The OCD Diaries

March 26, 2012

When ‘Helicopter Parents’ Get Easter Egg On Their Faces

When I see something like this news story about a cancelled Easter egg hunt in Colorado, I have to wonder what we parents are doing to our kids.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/E5H8DwJI0uA

According to the article from The Associated Press, “Organizers of an annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children have canceled this year’s event, citing the behavior of aggressive parents who swarmed into the tiny park last year, determined that their kids get an egg.”

The article continues, “Too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs. Organizers say the event has outgrown its original intent of being a neighborhood event. Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called “helicopter parents” – those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives – sports, school, and increasingly work – to ensure that they don’t fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.”

Being the parent of two kids born at the beginning of the 21st-Century, I get sensitive about this stuff.

I’ve always been fiercely protective of my children. Part of it is that fear of loss. I’m like Marlin the clown fish in “Finding Nemo.” Like Marlin, I don’t want anything bad to happen to my offspring.

The “bad” includes them being disappointed if they lose at a game or fail to win a prize. Sean loves watching “The Clone Wars” and once, when we took his screen time away for misbehavior, I felt horrendous. When a game doesn’t go Duncan’s way he loses it, and my natural instinct is to want him to feel better.

It would be easy for me to make fun of the parents who got crazy and stupid to ensure their kids got an Easter egg, but the truth is that I could have just as easily been one of those parents.

Any good parent is going to be over-protective to a point, and that’s how it should be. God gave us these kids to nurture, and we have to make sure they make it to adulthood and beyond.

But we’re also supposed to teach them how to survive adversity. For all my talk in this blog, I haven’t always done that part very well.

Some of it is my own background. Having watched my parents divorce, a brother die and a best friend commit suicide, I’ve had an overwhelming urge to shield Sean and Duncan from danger and disappointment at all costs. That kind of compulsion is tailor-made for someone with OCD, because we drive ourselves mad trying to control all the things we are absolutely powerless to control.

I’ve gone crazy over all the usual things. I see a mosquito bite or two on their legs and I go into a fit of lunacy because mosquitoes can carry dangerous diseases. Letting them out of my sight can fill me with dread.

But I also remember something else from childhood: After my brother died, my mother, who was already overbearing, became absolutely suffocating. I think she wanted me to stay in whatever room she was in straight on through adulthood.

Naturally, I rebelled.

Thank God I did, because without taking some chances in life and breaking free of your protective sphere, you amount to nothing.

I can’t put my kids through the same thing, no matter how much I worry about them.

Learning to better control my OCD had been helpful. When I learned to break free of the fear and anxiety, I stopped going crazy over the little things.

But man, I still hate to see my kids upset. I mean, I HATE it.

But they need to get upset, sometimes. It’s part of growing up.

I’m reminded of a scene from the movie I mentioned at the beginning of this post: Marlin and Dory are inside a whale, and Marlin laments that he failed to keep a promise to his son. The exchange went something like this:

Marlin: “I promised I’d never let anything bad happen to him.”

Dory: “That’s a funny thing to promise. If nothing ever happens to him, then nothing will ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.”

Kids need adventure. They even need to experience adversity. That’s how they learn to be good, strong adults.

That adversity includes learning to handle the disappointment that comes with not getting an Easter egg, missing a favorite TV show or losing a game.

March 22, 2012

‘Religion Flies You Into Buildings’

Here’s my thing: Everyone should be free to believe what they want. I choose the Catholic faith. I have friends who are Muslim, Jewish and Atheist.

I only judge you by whether you’re a kind soul or an asshole.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/KEeFNvvR-ng

But there’s always someone who thinks they’re better than everyone else — someone who is so certain their belief is the only right answer that they’ll go to extremes to put down people who feel a different way.

That’s when we get slogans like this:

This is apparently the brainchild of Victor Stenger — a slogan idea for the so-called Atheist Bus Campaign.

The message to me is this: Those who put all their faith in science never commit evil and always live for the greater good. Muslims, on the other hand, are twisted and evil and fly planes into buildings.

I think someone out there has gotten too sensitive about all those “evil scientist” stereotypes from the movies.

