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Dirt Bag

The author admits he’s not a very good person when he lets the demons out.

Mood music for this post: “A Rat Like Me” by Motley Crue:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgiMffbYz1c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A liar. A hater. Thinking you’re better than other people. These actions describe me pretty well. Not so much today, Thank God. But when the addictions are out of control and the OCD is on full burn, this is who I become. That’s why I have to cling to my recovery for dear life.

This is a collection of entries that dive deep into the darker world I used to inhabit; a world I could inhabit again if I’m not careful.

The Liar’s Disease

The author endeavors to tell the truth about an uncomfortable fact: People with addictive behavior really suck at honesty.

The Ego OCD Built

The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire.

The Rat in the Church Pew

The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

The author goes to Church and comes away with a strange feeling.

Bad Behavior, Easily Defined

The author turns to his musical hero for some easy-to-remember descriptions of depression and addictive behavior.

Meet My Demon

Why the author treats his demon like an imaginary friend, and how it helps.

A Little Bitter

The author on three of the 12 Steps he keeps tripping over.

The Long Road Through Self Hatred

The author has learned that it’s damn hard to like yourself at the beginning of sobriety and abstinence. The feeling will pass. Eventually.

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Howie Mandel Fights The Stigma

Truth be told, I’ve never been much of a Howie Mandel fan. I liked his brand of humor in the beginning but eventually lost interest.

But I give him a lot of credit for being open about his own struggle with OCD and taking the fight to The Stigma:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZ84SZcPps&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

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Hitting Bottom: Songs and Backstory

Hitting bottom is the moment of truth for an addict, whether the shackles are made of heroin, booze or food. I’ve been there. You have a choice: Clean up your act or die a painful death that can be either quick or slow.

People ask me all the time about my big moment. The answer is that there wasn’t that one dramatic moment of hitting bottom.

It was more a series of bottoms. It was a multi-staged crash.

One crash was a couple months after my best friend took his life. I was binge eating with more zeal than ever, and I don’t think I cared at that point if my heart gave out. I was too crushed to care much about anything.

I had just been handed the job of editor for the Lynn Sunday Post, a paper that was already dying. I would be its pallbearer. The job included double duty as a writer for North Shore Sunday. I worked 16-hour days, six days a week.

Work was all I had at that point. Erin and I were engaged (realizing life is too short, I proposed a month after Sean died), but I was still trying to please my masters, so work came first. On Sundays, my only day off, I was sleeping through the entire day.

By the summer of 1997, I realized I had to push back or end up in an institution somewhere. Fortunately, my boss at the time saw that I was physically deteriorating and stepped in.

In December 1998, I was 285 pounds and collapsing under the weight. My father was too, and wound up getting quadruple bypass surgery. That was another slap in the face to warn me that I had to clean up. I lost 100 pounds, though I did it through unhealthy means that would explode in my face several years later.

In late 2001 I realized that I was never going to please the managing editor I worked for at The Eagle-Tribune. He was forcing me to be the type of manager I didn’t want to be — an asshole. So I told him I was going higher up the food chain to get reassigned. And that’s what I did. They put me back in the night editor’s chair, which helped for a short time.

By late 2004 I was out of The Eagle-Tribune and in a job I loved. But I was putting enormous pressure on myself and the physical toll was showing. All my personality ticks were in overdrive: the obsession with cleanliness. The paranoia over my kids’ safety. A growing sense of fear that kept me indoors a lot.

That was probably the deepest bottom to date, the one that made me realize I needed to get help from a therapist; help that led to my OCD diagnosis.

The next bottom was in late 2006, when I had developed many of the mental health tools I use today. But my brain chemistry was such a mess I couldn’t get past the fear and anxiety attacks. That’s when I decided to try medication, which has worked far better than I ever thought possible.

The last bottom was in the summer of 2008. I was finally finding some mental stability, but I surrendered to the binge eating during therapy and was back up to 260 pounds. And it was hurting my health in a big way. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, choking on stomach acid. I couldn’t find clothes that would fit me. I was getting depressed again.

