me. I’ve worked hard on fixing that in recent years, but I’m far from there.

One reason is that I’m still a selfish bastard sometimes. I get so wrapped up in my work and feelings that it becomes almost impossible to see someone else’s side of things. That eventually blows up in my face.

I also don’t like to be in a situation where there’s yelling. There was plenty of that growing up, and I tend to avoid the argument at all costs.

I’ve gotten better at this stuff, but I know I still put that wall up at times. Putting up a wall can be a bitch for any relationship, because sooner or later bad feelings will race at that wall like a drunk behind the wheel of a Porsche and slam right into it. Some bricks in the wall crack and come loose, but by then it can be too late. The relationship is totaled. 

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

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to put the big-boy pants on and get back to work on that wall.

Maybe one of these days I’ll tear it down once and for all.

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Passing Insanity to Your Kids

This weekend a friend asked if I worry about passing the “crazies” on to my children. The answer: Every day. But here’s why I don’t despair about it like I used to.

Mood music:

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

First, a few facts: Some of my quirks were definitely passed down to me from my parents. The OCD comes straight from my mother, and the emotional wall I sometimes put up to deal with it comes from my father. That binge eating would become the root of my addictive behavior should surprise no one. It runs deep in the roots of the Brenner family tree.

I see signs of my defects in Sean and Duncan every day.

Sean has more than a few OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.

Duncan, like me, gets a bit crazy when the daylight recedes. His mood will swing all over the place and he has the most trouble in school during winter time. To help remedy this, Erin recently bought me and Duncan happy lamps — essentially sunshine in a box. Despite the skepticism Duncan and I shared over it, the things actually seem to be working.

I don’t curse the fact that the kids inherited some of my oddities. As far as I’m concerned, those quirks are part of what makes them the beautiful, precious children they are.

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to purge this stuff from them. I just want them to know how to control it in ways I never could at their age.

To that end, they have a lot going in their favor: First of all, the traits they’ve inherited from their mom will be priceless weapons in whatever fights are before them. She has given them — and me — a spiritual foundation that can’t be broken.

The other big win in their favor is that I’ve gone through a lot of the pain and hard work so that they hopefully won’t have to.

I’ve developed a lot of coping tools to manage the OCD, and I can pass those skills on to them.

There’s also not as much stigma around this stuff as there used to be. There IS some, to be sure. But my kids won’t be written off as behavioral problems and tossed into a “C group” like I was. I won’t permit it.

There are no certainties in life except that we all die eventually. I can’t say Sean and Duncan will never know depression or addiction. A parent can put everything they have into raising their children right. 

But sometimes, despite that, fate can get in the way of all your hard work.

It’s not worth worrying about those unknowns, though, because you can’t do anything about it. All I can do is my best to give them the tools I didn’t have at their age and pray for the best.

One reason I don’t worry as much as I used to about these things: Sean and Duncan are much smarter than their old man was at their age.

That has to count for something.

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Why Halloween Doesn’t Scare Me Anymore

I used to hate Halloween with a passion. It’s one of the worst days for someone with a compulsive binge eating addiction. Now that I’ve broken the binging cycle, I find myself in the odd position of looking forward to the holiday.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohB922c2uQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I used to dread it because I knew there would be candy everywhere. I would stuff it in my pockets, in the car and every other hiding space. Then I’d spend the next week binging on sugar. That would trigger the urge to go deeper down the rabbit hole, so a vicious, almost crippling cycle of binging would take hold from Halloween straight through the rest of the holidays.

That didn’t happen in 2008. It didn’t happen last year. It’s not going to happen this time, either. 

The chain is broken.

Hey, Halloween: You don’t scare me anymore.

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Homeless Men, Inc.

Observation: There are a lot of homeless people on the streets of Toronto. It’s a lot like San Francisco, except these guys have a stunning cleverness about them.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsCtUj9K_tw&fs=1&hl=en_US]

You’re asking what this has to do with addiction, recovery and mental health, and here’s the answer: Whenever I travel and see someone living on the street, I’m reminded of just how easily I could have ended up the same way, and how my demons could have taken me there.

Had I not gotten a grip on the OCD and related addictions, who knows what would have happened?

I’ve always been lucky, and perhaps I’m being a bit over-dramatic. Of course, that’s what people like me do. But I look at people down on their luck and think it could happen to any of us, no matter how much money we may come from. We’re always just one step away from the one bad decision that causes us to lose everything.

Fortunately for me, I’ve always been surrounded by people who won’t let me fail.

Anyway, the people on the street around here are interesting. They are surprisingly happy. They take turns sitting on milk crates outside the prime panhandling spots with cap in hand. I walked past one guy and dropped a pocket full of change into his cup. Five minutes later, another guy was on the same crate.

It’s almost like they have a little business going, where they coordinate activity and practice their lines. I can picture them getting together each night under a bridge to take inventory on the daily haul.

Call me something unkind, but I’ve enjoyed talking to some of them. I like their humor. Should they be busy getting themselves off the street and getting their lives in order? Perhaps. But I’m clueless as to the circumstances that brought them to their current realities, so I’m not in a position to judge them.

In a really sick sort of way, I’m glad they’re around to remind me of how lucky I am. No matter how shitty my day is going, it can always be worse. Much worse.

Of course, I’ll bet some of these street walkers look at passers by with some sympathy, because everyone’s imprisoned in a world of corporate pressure and worry about material things. 

I wonder if there’s a certain comfort and even happiness to having nothing.

Of course, this whole entry is a case of judging people and wondering who is better than who. I can’t tell if I’m being compassionate or stupid.

But I’m pretty sure that one of these days God will sort it all out for me.

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My OCD is Alive and Well

Packing for a trip to Toronto, I caught myself doing some very OCD-like things. Even in recovery, it’s always there, below the surface. Here are a few examples.

Mood music:

What I did: I checked all the contents in my laptop bag last night. Three times. I took the laptop out and put it back in three times. I checked my digital recorder three times. I thrice checked to make sure the bottle of Prozac was where it’s supposed to be.

How it’s better than it used to be: Back in the day, I would check everything too many times to count. I would remove EVERYTHING from the bag and put it back in, then repeat the process up to 10 times. I left work late many times because I wasted time on this sort of thing.

What I did: I obsessively took care of house chores to make life easier on Erin. I took out the trash, made the kids’ lunches, carried down a basket of laundry, and went around the living room picking up toys and making sure everything was just so.

How it’s better than it used to be: In addition to doing these things, I used to pace around worrying about everything to do with the travel: Whether I’d get to the plane on time, whether the plane would get me to my destination without crashing, and whether I would measure up to the work task before me. That was the fear and anxiety eating at me.

This time, the stuff I did was useful and I didn’t worry about the rest. Now I don’t give a thought to the airport stuff. I just go to the airport and smoothly go through security and find my coffee. Instead of freaking out over lines, I’m more relaxed, talking to people in line and even enjoying their company.

I don’t obsessively review the schedule for whatever conference I’m going to. Now I look it over once and then play things by ear once there. I always get at least two stories and two podcasts done, and I don’t get sick to my stomach about getting it done. I just do it and I LOVE it.

The lesson of this post is that the mental ticks never go away entirely. And that’s OK.

Now when I catch myself in the act, I laugh at myself and move on. It’s a gift to be able to do that.

The real damaging, time-wasting and binge-inducing stuff is gone. What’s left I can handle. 

People who seek treatment for their struggles tend to go looking for the Happily Ever After. You’ll figure it out and never worry about anything again.

The thing is, that’s a bullshit notion. You’re not supposed to go through life without a care in the world.

The lessons continue.

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