The bigger truth is that human beings twist everything: science, religion, systems of government. To suggest it never happens in your corner of the woods is to be fooling yourself.

You’re also dishonoring all the good people who died on Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorists had twisted Islam into some evil thing it’s not meant to be, and they killed Atheists, Christians, Jews and other Muslims that day.

You can say religion flies us into buildings, but science gives us potential mass killers as the nuclear bomb.

Take your stupid talk and go screw.

March 20, 2012

What Else Is There?

When I’m wallowing in self-pity, I like to ask that question. It always goes back to those moments when I’m not particularly enjoying the clean and sober life.

Mood music:

For the most part, it’s gotten easier. When you don’t spend all your time thinking about how to pull off a binge, you get to experience a much fuller life. You enjoy the company of people more. You pack a lot more living into your travels. Best of all, you don’t go through the day under a foggy shroud that follows a drinking, eating or drugging binge.

But I won’t lie. Sometimes, when everyone around me is enjoying a glass of wine, a few beers, some cake and a smoke, I feel like the spoiled child who sits with his arms folded, pouting, because he lost dessert for leaving vegetables on the plate.

Saturday night kind of left me feeling that way. Erin and I had a fabulous evening at an auction to benefit our kids’ school and afterwards we went to the home of friends. The kitchen was packed with people whose company we’ve come to treasure. We didn’t go home until around 2 a.m., which for us is almost unheard of.

It was St. Patrick’s Day. Part of me would have loved indulging in the whiskey and wine on the table, and I would have enjoyed a cigar even more. But I can’t do that stuff anymore. Luckily, our hosts had Red Bull on hand. That’s my go-to beverage when the temptation for alcohol becomes too much.

I’m starting to realize something about these “what else is there” moments. It’s the dark side of my soul trying to trap me in old behavior. The devil whispers something in my ear about how I should be able to enjoy some of the finer things in life; that I shouldn’t be living the clean life if it’s going to make me a miserable bastard.

And yet I still weigh out every meal I eat. I avoid flour and sugar as if it were lethal poison. And whenever I have the opportunity to drink alcohol or smoke — particularly during travel — I don’t follow through.

I suppose I have a strong enough memory of all the pain that followed indulgence and I remember how hard I’ve worked to clean myself up. I guess the thought of falling backwards pisses me off and sparks worry more than the self-pity I feel when I can’t party.

Strangely enough — particularly where the smoking is concerned — I think the Wellbutrin I take along with Prozac to keep depression at bay has eased the craving for smoke. I’d heard about Wellbutrin having this effect on people, but I quit smoking several months before taking it and I didn’t really connect the dots.

What I’ve discovered, I told Erin Saturday night, is that I stopped being pissed about the no smoking when the Wellbutrin took hold. Until then, though I had quit, I was pissed about it. I wanted to smoke and only stopped because I got caught.

The clean and sober life is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.

But when I look at the things I’ve gained in life, I know it’s worth every deprived minute.

March 18, 2012

About Father Canole And Keeping The Faith

Life as a Catholic in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts can be a bitch, sometimes. Here we are waking up to news that another priest, Rev. Robert Canole, has resigned from his pastoral duties in disgrace.

We look up to our priests and count on them for inspiration. We go in a confessional with them and spill our deepest, darkest faults. Then some of those priests let us down hard.

http://youtu.be/IaymN2mkaC0

According to my local paper, The Eagle-Tribune, Conole won’t be coming back to Sacred Hearts Church. My old friend Paul Tennant wrote:

Conole’s resignation has been accepted by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston. He was investigated by the Archdiocese of Boston for “serious adult-related misconduct,” according to a statement read by the Very Rev. Arthur Coyle, episcopal vicar for the Merrimack Valley Region, during weekend Masses at Sacred Hearts.

He left in May under a shroud of mystery. Rumor had it he was dealing with anger management issues. At the time, I wrote a post encouraging people to send him cards and letters of support like they did when my former pastor, the late Dennis Nason of All Saints, took a leave of absence to confront his alcoholism.

