Marley and Me

The author describes the second older brother whose death hit harder than that of the first.

Mood music:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/48842027″ iframe=”true” /]

It doesn’t seem right that a friend’s death would hit me harder and fuel my insanity more than the death of a biological brother. But that’s what happened.

This is the story of Sean Marley, who introduced me to metal music, taught me to love life, and whose death was one of the cattle prods for my writing this blog.

I had known Sean for as long as I could remember. He lived two doors down from me on the Lynnway in Revere, Mass. He was always hanging around with my older brother, which is one of the reasons we didn’t hit it off at first.

Friends of older siblings often pick on the younger siblings. I’ve done it.

Sean was quiet and scholarly. By the early 1980s he was starting to grow his hair long and wore those skinny black leather ties when he had to suit up.

On Jan. 7, 1984 — the day my older brother died — my relationship with Sean began to change. Quickly. I’d like to believe we were both leaning on each other to get through the grief. But the truth of it is that it was just me leaning on him.

He tolerated it. He started introducing me to Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen and other hard-boiled music. I think he enjoyed having someone younger around to influence.

As the 1980s progressed, a deep, genuine friendship blossomed. He had indeed become another older brother. I grew my hair long. I started listening to all the heavy metal I could get my hands on. Good thing, too. That music was an outlet for all my teenage rage, keeping me from acting on that rage in ways that almost certainly would have landed me in jail.

We did everything together: Drank, got high, went on road trips, including one to California in 1991 where we flew into San Francisco, rented a car and drove around the entire state for 10 days, sleeping and eating in the car.

This was before I became self aware that I had a problem with obsessive-compulsive behavior, fear and anxiety. But the fear was evident on that trip. I was afraid to go to clubs at night for fear we might get mugged. When we drove over the Bay Bridge I was terrified that an earthquake MIGHT strike and the bridge would collapse from beneath us.

I occupied the entire basement apartment of my father’s house, and we had a lot of wild parties there. Sean was a constant presence. His friends became my friends. His cousin became my cousin. I still feel that way about these people today. They are back in my life through Facebook, and I’m grateful for it.

He was a deadly serious student at Salem State College, and his dedication to his studies inspired me to choose Salem State as well. Good thing, too. That’s where I met my wife.

In 1994, things started to go wrong for Sean. He became paranoid and depressed. He tried to hurt himself more than once. I didn’t know how to react to it.

That fall, he got married and I was best man. I wanted to be the greatest best man ever. But I was so self-absorbed at the time that there was no way I could effectively be there for someone else, even him.

Over the next two years, his depression came and went. He was hospitalized with it a couple times. By the summer of 1996, he was darker and more paranoid than I’d ever seen him. But I was so busy binge eating and worrying about my career that I didn’t pay enough attention.

In November 1996, I got a call at work from my mother. She had driven by Sean’s house and saw police cars and ambulances and all kinds of commotion on the front lawn. I called his sister and she put his wife on the phone. She informed me he was dead. By his own hand.

I spent a lot of the next 10 years angry at him for doing such a thing. He had everything going for him. And he chose to end it. I didn’t understand it, even as I was descending into my own brand of craziness.

The reason his death hit harder than my own brother’s is complicated. I think it’s because I had been burned for the second time, which is always worse than the first. It’s probably that I was an adult the second time and had a greater awareness of circumstances behind his death. Or it’s probably just the nature of the ending.

It took my own struggle with depression and OCD years later to truly grasp what he had gone through. I wasn’t there for him, but by sharing my own struggles I can hopefully be there for others.

Life has been good in the years since his death. I married a wonderful woman, followed a career path that’s produced many Blessings, found God and had two precious children.

We named our first son Sean Michael Brenner. And with that, I guess I was able to move on.

My son is every bit as smart as the man he was named for. His wit tickles me every day. And he’s caring beyond his years.

You can bet your ass I’ll be watching him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t become too much like the man he’s named after.

