Posted on

The Kid Sister

The 80s weren’t all bad, thanks to the kid sister who came along.

Mood music: “Nobody Told Me” by John Lennon. I used to sing the “Everybody’s smoking, and no one’s getting high” line to my kid sister, much to her dismay.

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

I’ve written about a lot of the darker parts of my childhood and teen years and how they factored into an adulthood of mental illness and addiction. But those years were brightened by a particularly strong ray of sunshine. Here’s the story of my kid sister, Shira.

Shira’s 15 years younger than me and was born nearly two years after my brother’s death. I was sick with the flu the day she was born and was also going through a Crohn’s flare up.

To say she brightened the mood at 22 Lynnway would be an understatement. She was an especially adorable baby and was a welcome distraction from everything that was going on at the time.

She’s grown up now and I don’t see her much these days, but last night we got a chance to catch up at my father’s birthday dinner. She was telling me about her current job teaching English and how she wants to use her teaching skills to work more with the disadvantaged. She recently got back from Mexico, where she lived for several months. Before that she lived in South America for quite awhile, teaching the locals.

She’s quite a kid. If not for the big chip on my shoulder, I might have been more like her in my 20s. I’m happy with how my life turned out and believe I had to go through the dark stuff to get here. But Shira has really been an inspiration to me. She crisscrosses the globe without fear and has an easygoing way about her that’s nearly impossible to crack. I know, because I’ve tried.

I’ve always been the teasing sort of brother. I tell everyone who will listen that I remember when I could fit Shira in a beer mug. I remember once, when she was about 4 or 5, she told me to stop teasing.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I tease you cause I love you.”

“Then don’t love me,” she shot back.

Naturally, I told everyone about that exchange, and with more than a little glee.

Around the same time, I was having a lot of parties in the basement of the Revere house. The morning after, Shira would often make the rounds, stopping at the various friends who would be passed out asleep on my bed, on the couch or on the floor.

Even back then, no matter how much I drank the night before, I would always wake up early so I could sneak cigarettes without being seen.

I’d always enjoyed watching her make the rounds. My guests didn’t always enjoy it, but that was fine with me.

She brought a lot of joy to a family that was reeling from a string of bad breaks. She brings a lot of joy to the family today.

This post is my little thank you note to her.

Posted on

Lessons of a Thirty-something

The author is reflecting a lot on things that happened in his 30s.

Mood music: “Lunchbox” by Marylin Manson:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Fo57AXW3w&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Since my 40th birthday is next month, I’m thinking a lot about the last decade. In many ways, I’m not the same guy I was when I was staring at my 30th birthday. This has been a decade of healing, with a lot of broken scabs along the way.

At the start of my 30s, I started to come undone. The symptoms of what would eventually become an OCD diagnosis suddenly grew in intensity. The binge eating addiction entered a new era of viciousness. Some relationships imploded while others were renewed.

In my early 30s, the OCD manifested itself in some insidious ways. I was obsessed with pleasing people, especially my bosses at The Eagle-Tribune, and my mother. I was also obsessed with keeping my weight down in the face of the binging. So I exercised like a madman. In the process, I was just masking a physical decline.

At 31, I was busy being something I’m not good at — a hard-ass. My bosses demanded it. I would get wound so tight that I became impossible to work with. I was also busy trying to keep my mother and step-father happy, which was almost always impossible, especially when it came to their personalities clashing with that of my wife, who had given birth to Sean a year before.

I celebrated my 31st birthday with my mother, stepfather, in-laws and Erin at the Legal Seafood in the Peabody mall. I didn’t want a cake. My mother went nuts about it, because on someone’s birthday you give them cake. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t want it. She was going to ask the waitress to bring me a cake anyway, but Erin put her foot down, because, as I said, I didn’t want a cake.

The next day, my mother called:

Ma: “I just wanted to apologize for not having a cake for you.”

Me: “But I didn’t want cake.”

Ma: “I tried to get you one, but YOUR WIFE wouldn’t let me.”

It always came back to Erin. She was always the scapegoat for decisions I made that my mother didn’t like. And yet, I pressed on, trying to make everyone happy.

By 2006 I was long gone from The Eagle-Tribune, but was still obsessed with pleasing the masters at TechTarget. And I was still trying to please my mother. It was getting a lot harder to do, since I was two years into therapy, newly diagnosed with OCD and spending a lot of time digging back into an abusive past for clues on how I got the way I did. A lot of it came back to her. And so in the summer of 2006 that relationship broke apart.

Why go on about these things? Because some important lessons emerged from the experiences that were instrumental in my healing.

First, I realized that no matter how hard you try, keeping people pleased is impossible.