I also wrote something when Father Keith LeBlanc, a former priest at my parish and most recently pastor of St. John’s across town, left in a hurry after it came to light that he was being investigated for mishandling church dollars. It turns out he spent $83,000 of church money on porno movies and got three years of probation after pleading guilty to larceny. That one really hurt because LeBlanc led my RCIA group the year I converted.

But I still believe in what I wrote at the time, which is that everyone fails and has a shot at redemption.

Sometimes I wonder how I can stick up for these priests. After all, how much can a Catholic take? These are the same priests who tell us how we should live, how we should vote and how we should treat others. Theoretically, I should be mad as hell.

And yet I’m not angry. Sad, yes. But not angry.

I still believe what I said before, that as human beings, we all fail frequently and have a chance to set things right.

I’ve written about my own failures a million times in this blog. I’d be a hypocrite if I ripped into these priests. I’d probably feel differently if I was the victim of a pedophile priest. But I’m not.

In the 11 years I’ve lived in Haverhill, Mass., I’ve seen the best and worst sides of the Catholic Church.

On the ugly side, there were priests who played a part in the sex abuse that ultimately blew up in Cardinal Law’s face. There are parishioners who get so caught up in church politics that they forget what they’re truly there for, and they make life miserable for others. There was Father LeBlanc.

On the other side of the spectrum was Father Nason going public about his alcoholism, inspiring us all with his comeback. And, most importantly, there are all the people who have found their faith in recent years regardless of whatever ugliness is in the headlines, including me.

We all fail, no matter what our position in life. The important thing is what we do with our failures.

I hope these disgraced priests find a way to turn their experiences into something we can all learn and benefit from. The jury is still out on whether that will happen.

But as I keep saying, my faith is in God, not the humans who serve the church for better and worse.

That’s what keeps me steady in moments like this.

March 15, 2012

Breaking Up (The Day) Is So Very Hard To Do

When you have the OCD blinders on, you can do the work of three highly-motivated people. You can go for hours and hours, your ass sinking into the seat like an anvil. The problem is that your muscles and mind are a tangled wreck when you stand up many hours later.

Mood music:

Any doctor or therapist will tell you to get up every 25 minutes or so and walk around for a bit. Maybe go eat lunch outside on a nice day instead of at the desk. They call this breaking up the day.

I suck at it. Always have.

So when I was asked to participate in a program where I would read to a second-grader at a school near the office once a week, I groaned. I didn’t want to do it. It would mean I had to stop what I was doing and go, whether I felt ready or not.

But I try to be a team player. So I signed up.

Every week, it’s the same feeling. I’m hauling ass on a project, and 11 a.m. rolls around. Time to get up and go read. I tell myself there’s a few more minutes to work. It’s usually 11:45 before I get up.

With no traffic, that would be fine. But there’s always traffic on this route because of all the traffic lights and a busy mall. So I get to the school a few minutes late.

Then I go in and meet up with the second-grader I’ve been assigned. His name is Luis. He has spiky blond hair and dark skin. He’s a very cool-headed little guy. Nothing seems to get him excitable. He lunchbox is always packed with chips, tacos and cheese in a box and something for dessert. He always eats the desert first. While he eats, I read. They call this the Power Lunch.

He likes the lighthearted stuff: The “Magic Tree House” series, the “Ricky Ricotta and His Mighty Robot” books, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “The Adventures of Captain Underpants.”

Occasionally, I get him to pick a biography. Always about a sports legend. I’d try to turn him on to bios about politicians and rock stars, but there are none in the bin.

When he can’t listen anymore, we’ll play a game or two of Tic Tac Toe.

I like the kid a lot. I always admire the people who don’t get rattled. There are other kids in the group that bounce off the walls. One of my co-workers — a young, geeky type of guy — has the rowdiest kid of the bunch, which amuses me to no end. The boy is also one of Luis’ best buddies, so he spends a lot of time looking at our table, contemplating ways to get out of his seat and come over.

The whole thing takes 30 minutes a week. It goes by fast. And I always walk out of there with a smile.

Then the next reading day rolls around, and I repeat the process.

Thing is, I’m glad I decided to do this. It’s rarely convenient, but that’s the OCD talking. As I said earlier, I don’t like having to get up when I’m engrossed in a task.