Continued in “Death of a Second Sibling

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http://www.theocddiaries.com/2009/12/22/ocd-diaries-12-22-the-ego-ocd-built/

Growing Pains

Despite all the progress I’ve made in managing OCD, there are still times where I forget to use my skills — momentarily, at least.

This morning is a good example.

I woke up depressed. Two hours later I was angry. Maybe I was getting tired of the winter outside my window. Maybe I was just plain tired. I was snapping at Erin and the children. I realized I was letting the crazy side loose and went upstairs to the bedroom because I didn’t want to lash out at my family for things that weren’t really their fault. Even if it were, lashing out is not my preferred way to deal with it.

The kids came into the room one at a time to see if they could do anything to make me feel better. Then Erin came in and we talked through it.

I feel no need to explain what exactly triggered my inner demon this morning, though through talking it over with Erin I figured it out. The important thing to point out here is that I can now see how I am managing things better than before.

1. I retreated to the bedroom instead of blowing up at those I love.

2. Instead of keeping it inside, I talked to Erin about what I was really feeling. She deserves much of the credit for bringing me to a place where I can purge the darker emotions.

3. I told everyone involved that I was sorry.

Now I feel better, and I can move on and have a better rest of the day.

Prozac Winter

The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.

My therapist and I recently agreed that my Prozac intake should go up a bit for the duration of the winter.

I’m doing well for the most part, but there’s a three-hour window of each day — usually late afternoon — where my mood slides straight into the crapper.

The reason is simple: People who suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain are directly impacted by daylight levels. When the weather is dismal, cold, rainy and the days are shorter, a lot of folks with mental illness find themselves more depressed and moody. Give us a long stretch of dry, sunny weather and days where it gets light at 4:30 a.m. and stays that way past 8 p.m. and we tend to be happier people.

There are lessons to be had in the history books:

— Abraham Lincoln, a man who suffered from deep depression for most of his adult life, went from blue to downright suicidal a few times in the 1840s during long stretches of chilly, rainy weather. [See Why “Lincoln’s Melancholy” is a Must-Read.]

— Ronald Reagan, a sunny personality by most accounts, was a man of Sunny California. Once, upon noticing that his appointments secretary hadn’t worked time in his schedule for trips to his ranch atop the sun-soaked mountains of Southern California — and after the secretary explained that there was a growing public perception that he was spending too much time away from Washington — Reagan handed him back the schedule and ordered that ranch time be worked in. The more trips to the ranch, he explained, the longer he’ll live.

The WebMD site has excellent information on winter depression. Here’s an excerpt:

If your mood gets worse as the weather gets chillier and the days get shorter, you may have “winter depression.” Here, questions to ask your doctor if winter is the saddest season for you.

Why do I seem to get so gloomy each winter, or sometimes beginning in the fall?

You may have what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The condition is marked by the onset of depression during the late fall and early winter months, when less natural sunlight is available. It’s thought to occur when daily body rhythms become out-of-sync because of the reduced sunlight.

Some people have depression year round that gets worse in the winter; others have SAD alone, struggling with low moods only in the cooler, darker months. (In a much smaller group of people, the depression occurs in the summer months.)

SAD affects up to 3% of the U.S. population, or about 9 million people, some experts say, and countless others have milder forms of the winter doldrums.

So this worsening of mood in the fall and winter is not just my imagination?

Not at all. This “winter depression” was first identified by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1984. They found this tendency to have seasonal mood and behavior changes occurs in different degrees, sometimes with mild changes and other times severe mood shifts.

Symptoms can include:

  • Sleeping too much
  • Experiencing fatigue in the daytime
  • Gaining weight
  • Having decreased interest in social activities and sex

SAD is more common for residents in northern latitudes. It’s less likely in Florida, for instance, than in New Hampshire. Women are more likely than men to suffer, perhaps because of hormonal factors. In women, SAD becomes less common after menopause.

