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Somewhat Damaged

Sometimes the author lives in overdrive. The result is pain.

Mood music for this post: “Somewhat Damaged” by Nine Inch Nails:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY0NEQd3_co&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Some of you might have read my post from yesterday about enjoying life in the parental and professional fast lane. Well, this morning I’m paying for it.

My back aches. My head is numb and coffee isn’t doing much about that. I got a dull knifing sensation in the gut. And I’m ready to fall asleep in my desk chair.

I want a cigar and more coffee. The coffee is fine, but I’m trying to put down the cigars.

Fortunately, I don’t want to binge and I’m not feeling depressed.

This is just physical pain, brought on by several weeks of clean but heavy living.

I have no regrets. I got a lot of work done last week AND got a lot of busy but quality time with the family.

And it used to be that depression made me feel like this. Black moods always seem to come with the back pain, migraines and gut ache.

This was especially true when I was a kid. The hidden mental illness I had at the time, with family strife and physical illness tossed in, made for some incapacitating moments.

I know a kid who’s going through something similar right now. He has some of the same mood troubles I had when I was around 10 and sometimes he goes so far off the handle that he has to be restrained. I identify with the kid.

I think he’s going to go through plenty of physical pain from his condition just like I did. But I know there’s a better, happier way, where a person can get past mental disorder and learn to function in society.

Not just function normally, but function exceptionally well.

And when the aches and pains you get start to come from living well instead of living low, you’ll know you’ve achieved something precious.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must find some Tylenol and more coffee.

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Parental Overload: No Big Deal

Nothing like a week of screaming kids to realize OCD aint what it used to be.

Mood music for this post: “Mama Weer all Crazee Now” by The Runaways:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0nKcHaQowY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A week like the one I’ve just had would have been impossible just a couple years ago.

The kids were on school vacation, the same week as Sean’s 9th birthday and some very big security events in Boston. I did a lot of speeding back and forth between the Seaport Hotel and home for a kids’ birthday party, daycare duty, an evening trip to the N.E. Aquarium, etc.

Funny thing is, everything was fine. It was a fantastic week, actually.

Not even the house full of third graders rampaging through every room was enough to take me down. I enjoyed it.

I managed to bust out 11 articles and podcasts during the week, despite all the mayhem. It was fun. Hopefully, some security folks get something out of them.

Yesterday I mixed work with parenting and took Sean and Duncan to the Security B-Sides event in Boston. The venue was perfect for them:

Security BSides Boston by jack_a_daniel.

The security crowd seemed to enjoy their company. No one seemed to mind as Sean shoved Lego toys in their faces and gave detailed descriptions of each one. Heck, a couple of people came with more Legos for Sean, knowing he’d be there.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, the kids are something close to famous among my business associates.

As for me: No anxiety attacks. No fear or panic about getting articles written. And no worries as to what other people think.

Nothing more to say about it, really.

Just a few words to drive home my surprise and gratitude for this turn of events.

Happy Sunday.

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Newsroom Nightmare: A Sequel

Another Facebook flashback strikes the author on his dirty newsroom side of the brain.

Mood music for this post: “Mean Street” from Van Halen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2R2KXNQR1M&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I thought I was done writing about my newsroom experiences with “The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom.” But Facebook has put me back in touch with another blast from my past, so here I go again.

Meet Steve Lambert, editor of The Eagle-Tribune a decade ago. He hired me as night editor and promoted me to assistant editor for New Hampshire.

When he left for California in 2002, I was put back on the night desk. Good thing, too. I was within inches of smashing my direct supervisor in the side of the head with a bat after his management style drove me within inches of a nervous breakdown. I would have been fired and brought up on charges for doing such a thing, but I would have been a hero among some of my newsroom colleagues.

Still, I’m glad it didn’t come to that because it would have been wrong. And the reality is that my insanity back then made me as evil a newsroom presence as the supervisor was heavy-handed and ruthless.

