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Human Tourniquets And Freaks Who Love Them

I originally wrote this three years ago. Looking at it again, it’s an important post describing a time when not even best friends were safe from my insanity. I’ve updated it for the present. 

Mood music:

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You know the type. They hang  out with people who act more like abusive spouses than friends. They are human tourniquets. They absorb the pain of their tormentor daily and without complaint.

This is the story of the man who used to be my tourniquet.

I met Aaron Lewis in 1985, my freshman year of high school. He was the kid with really bad acne. But nothing ever seemed to bother him. I’m sure a lot of things bothered him, but he was very good at hiding his feelings.

That made him the perfect target for a creep like me.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a true friend. One of my best friends. We shared a love of heavy metal. We both got picked on, though unlike me, he didn’t take it out on other, weaker classmates.

We hung out constantly. He practically lived in my Revere basement at times. I let him borrow my car regularly. And if I drank, that was OK, because he almost never drank. He could be the driver.

Except for the time I encouraged him to drink a bottle of vodka. He had just eaten a bag of McDonald’s and I told him I was sick of him trying to get buzzed off of wine coolers. This night, I told him, he was going to do it right. He got smashed, and proceeded to puke all over my basement — on the bed, the carpets, the couch, the dresser. That was some strange vomit. It looked like brown confetti.

I sat on the floor, drunk myself, writing in my journal. I wrote about how drunk Aaron was and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die. Man, would I love to find that journal.

We saw a lot of movies together. We watched a lot of MTV.

He was the perfect counterweight to Sean Marley. Marley was essentially my older brother and I spent a lot of time trying to earn his approval. I didn’t have to do that with Aaron. He didn’t criticize. He didn’t judge. He just took all my mood swings on the chin.

I would sling verbal bombs at him and he’d take it.

I would slap him on the back of the neck and he’d take it.

I was evil. And he took it.

That’s a true friend.

Aaron got married, moved to California and has a growing family. He’s doing some wonderful things with his life. I cleaned up from my compulsive binge eating, found my Faith and untangled the coarse, jagged wiring in my brain that eventually became an OCD diagnosis.

If he’s reading this, I apologize for all the times I was an asshole. I hope somewhere in there, I was a good friend, too.

Buddies
Left: Aaron Lewis. Right: His asshole friend
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Don’t Go Away Mad

A funny thing happens when people share stories of the not-so-happy moments of their lives: You walk away thinking they’ve experienced nothing but tragedy. In reality, there are plenty of uneventful pages in between the drama.

Mood music:

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One time I was asked to tell my story at a 12-Step meeting. Under the format, you tell your story for about 15 minutes. The first five cover the speaker’s ugly path to addiction, the second five focuses on the point we hit bottom and entered the program, and the final five are about how our lives are today in recovery.

So I delved into the stormy past: The older brother dying, the best friend killing himself, the childhood disease and the depression and addiction that resulted. And, of course, the underlying OCD.

At the end of the meeting, someone expressed shock over all the troubles I’ve been through. “It’s just been one tragedy after another,” the person said.

I had to laugh. I’ve experienced my share of adversity, but a tragic life? Not even close.

It’s easy to feel punched in the face by the gravity of the experiences I shared because it’s all concentrated into one intense place, whether it’s reading all the back entries in this blog in one sitting or hearing me talk about it for five minutes of a 15-minute talk. Inevitably, it’s going to come off to the observer as a horror movie.

In truth, while I have been through the meat grinder, there have been many years of peace, joy happiness in between all the bad. All these events are stretched out over the 42-plus years I’ve been around. If you were to sit and watch even a three-hour replay of events, you’d find it a lot more boring.

To understand this, think about your own life. You’ve no doubt experienced sickness and death, family dysfunction and career ups and downs.

If you haven’t, you will.

In between the rough patches, I fell in love with and married the best gal on Earth, had two precious children who keep me laughing and loving, I’ve enjoyed a lot of success in my career, traveled to a lot of cool places and found God.

Would I want to go through the bad stuff again? Of course not. But the weird truth is that I’m not sure I’d change the past, either. It’s easy for someone to wish they had a lost loved one back in their life and that they were less touched by illness.

But without having gone through these things, would I be where I’m at today? I really don’t see how.

So when you read about some of the tougher things in this blog, don’t worry about me and don’t feel bad. I’m no different from most people in what I’ve been through, and it’s all good.

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Worth Your Time

I’ve written about my battles with mental illness at length here, but to fully understand how this beast works you have to see other points of view. Concord Monitor reporter Annmarie Timmins offers some powerful testimony in a piece she wrote as part of a larger series on mental illness.  Read it. All of it.