Here’s where the Prozac comes in for me:

As I mentioned in The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill, Prozac helps to sustain my brain chemistry at healthy levels. Here’s a more scientific description of how it works from WebMD:

How Antidepressants Work

Most antidepressants work by changing the balance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. In people with depression, these chemicals are not used properly by the brain. Antidepressants make the chemicals more available to brain cells like the one shown on the right side of this slide:

Photo Composite of Neurotransmitters at Work

Antidepressants can be prescribed by primary care physicians, but people with severe symptoms are usually referred to a psychiatrist.

Realistic Expectations

In general, antidepressants are highly effective, especially when used along with psychotherapy. (The combination has proven to be the most effective treatment for depression.) Most people on antidepressants report eventual improvements in symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, and hopelessness.

But these drugs do not work right away. It may take one to three weeks before you start to feel better and even longer before you feel the full benefit.

I’m convinced the drug would NOT have worked as well for me had it not been for all the intense therapy I had first. Developing the coping mechanisms had to come first.

I’ve also learned that the medication must be monitored and managed carefully. The levels have to be adjusted at certain times of year — for me, anyway.

So next week I’ll start taking the higher dosage and let y’all know how it goes.

OCD DIARIES 12-30: The Break

The author tries to take a break from writing, but chaos in the form of his two sons reminds him of another lesson worth sharing.

Sean and Duncan have the audacity to fight over video games at this early hour, my usual writing window.

Back before I found control over the OCD, this normal childhood behavior would send me over the edge. Fighting children equals chaos. People like me don’t do chaos well. I am, after all, someone who craves order.

The good news is that I don’t go over the edge anymore. I look up from my laptop screen, tell them to knock it off and get back to my writing. A lot of their fighting amuses me because of the zingers that spill out their mouths.

So I tell them to knock it off and, once hidden behind the computer screen, grin broadly.

I appreciate that I can enjoy these moments instead of being undone by them.

It’s a nice break.

Today will still be a day crammed with chaos. This morning I’m taking the kids to play with their cousin Madison and Uncle Dave’s vast Lego collection. This afternoon I’m babysitting the children of one of Erin’s best friends so the two of them can go have a girls’ afternoon out. It’ll be me and four kids. They’ll be wrecking a house other than mine, so I’m actually looking forward to it. Tonight Erin and I will take the boys to the N.E. Aquarium — one of their favorite places on Earth — for a members-only event.

I never thought it would be possible to feel relaxed with a day like that ahead. And yet I am relaxed, even as the coffee begins to course through me.

It’s nice to embrace life instead of trying to run from it. I’m enjoying a week off from work without worrying about all the stuff I need to do when I get back. If anything, I’m looking forward to all the things I have to do next week. By Saturday, I suspect I’ll be itching to get back to it.

The original purpose of today’s entry was to announce I’m taking a break from blogging for a couple days. It’s a forced break. I’m trying to give folks a chance to catch up with the torrent of writing I’ve done these last three weeks.

For someone with OCD, the compulsion is to keep going. To stop is to lose precious momentum.

But that was the old me. The new me is happy to take a break and enjoy the precious present.

Somewhere along the process of writing today’s entry, I got sidetracked and started going on about my kids. No apologies for that. I kinda like how this entry turned out. It’s all over the place, but it’s nice to meander once in awhile.

It sounds stupid. But it’s true.

Happy New Year, friends.

Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or less

The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a devoted fan of hard rock and metal music [See How Metal Saved Me]. I’ve found that the music helps me to release whatever negative thoughts I may have at the time. And so I thought I’d share some with a little help from Youtube.

Just don’t play ’em all at once, as the space-time continuum that binds the universe together might rupture, killing us all.

