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It’s a Long Road Through Self-Hatred

Given my normally upbeat persona, this might surprise you: Once upon a time, I hated myself. I hated a lot of people, but none more so than myself. The worst of that hatred came after I started facing my demons.

Mood Music:

http://youtu.be/TP06kxW_M3I

I disliked myself before I started to tackle the demons with therapy. A couple years into that therapy, the self-loathing deepened. I had learned much about who I was and how I got that way, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to change. That made me angry, and I turned in on myself.

I intensified my addictive behavior to cope, burying my sorrows in food, alcohol and the pain pills doctors prescribed for chronic back pain.

When I cut flour and sugar from my diet and started putting my meals on a scale to bring the binge eating to heel, I felt worse before I started to feel better. I felt edgy in my skin and hated myself for not being stronger. To cope with that I started drinking a lot of wine. When I quit that, I no longer knew how to act in big social crowds. I hated myself for that, too.

When you start to fight your demons head-on, you become super-aware of your own vulnerabilities. For a while, I became paralyzed by mine.

I’m not a special case.

In his book, Symptoms of Withdrawal, Christopher Kennedy Lawford writes that after he kicked drugs in 1986, it took him awhile to actually become a good person.

Those around him weren’t always happy he was sober, especially since that meant he couldn’t make the cocktails at family gatherings like he used to.

He writes about having to learn how to be a decent human being and be clean at the same time. You would think it’s easy. It’s not.

In the book, Lawford writes:

There is another great fiction of recovery — that is, once you stop using your life becomes a bed of roses. Anybody who has stayed sober for any length of time knows that living sober is about learning to live life on life’s terms and a good part of life is painful. When I got sober someone said to me that I would get to realize all my greatest fears in sobriety … You know what? He was right, and it’s not half as bad as I imagined.

There’s a lot of truth there. I had a lot to learn, and I’m still learning, a full decade after I first started the work.

While the work goes on — and will continue to go on — there’s an important point to be made. Somewhere along the way, I learned to like myself.

Today, I can honestly say I’m happy with the man I’ve become, even if I’m still far from perfect.

But, then, perfect people don’t exist. If they did, they’d be boring.

self hatred II by ~xiaoD
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Packing for #RSAC 2016: An OCD Case Study

At the end of the week, I’ll be packing for five days in San Francisco, where I’ll write about the goings-on at RSA Conference 2016. When you have OCD, packing a suitcase is as ritualistic as the compulsive hand washing you’ve heard about.

Mood music:

Before I had the OCD under control, packing was an all-day affair. I’d line up all my clothes and accessories in order of the days I planned to wear them. I would undergo a similar ritual when gathering toiletries. I’d pack extra for fear that I’d be without something on the second-to-last day of the trip.

Today I do things a lot differently. I still keep track of what I stuff into the suitcase to ensure I have enough for each day, but I only look over my cargo twice. It takes less time to do than when I used to look things over 5 to 10 times.

I save space in my suitcase because I don’t stuff it with cigars and cigarettes anymore. While I carry my vaping pipes, they take up less space. I also used to stuff books in to have something to read during downtime. I don’t do that anymore, because those books always sit unread. I’ll still have a supply of Starbucks Via packets in case I can’t find my preferred coffee in the airport.

Last year I walked around San Francisco in my big, heavy boots. This year I’m being smart about it and going with the sandals that slip on and off effortlessly.

One year I forgot to grab my Prozac bottle on the way out of the hotel and only realized my mistake after getting through the airport TSA line. Now I just pack the exact number of pills I need for the trip. The rest of the bottle stays home.

Packing the laptop bag has gotten easier, too. I used to cram five notebooks and a handful of pens in there. Now it’s one pen and no notebooks. At this stage of my career, I’m pretty good at storing notes in my head. I don’t let then sit in my head for too long, either. I usually write up the talks and demos within 10 minutes of seeing them. Some talks I write up while I’m watching.

I still worry about having enough power cords, though, so I pack every cord I own. But I don’t lay them all out on the table to count them multiple times. I just stuff everything into the bag.

I’ve also gotten bolder about when to go to the airport. I used to get to the airport three hours before the flight because I worried about unexpected problems and wanted time to fix them. I’ve scaled that back to two hours during recent travel. So far, it’s working out fine.

I may not travel the lightest I can, but when you have OCD and learn how to simplify packing, it’s a victory.

Safe travels, all!

Suitcases and Briefcase

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What Shutting People Down Says About You

I’m someone who believes in full, frank communication. It’s essential for plans running smoothly and people not misunderstanding each other. There’s a certain personality type that gets in the way of that every time. And it makes my blood boil.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/3eC8ASAnzhM

It’s the person who shuts you down when you broach a subject they don’t want to talk about. They put up their hand and start rattling off a litany of reasons they’re brushing you off. It makes the other person feel disrespected and otherwise shitty. The person who does the brushing off usually talks a lot and wants you to listen to every word they say.

