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An OCD Exercise

I’m hearing there might be another snowstorm next week, with the timing dangerously close to my planned departure for the ShmooCon security conference. Let’s see if I can turn this into a positive.

Mood music:

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See, I used to freak out every time I heard a snowstorm was coming. I’d immediately start raging about the plans that were going to get ruined and the work I was going to miss. Not that I ever really had plans worth worrying about back then.

I’ve mellowed out in that regard since learning to manage the OCD. I’m a lot better at taking things as they come. Not perfect, but better.

If I were staring at the weather report five years ago, I’d be a nut case. I’d start worrying that my upcoming trip to ShmooCon would be ruined and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to prove myself on the job.

It’s different now. I’ve already proven myself on the job. If bad weather scuttles a trip, life will go on and I’ll find other things to write about. It’s no longer a life-or-death situation.

But don’t mistake that for a total lack of care. ShmooCon is one of my favorite security conferences and I love taking the ShmooBus down to DC. If Mother Nature mucks it up, I’m probably going to be pretty pissed off about it. 

The difference is that I’m not going to spend every day leading up to it paralyzed with worry. Letting the possibility of a distant event ruin all life leading up to it is just stupid.

But we head cases are pretty good at stupidity.

Let’s see how I do.

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Thinking is Not a Tool

People like me who are recovering from addiction and an underlying mental disorder rely on a set of tools to live better, more useful lives. A food plan is one of them. Twelve-step meetings are another. Some people think thinking is a tool, but it’s really just another insidious bastard that robs us of sanity.

Overthinking is something I have experience with. One of the most painful parts of OCD out of control is that your mind spins out of control with thought. I’ve heard it described accurately as worry out of control. The mind spins like a record and doesn’t stop. You can slow it down momentarily by binging on booze, drugs or food, but that’s a fake solace that doesn’t last.

I was reminded of all this during a recent OA meeting. During the part where everyone can get up and share, me and two others focused on this peculiarity of our condition.

One woman shared about how she thought her brother had been badly hurt all these years over an incident where she smeared blueberries across his face when they were kids. She’s worried about it all these years, and recently told him she was sorry. He chuckled and reminded her that he smeared something on her first. She didn’t remember that.

Another woman shared that on the night of her senior prom, she was so full of insecurity that she took off without even saying goodbye to her date. Surely, she thought all these years, the incident must have devastated the poor guy. She recently contacted him to apologize, and he didn’t remember being hurt. All he remembered was that the senior prom was one of the best nights of his life.

As addicts, we have a very exaggerated perception of how people look at us. But, as this woman noted, “We’re just another bozo on the bus.”

I spent many years assuming that Sean Marley‘s widow hated me over something I did right after his death. A couple months ago we reconnected on Facebook and I sent her a note about how sorry I was. She sent a note back. I won’t share the contents, but let’s just say she hasn’t hated me all these years.

Thinking is like anything else in life: The right amount is good. Too much of it will kill you.

When it came to my health, I’d make myself sick for real by fixating too hard on what MIGHT happen. That’s when the anxiety attacks would come. In 1991, after a colonoscopy to monitor the Crohn’s Disease, I was informed that my colon was covered with hundreds of polyps — more scar tissue than polyps, but something that had to be kept an eye on. I was advised to get a colonoscopy every year to ensure it didn’t morph into colon cancer unnoticed. Good advice. So I let more than eight years pass before a bout of bleeding forced me to get one. Until then, I wasted a lot of time in fear that every stomach cramp, however small, was colon cancer. I’d spin it in my head repeatedly, rationalizing why I shouldn’t get the test. Just following doctor’s orders in the first place would have saved me a lot of over-thinking. That was clear when I had the test and found out everything was fine.

I had a friend in the early 1990s who weighed well over 400 pounds. To comfort his mind and gloss over the medical problem he had to deal with, he rationalized that he was a great thinker, and that was all he needed to make it in life.

He never made it out of his 30s.

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

I’m a lot happier now that I quickly file an article right after writing it. I move on to the next item on the agenda more quickly and am a lot more productive at work as a result. Does that mean my stories need more editing? Not that I’ve noticed. But that’s what editors are for anyway.

By making doctor appointments and just getting the next blood test or colonoscopy, I do away with a lot of physical pain that worrying used to cause me.

That doesn’t mean I never worry or think about anything. What’s the use of having a brain if you never think about things? There are also a lot of people out there who don’t do nearly as much thinking about their lives as they should.

But there’s a fine line between useful thought and white noise, and my challenge has been to keep myself on the right side of that line. I’ve learned to pick my mental battles more carefully.