Second, I realized that the only way to achieve mental health is to be true to oneself. For me, that meant surrendering to a higher power and dealing head-on with the addictions. It also meant being honest about my limited ability to control OCD without medication.

And while some relationships fell apart, others that were damaged in my 20s started to heal in my 30s, especially in the last year.

To that end, I think of Joy, Sean Marley‘s widow. She’s remarried with kids and has done a remarkable job of pushing on with her life. She dropped out of my world for nearly 14 years — right after Sean’s death — until recently. The contents of our exchange are private, but this much I can tell you: I was wrong all these years when I assumed  she hated my guts and wanted nothing more to do with me.

I have to be careful with this last reconnection. I still have a lot of questions about Sean’s final years and the OCD in me wants to know everything now. If I’m lucky, some answers will come in time. But I’m not going to push. I have no right to.

Besides, simply being reconnected is, as Joe Biden might say, “A big fucking deal.”

I used the Marilyn Manson song above as my mood music today because I think of “Lunchbox” whenever I get angry about my limitations. By the time the song is over, I usually feel a lot better.

But while the kid in the song has his metal lunchbox and is “armed real well,” I got my tools of recovery. So you could say I’m armed much better than that kid.

Posted on

The Perils of Service, Part 2

Volunteering can be a bitch, especially when you forget who you’re there to help.

Mood music for this post: “My Way” by Limp Bizkit:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ8Qi86i82s&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Once a month, I spend a couple hours on a Saturday volunteering in the food pantry run by our church. It can be a frustrating endeavor.

Part of the frustration is my own fault. I should be there more often, but I’m only there once a month because I’m spread so thin these days between family, work and sponsoring people in my 12-Step program.

A lot of new people are working the pantry these days. They’re not that new, mind you. They just seem new to me because I’m not there enough to be used to them. They’re good folks, but in my head — when the rush of people come in for their food — I pick apart how they do things. I’ll get annoyed if they try to process multiple orders at once because the bags of food get mixed up and chaos ensues. One guy is very serious and doesn’t laugh at my jokes.

The Saturday crew is always bitching about the Tuesday crew leaving a mess. The Tuesday crew is always bitching about the Saturday crew for the same reason.

And there I am, on my own perch, picking apart how everyone does things because I want everyone to do it my way. I am a control freak, after all. Not that I have a right to be.

These people are there every Tuesday and Saturday. I show up once a month.

If anything, they should be annoyed by me, and they probably are.

Clashing egos is pretty common among those who do service. On the recovering addict side, everyone in the room suffers from compulsive behavior. People like us usually have bloated egos. Mine is especially bloated. This makes me an asshole at times.

But I press on and do what I need to do, and things always work out.

The friction that’s always present among the volunteers at the start of a shift always eases off and we’re all getting along midway through. You can pick on how different people do things, but they’re all giving up their time to make something work.

And once I get out of my own way, things start to fall into place.

At some point in the shift, it hits me. The people in line are there because they can’t afford groceries. They’re down on their luck and doing the best they can.

And when you hand them the bags of donated food, they are GRATEFUL.

And they help me as much as I help them. When I see people who need to live on donated food standing tall, helping each other carry bags to their cars, picking up food for someone who may live at the other end of town from where they live, enjoying time with the children they have in tow, they bring me back to Earth and remind me what life’s all about.

The other volunteers — the ones who are there practically every week while I just breeze in once a month — help me too.

When I see how dedicated they are, it makes me work harder at being a better man.

Posted on

Anatomy of a Binge

If you do these things, you might have a binge eating problem.

Mood Music: 

6 a.m.: Wake up, pour coffee. Resolve to live on nothing but coffee and cigarettes for the day.

8 a.m.: Fuck it. You’re hungry. Eat something healthy for breakfast. A bagel and cream cheese will do. Serving size, one 12-ounce container of cream cheese. Add swiss cheese.

8:15 a.m.: Smoke another cigarette and decide that’s all the food you’re going to eat for the day. Resolve to eat one giant breakfast and nothing else for the day for the next several days.

9 a.m.-10:15: As you work, start having a back-and-forth in your head as to whether you really should be having lunch.

10:45 a.m.: Walk to the vending machine for a healthy snack of animal crackers. Choose the Pop Tarts instead. Continue to ponder lunch.

11 a.m.: Take a break from work and drive around to clear your head. Resolve to have a smoke or two but no lunch.

11:02 a.m.: Proceed to the nearest fast-food drive-through or buffet place.

11:15-noonish: You chose the buffet place. Good. Stay there until you’ve had your fill. This will require going back for seconds, thirds and fourths.