Which makes it all the more infuriating when they brush you off.

I have a few people like this in my life. I want to open up about something and reach some deep understandings. Instead they tell me they have nothing to do with whatever it is I’m bringing up.

Usually, they have a lot to do with what I’m bringing up.

In the more understandable moments, they’ll say they can’t talk about something because it’s too stressful a topic — as if not discussing it will make the problem go away.

Here’s what brushing people off all the time says about you:

  • It’s your way or the highway. You have strong ideas on how things ought to be. You make those views known all the time. But when someone wants to talk about it in more detail — whether they agree with you or not — you shut that person down. You’re simply not going to talk about it. Then you try to change the conversation to something pleasant and pretend that person’s concerns don’t exist.
  • You’re afraid of being proven wrong. If you talk a lot about how things should be and then shut down someone who questions you, it’s more than likely that you know your position has cracks. You simply can’t handle the possibility that the other person might prove you wrong or suggest something that is legitimately a better way. You most likely fall into this category if you are the elder in the room or you outrank the other person in position.
  • You lack the ability to tackle difficult problems. If you live in fear of being proven wrong, chances are you’re not good at solving problems and reaching common ground with people. You may see yourself as powerful, but it shows you are weak.
  • You have unresolved issues. You shut people down because they are touching a nerve, bringing up something so painful that you can’t bear it. I’m more sympathetic to this category of people. But they are still being unkind.

Remember, folks: We’re all stuck with each other on this planet. We need to be kind to each other. A critical component of kindness is the ability to listen to someone, however unpleasant it may be.

If you do all the talking and none of the listening, then chances are you’re the type of person nobody wants to go near — the person people ridicule.

Who wants to be that person?

Dream of Sacrifice by EddieTheYeti
“Dream of Sacrifice” by EddieTheYeti
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4 Tips to Beat Fear and Anxiety at #RSAC2016

The first time I attended RSA in 2005, fear and anxiety threatened to consume me. I feared the flights, the crowds and the prospect of failing professionally.

Fast-forward to 2016: I’m a veteran infosec journalist who has been to too many conferences to count. I can’t say that I’m done with fear and anxiety, but I’ve brought it largely under control.

I’ve met a lot of people who suffer the same debilitating anxiety I used to experience over conferences, especially RSA. I’ve watched them worry endlessly over which evening events they needed to attend. I’ve seen them recoil at the waves of humanity wafting through the Moscone Center. I’ve seen them succumb to the temptation to drink every last drop of the free booze at vendor parties.

To some, this all sounds too dramatic. These are not life-or-death situations. But that’s the thing about fear and anxiety: They make situations look scarier than they really are.

This stuff isn’t specific to infosec, either. People go through this in any industry. But infosec is my industry, and I want to direct this at my peers.

Here my tips for surviving RSAC 2016:

  • Vendor keynotes aren’t mandatory. For a new attendee, the keynote sessions can be big and scary. The crush of humanity crowding around waiting for entry can be overwhelming, especially on the morning of the first day. If you’re absolutely dying to hear what the opening keynotes are about, you gotta suck it up. But veteran attendees have learned that it’s rarely, if ever, worth it. Find some industry pals and go have a good chat over coffee instead.
  • Don’t let the exhibit floors get to you. People working the booths will hound you aggressively to see their slide deck or hear the pitch. If you’re not careful you could easily get sucked into things that aren’t going to help you. The loud displays can induce major headaches. Skip the Monday-night opening of the floor; it’s the loudest time to go. For the rest of the days, wait a couple hours after the opening before going in. Things are usually calmer by then.
  • You don’t have to venture out at night. There’s always a huge expectation that an attendee must go to all the vendor parties in the evenings. If the day has been too much and you need to be at full strength for the next day, there’s nothing wrong with retiring to your room for the evening.
  • Focus on the reason you’re here. Looking to forge a new business partnership? Or maybe you’re there for education? Then just focus on those things. The keynotes are chaotic, but a lot of good talks happen in smaller rooms throughout Moscone. If your number-one goal is to make a deal, collaborate on some research or strike a partnership with another entity, then focus on making those things happen and ditch the rest.

I know it’s easier to talk about how best to proceed than it is to do it. Nevertheless, I hope you find some of this helpful.

