The OCD Diaries

January 15, 2015

Accused Haverhill Church Vandal Needs Help, Not Hate

Over the holidays, there was much outrage over the news that someone stole the Baby Jesus figure from a Nativity scene at Sacred Hearts Parish in Haverhill, leaving a severed pig’s head in its place.

I was among those offended and troubled. It happened on Christmas morning and had all the hallmarks of a hateful act. A lot of people speculated that it was a hate crime. My guess at the time was that it was the work of one or more young punks who needed to be taught a hard lesson.

Yesterday, we learned more about what may have happened.

Mood music:

According to The Eagle-Tribune, police have charged 54-year-old Amarellis Ceremeno — a homeless woman — with the Sacred Hearts vandalism, as well as with the desecration of Iglesia Biblica Bautista (Bible Baptist Church), where she allegedly wrote “666” on the church multiple times.

The anger I felt has been replaced by feelings of pity. The woman reportedly suffers from serious mental illness, and police said she has an obsession with religion.

Early speculation was that someone had butchered a pig specifically so they could leave its head in the Nativity scene. But police told the newspaper that the pig’s head was probably discarded by someone who had cooked a pig for Christmas Eve. Police were reportedly informed that it’s customary for some in the Latino community to roast pigs on Christmas Eve and that Ceremeno may have found the pig’s head in the trash early Christmas Day.

This is a sad story from start to finish.

Fortunately, it looks like police and political leaders are doing their best to withhold judgement. I think we should do the same.

Mayor James Fiorentini told WCVB Channel 5 that the incident illustrates the need for better mental health assistance for homeless residents.

“I know this lady personally, as I’ve indicated to the press before. She’s a frequenter of the mayor’s office, and we hope she gets the help that she needs,” he said.

Mental illness drives people to dark places. I’m proof of that. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with plenty of help along the way.

May it be the same for Ceremeno.

Amarellis Ceremeno by Paul Bilodeau

Amarellis Ceremeno, 54, of Haverhill, whom police list as homeless, at her appearance in Haverhill District Court last month. Photo by Paul Bilodeau/The Eagle-Tribune

January 13, 2015

My Problem with “One Day at a Time”

“One day at a time? You wouldn’t believe the crap that swirls around my head one day at a time.”–Anonymous

Recovering addicts have a saying burned into their brains: “one day at a time.” It’s important wisdom to live by. But when the recovering addict has OCD, there’s a big problem.

Mood music:

In the world of 12-step recovery programs, the idea of “one day at a time” is not to be overwhelmed. Instead of trying to get your arms around everything necessary for recovery inside of a week or a month or a year, we subscribe to the idea of just focusing on what we have to do today. Doing this a day at a time makes the clean-up tasks seem a lot less overwhelming.

It’s a good way to be in all aspects of life. Plan for the future, but stay focused in the present.

The problem with an OCD case is that the disorder forces you to do nothing but stew over the future. You look at the next week or the next month and relentlessly play out the potential outcomes.

The first time someone told me to take it a day at a time, my instinct was to punch him in the face. I had a business trip three weeks away to worry about. I had a medical test scheduled for the following month and had all kinds of potentially grim outcomes to worry about.

That’s how guys like me roll.

Still, I decided to give “one day at a time” a chance. I even took a class of mindfulness-based stress reduction to that end.

I learned that it absolutely is the best way to go about life. When I’m able to focus on the present, I’m happy and successful.

But I’ve also learned that it’s hard as hell to pull off. My OCD often reasserts itself and I dive back into long-term worries, which lead to present-day failures.

The whole concept fell to ashes this past autumn as I slipped into one of the deeper depressions I’ve had in a long time. The depression has lifted significantly, but I remain scattered.

This past weekend I was so all over the place that my lapse from mindfulness became too big to overlook, and I find myself looking for ways to get it back. I feel like Bill the Cat from the “Bloom County” comic strip: flopping about and yelling “Ack!”