Noonish-3ish: Resume working while pondering why you’re such a shameful idiot.

3ish: Get in the car. Plan to drive straight home.

3:05 p.m.: Stuff yourself with the $25 bag of McDonald’s you don’t quite remember buying a couple minutes ago.

3:30 p.m.: The three cheeseburgers, two large fries and two orders of chicken strips is consumed, and you’re sitting there wondering what you’re doing in the Dunk ‘N Donuts drive-through.

3:32 p.m.: Stare at the empty box of donuts and wonder what’s wrong with you.

3:35-4 p.m.: Keep your eyes on the road as you try to put the shame you’re feeling in the proper perspective.

4 p.m.: Get in the house and try to act like nothing’s wrong. When the kids ask you to play with them, explain that your back hurts and lie on the couch.

5:30 p.m.: Dinner time. Try as hard as you can to eat some of what’s on your plate, even though it looks healthy and your gut is throbbing from what you did earlier.

6:30 p.m.: Get the kids ready for bed.

7:30 p.m.: Fall asleep on the couch and forget the day you’ve just had.

Repeat process the next morning.

That’s how I used to do it, anyway.

Sometimes it would just last a day or two. Usually, it would be weeks and months. In 1997, I probably carried on like this for all but a few weeks of the year.

 

Posted on

One Happy Head Case

The author on how to be happy despite yourself. Or, at least, how he attempts it.

Mood music for this post: “In My Life” by Ozzy (covering The Beatles):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByB7Id67v3c&hl=en_US&fs=1]

When anyone writes about their journey from addiction and mental illness to recovery, it’s easy to focus on the darker things. But the truth is, I’m a pretty happy head case. I may be financially strapped and tired, but my head is in a better place than it was when the situations were reversed.

The big reason is that I have God in my life, and, by extension, wonderful family and friends. And my head is clear enough after all these years to see and appreciate that.

I also have one of the best jobs a journalist could have, and several writing projects in play. Since boredom is an addict’s worst nightmare, I’m grateful for this.

I get to do a lot of service these days, whether it’s through my church or through my 12-Step Program. It can be a bitch and I’m sure I’m making mistakes along the way, but it’s worth it.

I also don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night puking stomach acid or spending my mornings binge sick like I used to.

Today I get to plan out my security conference travel schedule for the fall and see a dear friend and her family this evening.

I’m in my favorite chair by the living room window, watching the sun rise through the fog at 5 a.m. A strong cup of coffee is on the table beside me.

There’s plenty of happiness to be found when you’re a head case. You just have to know where to find it.

Switching subjects, a lot of new readers are asking me about the back story to this blog. I’ve pulled together all the relevant links on who I am, what I was, what made me change and what life is like now in this collection.

Seize the day.

Posted on

Fear of Fat People

What do you tell someone who says they’re afraid of fat people because they might “catch the disease” if they get too close? Read on and discuss.

Mood music for this post: “Afraid” by Motley Crue:

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

Someone in program told me that she’s afraid of fat people. Being in the same room with obesity fills her with terror. She’s worried that if she shakes a fat person’s hand, she’ll “catch the disease.” I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. It’s for real.

Naturally, I was taken aback. For one thing, why is she willing to be in a room with me?True, I’m much lighter than I used to be. But the word “slim” doesn’t exactly fit me.

To me, the whole thing is too far off the sanity charts to comprehend. My first instinct was to tell her she’s an idiot.

Then I remembered something important: When you are trapped in the grip of an addiction or mental illness, logic and sane thinking no longer apply.

I should know. I’ve been in the grip of both. I’ve had fears that were just as whacked. I never felt anxiety around people who are heavier than me. But there have been times when I thought of them as a lower form of life than myself. Since I was thinner, I was better than them. I thought this way even when I was 285 pounds and binge eating multiple times a day.

That’s just as bad as fearing an obese person. It’s probably worse.

Long before I found recover and the 12 steps, I used to be set off by the dumbest things. If a very old woman was sitting behind me in church, I’d be afraid to shake her hand during the part of Mass where we offer each other a sign of peace. Old people spread germs, too — right? That’s what I worried about. Forget that I’m a father of two boys below the age of 10 and kids are the biggest germ factories around.

I was afraid of plastic chairs. I was afraid that if I sat in one, the chair would stay stuck to my behind when I stood up. Actually, right before I entered OA, that very thing did happen.

Crowds used to scare the life out of me, so much so that I chose to stay in my room all the time.

So, all things considered, someone’s fear of fat people doesn’t seem as far removed from reality as I first thought.

Still, it’s a bad obsession and I hope she can free herself of it.