1. Cheap Trick: Woke Up With A Monster.

I love this band, and since we are often the monster we awake to, it’s entirely appropriate:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRTgQ4cx5ik&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

2. Sixx A.M.: Girl With Golden Eyes

This entire album — a soundtrack to Nikki Sixx’s book “The Heroin Diaries,” is perfect for folks like us. I like this song because it’s the part of the story where the addict really starts to hit bottom. And as we all know, hitting bottom is the first step in recovery:

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

3. Nine Inch Nails: Gave Up

This song speaks to the hopelessness we often feel. And in an unrelated but interesting aside, this video was shot at the residence of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, where Tate and four others were murdered by the Manson Family in 1969 (NIN’s “Broken” and “Downward Spiral” albums were recorded in the house, which Trent Reznor converted into a studio):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVpw1SwJRBI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

4. Metallica: The Unnamed Feeling

The video is pretty self-explanatory:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx_lhZQ_4Pg&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

5. Sixx A.M.: Life is Beautiful

As Sixx says at the end, “When you’ve lost it all, that’s when you realize that life is beautiful.”

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

6. The Decemberists: Sons and Daughters

I love this song because it really nails the feeling you get when the black cloud finally lifts:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5H8DwJI0uA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

7. Avett Brothers: The Battle of Love and Hate

We all struggle internally with love and hate, and this song ends with Hate realizing that maybe — just maybe — he was being an idiot. Love, meanwhile, is patient and kind throughout:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7xUZkKd58c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

8. P.O.D.: Alive

This song was big shortly after 9-11-01. It resonated with those who were starting to come out of the shock and despair of the attacks, at least in the sense that people came to appreciate their own lives a little more than before:

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

Fear Factor

In this installment, the author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This morning I led a meeting of Over-eaters Anonymous, a task that included standing before a room of people for 30 minutes to tell my story of OCD, addiction and recovery.

It was my third time “qualifying” at an OA meeting this past year. Meanwhile, I did a fair amount of public speaking for my day job as senior editor of CSO Magazine. I sat on panels at security conferences and did solo presentations in front of various information security groups around the country.

Five or so years ago, the notion of me getting up to speak in front of people would have been laughable.

I was too busy hiding in my cage of fear to do such things. Fear will rob you blind, forcing you to avoid life and retreat into the sinister world of addiction.

Breaking free of it was a gift from God. But it took a long time to figure out how to unwrap it and realize my potential.

For me, fear was one of the many byproducts of OCD, something that went hand in hand with anxiety. It kept me away from parties. It scared me out of traveling. I turned down a lot of living in favor of lying in my bedroom watching TV. There are a couple examples in particular that I’m not proud of.

1991

One summer night I was hanging with two friends in front of Kelly’s Roast Beef, a popular eatery on Revere Beach. As we started walking the mile back to my house, we noticed we were being followed by some 15 punks. It was clear they were looking for trouble. I panicked and ran to a nearby bar. As I looked back, I couldn’t see my friends.

The punks had circled them and started kicking and punching their guts in. I called the police and the beatings ended quickly, but I couldn’t get over the fact that I ran away. Worse, it marked the end of my walking along the beach at night for many years to come.

It was a huge fear-inflicted injustice. I grew up on that beach and loved the place. I walked its entire length daily. It gave me peace and clarity. And I allowed some punks to scare me away.

2001

A week after the 9-11 attacks in New York and Washington, Erin and I were scheduled to fly to Arizona to attend a cousin’s wedding. The night before were were supposed to leave, I gave in to my terror at the prospect of getting on a plane and we didn’t go. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.

There are smaller examples in between and in the years after, but those are two of the more vivid memories.

Fear also fueled the binge eating and kept me from standing up for things that were right in the family and workplace. It was better to keep my trap shut, I thought. To do otherwise would put my job in danger or have me blackballed.

Then there was the fear of loss I wrote about a few blog posts back — fear that if I didn’t overprotect my kids I might lose them to some imagined beast; that if I spoke my mind during a spousal spat my wife might walk out on me. In hindsight, these were foolish ideas. But in the grip of fear, you think this way and act on it even though you really know better.

When I began getting treatment for the OCD the fear actually accelerated for a while. If a toe went a little numb I’d think I was suffering from a blood clot. A headache would leave me wondering if a tumor was growing inside my skull. A pain in the chest became fear of a heart attack.