If you’re a chronic worrier and someone tells you not to worry you want to punch that person in the face, right? I did. When the worry is rushing out of every corner, you can’t even begin to figure out how to shut the valves.

I eventually did it by getting years of intense psychotherapy. I had to peel back each layer of worry and figure out how it all got there. It sucked. A lot. Every painful memory of childhood came to the surface and I had to deal with it head on. Prozac definitely helped. Without getting all the therapy first I don’t think the medicine would have worked as well as it has. In the end, all the Prozac did was fix the flow of my brain chemistry, which was hopelessly out of whack from years of self-abuse.

Delving into the 12 steps through OA was huge, too. Eliminating flour and sugar from my diet cleared out my head in ways I never thought possible. Sugar and flour consumed in massive quantities gummed up my mental gearsas bad as any bottle of whiskey would have done.

Letting God into my life was the most important move of all. [See “The Better Angels of My Nature“]

Yeah, I still worry about things. But not like I used to.

It feels better that way.

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Coffee With My Therapist

I had my monthly appointment with the therapist this morning. Sadly, I ran out of time to hit the Starbucks drive-thru on the way. He’s one of those stress-reduction specialists who thinks I should quit coffee, avoid cigars and do yoga every morning.

I do keep the cigars to a minimum, but coffee is about all I have left. And I will never do yoga. It’s just not my style.

I always make it a point to walk into his office with a large cup of the boldest coffee brew I can find. He looks at the cup and says, “Oh, I see you’ve brought drugs with you.” 

I like my therapist.

I guess that’s why I do these things.

When I like someone, I needle them.

While I’m on here, I’d like to remind you that a benefit show for Joe “Zippo” Kelley is tomorrow night in Salem, Mass. Details HERE.

Did I mention The Neighborhoods are headlining?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz2CYcmJQS4&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

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Narcissism Inc.

I’ve always wondered if I was a narcissist. I’ve been wondering even more since last week, when someone asked me when I reached a point in my recovery where I stopped being self-absorbed. I had to be honest and tell her I still get self absorbed. All the time.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOivymp6rto&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

People with obsessive-compulsive tendencies are basket cases about being in control. Maybe it’s simply control of one’s sanity. Usually, it’s control of situations and people you have no business trying to control.

I went looking for a definition and found this on Wikipedia:

Narcissism is the personality trait of egotism, vanity, conceit, or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others. The name “narcissism” was coined by Freud after Narcissus who in Greek myth was a pathologically self-absorbed young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

So, let’s see…

I’ve never fallen in love with my reflection. Usually, when I look in a mirror, it’s to make sure I don’t look too fat. I don’t get people who insist on having their bedroom or bathroom fitted with wall-to-wall mirror. I’ve also gone through long periods of hating myself.

But I am guilty of thinking I’m better than the guy sitting next to me. I probably think I’m a better writer than I really am. There are days when I think a little too highly of myself.

Here’s a fact about addicts: We are among the most selfish people on the planet. Or, as Nikki Sixx says in the final track on Sixx A.M.’s soundtrack for The Heroin Diaries: “You know addicts. It’s all about us, right?” That selfishness usually leads us to do stupid things that make us feel shame. In the midst of that shame, we lie.

That sort of behavior can overwhelm us, no matter how much we want to be better people. Putting ourselves before others is the hardest drug of all to resist. 

In OA, those of us in recovery from our compulsive eating disorders rely on a set of tools that go hand in hand with the 12 Steps. There’s the plan of eating, writing, sponsorship, the telephone and literature. There’s anonymity. And there’s service to others.

The plan of eating is what’s most necessary for me, but I think my favorite tool is service.

When I do service, the people I may be trying to help are helping me as well. If it’s through OA, everyone is supporting each other. It’s the same at church, be it through school activities or actively participating in Mass. That’s why I do lectoring. Actively participating in Mass helps me to pay attention to what’s going on instead of sitting there locked inside my head.

Service forces me out of my usual role of being a selfish little bastard.

It may not be a cure for narcissism, if I even fit that description. But it makes it manageable.

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The Label on My Back is No Excuse

I was talking to a priest the other night about therapy and getting diagnosed with a mental disorder when he frowned. “Everyone struggles with something,” he said. “It’s not good to slap a label on them and make them be defined by it.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks8xhbNQw4g&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

He’s not the first priest to react this way.

Back in the fall I was going over a talk I was to give at an upcoming Cursillo retreat. I mentioned the words “mental illness” in there because my struggles with that are partly what brought me to my Faith. The priest stopped me cold:

“I don’t think you should use those words,” he said. “EVERYONE struggles with something. If you throw out labels someone will get offended.”

