The OCD Diaries

August 6, 2013

Assessing Suicide Risk and Learning Intervention Tactics

Having lost my best friend to suicide in 1996 and suffered my own bouts of depression over the years, I’m grateful for those who rise up to stem the tide of this often-misunderstood scourge. In my industry (information security) I’ve met a lot of good people who suffer in silence. Among them are folks who refuse to sit back and take it.

And so we’ve seen the rise of such endeavors as the Information Technology Burnout Project and talks at a series of hacker conferences on how to spot someone with depression and intervene before it’s too late. One such talk happened at the DEF CON 21 conference in Las Vegas last weekend. The talk was given by Amber Baldet, who has also given the talk at such events as SOURCE Boston.

Mood music:

Baldet wrote of last weekend’s experience on her Idiosyncratic Routine blog and has graciously shared her presentation with me and others who couldn’t make it to the talk. You can view the full slideshow here, but let me give you the highlights.

Early in the slideshow, Baldet describes suicidal behavior as a contagion that “directly or indirectly (via media) influences others to attempt suicide.” I never attempted suicide myself, but my experience is that the depression of a friend, colleague or loved one can rub off on those who inhabit the same environment. It can deepen someone else’s depression and, if that person is so inclined, it can make them suicidal. Media coverage adds fuel to that fire, as noted in this slide:

Another slide focuses on the clinical aspects, conditions that lead to depression and, in some, suicide:

There are a lot of traits in the security community and beyond that spark depression and suicidal behavior. One is the tendency of hackers to stay up all night as they follow one code-based rabbit hole after another. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, too busy CRUSHING IT,” as Baldet puts it.

There’s also a high degree of paranoia in our community. Paranoia is a disease I know well. I’ve lived it and watched my best friend get eaten alive by it.

The most valuable slides focus on specific ways to help others:

I highly recommend you check out the full presentation, Suicide Risk Assessment and Intervention Tactic.

Thanks for sharing, Amber.

DefCon 21

July 27, 2013

Heavy Metal Is Good For You

I’ve written at length about how Heavy Metal music is one of my most important coping tools. It has gotten me through just about all of life’s difficulties and is a daily source of strength. A friend sent me an article that really drives home the point.

Mood music:

I just got done reading “Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal” and co-author Jon Wiederhorn has expanded on his view that the music is medicine in a Wall Street Journal blog post. He writes:

To those on the outside, the metal world is an ugly scene inhabited by misanthropes, misfits and non-conformists that bucks authority at every turn. Yet for all of its hostility and blatant nonconformity, metal is a panacea for its followers, the only way to make sense of a chaotic, callous society in which they don’t fit.

“I get kids come up to me all the time who tell me they were having a hard time in their lives and were on the verge of doing something drastic,” says Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody. “Then they’ll say they heard one of our songs and it totally spoke to them and convinced them to keep on fighting. To me, that’s more meaningful than gold records or music awards because it means that these people that are hurting relate to my pain and realize they’re not alone.”

Dismiss stray incidents in which deranged people who happened to like metal did something terrible, and you’ll find that as rebellious as some of its practitioners may be, and as negative as some of their music may seem, metal is ultimately a positive force for those who embrace it. Unlike pop, which endorses a herd mentality, metal speaks to those who question authority and strive to find their own path. It’s music for people who don’t want to conform and seek kindred spirits who crave the same visceral experience.

I couldn’t agree more.

Read the full blog post, and check out the book, which is available here.

July 26, 2013

An #InfoSec Burnout Survey

As many of you know, I’m a big supporter of The Information Technology Burnout Project, created by friends in the security community to addresses something most of us experience at one point or another: work-induced depression.