And so I started checking out OA and by October was headlong into my 12-Step Program of Recovery.

I immediately dropped 65 pounds, and have maintained the same healthier weight of 198 pounds for more than a year.

All these events were bottoms.

I hit bottom for different things.

Hopefully, I’m done.

The whole back story is here.

One thing I do to remind myself of why I never want to go back there is listen to songs about hitting bottom, coming clean and getting punched in the face by the truth. Here are four favorites:

“Cold Turkey” by Cheap Trick (covering John Lennon):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e04OBJzbvc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Girl With Golden Eyes” by Sixx A.M.:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKPbi-K6nNQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Under The Bridge” By Red Hot Chili Peppers:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsaubMAVHV8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“Coma” by Guns N Roses:

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

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The Mental Illness Stigma That Won’t Die

The author came clean about his own battles with mental illness and addiction exactly because of stupidity like this…

Mood music for this post: “Push Comes to Shove” by Van Halen, from the “Fair Warning” album:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3aW7oofNgs&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Kay Lazar from The Boston Globe wrote a story this week that sent my blood boiling. My problem wasn’t with the reporting or writing. She does a fine job. It’s the topic that burns.

The story, available here, is about firms putting limits on coverage for mental health care. It’s the same sorry song that ratchets up the fear level for those suffering from depression, OCD, bipolar disorder and the like.

It proves to the sufferer that mental illness is still viewed as a less-than-legitimate illness, something that’s more a figment of the sufferer’s imagination.

In the eyes of many health insurers, it appears this sort of thing doesn’t justify the same kind of coverage it offers for those with heart problems or asthma.

The industry can be just as daft when it comes to fair coverage of those things, too, but I look at mental health issues differently than most, given my own experiences. [Summed up in OCD Christmas, The Bad Pill Kept Me From The Good Pill and The Most Uncool Addiction]

Here’s the intro to Kay’s report:

Spiraling medical costs have driven many employers to place new limits on coverage for mental health care, raising concerns that the rules may violate federal regulations intended to make it as easy for patients to see therapists as other doctors.

At issue is the growing practice of requiring therapists to undergo lengthy and repeated phone interviews about their patients’ progress before the insurance company will approve further treatment. According to patients and therapists interviewed by the Globe, the reviews have established tougher criteria for additional visits and have been burdensome and intimidating. That has sometimes led to curtailed treatment and protracted appeals.

Among those feeling the squeeze are state and municipal employees who get their insurance through the Group Insurance Commission, a quasi-state agency that provides mental health coverage for more than 100,000 workers and their families.

The commission, facing double-digit increases in its mental health insurance costs, changed its rules last year and now requires therapists who are not in the commission’s roster of approved specialists to justify, usually through lengthy telephone reviews, a patient’s need for continued treatment after every 10 sessions. Previously, the commission simply required the therapists to regularly fax the insurer a progress report.

I would be simple to point the finger at one party and say they’re evil. Truth is, this is a mess that’s splattered all over the place. I think most employers want to do the right thing and offer the best coverage possible, but when costs spiral out of control they sometimes make decisions that prevent the mentally ill from getting the right treatment.

It’s especially easy to say the health insurance industry is the devil in this tale. After all, it’s the one making this outrageous demand for lengthy phone interviews before approving further treatment.

But I’m biased. My view of the health insurance industry is that decisions are based exclusively on the bottom line than on what’s right. I see it all the time. I also take the simple and probably naive view that if a sizable chunk of one’s salary is being used to pay for healthcare and all the extra expenses that come with medication, the insurer has no business putting the squeeze on patients.

I’m not an expert. I can only base my opinion on personal experience. But I’ve heard enough horror stories from other people to know this crap is for real.

That’s exactly why I started this blog.

I chose to out myself and share my experiences so other sufferers might realize they are not freaks and that they have a legitimate, very easily explained medical problem that’s very treatable. It takes that kind of understanding for someone to get up and get help.

I try not to engage in political debate because this is such a personal issue, though sometimes I have to make a point on current events like I did when Health care Reform passed in March.