I can’t remember when the fear finally began to lift. I think it was in early 2007, shortly after I began taking Prozac. Once the medicine untangled the chemical imbalances in the brain, situations I had feared suddenly seemed manageable. It was pretty weird, actually. I didn’t know what to do with this new feeling. Or maybe it was the year before, when I converted to the Catholic Faith and increasingly let God into my life. When you have God on your side, there’s really nothing to fear, right?

Then little milestones came along. There was a business trip to California that would have consumed me with worry a few years before. There was the first time giving a presentation in front of a room full of security people who were almost certainly smarter than me. The computer holding my PowerPoint presentation went on the fritz and I was forced to present sans slides. I told the audience that I was just going to wing it and that broke the ice.

Today, I look for opportunities to give talks in front of crowded rooms. I have work to do on my speaking skills, but I want more. The more I do, the more my confidence grows and the smoother and more organized the presentations get.

I look for opportunities to fly as well. And though I work hard on the business at hand, I ALWAYS make a point of building in a day to go out and explore, especially if there’s a piece of history to see up close. I want to see it all. Staring at the hotel room TV will no longer do.

Sometimes I worry that the fear will return and I’ll again retreat to my old cage. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though, for one simple reason — the world has been opened up to me. I’ve experienced too much joy these last couple years to go back to the way I was.

I couldn’t go back if I tried. Not that I would want to try.

To be clear, I still worry about things. But I don’t let it shut down the rest of my life. Instead of being engulfed, I can put the concern in its proper mental compartment and move along with my life.

There will be difficulties ahead, I’m sure. That’s life. But I feel more ready to deal with what may come than I’ve ever been before.

OCD Has its Benefits

I’ve joked to people before that having OCD isn’t all bad. One benefit is that it gives you extra drive to get things done.

Most of the time that drive is spent on all the wrong things: checking the door eight times to make sure it’s locked, going bat-house crazy when something on your desk is knocked out of place (and I have a lot of stuff on my desk), and trying to make sense of things you have absolutely no control over.

I turned to therapy and medication to eradicate or at least lessen such behavior.  But truth be told, I didn’t want the OCD to go away altogether. I worried fiercely that managing the disorder would make me lose my professional edge, that I would somehow turn into a care-free robot.

That didn’t happen, thankfully. If anything, I’m a much more effective journalist now than I was when I was letting the brain spin out of control inside my skull.

But every once in awhile, the spinning mind forces me to get off the couch and do something I might not have done otherwise. In this case, I gave up a lazy evening to chase down news that President Obama has picked his new White House cybersecurity coordinator.

International OCD Foundation

International OCD Foundation (IODCF)

For those who struggle with OCD, there is an organization out there with a lot to offer called The International OCD Foundation. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I just found out about these guys. (Thanks to Stephanie Chelf for flagging it!)

From the group’s website:

Founded by a group of people with OCD in 1986, the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) is an international not-for-profit organization made up of people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and related disorders, as well as their families, friends, professionals and others.  The mission and goals of the IOCDF are to:

  • Educate the public and professionals about OCD in order to raise awareness and improve the quality of treatment provided;
  • Support research into the cause of, and effective treatments for, OCD and related disorders;
  • Improve access to resources for those with OCD and their families;
  • Advocate and lobby for the OCD community.”

If anyone knows of a mental illness support organization(s) worth mentioning — OCD or otherwise — let me know and I’ll be happy to do my part.

The Most Uncool Addiction

In this installment, the author opens up about the binge-eating disorder he tried to hide for years — and how he managed to bring it under control.

I don’t beat myself for having engaged in addictive behavior. That kind of thing is obvious for someone with OCD. If there’s a compulsion to be rubbed raw, you go for it, no matter how destructive it is on body and soul. Then you wake up the next day and do it again.

But on occasion I find myself wallowing in this question: “Why, oh why, couldn’t I be addicted to something more common like alcohol or heroin?”

Hell, many of the musicians, writers and political leaders who’ve inspired me drank to excess, smoked nonstop or even used needles.