Below: Monitor reporter Annmarie Timmins is reflected in the mirror at her gym in Concord. 

(ANDREA MORALES / Monitor staff)

dt.common.streams.StreamServer

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‘Help’ Might Be the Best Four-Letter Word Out There

A topic I’ve visited often here is the shame people feel in asking for help. When we do so, we think we’re being weak, selfish and all-around pathetic. But, as I’ve said, that’s bullshit. Another blogger made the point so eloquently this week that it must be shared.

Mood music:

Jennifer Pastiloff is a writer, retreat leader and yogi with a popular blog called The Manifest-Station. Monday, at the very end of “Bitch Slap It,” she captured the power of getting help with a simplicity and directness that hit me where I live:

Asking for help is just about the best thing any of us can do. Most people don’t know this secret (so please pass it on if you would). What we think we know is usually miniscule compared to what we really don’t know at all and what we don’t know is how the world will open up and show us that we are held.

So when you say I am on a journey to be a spiritual being and I AM STUCK! I need your help I’d like to point out that the help has been granted. It’s right here. And here. And there.

Also see: “To a Friend: Your Pride Is Killing You” and “The Liar’s Disease”

I recently heard a talk from Cardinal Sean O’Malley in which he called love his favorite four-letter word. It’s a favorite of mine, too. But I hold help in equal esteem.

It’s probably one of the more misunderstood words out there. We’re bombarded almost from the moment we’re born with platitudes about how as American citizens, we can achieve anything we set our minds to. There’s truth in that, but it often gives us the false notion that greatness, even simple happiness, for that matter, is something we can rightfully lay claim to only if we achieve it all on our own. To ask for help along the way is the mark of a sissy, a coward, a lazy soul, a clingy, needy child.

What a crock of shit.

Asking for help is the mark of courage and reason. When you realize you can’t get somewhere on your own and you invite people to join you on your journey, you’re doing something selfless and giving, something generous. Not just because you’re letting people into your life, but because once you reach a certain point in the journey, you inevitably start giving back.

The person who helped you will eventually need help, too. And you will be there for them.

Thanks for the reminder, Jennifer.

helping hand

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Packing For #RSAC and #BSidesSF 2013: An OCD Case Study

I’m preparing to pack for five days in San Francisco, where I’ll be writing about goings on at RSA Conference 2013 and Security B-Sides. When you have OCD, packing a suitcase is as ritualistic as the compulsive hand washing you’ve heard about.

Mood music:

Before I had the OCD under control, packing was an all-day affair. I’d line up all my pants, shirts, socks, suit coats and accessories in order of the days I planned to wear them. I would undergo a similar ritual when gathering toothpaste, the razor, pills, etc. I would always pack extra for fear that I’d be without socks on the second-to-last day of the trip.

I still keep track of what I stuff into the suitcase to ensure I have enough for each day of the trip. But I only look over my cargo twice. It takes less time to do it that way than when I used to look things over five to 10 times.

Packing the laptop bag has gotten easier. I used to cram five notebooks and a handful of pens in there. Now it’s one pen and no notebooks. At this stage of my career, I’m pretty good at storing notes in my head. I don’t let it sit in my head for too long. I usually write up the talks and demos within 10 minutes of seeing them. Some talks, I write the story while I’m sitting there watching.

I also don’t stuff my pockets with cigars and cigarettes anymore. That allows for more room. There are the e-cigs, but they take up less space.

Some things will never change. I’ll always try to get to the airport three hours before the flight because I always worry about unexpected problems and want time to fix what needs fixing. People think that’s crazy and it probably is. This year I’m being a little more bold. I plan to get there exactly two hours before the flight, but that’s because a predicted snowstorm is forcing me to leave a day earlier than originally planned, which is making everything tighter.

Last year I walked around in my big, heavy boots. This year I’m being smart about it and going with the black leather moccasins that slip on and off effortlessly.

I’ll have a supply of Starbucks Via packets in case I can’t find my preferred coffee in the airport.

I’ll have my Kindle, which is lighter than the books I tend to pack. I’m leaving the extra rings and bracelets behind. I figure the less I take with me, the less there is to worry about.

Which brings me to the pills. One year I forgot to grab my Prozac bottle on the way out of the hotel and only realized my mistake after getting through the airport TSA line. Now I just pack the exact number of pills I need for the trip. The rest of the bottle stays home.

Now I’ll have the rest of the day to enjoy time with my family.

Repetitive OCD behavior is a time thief. You lose so much because of it.

I’m not totally free of it, but I’m fighting back.

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How To Avoid Becoming #RSAC Roadkill

Last year was a first: I had a stay-at-home vacation a week before flying out to a big conference. We took the kids to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and did a lot of relaxing. It worked so well I’m doing it again.