I do know this, though: Many good people have died because of mental illness. They were ashamed and afraid to get help because of the stupid notion that they are somehow crazy and either need their ass kicked or be institutionalized. So they try to go it alone and either end up committing suicide because their brains are knocked so far off their axis or they die from other diseases that develop when the depression forces the sufferer into excessive eating, drinking, starvation, drug taking or a combination of these things.

There’s also the ridiculous idea that a person’s workmanship becomes valueless when they’re in a depression. If someone misses work because they have cancer, they are off fighting a brave battle. They are fighting a brave battle, of course. No doubt about it.

But depression? That person is slacking off and no longer performing.

I’ve been able to debunk that idea in my own work circle. It helps that I’ve been blessed to work with exceptional, amazing and enlightened people.

Luckily for me, I got rid of my fear and anxiety long ago, so I’m going to keep sharing my experiences. It probably won’t force change  or tear down the stigma single-handedly.

But if a few more people get just a little more fight in them after reading these diaries, it will have been well worth the risks.

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The Brenners Invade The White House

The author on returning from a journey that would have been impossible a few years ago.

It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’m running on less than four hours of sleep, so excuse any typos that follow…

I’m back in my “sunrise chair” the morning after returning from one hell of a road trip that included a private tour of the White House West Wing, a stay at buddy Alex Howard’s place and a stay with our wonderful Maryland relatives, Charron, Steve, Stevie and Maggie.

There’s a lot about the trip I’m still stunned about. I’m still in awe of the fact that I got to poke my head in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and that I got a quick peek inside the Situation Room when a staffer was leaving the main room (the Situation Room is actually made up of several rooms).

I’m very thankful for Howard Schmidt for giving us the tour and for Alex for letting the whole family stay in his cramped but very cool townhouse on Capitol Hill.

I’m also thankful for the level of recovery I’ve achieved, because without it I never could have done the trip, especially with the whole family on an 8-hour drive down and a longer, 12-hour drive home Sunday (lots of traffic).
I’ll be honest and tell you I wasn’t perfect this trip. Friday morning we got a late start to the day and I found myself in an OCD-enhanced mood dive. It was a classic control freak out: I wanted to show Erin and the boys EVERYTHING. But with two small kids with shorter legs than their Dad, you can’t do that. And for a few hours Friday afternoon, as we walked from the Lincoln monument to the Museum of Natural History, I was in that brain-clouding mood I used to live with 24 hours a day.
But it was still a good day, and an even better night. Being in the West Wing of The White House, where every president of the last century has toiled away (some for the good, others for the not-so-good), was just magical for a history nerd like me. And I’m grateful my wife and children got to see it all.
It was a joy the next day to spend time with our Corthell cousins on the Maryland coast: Charron, Maggie, Steve and Stevie. Such a wonderful family. Charron took us to a maritime habitat that included time out on the water and inside a really cool lighthouse.
I especially enjoyed watching Maggie and Duncan bond during the boat ride.
So why wouldn’t this trip have been possible a few years ago? For starters, driving ANYWHERE outside the comfortable confines of the north-of-Boston area used to send me into panic. My fear and anxiety extended to a terror over getting lost. Even getting lost in Boston was cause for fear.
This trip, I did the whole drive down and back with none of that. I even enjoyed the journey.
I also wouldn’t have had the guts a few years ago to inquire about a White House tour. Too much work and I’d have to actually talk to someone with a big title. That would have been too intimidating.
I also would have been afraid to take the time off from work, since being a people pleaser was more important than living back then.
My 12-Step recovery program helped a lot. It kept me from wasting time and energy on binge eating and so I got to experience more from the journey. My Faith also helped, because I know now that the key to everything is to Let Go and Let God. I worked my tools, and everything was fine.
Not perfect. I feel like an idiot for taking that mood swing Friday afternoon. I also realize now more than ever that I’m addicted to computer screens. Erin decreed that we leave the laptops behind and I’m glad we did. But man was it hard to not run to a computer and upload those White House pics right after taking them. That’s something I still have to work on.
But then I knew I was still a work in progress. I always will be.
But I’m a grateful, lucky work in progress.
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The Fear of Current Events

Digging through storage boxes the other day, I found old, 20-plus-year-old copies of Time Magazine, Newsweek, Mother Jones and a host of others. There had to be four years of them, well over 200 volumes.