A friend who is part of that effort, Dan Ward, is exploring the possibility of conducting a professionally-proctored Areas of Worklife Survey and Maslach Burnout Indicator survey. In his blog, Ward writes:

In an effort to continue our understanding of burnout in the InfoSec community, I am investigating conducting a professionally-proctored Areas of Worklife Survey and Maslach Burnout Indicator survey. The Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) was created to assess employees’ perceptions of qualities of worksettings that play a role in determining whether they experience work engagement or burnout. Recognized for more than a decade as the leading measure of burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) incorporates the extensive research that has been conducted in the more than 25 years since its initial publication.

Once the data is collected, I will make it available to the community at large and procure a professional group analysis of that data to provide a broad picture of the state of our industry.

Please go to his blog and give him feedback. Thanks.

Burnt match

July 25, 2013

Annoyed by the Royal Baby Watch? Get Over It

People have been glued to their TVs this week watching all the news coverage about the birth of a new British royal. I wasn’t one of them, because frankly I couldn’t care less. I have camping to do, and then a business trip to prepare for.

At the same time, I can’t understand why so many people were complaining on the social networks about those who were hooked on the baby watch.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/z_HN6OswU64

The common complaints went something like this:

We’re Americans. Our ancestors fought for independence from Britain so we wouldn’t have to care about this shit anymore.
A lot of serious, newsworthy events took place this week, including a huge prison break in Iraq in which some of the most bloodthirsty terrorists on Earth escaped.
There’s too much to do in an average day to be distracted by something so trivial.

Fair enough. But shouldn’t we save our indignation for bigger fish? The thing is, there is a lot of seriousness going on out there. We continue to exist in an economy that’s anything but healthy. Violence among the youth is as bad as it’s ever been. Politicians keep letting us down. People keep getting cancer.

If a day or two of distraction over the British royalty helps people forget about all these troubles for a few hours, what’s wrong with that?

The birth of a baby is always a happy event in my book. And it’s fun to watch it happen when the parents are super-famous. In this case, the parents and baby live in a palace. That’s fun to watch, right? People love castles and enjoy stories about kings and queens. And they are doing no harm to those of us who don’t care quite so much.

If a royal baby watch makes you happy for a little while, I say have at it. All your troubles will still be there when you’re done, and maybe the spectacle will be enough of a breather to help you deal with what comes next.

To everyone else, get over it.

Royal Baby Doors

July 24, 2013

The Problem With That ‘Crazy Wife’ Video

A man decided to record his wife freaking out. Now it’s a YouTube sensation and the subject of a post on Gawker, a site seemingly dedicated to shit like this. People are gleefully talking about how bat-shit crazy this woman is.

I’m here to rain on their parade.

http://youtu.be/1JZZWA_sjJw

This video seems to be real, but it’s getting harder to trust what you see on the Internet these days. Under the premise that this video is genuine, I have some observations:

Sure, she’s acting worse than a three year old. But other than this video, those outside her immediate world of family, friends and colleagues know nothing about her. Labeling her as crazy is harmful and ignorant.
If I had to put up with someone like this on a daily basis, I’d probably be planning my escape. But I would not record our fights for the world to see. Why? Because nothing good comes of such things.
It’s one video showing one perspective. I doubt it tells the entire story of this marriage.

Every marriage has its bumps, and sometimes you have to throw in the towel and call it a day. But it’s a private matter. Just because your marriage sucks and your wife is nuts doesn’t mean you have to make us watch.

Now that I’ve watched it — I didn’t have to but I did anyway — I see more going on than just some poor guy proving that he’s a victim.

I see a woman who probably suffers from some form of mental illness. Even if she’s too volatile to stay married to, she needs help.

I see a husband fanning the flames of his wife’s insanity. He goads her. He ridicules her. He makes damn sure to set her off. That’s an asshole thing to do, especially if the wife has a mental illness.

Nothing good ever comes from pressing a troubled person’s crazy button.

I hope this woman gets some help. As for the husband, I can’t help but wonder if he helped make her that way.

crazy wife

July 23, 2013

Dennis Wilson and the Manson Family

As someone long fascinated by the Manson Murders case, I’ve taken a special interest in the late Dennis Wilson, drummer of The Beach Boys and one-time friend of Charles Manson.