But I do it anyway. And I’m better for it.

I guess the doctors and therapists aren’t full of shit after all.

I got a reward for my efforts too. Luis made me a card thanking me for reading to him. It warms the heart.

March 14, 2012

Such A Waste To Lose One’s Mind-Fulness

A combination of OCD and ADD has given me a bitch of a handicap: Living in the moment and being present has become tough as nails. Health experts call this elusive thing I search for “mindfulness.”

Mood music:

Here’s what happens:

When the OCD runs hot, I develop tunnel vision. I focus in on the task I’m either doing or thinking about. That’s good if you have a major work project to complete. It’s bad when someone is trying to talk to you and your brain is weaving a hundred schemes.

When the ADD picks up steam, I lose my focus. I’ll start thinking about a song I heard that day or how good it’ll feel to get into bed with a book. All while someone is talking to me.

I thought I stabbed this problem in the heart and killed it. On further reflection, I’m finding that the same problem has simply changed bodies like Dr. Who.

That in itself is still good, since the old persona was intense fear and anxiety that often incapacitated me. I broke out of that shell and life has been so much better as a result. But my current troubles are still painful.

Dealing with this issue has become the main focus of recent therapy sessions. I started bringing up the issue with my therapist because I’ve been realizing how unfair and hurtful zoning out can be at home. I don’t want to be that guy. And yet, for the moment, I am.

It’s not just a problem at home. Anywhere I go, when people are talking to me for anything longer than five minutes, I start to enter a fog. I still capture the main points of the conversation, but it requires heavy effort — effort that can be physically painful.

In recent weeks, I’ve considered what this handicap could cost me. My first reaction was to feel scared. That has settled into a low-grade anger.

Anger that I can’t just fix my brain and be done with it.

Anger that I have to do more therapy than usual.

Anger that the whole thing is exhausting me.

But that’s life. I have a problem, and I intend to beat it. And if I can’t beat it, I intend to figure out how to manage it.

At my age, I’m really not sure how much more I can fix. But even though I haven’t achieved perfection up to this point, the journey has been a beautiful one, full of experiences I never could have had a few years ago.

What lies ahead could be unpleasant. But as with past challenges, I may find gifts buried beneath the ugliness.

March 13, 2012

I’d Like To Blame My Parents, But…

I’ve been frustrated lately over my inability to balance how I express emotions. Forget balance — I suck at emotion, period.

Mood music:

With my kids I get too emotional at times, showering them with kisses and telling them I love them a lot more than they probably care to hear. Duncan’s refrain is usually, “I know already, Dad!”

With my wife I’m not emotional enough. When times get difficult — and even when they’re going well — I tend to clam up. I share my feelings in headline form or I don’t share at all. That’s pretty whacked considering all the opening up I do here.

I’ve been trying to solve this puzzle for years, but I’m no closer than where I started.

Sometimes I get really angry with my parents for this.

My mother was the smothering type. She wanted me close by at all times when I was a kid, and would get in my personal zone at the wrong times, hugging me when I wanted to be left alone. I don’t entirely blame her for this. She lost another child, and she was clinging to what she had left with everything she had. The effect was suffocating, and I ultimately rebelled.

My father, on the other hand, had no clue about expressing his feelings. Whenever I hit a milestone (in adulthood the milestones were promotions and raises at work), his response was always a detached, “That’s it?” If I expressed fatigue over life’s difficulties, the response — instead of relating his experiences and how he pulled through the tough stuff — was always, “It’s good for you.” My paternal grandmother was the same way. As the tired old saying says: The apple never falls far from the tree.

In the area of emotional balance, you could say I lacked role models — which is why I want to punch the walls a lot lately. I’m in my 40s and need to figure these things out with no prior experience. I think my trouble expressing emotions is why I started writing this blog. I can write my feelings and share just fine. But in face-to-face conversation, I flounder.

Some people would dismiss this as unimportant. No one is perfect at this, after all. Like everything else, this is life.

But I’m really starting to worry about doing to my wife what my parents did to each other. I’m worried that I’ll do to my kids what my parents did to me — ensuring that they grow up to start another generation of dysfunction.