Winston Churchill spent every waking hour of WW II buzzed. He dipped his cigars in brandy and port. Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) and Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) almost made being a junkie look cool. It wasn’t cool, of course. But that’s how I think when under the haze.

In my case, the addiction is food, something we need to survive. It’s not the least bit cool. Certainly not a “normal” addiction.

That food would be my problem makes perfect sense. As a kid sick with Chron’s Disease much of the time, I was often in the hospital for weeks at a time with a feeding tube that was inserted through the left side of my chest. That’s how I got nourishment. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything. At a very early age, my relationship with food was doomed to dysfunction.

It didn’t help that I was from a family of over-eaters who would stuff themselves for comfort in times of stress and fatigue.

In our society it’s considered perfectly OK to indulge in the food. Time and again, I’ve heard it said that overeating is a lot better than drinking or drugging. But for me, back when I was at my worst, binge eating was a secret, sinister and shameful activity.

Here’s how it works:

You get up in the morning and swear to God that you’re going to eat like a normal person. You pack some healthy food for the office. Then you get in the car and the trouble starts before the car’s out of the driveway. Another personality emerges from the back of the brain, urging you to indulge. It starts as a whisper but builds until it vibrates through the skull like a power saw.

The food calls out to you. And you’ll do whatever it takes to get it, then spend a lot of time trying to cover your tracks.

Before you know it, you’re in the DD drive-thru ordering two boxes of everything. It all gets eaten by the time you reach the office. You get to the desk disgusted, vowing to never do that again. But by mid-morning, the food is calling again. You sneak out before lunchtime and gorge on whatever else you can find, then you do it again on the way home from work.

You pull into McDonald’s and order about $30 of food, enough to feed four people. From the privacy of the car, the bags are emptied. By the time you get home, you wish you were dead.

The cycle repeats for days at a time, sometimes weeks and months.

For many years I hid it well, especially in my early 20s. I would binge for a week, then starve and work out for another week. That mostly kept the weight at a normal-looking level.

Call it athletic Bulimia.

In one inspired episode, I downed $30 of fast food a day for two weeks, then went a week eating nothing but Raisin Bran in the morning, then nothing but black coffee for the rest of the day. After the cereal, I’d work out for two hours straight.

In my mid-20s, once I started working for a living, I kept up the eating but couldn’t do the other things anymore. So my weight rose to 280. In the late 1990s I managed to drop 100 pounds and keep it off through periodic fasting.

Then I started to face down what would eventually be diagnosed as OCD, and I once again gave in to the food. The gloves were off.

The binging continued unabated for three years. The weight went back up to 260. I also started to run out of clever ways to mask over all the money I was spending on my habit. I was slick. I’d take $60 from the checking account and tell my wife it was for an office expense or some other seemingly legitimate thing. But she’s too smart to fall for that for long.

Then I discovered Over-eaters Anonymous (OA), a 12-step program just like AA, where the focus is on food instead of booze. I didn’t grasp it immediately. In fact, I thought everyone at these meetings were nuts. They were, of course, but so was I.

Thing is, I had reached a point in my learning to manage OCD where I was ready to face down the addiction. If it had to be through something crazy, so be it.

Through the program, I gave up flour and sugar. The plan is to be done with those ingredients for life. Put them together and they are essentially my cocaine. I dropped 65 pounds on the spot. But more importantly, many of the ailments I had went away. I stopped waking up in the middle of the night choking on stomach acid. The migraines lessened substantially. And I found a mental clarity I never knew before.

I can’t say I’ve slaughtered the demon. Addicts relapse all the time. But I have a program I didn’t have before; a road map unlike any other.

My odds of success are better than ever.

But before I could get there, I had to unravel the wiring in my head, learn to live with a mental disorder and then make a bold change in my way of eating.

It’s not cool at all. If you’re laughing because I let the food drag me to such a state, I don’t blame you. In a way, it is funny. Crazy people do stupid things. And stupid is often funny.