His time with Manson scarred his mind and soul for the rest of his life, something that’s evident if you listen to the entirety of his solo album from the ’70s, Pacific Ocean Blue.

The story of Dennis Wilson is an extreme case study in what happens when you make sex, drugs and booze the center of your world. In this case, it’s the story of a guy whose off-the-rails pleasure seeking led him into the baddest of the bad crowds. His troubles began when he picked up two girls who were hitchhiking on the side of the road. He took them home and had sex with them, and in short order the entire Manson clan moved into his house.

One of those girls, Patricia Krenwinkel, would end up with a lot of blood on her hands, participating in two nights of murder, first at the home of Sharon Tate and then at the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Wilson didn’t mind having the family around at first. They provided him with a steady supply of sex and drugs. Manson wanted to use Wilson’s connections as a way into the music industry so he could become a recording star and spread his apocalyptic visions in his songs. He particularly wanted help from Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day.

Wilson introduced them and there was talk of a record contract, but Melcher was immediately creeped out by Manson and never came through on the promises Manson claims he made. Melcher was the resident of 10050 Cielo Drive immediately before Sharon Tate moved in, and though Manson knew Melcher was no longer living there, the speculation is that he picked that house to scare Melcher.

Long after Manson and his core followers went to prison, guilt continued to eat away at Wilson. He had something of a career comeback as a solo artist, but his substance abuse continued until late December 1983, when he drowned.

I sympathize with Wilson. Having had my own bouts of addictive behavior, I’ve always considered myself lucky that I was able to find my footing, remember where my priorities belonged and ditched the friends who were most likely to get me into trouble. Many are not so lucky, and when your soul is damaged all the money in the world won’t fix it.

Below is the first in a series of YouTube videos called “Cease to Exist.” It tells the story of Wilson and the Manson family in details never before covered, giving viewers a deeper insight into the world of addiction and depression. I highly recommend you watch the whole thing when you have time.

Wilson and Manson

July 22, 2013May 6, 2015

The Importance of Family in a Family Business

For as long as I can remember, it hung on the wall outside the front offices of the family business, right next to the timecards: a memorial plaque for the company’s founder, the man I’m named for: William J. Brenner.

I always found the plaque somewhat disconcerting to look at because there was my full name and the “In Memory of …” I’ve gotten creeped out in similar fashion whenever I’ve visited the grave.

Mood music:

He founded Brenner Paper Box Co. in Chelsea, Mass., in 1922. The original building was one of the last to burn in the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973. My grandfather had died four years earlier, in late 1969, and my father had taken over the business. After the fire, he moved it to Saugus and transformed it into a store for party supplies and, later with my stepmom, he made expanded it into a business for all special occasions: birthdays, weddings, proms, you name it. The only occasion not represented was funerals, though I’m sure the main store had something even for that in one of the aisles.

I practically grew up there, stealing the little toys we sold for birthday party goody bags and, later, hiding behind boxes in the warehouse smoking cigarettes and listening to the Mötley Crüe cassettes I liked to load into my Walkman.

I didn’t take over the business for my father, but the building continued to be a family gathering point long after I had forged my path in the world of journalism. Now the company is closing and the building is being sold. My father had the plaque removed and gave it to me yesterday. I’ve given it a new home on my office desk.

In some ways, it’s a strange place to keep it. In other ways, it’s entirely appropriate.

The company I work for is one of the critical pillars holding up the Internet and making it run smoothly so other companies can safely do business there. I’ve long believed that the Internet played a role in the slow death of the family business. Like many mom-and-pop companies, Brenners struggled to keep customers in the stores as more people went online to buy things. But while the company couldn’t survive as it had, the family lives on and has found ways to thrive in cyberspace.

My father and stepmom had already started figuring out the business potential of the Internet some years ago, and I know from talking to them that they’ll still be busy with business ventures, and a lot of it will take place online.