I played guitar both weekend days, which helped. More daily walks would help, too. It might also do me a world of good to go to confession sometime this month. Emptying the trash that builds up in the soul is a good way to move on.

In a perfect world, I would probably do well to take a refresher course in mindfulness. But this isn’t a perfect world, and there’s no time or money for such an endeavor.

Somewhere in my house is the packet of papers I collected during the mindfulness course. I plan to tear the place apart until I find it.

Stay tuned.

Bill the Cat

January 12, 2015

Brother Lives on in a Nephew He Never Met

Thirty-one years ago this week, my older brother Michael died at age 17. I felt the need to write something to mark the anniversary. But to be honest, I didn’t know what to say.

Part of that is because I wrote the whole “how his death affected me” post three years ago in “Death of a Sibling.” I also delved into the lighter memories — the outrageous and hilarious shit he used to pull — in “Celebrating a Lost Sibling.”

Then yesterday, during my 45-minute drive to the office, I was chuckling over a crack my oldest son made at my expense a few days ago.

“You know, Dad,” he said, staring at the Superman S on the T-shirt I was wearing, “you look like Superman, 20 years after saving the Earth, with more gray hair and more than a few extra pounds.”

I have the same, serrated brand of snark. I’ll scold him to teach him manners and respect, but I’m usually laughing inside. More often than not, I laugh aloud, which admittedly defeats the purpose of scolding him in the first place.

Truth is, I also enjoy it because it reminds me of my brother.

It’s funny how life works. Sean is named for a best friend and surrogate brother who died some years ago. But he’s sounding and looking more like my real brother all the time.

Like Michael, Sean has a unibrow and the start of some whiskers above his upper lip. He’s tall and lanky, the way Michael was before he started weight lifting in his early teens. His hair grows wild, the way Michael’s did, though the latter tried to control it with frequent hair cuts. Sean prefers a shaggy head.

There are some distinct differences between Sean and the uncle he never met, however. Michael was studying to be a plumber at the time of his death. He enjoyed the art of putting pipes together in just the right formation, allowing water to flow. Sean prefers putting LEGOs and robotic machinery together.

Sean is a Boy Scout, a choice his uncle — and dad, for that matter — would never have made. Sean is also more cautious and refined than Michael was. Sean hates his braces but hasn’t pulled them off with a pair of pliers like his uncle did the same day his mouth metal was installed. Years later, my brother’s act of rebellion is the stuff of treasured family lore. But Sean knows better than to try such a thing.

Differences aside, the similarities are hard to miss.

That makes me happy.

January 7, 2015

EddieTheYeti’s Images, My Words: Chapter 1

I’ve been releasing posts as part of a project where I put my feelings to images created by artist and infosec pro Eddie Mize, more popularly known as EddieTheYeti.

The project will continue indefinitely, but here’s a compilation of what’s been done so far. Think of it as chapter 1.

Mood music:

EddieTheYeti: Art as Mental Therapy

I sucked at a lot of things as a kid, but I could draw. It was the one thing that always got me compliments from people who otherwise ridiculed me. Those drawings were an exercise in emotion. A good example of that is the Paul Revere Owl of Rage I wrote about a while back. Writing eventually replaced drawing, though I’ve maintained a life-long appreciation for art that captures emotion. Which brings me to Eddie Mize, also known as EddieTheYeti.

An EddieTheYeti Christmas

Every year, I have trouble finding my Christmas spirit. I’ve written a lot about why that is, and 2014 was no different. But I feel like God is throwing me more clues than usual. One such clue came as I was reviewing some works from Eddie Mize.

Remorse? I Have It

Here’s the thing about remorse: You can’t change what’s in the past. You can let the memories rip you apart, or you can learn from the experiences and invest it in being a better person.

Turning Mental Disorder into a Superpower

Instead of fighting some mental disorders, such as OCD or ADHD, picture yourself accepting and even embracing them. Then learn to use your disorder to your advantage.