And so I was reminded — again — of all the fear I used to carry around.

As I’ve written before, fear and anxiety were byproducts of my particular brand of OCD, just like my addictions were a byproduct.

The fear meant a lot of things. Working myself into a stupor over the safety of my wife and children. An obsession with cleanliness, which was interesting since depression always meant my personal hygiene took a dive.

It also meant a fear of world events. When that Nostradamus movie “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow” came out on HBO in the early 1980s, I was terrified by the “future” scenes, especially the one where New York and Paris are destroyed in nuclear attacks.

Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, I thought the scene from above was playing out and it left me in a huge depression, one where I stayed in my basement with the lights off.

Similar emotions took hold on Sept. 11, 2001. Of course, those emotions took hold on everyone that day.

Most recently, in 2005, I had a long panic streak over the bird flu in Asia, which was predicted to be the next great pandemic, as deadly as the one in 1918-19.

I would read every magazine and every website tracking all these world events as if my personal safety depended on it. If a hurricane was spinning in the Atlantic, I would watch with deepening worry as it edged closer to the U.S.

When did all this stop? It’s hard to pin an exact date or year on it.

I only know it stopped.

One day the anxiety attacks stopped. Then I started to crave all the experiences I once feared. Not the terror attacks, plane crashes and pandemics, mind you, but the traveling, the public speaking and more intensified writing. One day I started craving those things with the same vigor with which I craved all the junk I polluted myself with.

Therapy — years of it — and Prozac definitely played a role. So did my deepening Faith.

Whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.

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OCD Humor

It’s Saturday morning and my brain is fried (but sober and abstinent, so it’s all good). I’m waking up to some videos that do a delicious job of poking fun at my condition. Since I love videos that poke fun at my condition, I must share:

Ringu the OCD cat:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyHaSYvwrY4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

OCD granny:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEleD6klvhc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

As Good As It Gets:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DCWslbsNM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Howard Hughes OCD (not meant to be funny, but with my sense of humor, well…)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ucqimdau8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

OCD patient on Grey’s Anatomy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETFQ9fyRP0s&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

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Shakin’ the (Empty) Money Maker

The author on keeping sane when you gotta make do with less.

Mood music for this post:”What’s It Gonna Take” by Motley Crue:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wredTXeMS64&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

It’s easy to come undone when the money supply tightens up.

Just about everyone I know is feeling the financial hurt these days. In our case, we chose to take on the world of financial hurt. Erin has a cool editing business that deserves a chance to flourish and we had to take a chance for that to be possible. I don’t regret it for a second.

Success isn’t for those who play it safe.

But it can be a bitch when you have an addictive personality like I do. I put down the addictions that were going to be the death of me, but the trouble is that to keep the most destructive addictions at bay, people like me latch onto other vices. One is spending money. Not the crazy spending on fancy cars and clothes, mind you.

It’s the little things. The spending you do when it’s the path of least resistance and maximum comfort.

Buying dinner instead of cooking what’s in the fridge. Getting one of the high-octane coffee drinks at Starbucks when I should just stick to the coffee supply I have at home. Spending money on desk trinkets and books when I’m on vacation.

I do much better at keeping these habits in check now than I used to. I don’t really have a choice right now. But sometimes I do something stupid, like download new music from iTunes. When the Slash solo album came out, for example, I pressed the download button. Instant gratification. It didn’t even register in my head that the action mean Apple would be taking its money from one of the credit card numbers stored in the system.

Or when fueling up the car, I might grab a Red Bull without thinking. Red Bull is expensive, by the way.

Next week I’m taking the family to Washington DC, and we’re doing a lot of things to save money. Driving down instead of flying. Staying with a friend instead of paying for a hotel. Packing a lot of meals to have on the road instead of eating every meal in a restaurant. Given my most destructive addition, that would be a bad idea even if we were flush with cash.

But with two kids in tow, it’s going to make things a lot harder than it would be otherwise.