A few years ago, that would have pissed me off. I would have seen it as the priest belittling me as I was trying to be honest about myself. I also would have cursed him for not understanding the nature of mental illness.

But this guy deals with emotionally distraught people all the time. He has seen people act in rational and irrational ways in his day, and knows that sometimes we have to be careful with words.

It’s also commendable that they don’t want people to have labels.

Some people use the labels they’re given to limit themselves, even feel sorry for themselves. As a kid, I used my Crohn’s Disease as an excuse not to do a lot of things. I cried flare-up the day I had to get in a swimming race during gym class. I used it as an excuse when the stress was getting to me at The Eagle-Tribune and I opted to stay home than spend another night in the newsroom.

Later, after I was diagnosed with OCD, I was tempted to break out the mental illness card when I was scared to death of a business trip that required getting on a plane. I laugh when I think back at that one, because today I love flying. And besides, at that point I wasn’t about to out myself. I was still too afraid of the stigma.

But I disagree with those who say a diagnosis is a bad thing.

I resisted getting treatment for years because I was terrified of what a diagnosis would mean. But I sank so low at one point that I became willing to do whatever it took to be sane.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

–A diagnosis can be a useful thing, if you’re willing to use it to make yourself better.

–Using a diagnosis as an excuse not to do things is pathetic. To do that is to be a slave to fear. I only started to get better after I faced down the fears.

–A diagnosis isn’t a label that’s tattooed on your back like a scarlet letter. It only defines you if you let it. 

–Other people might still try to label you, but they’re just being stupid and they can’t stop you from achieving your full potential.

Yeah. I have a label on my back. But it’s not an excuse to get away with bad decisions.

It IS something that reminds me that I have to take care of myself.

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5 Signs I am Still an OCD Case

I write all the time about my recovery, but I sometimes neglect to mention that many of my OCD quirks continue, even though I’m not paralyzed and anxious like I used to be.

I don’t need an OCD screening quiz to know what I’m up against. Here are five signs that the condition is always there below the surface:

Mood music:

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–1. The other day, after putting away a new pair of boots and new pants, I opened and closed the drawer two or three times to make sure everything was in place.

–2. When Duncan was doing his homework yesterday, the table cloth on the kitchen table kept wrinkling up. I knew it was pointless to fix until he was done, but I kept trying to do so repeatedly.

–3. Whenever the kids pull the bottom cushions off the couch, it makes me CRAZY.

–4. Whenever I get ready to leave my office in Framingham, I check the position of the chair once or twice to make sure the leather arms aren’t rubbing up against the desk.

–5. When I’m in the car, I put my Android phone in one of the empty drink holders. Obsessed with keeping it from going into locked mode, I repeatedly flick at the device with my index finger. 

Don’t worry. I’m fine. Though these little things persist, the insidious parts of the condition have not come back — namely the fear, anxiety and out-of-control worry.

Those are the things that make a disorder impossible to live with.

The rest I think I can handle.

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Am I Too Hard on Myself?

A friend asked that question yesterday. I’ve certainly been accused of being too hard on myself before. My step-mother reads this blog and told me I should give myself a break. Steve Lambert, former editor of The Eagle-Tribune, said I was too hard on myself when I wrote the “One of My Biggest Regrets” post.

Mood music:

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The short answer is that sometimes I am, most of the time I’m not.

When I was at my absolute worst, I knew my soul was in deep trouble and I hated myself for not having the will to do something about it. I call it my long road through self-hatred. Back then I would be hard on myself by wallowing in the corner or, more accurately, in my car, where I would go on many, many binges.

If I had the ability to cry it out back then, I would have probably binged less. But I’ve never been good at crying, so I’d let the rage fill me and I’d do my best to destroy myself. It’s not that I wanted to die. It’s that I hated and wanted to punish myself. Giving in to my addictions was a lot like taking a thick leather belt and lashing myself a few hundred times.

That’s what happens when mental illness and addiction burn wild with no management. You end up being hard on yourself, and nothing good comes of it. In fact, it just makes things worse.

Today I’m hard on myself in a different way. I come on here and write about what a shithead I was the day before, and in the process I fix my course and work on doing better. That’s much more healthy.

I was feeling stupid yesterday because I purchased a new pair of boots and a pair of pants on Amazon.com. I needed the boots, but not the pants. It was a splurge with money we don’t necessarily have. Call it no big deal, but I know better. Sometimes, when I’m not letting the food addiction or wine guzzling control me, I let the spending addiction control me. Or the Internet addiction.

That’s when I have to remind myself that I’m being a jerk. And then I try to do better.