I always liked Steve, though. We shared a love of The Beatles and I respected his efforts to make the paper more of a voice for New Hampshire and, later, Lawrence Massachusetts’ Latino community. He took a lot of criticism for the latter, which ended in spectacular failure. It really got under the skin of a lot of bitter Hispanic haters, which is why I think I loved it.

He also did a lot to bring more humanity to the newsroom. He gave low-level people like me a shot at bigger things, and always let us put family before work. It’s hard to find that in a newsroom, though The Eagle-Tribune does deserve credit for nurturing a deep family streak. The current managing editor, Gretchen Putnam, balances a demanding job with being one of the best Moms around in a way that would make a lot of journalists envious. It’s very easy for reporters and editors to put every egg of their existence into the career basket, and that never, ever ends well.

Back to Lambert. He may not realize it — or maybe he did — but I was Grade-A nuts during the time I was in his employ.

I was all about pleasing my masters back then, before I realized being a people-pleaser is dumb. When Lambert wasn’t happy about something the NH edition had done, I kept it with me for weeks at a time. I brooded. I gave in to my addictive behavior in the nastiest fashion I could. I felt picked on.

Let me be honest: Most of my troubles back then were nobody’s fault but mine. I had a brain chemistry imbalance and bottled-up traumas that I wouldn’t become fully aware of for another couple years.

I was a major control freak, which is an OCD trademark. I had an ego much bigger than I deserved to have. That combination slammed into the wall at The Eagle-Tribune, because criticism and toughness are trademarks of the culture. That’s not always a bad thing. But in the hands of someone who takes things deeply personal, it becomes toxic.

The stress level was already high when I realized I wasn’t clicking with the New Hampshire editor. It felt like disaster was just around the corner. And it was.

I remember the newsroom on 9-11-01 like it were yesterday. The first World Trade Center tower had just collapsed on the TV screen mounted above Lambert’s office. He came out, stood on a desk and told everyone to collect themselves a minute, because this would be the most important story we ever covered.

Up to that point, it was. But I was so full of fear and anxiety that my ability to function was gone. I spent most of the next few days in the newsroom, but did nothing of importance. I was a shell. And I stayed that way until I finally left the paper in early 2004.

I thought all my emotional trouble was solved when I left that place. I so badly wanted the job to be that one thing I could point to as the root cause of my pain; the thing I could hate for life.

But my mental nightmare was only beginning.

Looking back, that period was probably the beginning of the end, a time of madness where I was close to rock-bottom and had to change, but wasn’t yet in tune to reality.

It was not a happy time. But I’m glad I worked with Lambert. He’s a good man.

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Random Madness

It’s Saturday morning, and me and the kids are engaging in our weekly ritual.

In a few hours, we go to Salem, Mass., home of former Skeptic Slang guitarist Chris Casey, his wife, Nancy and their kids, Mark and Melissa. I’m going to help them get some old photos online and start a blog for Nancy’s writing.

I’m going to look his kids in the eye and tell them that I’m a little bit responsible for their existence. I did introduce their parents to each other, after all. 😉

I’ll make them listen to the new Slash album, which is quickly becoming my favorite album of the year so far.

Then I’ll put the boys in the car and we’ll head to Saugus so we can make their grandpa buy some school raffles.

All in all, a good day in the making.

The only bummer is that Erin has a work conference to go to. Saturday morning business events. Ah, the life of a freelancer.

Nancy has a stack of old Skeptic Slang photos, which should be hilarious. Expect to see those images in this space soon.

Have a great day.

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An OCD Diaries Primer

A collection of posts that form the back story of this blog.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:19n9s9SfnLtwPEODqk8KCT]

The Long History of OCD

An OCD Christmas. The first entry, where I give an overview of how I got to crazy and found my way to sane.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill. How the drug Prednisone brought me to the brink, and how Prozac was part of my salvation.

The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom. Think you have troubles at work? You should see what people who worked with me went through.

The Freak and the Redhead: A Love Story. About the wife who saved my life in many ways.

Snowpocalypse and the Fear of Loss. The author remembers a time when fear of loss would cripple his mental capacities, and explains how he got over it — mostly.