Now the memorial plaque can sit here and observe how business is done in the 21st century. You could say it has a ring-side seat. I’m honored to be chosen as its keeper.

Brenner Memorial Plaque

July 18, 2013

“Rolling Stone” Outrage and the Bandwagon Mentality

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence; nor is the law less stable than the fact. —John Adams, Summation, Rex v Wemms (1770)

I wasn’t planning a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Rolling Stone cover story on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Then I saw all the outrage and realized there was more to this than the magazine’s editorial motive.

This is a case study in how caught up people get in the bandwagon mentality.

Mood music:

Consider this: People are outraged over the magazine cover because they feel it portrays Tsarnaev as a teen heartthrob. But the picture has been floating around for months and The New York Times used in back in May. No one said boo at the time. The picture shows an innocent-looking kid who is anything but innocent, but it’s real.

Nevertheless, after a few people expressed anger over the Rolling Stone cover, people started tripping over each other to rage in a delirious rush to find a seat on the bandwagon. Some stores announced they wouldn’t carry this issue of the magazine because they were taking a stand against such sensationalistic madness. In my opinion, they’re just trying to capitalize on the anger and get some good brand PR.

New York Times Tsarnaev Front Page

Consider this: A few weeks back, amid a tidal wave of public joy over the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), The New Yorker displayed an issue cover that depicts Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie snuggling together in from of a TV displaying the justices. Most of the response was positive. People gushed about how this demonstrates how far we’ve come in accepting people for who they were, regardless of sexual orientation, race and so on.

But the cover takes liberties with the truth. Sesame Street has said that those characters are not gay. In fact, its puppets are without sexual orientation, period.

Go ahead and tell me you can’t possibly compare the two covers, that Sesame Street is a children’s show. The characters on Sesame Street are very real to children, and The New Yorker made two of the characters out to be something they’re not.

New York Bert and Ernie Cover

Personally, I wasn’t bothered by The New Yorker cover. To me, it was an artist merely expressing his emotions over the death of DOMA. I wasn’t bothered by the Rolling Stone cover, either. I thought the image with the headline and summary set the reader up for an important case study in how a seemingly good kid goes astray, espouses evil and becomes a monster.

Someone noted yesterday that terrorists crave the limelight and want to be on the cover of magazines. Perhaps that’s true. But we need to see their faces, too, so we know who our enemies are. That’s why evil people make the cover of news magazines all the time.

When there’s a bandwagon to jump on, however, the truth gets trampled underfoot. People latch on to memes on Facebook every day that have absolutely no basis in truth. The image and text capture the outrage they feel, so the facts become unimportant.

The outrage over the Rolling Stone cover is, to me, another example of that. With emotions still raw (mine included) over the Boston bombings, people want ways to vent their spleen. Seemingly offensive photos and magazine covers will do the trick every time. Maybe that’s not a bad thing; having outlets to express our pain is healthy and helps us move on.

Yet when we spend too much time on a bandwagon fueled by rage, we’re bound to choke on the exhaust.

July 17, 2013

“Rolling Stone” Bomber Cover Sparks Outrage, But Why?

Before I deliver what will surely be an unpopular opinion, let me note the following: The Boston Marathon bombings happened on my home turf. That day, I was sickened by the video replays, scenes of people without limbs and word that one of the victims was an 8-year-old boy. I was as full of satisfaction as everyone else a few nights later, when one of the bombers was hunted down and captured.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/IN9REo4Le6g

Several friends were at the marathon that day, and one family from our kids’ school community left the finish line a few minutes before the bombs exploded. Yeah, I was effected to the core.

Now I’m waking up to find a lot of outrage online because of the latest cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which features the face of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the young monster who carried out the attack with his older brother. Much of the anger is over the way he looks: like a rock star or someone to be celebrated. One friend ran a picture of the cover next to another Rolling Stone cover featuring Jim Morrison to illustrate the point. Business Insider hissed that the magazine portrayed Tsarnaev as a “dreamy heartthrob.”