Posted on

Coping With Tired: Tools of a Reformed Addict and OCD Case

Several writings about how the author copes with exhaustion.

Mood music for this post: “I’m So Tired,” from The Beatles White Album:

Someone who saw my “songs to play when tired” post asked what I do about being tied besides music and coffee. People with addictions and mental disorders are often tired — even when in recovery. These writings cover how I keep exhaustion at bay:

Rest Re-defined
The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/02/02/ocd-diaries-rest-re-defined/

The Bright Side of Exhaustion
For someone with OCD, a little exhaustion can be just what the doctor ordered.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/03/26/the-bright-side-of-exhaustion/

Somewhat Damaged
Sometimes the author lives in overdrive. The result is pain.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/26/somewhat-damaged/

The Rewards and Risk of Service: A Cautionary Tale
Service is a major tool of recovery. But it can also be dangerous.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/29/the-rewards-and-risk-of-service-a-cautionary-tale/

This is Your Brain on Restlessness
The author has hit a wall with his recovery. It’s not what you think.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/04/27/this-is-your-brain-on-restlessness/

Writing to Save My Life: The author on why he became a writer and how it shaped his recovery from mental illness and addiction.

http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/06/02/writing-to-save-my-life-the-ocd-diaries-for-6-2-10/

How I Became the Easy Parent
Here’s a side of my recovery that the kids enjoy: I’m more of a push-over than I used to be.
http://www.theocddiaries.com/2010/06/06/how-i-became-the-easy-parent/

Posted on

You Can Learn a Lot from a Dummy

Sometimes, addicts look and talk like dummies. But they can teach you some surprising things about yourself.

Mood music for this post: “Dumb” by Nirvana:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CYC8w-qstc&hl=en_US&fs=1]

When you first walk into a 12-Step meeting, everyone in the room seems strange. People may be off the food, drugs and alcohol, but their speech may still be slurred. You dismiss them as dummies, failing to see you’re the same as them. They can teach you more than you can teach them.

Or so I’m discovering.

As I mentioned last week, I’m up to sponsoring three people in OA. It’s been a classic case of me feeling inconvenienced about helping someone else. The selfish side of me kicks in and I start getting pissed if someone has to call me five times a day to be talked off the ledge.

I may have found God and recovery, but I discover on a daily basis how much work I still have to do to become the kind of person I should be. Working toward redemption can be a bitch.

And yet, in a lot of little ways, I can see how I’m being pushed in the right direction despite myself.

The sponsoring is one piece of the puzzle. Being the jerk I’m capable of being, I found myself looking down on my sponsees at first. I had a stronger recovery than them, I felt. I was the teacher and they were the ones who couldn’t talk or walk straight. That’s a bullshit notion, of course. And I’m learning the lesson quickly.

The more I get to know my sponsees, the more I see what THEY have to teach ME. Two of them have been in and out of 12-Step programs for the better part of two decades. Hell, two decades ago all I cared about was getting wrecked in my basement in Revere.

They’ve been to the brink of death more than once at the hands of their multiple addictions. As the reader knows by now, binge eating is the main addiction I had to do something about, and I’ve enjoyed too much wine in the past, along with the pain pills prescribed to me for the constant back pain I used to have. But I have nothing on these folks. My other sponsee is somewhat new to the program, but he’s much more in tune with his Faith than I am at this point, so I’m learning from him, too.

I”m driving two of my sponsees to the Saturday-morning OA meeting these days, and one of them, a life-long resident of Haverhill, is teaching me a lot about the city. As we drive by all kinds of obscure buildings, he’ll tell me about how one used to be a shoe factory and another place used to be a bar he’d hang out in after 10-hour work days for two bucks an hour. He’s a big bear of a man with a heart of gold. Yesterday he left me the following voice mail:

“I just want to say two things to you: THANK YOU. I love you, buddy.”

This, from a guy who has only known me for a few weeks.

Just in case I needed any more convincing that sponsorship has become a necessary tool for me, the Gospel in Mass yesterday was The Parable of the Good Samaritan:

Luke 10:30-37: Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?” He said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Father Michael Harvey expanded on what the Gospel means in his Homily. This was the children’s Mass, so he broke it down in terms that the dumbest among us adults could understand. His last line seemed to be pointed straight at me:

“Giving help was not convenient for the Samaritan. One might say it was a pain and that this is what it’s like when someone proves to be very needy. God puts these people in our lives because we need them as much as they need us.”

So I’m learning.

Yesterday afternoon, a couple close cousins — Sharon and Martha — came to visit us and we were sitting out back, talking about this blog. Sharon apparently keeps up on it more than Martha does, and Sharon said something like, “I tell Martha all the time — you can learn a lot from Bill.”