When I put up my wall and fail to let family in, I need to come on here and remind myself that I’m doing something wrong so I can fix it. Same thing when I’m thinking about things in absolutes.

In the final analysis, I see nothing wrong with being hard on myself as long as it leads to self improvement.

It’s the brand that leads to self pity and self destruction that’s the problem.

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The Hole in Your Soul

A lot of changes to my program of sobriety and abstinence are under way, and I feel like I’m running on nuclear power. Last night was my first Big Book Step Study meeting, which is quite different from the speaker-discussion meetings I’m used to. It only took me a few seconds to realize why I had to be there.

Mood music:

A lot of times when someone sobers up or stops binge eating, it’s a white-knuckle experience.

It’s not just because you’re missing your junk and the momentary feeling it gives you. It’s because the hole in your soul — the thing that drove you to addiction in the first place — is still there. If you don’t deal with that hole, you might stay clean for a year or two. But sooner or later, you’ll fall right back into the old, insidious patterns.

Speaker-discussion meetings are a vital tool for the initial clean-up. You can’t start working on the hole until you stop the addictive behavior. It did me a ton of good and I still need to go to those events, but it’s no longer enough. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is all about dealing with the hole, and studying it more closely is a must if I’m going to stay clean.

Studying the pages will also pull me deeper into the meaning of working the 12 Steps.

I also have a new sponsor starting this week. Instead of me simply telling him my plan of eating for the day, we’ll talk about the deeper issues at the heart of sobriety and abstinence. I’m looking forward to it.

My life is full of Blessings. This program is the one that allowed for everything else.

I’m glad I’m starting to take it more seriously.

A guy at last night’s meeting noted that there are two types of addicts:

–The type who is doomed and DOESN’T KNOW IT, and

–The type that’s doomed and KNOWS IT.

The latter type has a better chance of escaping that fate, because in knowing you’re headed for disaster you might be willing to take action. I’m glad I was that type.

I had an advantage: Several years of brutal therapy for OCD. The tools I had to develop to manage that are a lot like those you need to clean up. And it was all about identifying the hole in my soul.

It’s still there, but I think it’s getting smaller all the time.

Because I keep working on it.

I’ll have to until the day I die.

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Midwest Center for Fraud & Bullshit

Cleaning out the trunk of my car yesterday, I came across a stack of cassette tapes from a period in my life when I was so desperate I’d spend stupid sums of money on anything to remove my fear and anxiety.

These tapes were part of a program that cost me some $450. Each tape, sold by the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety, is designed to help people learn the skills to defeat anxiety and depression without medication.

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I ordered the so-called free trial in 2006 after seeing all the late-night TV infomercials with Lucinda Bassett, mastermind of the program. I worked the program diligently. But overall, the program wasn’t even close to what I needed.

I called the Midwest Center before the free trial period was up to tell them I’d be sending the tapes and DVDs back. No go, an impatient phone rep told me. They had already charged the card number I gave them. No refund.

Meanwhile, I received a package of vitamins in the mail with ingredients designed to reduce stress and balance the brain chemistry. At first it struck me as odd, since the concept on paper was a lot like other pills the center typically railed against. They weren’t anti-depressant-caliber pills like Prozac. They were just vitamins. I saw them for what they were: an expensive placebo.

I never asked for the vitamins. Yet there they were, and they were charging me extra for something I didn’t order or want.

The phone reps basically told me too bad, they had already charged my card and there were no refunds. I should have read the fine print.

So, the program to attack anxiety and depression simply made those things rage within me even worse than before.

At some point, I dumped the tapes in a box in my trunk, forgot about them and moved on. I found more lasting tools to manage my OCD and the resulting fear, anxiety and depression, and that was the end of it.

When I found the tapes, I chucked them in the trash along with the rest of the rubbish I was clearing out of the car.

When I came back inside, I found myself looking up articles about the Midwest Center and found some surprising items.

First, I found obituaries for Lucinda Bassett’s husband, David Bassett, co-principal of the self-help empire. The various reports were that he committed suicide in June 2008. Having lived through the horror of loved ones committing suicide, I’m reluctant to say anything bad here. I feel badly for Lucinda Bassett. To lose someone you love that way is one of the worst things you could ever go through.

Still, I couldn’t help but find it sadly, painfully ironic that THIS GUY would end his own life.