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. Go ahead. Laugh at him.

Fear Factor. The author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

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

Have Fun with Your Therapist. Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.

The Engine. To really understand how mental illness happens, let’s compare the brain to a machine.

 

Rest Redefined. The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.

Outing Myself. The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.

Why Being a People Pleaser is Dumb. The author used to try very hard to please everybody and was hurt badly in the process. Here’s how he broke free and kept his soul intact.

The Addiction and the Damage Done

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.

Edge of a Relapse. The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.

The 12 Steps of Christmas. The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory.

How to Play Your Addictions Like a Piano. The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?

Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility. As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he weigh in on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.

The Liar’s Disease. The author reveals an uncomfortable truth about addicts like himself: We tend to have trouble telling the truth.

Portable Recovery. Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.

Revere (Experiences with Addiction, Depression and Loss During The Younger Years)

Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies. The author reviews the imperfections of childhood relationships in search of all his OCD triggers. Along the way, old bullies become friends and he realizes he was pretty damn stupid back then.

Lost Brothers. How the death of an older brother shaped the Hell that arrived later.

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

The Third Brother. Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.

Revere Revisited.

Lessons from Dad. The author has learned some surprising lessons from Dad on how to control one’s mental demons.

The Basement. A photo from the old days in Revere spark some vivid flashbacks.

Addicted to Feeling Good. To kick off Lent, the author reflects on some of his dumber quests to feel good.

The lasting Impact of Crohn’s Disease. The author has lived most of his life with Crohn’s Disease and has developed a few quirks as a result.

The Tire and the Footlocker. The author opens up an old footlocker under the stairs and finds himself back in that old Revere basement.

Child of  Metal

How Metal Saved Me. Why Heavy Metal music became a critical OCD coping tool.

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.

Rockit Records Revisited. The author has mentioned Metal music as one of his most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Here’s a look at the year he got one of the best therapy sessions ever, simply by working in a cramped little record store.

Metal to Stick in Your Mental Microwave.

Man of God

The Better Angels of My Nature. Why I let Christ in my life.

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.

Running from Sin, Running With Scissors. The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

Forgiveness is a Bitch. Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Pain in the Lent. The author gives a progress report on the Lenten sacrifices. It aint pretty.


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What Kind of Day It Has Been

The author’s day has not gone as planned. He’s OK with that, though he wasn’t always.

Mood music for this post: “Adrift And At Peace” from NIN:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMnv8zrmAyU&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

This day has not gone as planned.

I wanted to be in the office today plowing through some work. But another winter storm forced me to work from home.

Some would say it’s great I can do that, and it is. But when there’s a lot on the plate, I prefer to be in the office. Especially when the kids are home from school for February vacation. At least in the summer I can write from the back deck while the kids play in the field behind the house.

This time of year we’re all indoors and the kids are loud.

A few years ago the snow, the change in schedule and the kids in my workspace would have unhinged me.

I’d get a story written. Maybe three. But I’d be a puddle of lava by day’s end, good for nothing except sleep.

Not so today.

I’m enjoying the cozy chair by my living room window, watching the snow fall.

I’ve gotten as much writing and editing done from here as I would have from the office.

The kids were indeed loud and distracting, but I enjoyed that, too. What used to be stress is now comic relief, especially when Sean tells Duncan he looks adorable when he cries and Duncan responds by pouncing on his older brother, yelling, “Who’s crying now?!”

I smoked one last cigar before Lent begins tomorrow, since that’s one of the things I’m abstaining from until Easter. It was a Cuban stick at that. Thanks to my friend Bob Connors for parting with it.

The coffee is French-pressed and bitter. Just the way I like it.

A much different day than what it would have been five years ago, before I gained the upper hand over the OCD.

Days that don’t go as planned are especially difficult for people with OCD. We do, after all, crave control over everything we can control. And we badly want to control things we can’t, like the weather.

Forget about the small stuff, like checking a doorknob seven times or tapping your feet to the count of 60. A carefully crafted schedule in shambles is the big stuff; hell for a sick mind.