Why Can’t They Just Snap Out Of It?

For those who don’t experience or understand depression, it can be hard to understand the duration of someone’s melancholy and why, after a while, they can’t just snap out of it.

Forgiveness: Trash Removal for the Soul

Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential if you want to become a better person. But it’s hard and often seen as a green light for more abuse.

When Anger Was All The Rage

I had a vicious temper when I was younger. To call it a byproduct of OCD, depression and addiction would be pushing it, because I think the temper would have been there even without the mental illness.

Image drawn with Sharpie of man in suit with the top of head exploding
“Relief Valve” by EddieTheYeti

January 6, 2015

Homeless Veterans and American Hypocrisy

The band Five Finger Death Punch has a new video for the song “Wrong Side of Heaven,” which focuses on the plight of homeless veterans. It struck a chord with me.

Mood music:

I’m not a veteran, but I have scores of friends and colleagues who are. They are respected and thriving. But there are many who aren’t so lucky.

The plight of homeless veterans is an old story, and it highlights American hypocrisy. We have holidays honoring our vets, and when we see veterans we thank them for their service — especially those who served in the second World War.

But when we see homeless people — many of whom fought in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — we treat them like vermin.

We let so many of them live on the streets, without proper shelter or medication for the mental illnesses they caught from watching comrades get ripped apart on the battlefield.

We look down at these vets every day as lazy, crazy, smelly vermin who prowl the streets scaring our children. We have no idea of what they’ve been through to get so scarred, and a lot of us don’t really care, even if we say we do.

This video nails that reality.

We can do better.

Worn and torn American flag

January 5, 2015

Do You Even Exercise, Bro?

I used to exercise a lot. In my teens, I’d spend an hour a day on a beat-up rowing machine. In my 20s, I’d hit the gym seven days a week to use the elliptical cross-trainer machines. And in my early 30s, I’d walk 3.5 miles a day, no matter the weather.

At some point I stopped.

Mood music:

I don’t have a good reason why I stopped exercising. I told myself that I was becoming obsessive about exercise, but I’m pretty sure I was bullshitting myself.

I did manage to keep my weight down through diet alone for a few years, using the standard Overeaters Anonymous food plan of no flour and no sugar and weighing out all my food.

I still try to live by that food plan, but along the way I’ve grown inconsistent. I’ve slowly determined that the full OA experience isn’t for me. I particularly soured on the idea of having sponsors who dictate my every culinary move. Giving other people that much control over me hasn’t worked in the long run.

I used those feelings as an excuse to get sloppy and have only hurt myself as a result.

I slipped on old addictive impulses last year, and I have the weight gain to prove it. Prednisone didn’t help, but I used that as an excuse for months after I stopped taking it.

In any event, I currently feel like a disgusting mess. I don’t care about being thin. I do care about getting winded every time I climb stairs.

I didn’t wait for the New Year to start fighting back. I refocused on careful eating in November. And a couple weeks ago, after determining that diet was no longer enough, I started working out again on a cheap elliptical machine I bought last year.

I want to tell you I’m enjoying it, that I can’t go a day without a workout. I especially want to do so because I have so many friends who passionately post about their marathon running, weight lifting and Brazilian jiujitsu sessions. But the truth is I don’t enjoy it, and I never have. It bores me, frankly.

But it’s necessary, so onward I go.

My mission is to be consistent: to use the machine for 40 or so minutes as least five days a week and to supplement it with walking.

As I relearn the discipline of exercise, I thank God for music. When I put on some Black Label Society, Pantera or Thin Lizzy, I’m able to go on autopilot and plow ahead.

I have the added motivation of knowing that I’m very similar to my father. Like him, I’m a life-long overeater. He’s now bedridden and in failing health. If I don’t change my ways, I’ll meet a similar fate.

I respect my more athletic friends more than ever. The joy you get from your chosen method of training is something I aspire to. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I will get healthier. And I’ll have you to thank for leading the way.