But here’s the thing: I’m a grown man on the fast track to middle age. Too much time has passed since I left home for me to keep blaming everything on my parents. They did the best they could with the tools they had, but fucked up a lot. All parents do.

I’m a big boy now. It’s time to take ownership.

March 12, 2012

Our Secret Online Lives

A new problem is emerging as we delve deeper into the online world: Armed with Twitter and Facebook, we’re creating secret double lives without always realizing it.

Mood music:

I’ve watched friends’ marriages and careers come under strain because of this. It’s a bigger problem in relationships, especially if there’s flirting and deep connecting going on between you and someone who is not you’re significant other.

I’m starting to see where I could fall into the trap easily.

On Facebook, Twitter and in the comments section of this blog, I have a lot of exchanges with people. Some are old friends. Some are people I’ve never met and may never communicate with again. Others are friends I’ve made online, where we’ve hit it off over something, but we may have only met a few times at a security conference or tweet-up.

The exchanges are so fast with a lot of people that I don’t really think to bring it up in conversation. I get so many questions and connect with so many people through the blog that it can all become a blur.

I’m starting to see how these things, taken together, can start to resemble a secret life. I always bristle at the suggestion that I’ve built a separate online life because, if it is indeed the case, it’s not a deliberate, lucid move on my part. If I am a man of split personalities, I’d like to think that the personality people see at home, work and in my community is the most real version of me. I’d like to think I’m the same guy online as in real life, especially since this blog is about keeping it real.

But I may also be too dense or naive to see things for what they are.

Let’s face it: When you can go online and post pictures that capture your best side, so to speak, and you can fire off verbiage that’s edgier than what you’d say in person because you’re safe behind the computer, a fake side emerges. People connect with you over common interests and you have banter back and forth. You think nothing of it when you go offline because these aren’t necessarily people you know very well.

There are those who do get into online relationships deliberately because they’re unhappy, lonely, etc. But that’s not me. I’m happily married and love my family. This is usually the stuff I talk about online. I want everyone to know that I’m married, and that no one can compete with my wife. I want everyone to know how smart and bighearted my kids are.

But my contacts are vast because people read this blog or my work sites. It’s especially true of OCD DIARIES readers because if someone is in pain and relates to something I’ve written about, they want to expand on the conversation.

They’ll ping me on Facebook or email and Twitter. These expanded conversations are often the launching pad for follow-up blog posts.

I like to banter with people. To me it’s harmless. But I can see the danger where it can look like flirtation to others.

Why bring this up? Because I often find I have to out myself on real or imagined failings in order for me to make sense of it all and do something about it.

I’m not the only one who should be looking at the dangers. I have many a Facebook friend who acts one way on Facebook and another way in person. Something about the ability to control your image online that makes that happen. I know people who gush about their significant others online who do nothing but argue with that same person in real life. There are others who talk big and mouth off from the safety of their computer, only to come off as more timid and cowardly in real life.

I don’t think we do this stuff because we’re bad. I think it’s because this online world is still a relatively new place. Those of us who are socially inept in public find we can be who we want to be online. Speaking for myself, I have a hard time articulating myself in conversation. Because I can do it in online writing, I go to town, so to speak. The difference between me and others is that I try to keep it honest at all times. Sometimes, I fail. Not because I’m trying to mislead the reader, but because I’m lying to myself. When it comes to denial, addicts are masters of the form.

I know people who stay off Facebook for exactly these reasons. I know some people whose spouses won’t allow them them on Facebook because they don’t want them flirting with people and leading that secret life.

I like to think I’m easy to read, that those closest to me should have no trouble understanding who I am or what my intentions are. I guess this, like everything else in life, isn’t meant to be easy.

Be careful how you conduct yourselves online, my friends. And whatever you do, don’t try to create a secret online life. It can never replace those in you’re immediate circle and, if it’s a facade, it’ll fall down eventually.

March 9, 2012

When Difficult Kids Turn Out Alright

Readers know by now that Erin and I have a big challenge — helping our second child manage ADHD. He’s often difficult. Fair enough. I was a difficult child, too.