To which I chuckled, remembering the old commercials with the crash test dummies, and said, “Yeah, you can learn a lot from a dummy.”

Posted on

America’s Confusion Over OCD

A new friend from East Africa offers a new perspective on obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Mood music for this post: “Three Days” by Jane’s Addiction:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmvG2GZ3S7o&hl=en_US&fs=1]

A reader of this blog recently friended me on Facebook and, Thursday, pinged me using the FB chat feature. He’s from Uganda in East Africa. He has OCD.

The conversation was mostly him asking me questions about my own treatment for the disorder, how understood it is in American culture and so on.

In Uganda, he said, not many people are aware of the disorder. This makes it difficult to get the proper treatment and carry on in public.

The media and healthcare system there is still very rudimentary, he told me. It’d be hard to explain to an herbal doctor or “traditional healer” what OCD is. So those who have severe OVD suffer in silence.

He was very curious to know what the perception is in this country.

In the course of the conversation, something occurred to me — something I’ve always known but never really thought about.

In America, OCD is so well-known that just about everyone with a Type-A personality will tell you they have it. People will say they’re having an OCD moment at the drop of a hat. Usually if they’ve dropped their own hat and pick it up without counting to four or some of the other things real OCD cases are famous for.

Americans in particular are more hyper-aware of OCD because American culture by its very nature is obsessive and compulsive. We see things on TV that we MUST have, and don’t stop thinking about it until we have it. Maybe it’s a new pair of boots or a handbag. You see it and must have it, then you catch yourself, giggle and say your having an OCD moment.

Or, you get caught up in a period of heavy work activity. A project is due and you have the blinders on so you can tune out the rest of the world and get the work done. You shrug and say it’s an OCD moment.

In both cases, it’s not an OCD moment. It’s just you doing what you’ve been taught to do in a capitalist society.

Don’t mistake this for an anti-American rant. I love my country. It’s just that when compared to poorer, third-world nations, we have so much that we often take our understanding of things for granted. That includes understanding the difference between having a mental disorder and just getting caught up in the hyperactive nature of society.

I do the same things, and — even though I am a clinical OCD case — I often have trouble telling the difference between one of my genuine OCD moments and when I’m just getting caught up in material things.

Americans are complex beings. That’s our Blessing and our curse.

It’s a small lesson. But I’m thankful that this blog connects me with people from other parts of the world who see things differently.

Posted on

Summertime Blues is a Punk

The author on showing up for life — especially when you don’t feel like it.

Mood music for this post: “Die, Die My Darling” by The Misfits:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBPfC9FzDL4&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Some days the OCD runs so hot and the addictive impulses are so strong that I just want to go sit in the corner, drink my coffee and smoke a long, fat cigar and tell the world to go screw. This is one of those days.

I’m not special. We all have these days. And even in my current mood, I know I live an incredibly blessed life. I also admit that when I hear other people vent dramatic prose about how sucky their lives are, I just want to tell them what they can do with their drama.

Hypocritical? Absolutely. But then obsessive-compulsive people are almost always hypocritical when it comes to complaining — and being selfish.

Which brings me to the point of this post:

When I experience the kind of mood swing I’m in the middle of right now, I’ve learned to work my tools of recovery. Sometimes I don’t want to and I curse the day I discovered them. But when I put them to use, things always get better. Always.

When I’m at that point where the tools make things better, the best way to describe it is that I get out of my own way and show up for life.

So which tools am I going to lean on today? The same ones I pretty much rely on every day:

–My food plan, which I can tighten up on now that the holiday weekend is behind me. The state of dirty recovery I’m currently in is part of this morning’s mood problem.

–My sponsorship. I’m going to be there today for the two OA members I’m sponsoring, no matter how pissed I get if one of them calls me too much. My sponsors have always put up with the grief I give them, so I’m going to keep doing my best at this form of service. After all, as Red Green would say, we’re all in this together.

—My writing. I’m already working this tool by banging out this blog post. Once I push the publish button, I’ll feel a lot better for having vented some of my negative brain smoke.

And then there are my own tools, which aren’t exactly part of the official program. But they work for me.

—Metal. I’m listening to a strange mixture of metallic-punk attitude this morning, including The Misfits, Dead Kennedys and Guns N Roses.

—Sarcasm. I’m not going to be sarcastic myself, this morning. But I have plenty of sarcastic people in my life, and today I’m going to enjoy the hell out of anything that comes from their voice boxes.

By using these tools, I’ll be able to show up for a couple things I don’t want to do but have to: Borrowing money to right the family finances (or start to) and attend a wake.

No cowering in the corner for me. Though a cigar is not out of the question.