Arnold Schwarzenegger lifting weights

January 2, 2015

Cut Toxic People Loose

We all have dysfunctional friends and family. In some respects, they add color and fun to our lives. But sometimes you find yourself up against that special someone who constantly complains about others and puts you down. We want to accept the latter as much as we accept the former. But there’s a problem.

Mood music:

The latter group — we’ll call them the toxic people — rub off on you. Their toxic tirades seep into your pores until you either (a) get sick with worry because of all the rumors you’ve been fed or (b) end up as a toxic complainer yourself. When you get this way, you will surely bring other people down.

As a Catholic, I’ve been taught that we have to love and accept everyone, regardless of their flaws. Unless, of course, they are a pro-choice Democrat.

Political jokes aside, the line about acceptance makes perfect sense. Love is supposed to win out against hate. I badly want to believe it. But I’ve also learned from experience that it simply can’t always work that way. If someone insists on vomiting verbal toxins every time you have a chance to converse, you have to cut them lose before they poison your soul.

That’s the inconvenient truth about toxic people. You want to love them because you know that, deep down, there’s a good heart beating away. But if you stand too close, you’ll adopt the very qualities in them that you despise.

Don’t let it happen.

If you have a toxic person in your life, cut them lose. Not because you’re selfish and you can’t handle the pressure, but because you have to stay strong for yourself and many others.

Life is too hard and too short to be dealing with negative souls. Pray for them because you want them to be happy and more pleasant to be around. But do so from a distance.

January 1, 2015

2015: Five Goals

A lot of unpleasant stuff happened in 2014. I busted my back, slid back into the grip of old demons and spent the fall in a depressed fog.

But a lot of beautiful things happened, too. I racked up many precious memories of time well spent with family and friends. My work continued to be full of satisfaction and reward.

I expect much the same for 2015. But like everyone else, I have my New Year’s goals.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/NNlT5I8R3ZU

I’m going to take better care of myself. I let the demons win in 2014 and I didn’t wait for 2015 to fight back. I’ve been back on a regular exercise regimen and started paying more attention to how I eat. I’m starting to feel better, and plan to make that trend continue.
I’m going to focus more on being the blessing. I blogged about this virtue in 2014 but often failed to live up to it. I want to be a positive force in people’s lives and am going to be a lot more obsessive about it in 2015. Some obsessions are worth having.
I’m going to kick ass in my work. Because that’s what I do. But I’m going to do it without sweating the little things.
I’m not going to worry so much about pleasing people. I fell back into the people-pleasing trap in 2014 and am hell-bent on not letting it happen in 2015.
I’m going to keep showing up. Life will undoubtably throw unpleasant challenges my way. That’s life. No matter how tough it gets, I’m going to keep getting up and facing it head on.

Happy New Year.

“Grin and Bear It,” by EddieTheYeti

December 28, 2014

The Sister Who Saved Her Family

My youngest sister, Shira Beth Brenner, was born 29 years ago today, sending rays of sunshine into a house that was in darkness.

You might think it’s hyperbole for me to say she saved the family. We were surviving, after all. But we were surviving badly, reeling from the death of my brother barely two years before.

Shira helped us smile again.

Mood music:

I was a bitter 15-year-old home sick with the flu and a Crohn’s flare up the day she arrived. She was an especially adorable baby and was a welcome distraction from everything that was going on at the time.

She’s quite a kid. If not for the big chip on my shoulder, I might have been more like her in my 20s. I’m happy with how my life turned out and believe I had to go through the dark stuff to get here. But Shira has really been an inspiration to me. She crisscrosses the globe without fear and has an easygoing way about her that’s nearly impossible to crack. I know, because I’ve tried.

I’ve always been the teasing sort of brother. I tell everyone who will listen that I remember when I could fit Shira in a beer mug. I remember once, when she was about 4 or 5, she told me to stop teasing.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I tease you cause I love you.”