Here’s something I found that was written shortly after Bassett’s death. The author is STEVE SALERNO, author/essayist, musician, teacher, and blogger. (Check out his SHAMblog) He wrote:

This past June 7 (2008), 53-year-old David Bassett walked onto a California beach and ended his life with a shotgun. This took place not far from the home he shared with his wife, Lucinda. If the names sound vaguely familiar, it’s because David and Lucinda Bassett were principals in the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety.Not a few of those who left their thoughts were refugees from the Center’s in-house discussion forum, where their critical remarks had been expunged or edited; a few claimed to have been banned altogether. Collectively, they seemed to feel they’d been abused, if not conned. The gist was that the Center had used misleading claims and credentials to charge them a lot of money for programs that didn’t work (or at least hadn’t worked for them). To be fair, a number of Center apologists also weighed in, and for a while we had a spirited, thought-provoking give-and-take going.A prospective customer might reasonably ask: If the Center’s programs can’t even prevent one of the Center’s owners from killing himself…?

I also found a site known as the Complaint Board, where a fellow by the name of Alfred logged his complaints about the Bassett empire:

Lucinda and David Bassett flood late night infomercial TV with their overpriced Attacking Anxiety and Depression schlock program. They advertise a ’30-day risk free trial’ for just $9.95, the so called ‘shipping/Handling charge’ (inflated as any typical infomercial ripoff), the hook being that the S/H charge is all you pay for the 30 day ‘trial period’.Then when you aren’t magically cured by this collection of cassette tape in 30 days, send it back with no obligation to pay the $75.00 a month that they bill your credit card for the next 6-7 months. Do not believe this CRAP for a minute. They start ripping you off immediately with the inflated shipping charge and then start removing your money 30 days from the ORDER DATE which typically is 10-14 days BEFORE the 30 day trial period STARTS. By the time the ’30 day trial’ is over they have already taken the first FULL payment of $75.00 (+ tax) by 2 WEEKS, even when you decide you don’t want to buy this craprogram. One of Lucy’s top-secret cures is to ‘Drink 8 glasses of water everyday’ and ‘quit smoking and drinking’ DUH!! Gee for such wisdom it only costs 450 bucks! If these amateur Pyschobees had a grain of credibility would they operate so Don Lapre-like? It will take weeks to get your refund (if ever) A wiser approach would be to work for the Bassett’s. Then you can buy the ‘program’ for $20 and save yourself $425 just 90% off the ripoff price they charge everyone else.

That sounded a lot like my experiences with the program.

To be fair, this program probably has worked for people. I’ve seen plenty of positive reviews over the years. It’s just that there is no one size fits all. What works for one won’t work for another. It’s the same with medication. What worked for me won’t necessarily work for the next guy or gal.

There’s always that roll of the dice.

I just don’t think it should cost someone $450 to handle the dice.

Here’s the real problem, though:

You can tell a person to read the fine print, but a depressed, anxious person isn’t thinking about the fine print when they’re up at 3 a.m. watching those infomercials.

A person like that is desperate, and when they see a TV program telling them how easily the program will work in their lives, they’re not thinking about the fine print. They hear the words “free trial” and dash for the phone with credit card in hand. They figure the credit card number is just a placeholder. They don’t expect to actually be charged. Sure, they’re engaged in stupid thinking. But when you’re mentally and emotionally sick, stupid thinking is a way of life.

That’s what this program is: A money-sucker that preys on desperate people.

The lesson here is that you can’t go for anything packaged as a quick fix.

Nothing — and I mean NOTHING — will cure you in 15 weeks or even 30.

Getting truly well is a process that takes years. And you are never cured.

That’s my personal experience, anyway.

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OCD Hand Sanitizer

If you can’t laugh at your mental defects once in awhile, you’re never going to get better. I definitely laughed when I saw this sitting on my desk:

Repeated hand cleaning was never my biggest OCD quirk. Checking my laptop bag a dozen times before leaving work and checking the door nob before leaving the house were much bigger hangups for me. But I have used a lot of hand sanitizer in my day, so this may come in handy at some point.

OK, it won’t. Taking it out of the package would ruin the joke.

So I’ve hung it right beneath the “Happy Childhood Memories” breath spray someone gave me at Christmastime six years ago. When I’m sitting at the desk and I look to my left, I now have this to cheer me on days when I need the lift:

Some people find this stuff insulting. If you’re really sick from the disorder and you’re at a point where you haven’t gotten help yet, that’s understandable. So here’s a tip from someone who’s been down that road: Laughing at yourself makes the demon smaller and a lot less scary.

Humor is an important coping tool for someone learning to manage depressive mental disorders. Abraham Lincoln, a chronically depressed man for much of his adult life, relied on it during the darkest days of the Civil War. He reveled in telling jokes or amusing stories.

And it helped get him through the pain, long before anti-depressants were created.

So learn to laugh and do it often.

It may not help you find happiness, but it’ll help you move on.

That’s what I’ve learned, anyway.