Rolling Stone Cover

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Here’s mine: People are making a bigger deal of this than it deserves.

Though Rolling Stone is primarily known for its essays on celebrities, it also has a history of covering current events, including crime and war. Charles Manson once graced the cover with the headline, “The Incredible Story of the Most Dangerous Man Alive.” The articles almost always involve a lot of investigative reporting and detail, although there’s a political bias to the writing, as well.

Charles Manson Rolling Stone Cover

Tsarnaev does indeed look like a rock star on the cover. He’s got that long, black, curly hair and boyish face (he is, after all, still a kid, at least in my book). But the headline and summary make it clear that this is not an expos&eacute on a dreamy heartthrob: “The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed By His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster.”

It’s natural for us to want the bad guys to be denied their media spotlight. After all, many times the bad guys crave the coverage. But when a kid like this tries to kill a bunch of people, it’s important to ask why. How does a young person turn into a monster?

No matter what we learn and what we do to steer kids in the right direction, we can’t prevent all of them from turning violent. But we can still try, and in the Boston case, it’s useful to look at the family history that produced two murderers.

That he looks like a rock star on the magazine cover is unfortunate. If the magazine used the surveillance photos or a picture of a bloody, wounded Tsarnaev, we probably wouldn’t have the outrage.

But in the bigger picture, I think the outrage is pain misdirected.

The messenger is delivering an unpopular story, and when that happens our first instinct is to shoot the messenger.

July 16, 2013

Let’s Talk About Mental Illness

An old friend and former workmate, Steve Repsys, has started a new community on Facebook called Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. If you have ever suffered from a mental disorder, I urge you to join and participate in the discussion.

Mood music:

I first met Steve nearly 16 years ago when I started my run as editor of the weekly newspaper The Billerica Minuteman. He had just started as a reporter. Neither of us knew at the time that we had mental illnesses — OCD for me and generalized anxiety disorder for him. It would be many years before either of us was diagnosed. In the meantime, we worked together in an office in Chelmsford, Mass. I was the boss and acted like it.

I was always stressed about getting the paper done by deadline. Quality didn’t really matter to me. OCD will do that to you: Getting the task done always takes priority over doing it right. Steve was the whipping boy, the sole reporter. I pushed him hard, nearly to the breaking point. He never let me down. But along the way, he would work so hard that his mind would go into loops. One loop involved a worry about finding an apartment. Another was about whether he would get a promotion. All normal things to worry about, except that he was clinically unable to stop it.

I carried on the same way about other things. Whenever the going got tough, we would both bitch about everyone who made it possible.

During the small windows of downtime, we would convene in my apartment a few steps away from the office and play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Star Wars was very important to us back then.

Steve eventually went on to another role in the company, and I went to The Eagle-Tribune. We both settled down and had kids. And in recent years, from different states, we’ve come to grips with our mental diseases.

Steve and I reconnected on Facebook a few years ago and it was clear to me that he was in the middle of a storm I had already passed through. He knew he had a problem and set about dealing with it. Because I write this blog, he has regularly sought me out for advice. I’ve seen the good and ugly of his struggle up close and watched a year ago as he hit bottom. He has since made awesome strides forward and went public about his experience in June. The response he received has been overwhelming and positive, much as I experienced at the birth of this blog.

That inspired him to start his Facebook page. I’m proud of him for doing the work to get well and for wanting to help others.

“I had signs of mental illness five years ago after the birth of my second daughter,” Steve wrote on Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. “Finally things became so bleak that I was forced to come to terms that I was suffering from a mental illness and I wanted to be around for my wife and two daughters. Admitting to myself I had a problem was the hardest, but the best thing I could have done.”

“This page is meant to give others hope and realize that they are not alone,” he continues. “If there is one thing I have learned is that by opening up and talking about our inner demons, the less scary they become.”

Let's Talk About Mental Illness