“Then don’t love me,” she shot back.

I told everyone about that exchange, and with more than a little glee.

Around the same time, I was having a lot of parties in the basement of the Revere house. The morning after, Shira would often make the rounds, stopping at the various friends who would be passed out asleep on my bed, on the couch or on the floor.

Even back then, no matter how much I drank the night before, I would always wake up early so I could sneak cigarettes without being seen.

I’d always enjoyed watching her make the rounds. My guests didn’t always enjoy it, but that was fine with me.

In more recent years, as she traveled and I got absorbed with work, marriage and parenthood, we didn’t see much of each other, save for some holidays and a couple birthday dinners.

But I’ve seen a lot more of her this year in the last three years, as my father’s ailments forced us all closer together.

At one point soon after a series of strokes, we siblings worked in shifts, helping to keep Dad out of trouble. He may have trouble seeing, swallowing and walking, but he still likes to keep everyone busy. Shira usually got the task of sleeping over on Saturday nights. She never complains and always smiles.

I’ve heard it said that a kid like her lives life on a rainbow, always in a zen-like state despite all the hard reality around her.

In Shira’s case I think that’s true. And it’s something we can all learn from. She’s not oblivious to the reality around her. She just handles it with a lot more grace than the rest of us.

You could say she’s doing for the family today what she did the day she was born — giving the family color and light at a time when we need it most.

Happy Birthday, kid.

December 26, 2014

Don’t Sweat That Christmas Pageant Performance, Kid

My kids participated in a Christmas Eve pageant at our church, and a highlight for me was one girl’s performance of the song, “Mary Did You Know.”

The young lady’s performance made my neck hairs stand up. I saw her sing it twice: Christmas Eve, and at a rehearsal the night before.

During the Christmas Eve performance, she sang a bit too high toward the end. She still sounded awesome. But she was pretty upset.

As someone whose work involves a lot of getting up in front of people — in writing and in person — I wanted to share a few thoughts.

First, some background:

I’m a pretty public guy. I write this blog and two others as part of my work life. As part of my work, I frequently do public presentations. I’m also a lector at church.

I used to be terrified of getting up in front of people. The thought of doing such a thing used to make me sick. My anxiety level would go into high orbit. It was part of a larger struggle with fear and anxiety.

I eventually decided to face down that fear and, now that I have a lot of experience, public engagement doesn’t make me nervous anymore.

Given that background, I have enormous respect for those who get up in front of a big crowd. Especially singers.

I know what it’s like to bomb in front of people, and let me tell you something: You didn’t bomb. You didn’t even come close. I know what it’s like to truly bomb.

I once gave a talk to a room full of hard-nosed security professionals and they didn’t buy what I was saying. That was pretty awkward. (Rather than repeat that story here, you can read it about it in another blog if you wish.)
I sang in a rock band when I was younger, and we did a few performances along the way. Some went really well. But the most important performance we had up to that point was a complete bomb. We were out of tune at the opening, and it threw us off for most of the performance.
I’ve enjoyed success as a writer, but I’ve also written stuff that in hindsight makes me cringe.
As a lector, I’ve messed up many times. Since we go to the same church, you might have seen it happen. I’ve mispronounced names of the sick and dead, and once bungled narrating Christ’s Passion so badly I thought I’d be banned from ever lectoring again.

Despite all that, I’ve been able to keep doing it all, mostly without incident. And in most cases, people don’t notice or remember the mistakes. And yes, the mistakes still happen.

Nobody is going to remember that you went up an octave or two too high.

People will remember that you threw your heart and soul into the performance.

They’ll remember that you had the guts to get up in front of them and perform. Many are too afraid to do such a thing, and see it as a courageous act.

They’ll look forward to seeing you perform again. I certainly will.

Keep singing and performing. Know that you will screw up from time to time, and that it’s ok.

You’ll learn from those experiences.

Thanks for the beautiful singing, and Merry Christmas to you and your family.