Mood music:

The kids are on their February school vacation, which was my main reason for choosing this week. That it fell the week before RSA — one of the biggest security conferences of the year — was pure luck. That it’s happening two years in a row is even luckier.

I always run myself ragged the week before a conference. A couple years ago it caught up with me. This time I have a chance to soak up some quality family time and rest my brain before getting on the plane.

That should allow me to be at the top of my game in San Francisco next week. It certainly did the trick last year.

Conferences have always brought out the the good and bad sides of my OCD. On a professional level it gives me the extra push to write more, network more, stay awake later for said networking, and get up and at ’em early. It also takes over the parts of my brain that manage my pacing and ability to stop and breath.

Not helping is that usually, the week before, I work in overdrive mode to get as much business out of the way as possible. In doing that, I’m already half burned before my plane takes off.

I won’t always get to vacation right before RSA like this. So I’ll be making the most of this week.

I’m especially going to need it this year, because a couple hours after the plane lands Sunday, I’ll be darting back and forth between BSidesSF, the hotel, the Moscone Center registration area and quite a few evening events.

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When We Can’t Hibernate, We Become Bears

Erin recently noted that things tend to get ridiculously busy in January, during a period of winter when our bodies scream at us to slow down. On the work side we both have several big projects coming due. At school and in the Scouts, the kids’ schedules are crammed with one activity after the next.

Mood music:

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In winter, we’re not all that different from animals that hibernate. It’s hard to get out of bed when it’s frigid and dark outside. Because we humans must get up and get moving anyway, it causes us to get easily depressed, which leads to eating too much or too little. We tend to be more forgetful and we snap at each other more easily.

When you’re already given to depression, mental disorders like OCD and ADHD, and unbalanced eating, all that you suffer from gets amplified. Instead of mild depression, there’s deep depression. Things that aren’t really a big deal become huge calamities. Our responses to normal everyday pressures become exaggerated. Spouses tend to argue more. Kids tend to have more outbursts.

A friend who teaches kindergarten noted one day last week that three kids were put in timeouts and two others got sick, all at once. I chuckled, because I remember the same stuff happening when Sean and Duncan were kindergartners. Kids are simply brutal in the dead of winter. Why? Because the academics and special activities ramp up when their little brains are least able to take it.

We seem to experience similar behavior in the summer, but the difference is that activities slow down that time of year. Spring and fall are when we’re most productive and agreeable.

I don’t have any solutions to the problem. I don’t even know if what I and others have observed has any scientific research to back it up. But I do have a suggestion.

If those you work with and live with seem like jerks lately and you want to bite their heads off, take a breath and note that you’re just as bad. Then engage in small acts of kindness. Hold the doors open for people. Remember to say good morning. Smile even if you don’t feel like it.

When we do these things any time of year, we become better people. In winter, it may well be the key to our survival.

Roaring Bear

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From Beyonce To The Tragic Manipulation Of Milli Vanilli

Revelations that Beyonce Knowles lip-synched “The Star Spangled Banner” at the inauguration this week remind me of how shallow people can be. Shallow in their expectations of others. Shallow in their need to rip others apart instead of putting themselves back together.

Mood music:

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I’ve always found it silly how people explode when a performer is caught lip-synching. We have this idealistic picture of how musicians should carry on when they perform in front of an audience. They’re expected to hit every note while running around the stage. We forget they are entertainers, often going on stage night after night, enduring travel schedules that are not for the faint of heart. They get sick on the road and their vocal chords are rubbed raw.

I’ve seen singers perform live and wished that they HAD lip-synched. Motley Crue’s Vince Neil comes to mind. I care more about whether they perform on their albums. If musicians need some onstage help to reproduce sounds they made in the recording studio, I have no problem with that.

But to me there’s a bigger issue in all this.

When a performer is caught lip-synching or using recorded background tracks, we pounce on them because it’s always easier to tear someone else down than to deal with our own imperfections. It’s easier still because since they are stars and the rest of us are not, we’ll never stare them in the face. It’s easier to verbally decimate someone when they’re not in front of you. We do it to athletes, too.

I remember hating  Milli Vanilli and taking great joy in their downfall. To me the outrage was justified because they didn’t even sing on the album that won them a Grammy.

In hindsight, I feel badly for Milli Vanilli. Those poor bastards were manipulated by the entertainment machine. The whole package was created by Frank Farian, who felt his hand-picked vocalists for the album lacked a marketable image. So he brought in  Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, two younger model/dancers he found in a dance club. The duo fell for the intoxication of stardom as many of us would have. They received a huge advance and continued to be manipulated by Farian. They sold themselves into slavery and he was their master.