Though our financial burden is something I worry about, I’m not coming undone like I would have a few years ago. I would have stayed in bed or on the couch, binge eating on everything in site and drinking wine from the bottle. My brain would spin the problem around over and over and over again, with no solution at the end. I would punch walls and drive with all the road rage I could muster.

Those things aren’t happening, and for that I am grateful.

We have a roof over our heads and we’re in no danger of losing it. We still get the food on the table. Our clothing and medical needs are met. Most importantly, we have each other and God.

We’re very creative at finding things to do on the cheap or for free. We have a ton of wonderful friends and I’ve reconnected with some people who have been very important forces in my life. A friend who works at the White House is giving us a West Wing tour. That will be a huge experience for my kids, and it’s not costing a dime.

There are a lot of people out there who aren’t so lucky, and I really feel for them.

So I’m going to keep taking it a day at a time, and while it sucks being broke sometimes, I know things will work out.

They always do.

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The Rewards and Risk of Service: A Cautionary Tale

Service is a major tool of recovery. But it can also be dangerous.

Mood music for this post: “Serve the Servants” by Nirvana:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtB6gEmr6ZY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Last night was one of service. I drove down to Salem State College to talk to graduating seniors about their portfolios and resumes. It was the least I could do, after all that college did for my career.

It was energizing to talk to the students, who are full of hope and ambition, not yet jaded by the throat-cutting ways of corporate America. And it was good to see Judi Puritz Cook, Ellen Golub and Robert Brown. Ellen was adviser to the Salem State Log while I was there. We were among her most trouble-making, rebellious charges. I’m proud of this.

After that I dropped by the home of old friends. Their son is going through a lot of the turmoil I went through as a kid, and I’m trying to help him out by teaching him some of the tools I’ve developed for the OCD and addictive behavior.

On the way home I spent some phone time with someone I’m sponsoring in OA.

By 5 a.m. I was back online, following up with students I didn’t get a chance to sit with last night.

I treasure service to others. It’s an important part of my Faith and my recovery. It’s odd that I feel this way, since I used to prefer isolating myself in a dark room, watching TV and shoving pint after pint of ice cream, canned pasta and other junk down my throat and occasionally taking breaks to smoke cigarettes.

Service, in fact, is one of the main tools of recovery in OA. It’s not just about helping other people. It’s about building and improving relationships, putting the stresses of your life in perspective and realizing your troubles are never as bad as you think. You’re not just helping someone who is down on their luck. They are helping you back, though they don’t realize it most of the time.

Sponsorship is a good example.

By sponsoring others, it forces you to work harder at your own recovery. My sponsor helps me every day, but I also take time to hear how she’s doing and offer advice.

It’s all about realizing we’re all in this together.

But there’s some caution to deliver here.

Service is a tricky tool that can explode in your face if not used responsibly.

The risk for me is that I take on too much. I can’t say no when there’s volunteering to do at church or someone in OA needs my time. Being a control freak doesn’t help.

I also have a job that keeps me busy, and doing good work on the job — writing articles that help security professionals do their jobs better and helping out colleagues when they need it — is also essential to my well-being.

The work thing used to be about pleasing the bosses. Then I woke up one day and realized it’s stupid trying to be a people pleaser.

The point, though, is that if I do a great job of volunteering all the time, the work can suffer and then someone who deserves my best gets screwed. Fortunately, I’m a lot better at this balancing act than I used to be.

The danger with sponsorship and helping friends in need is that you as a human being can only do so much. My instinct is to drop in and make their lives better in an instant. But it doesn’t work that way. I have a busy family life with two small boys. They must always come first, which means I have to take care not to get consumed by someone else’s troubles.

I have to remember that I can offer up what I know, but at the end of the day only the folks I’m trying to help can truly pull themselves out of the hole.

With sponsorship and giving students career advice there’s another danger: By trying to help too many people, I end up not helping any of them very much.

All perils aside, it’s great to be in the mental place I’m at right now. You all deserve thanks for that, because your service has helped me. Even though you probably don’t realize you were doing anything.