Duncan is actually tame compared to the 8-year-old me. He’s never filled up my gas tank with a garden hose. He’s never lit his plastic toys on fire, nearly burning down the house in the process. He’s never stolen money from his Dad’s wallet. He doesn’t bring home revolting report cards. That stuff was all me.

But it’s easy for me to forget those things when I’m the parent. When Duncan leaves a path of destruction around the house, causes scandal in the schoolyard by telling classmates Santa isn’t real or earns a note home from a teacher concerned that he’s not playing well with others, all the worries start about where he’s headed in life.

But I have hope.

Erin found a blog post from Rick Ackerly — a nationally recognized educator and speaker with 45 years of experience working in and for schools, dealing with kids of every harrowing stripe. It’s about how difficult children often grow up to be enormously successful adults.

He writes about an encounter he had on a flight with a CEO and three other high achievers. They talked about how they were bratty, rebellious children, and how the resulting experiences proved more valuable than a college education. He then says:

I put these stories together like this, not to try to convince parents and other educators that being bad is good, nor that one should hope for a difficult child, but to remind us of three critical education principles:

1) Difficulty, conflict, struggle, mistakes, disappointment and failure are where most learning comes from—usually the most important learning.

2) Difficulty is the life we are preparing our children for. We naturally hope that our children will be happy and successful, but that is a mirage–and we know it. The life they will get is a life of challenge, and the best preparation for challenge is challenges. When it’s harder for us, it might be better for them.

3) Raising difficult children might interfere with the rainbow life we were hoping for, but it might be better for the world. Remember Sarah Elizabeth Ippel, the willful child who started a charter school in one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods when she was 23 and now at the age of 30 is running the thriving, vibrant Academy for Global Citizenship serving 250 students, 81% of whom are low income.

Someday I want to be on a flight from Chicago to Decatur with the Spanish teacher, the CEO, and your formerly difficult child.

Having a difficult child may be difficult, but it is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

If you haven’t seen his blog yet, you need to do yourself a favor and bookmark it. Every parent should read his work.

One would think I don’t need such reminders. Despite my rough patches, I turned out fine. I have a beautiful family, a successful career in journalism and I’m in the best health I’ve been in for years — despite all my self-destructive behavior.

But as I said, when you’re the parent, you forget and need lots of reminders.

Thanks for that, Mr. Ackerly.

March 7, 2012

Depressed? Try These Remedies (Or Don’t)

I noticed on Facebook this morning that one of my friends is still fighting a persistent bout of depression. She said something about staring at her clenched fist for nearly ten minutes.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/lspjLG9nHXk

We’ve compared notes on our depressed moments in the past, and since I dealt with a lot of depression in December and January (give or take a month. Winter’s a bitch) I thought I’d share some observations.

–The extra darkness of winter always fucks with me. But I’ve noticed something on my early-morning drives to the office — the sun is coming up earlier and earlier. By the time I pulled into the parking lot at 6 a.m., it was almost completely light out. More daylight is powerful medicine for the depressed mind.

–Despite the mood music I chose for this post, most of my musical selections of late have been the more party-oriented rock, like Van Halen. Van Halen always makes me think of summer, which warms the colder parts of my brain. Whatever your musical tastes are these days, I suggest listening to stuff that’s more shallow from a lyrical standpoint. If that fails, go for the dark humor. Ministry and Suicidal Tendencies works for me on that score.

–My depression used to be enhanced during political years like this because I used to think election outcomes mattered more than they really do. These days, though, I find the political news to be a source of spirit-lifting comedy. With guys like Santorum and Gingrich running for president, how can you not laugh?

–You’re going to hear a lot of people suggesting diet remedies. When I show my dark side, someone always suggests a gluten-free diet, either forgetting or not realizing I already avoid flour and sugar. These people are annoying, but they mean well. Just smile and walk away.

–As you walk the streets of New York City today, take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of humanity. Example: When I see scores of people talking at the air in front of them, Bluetooth device sticking out of their ear, it makes me feel cooler than everyone else. I don’t need an earpiece to talk to myself.

I realize these things might not help much. But if it helps a little, I’ve done my job.