When the truth came out, the duo was ruined. Pilatus eventually died of an overdose.

Of course, the case of Milli Vanilli was a bigger deal than most of the lip-synching controversies we hear about these days. People bought their albums thinking Pilatus and Morvan sang on them. We can forgive on-stage trickery. But when it comes to the recorded work, not so much.

It was a much different scenario from the one Beyonce is currently getting tarred and feathered over. But there is one important, common element: We’re eagerly ripping splinters from the eyes of people we don’t know while conveniently ignoring the big chunks of wood in our own eyes. We judge people without having the whole story. And we often do it out of jealousy because they have the mansions and we don’t.

Beyonce has proven time and again that she can sing. Her music is not my cup of tea, but I respect what she’s accomplished.

Should she be dragged through the mud for lip-synching at a presidential inauguration — one of the most choreographed events on the planet?

I prefer not to.

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My ADD Ran Over My OCD

As I struggle to get through all the stuff to be done at work and home before Christmas, something is occurring to me: My ADD runs over my OCD this time of year.

Mood music:

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I guess I’ve understood what happens for a while now. It’s all part of the seasonal depression that whacks me upside the head come Christmastime. For most of the year my challenge is to control my OCD, to keep it from overtaking my mind and sending me into physical overdrive. But earlier this year, I learned from my doctors that I also have ADD. It feeds into the winter pattern where I’m much more easily tired and forgetful.

Unfortunately for me, December isn’t a time where I can kick back, enjoy my December-itis and let the world float by on pretty clouds. At work, we’re busy finishing up some big projects we’re using to kick off January. At home, there are appointments and Scouting activities to drive the boys to. There are gifts to wrap, laundry to fold, groceries to buy, homework for the kids to finish up and a house to clean.

I’m like Luke Skywalker after he escapes the wampa cave on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, flailing around and stumbling in the snow.

So what am I sitting here thinking about? I’m feeling whiny because the damn OCD doesn’t surface when I really need it. As insidious as the disorder can be, it’s pretty damn handy when there’s a lot to do. It gives you a drive other people don’t have.

In recent years I’ve had a lot more success harnessing that piece of it while keeping the darker traits locked away. But when winter roles through, the ADD kicks in and spoils everything.

Funny how this works. It’s like the person who longs for summer heat waves in the dead of winter, then pines for winter’s icy grip when he’s sweating through July and August. In the summer I want to be a little more mellow; in December I need the overdrive to get everything done.

What to do?

Fight it, of course.

Erin’s worried I’m not going to get done everything I have on my plate. I’m out to prove I can get it all done.

What could possibly go wrong?

ESBWampaCave

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Me, Duncan and December-itis

I’ve had a lot to say lately about my own efforts to manage winter’s depressive effect on my brain, but this is also a challenging month for my younger son, Duncan.

Mood music:

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I’ve written at length about Duncan and my struggle to help him when his ADHD comes crashing into my OCD. I’m proud of who he’s becoming. But no matter how much progress father and son make on our mental health, December may well remain the month that throws us for a loop.

I feel like I’m having an easier time of it this year. I have depression, but it’s just the tired, memory-challenged kind. So far I’ve mostly escaped the feelings of sadness and outward crankiness of past years. Yesterday I visited the nurse who manages my medication and she doubled my Wellbutrin intake for the winter.

Now it appears to be Duncan’s turn for such an adjustment. His teacher has been praising his behavior all fall but, like clockwork, he started experiencing difficulty in class as the calendar switched to December. We’re hearing about the usual winter outbursts. He’ll argue with classmates, his temper comes to a boil easily and so on.

It kills me every year when this happens, because I know he inherited his mental health challenges from me and my side of the family. It’s not his fault.

The good news is that we’re getting better at anticipating his behavioral changes and responding faster. This afternoon I’m taking him to an appointment where his medication might be adjusted. We’ve also been blessed with some outstanding, nurturing teachers. I was particularly fond of his first-grade teacher, who was there when Duncan first got his ADHD diagnosis. She worked closely with us to make adjustments in the classroom that helped immensely.

His teacher this year is another gem. She meets with us whenever we ask and keeps us informed of Duncan’s progress by email. When he started acting up a couple of weeks ago, she invited us to call her at home in the evening. Few teachers do that these days, and we’re grateful for it. Duncan also has terrific classmates who cheerfully help him stay organized. And when he has a mood swing, they’re patient with him. Impressive, when you consider they are all under the age 10.

I chalk it up to the loving environment of the school. The place is far from perfect, as I’ve noted before. But as time goes on, I’m more convinced he’s exactly where he should be.

The trick now is to get him — and his teacher and classmates — to the other side of winter in one piece.

Duncan and Bill