That’s when someone like me turns to the food or the booze to comfort the troubled mind.

But the food is well under control today, and bottles of wine that once taunted me from a kitchen counter rack have gone unnoticed in the corner.

I’m not the same man I used to be.

Credit the therapists, the Prozac, the religious conversion or all of the above.

Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it.

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Headed Home

The Shmoobus is slowly rolling northward, away from Washington DC, the snow and #ShmooCon.

It was an excellent security conference, and a productive one. Six pieces of content written and produced in three days: 1 opinion column, three articles and two podcasts.

I just wrote and posted the column from the RV. Because I could.

Everyone is settled in with their Blackberries, iPhones, laptops and hand-held games. Thanks to the blizzard and the inability of the Greater DC area to clear snow the way it’s done further north, we have a long journey between here and home.

I can’t wait to see Erin and the boys again.

I’m hoping this ship sails into home port in time for me to get the kids up, dressed, fed and off to school.

I have to figure out a way to take them with me for more of these trips.

We’ll see.

For now, I’m happy to savor the gratitude I get from a journey where the work gets done and the mind stays clean.

Rock on.

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The Engine in Hyperdrive

It’s Sunday and I’m wrapping up my visit to the #ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. My compulsive tendencies are humming along at full throttle, which isn’t as bad as it seems.

True, the goal is to minimize the OCD overdrive as much as possible. Especially when it comes to giving in to one’s addictions. But sometimes it’s good to have that extra drive.

I’ve produced three articles and two podcasts from #ShmooCon, which is pretty prolific for covering a conference. And this is my third personal blog entry from the trip.

Here’s what I haven’t done:

–Consumed alcohol

–Consumed flower or sugar, the matter and anti-matter that fuel my addictive behavior

–Worried about the weather and getting our RV shoveled out in time for the departure we have planned. A few years ago that kind of worry would have unhinged me. Now I just don’t see the point of thinking about it. We’ll do our best and we will get home. Besides, it doesn’t look that bad:

–Worried about measuring up to the demands of covering the conference. I used to come home from these in pieces. The worry would always be on getting the next story covered, keeping up with the competition and keeping the bosses happy. This time, I cranked out the content for the sheer enjoyment of it.

And I did take time to smell the roses. Or, more accurately, to play in the snow.

Staying indoors through the entire blizzard would have meant missing cool moments like seeing folks cross-country skiing past the White House.

All in all, a good trip, and a POSITIVE use of OCD hyperactivity. I wanted to see it all, and I did.

Now, I’m eager to get back to the wife and children I adore so much.

Seize the day.

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When Sick is Good

This was one of those weekends where sickness ran through the house.

Duncan threw up all over the place Friday night and was down for the count most of Saturday, as was I. Sunday it was Sean’s turn. During a birthday party at a friend’s house, he threw up all over their living room floor. Luckily, the living room isn’t carpeted, so clean-up was easier than it otherwise would have been.

The point of mentioning this is that once upon a time, before I learned how to manage the OCD, puking kids would have unhinged me. It did unhinge me.

First, I would freak out about the mess and go into total OCD overdrive. I would be rendered all but useless over such things.

Not just because of the mess, but because of the tendency I used to have to let my mind spin out of control with worry — worry that something really bad might happen to my kids.

This kind of thing still leads to compulsive behavior, even with my mental health in better shape. In the summertime, I’m still a stickler for bombing the kids with bug spray before letting them play out side. Fear of the EEE virus is a big motivator.

I also think some fears are justified, and I’ll keep acting on them. The bug spray is an example of that.

But otherwise, I’m now able to keep my sanity together when the kids get sick. I clean up the mess and move on. And in a weird way, the weekend was rather nice because of the sickness.

It forced us all to slow down — something we’re not very good at.

Duncan and I watched TV all morning, resting comfortably beneath blankets. Today, Sean will do the same.

I’ll be a cyclone of hyperactivity halfway through today, but it’s also good to know I don’t need as much lying around as I used to.

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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.