RSA 2015 Crowd Shot

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Potential Positive of “CSI: Cyber” at RSA Conference 2016

The information security community is losing its collective mind because actors from the much-maligned CSI: Cyber TV series are on the keynote schedule for RSA Conference 2016. Dave Lewis, writing as @gattaca, captured the sentiment:

A lot of analysis has been devoted to RSA’s decision. I like the suggestion Violet Blue makes about how maybe, just maybe, RSA is playing a clever joke on us:

What if RSA’s ongoing keynote stew of disconnect and incompetence is part of something way more thoughtful and complex than we’re giving it credit for?

Jericho wonders in this post why anyone would be surprised, since, he believes, RSA has been a joke for years already:

It’s the party everyone shows up to, and the one you want to be at, to “be seen” and “catch up on the gossip”, even though you hate it. In our industry, it is the embodiment of reality T.V. in many ways. On the flip side, this conference hasn’t actually been relevant to our industry for a long time, where reality T.V. is sadly relevant in the worst ways.

He’s not wrong, though as I’ll note shortly, it’s not really as clear cut as that.

Crowd scene from RSA 2015

My thoughts:

  • There are many other keynoters. Though CSI: Cyber is getting all the attention, the agenda is crammed with a lot of people who practice infosec in real life, including Intel Security Group senior VP and general manager Christopher Young, Snort creator Martin Roesch and the annual Cryptographer’s Panel.
  • TV personalities have keynoted RSA before. And you didn’t see the kind of stink being raised today. To be fair, much of the ill sentiment is because CSI: Cyber sucks so badly, failing to portray our business accurately and fostering FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt, for the uninitiated).
  • It’s always been what you make it, anyway. Jericho is right that people attend RSA to see and be seen, hating it all the while. But my personal experience has always been that you get what you put into it. I haven’t attended a keynote in five years. Most tend to be the same old vendors pitching the same old message wrapped in whatever that year’s buzz topic is. I get far more value from the conversations. Reconnecting with peers I haven’t seen in a while. Meeting new people I can learn from. That’s what matters to me. I also believe it’s healthy to be in an arena where you have to keep selling what you bring to the table, be it the technology your employer sells or a side project you care about.
  • It’s an opportunity. What if we used the CSI: Cyber appearance as an opportunity to put the feet of the show’s writers and actors to the fire? If we stand up and tell them why their show offends us, maybe their shows stories start sucking less.

OK, probably not. But it was a nice thought.

I’m going to RSA because I’ve gotten much from it in the past. I also have a report to tell people about. My team worked hard on it and we believe it will provide value.

Cheer up, everyone. Have a song:

https://youtu.be/21ewvNVAYUw

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The Dark Side of Mindfulness

Mindfulness has been important for my OCD and anxiety management. When used in the right amounts, the tools are immensely helpful. But mindfulness has a dark side, too.

Mood music:

Dawn Foster points out the dangers in a post she wrote for The Guardian that asks “is mindfulness making us ill?”

In the article, we hear from a 37-year-old woman named Claire, who started suffering from panic attacks and depression when she started taking a mindfulness course. The mindfulness training dregded up childhood traumas, which in turn sparked panic attacks and depression.

I didn’t start taking a mindfulness class until eight years after I began to tackle my demons. Had I taken the class at the beginning of the journey, I think I would have had the same reaction as Claire. Luckily, I had peeled back the onion layers of my past long beforehand, which saved me from a fresh deluge of bad memories.

As it was, the mindfulness class I took in 2012 was overwhelming in some spots and boring in others. The yoga and the role-playing games for conflict resolution bored me. I found that trying to spend blocks of time on mindful exercises each day was unworkable. If I was having a busy, stressful day, blocking off the 30-40 minutes for yoga and breathing exercises simply stressed me out more. The reason, I realized, was that the only remedy for the stress was to tackle the root challenges head on.

All in all, mindfulness training was good for me. I just had to find a way to integrate the techniques into my life. I learned to break things into smaller pieces. Instead of doing multiple exercises in large time blocks, I found that spending two minutes here and five minutes there worked better. Ten minutes of guitar playing helps to keep me in the moment. Breathing exercises in the car help me deal with the stress of traffic jams. These things have made a positive difference.

Some exercises I dispensed with entirely. The whole business about chewing your food slowly and silently, pondering the taste and texture with each chew? That did nothing for me.

When we’re desperate to fix ourselves, we look for a silver bullet. Maybe it’s a new workout craze or a mindfulness training course. In my experience, however, the bite-sized techniques always work better. When broken into pieces, the effect is less overwhelming. But I’ve also learned that there is no silver bullet.

If someone pitches mindfulness classes as a useful tool in a bigger toolbox, great.

But if they tell you they’re THE SOLUTION, walk away.

Savage Namaste by Eddie Mize, 2009
Savage Namaste
by Eddie Mize, 2009
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Using Mental Illness to Get Attention

I came across an interesting article on the AG News site listing 10 traits of someone who uses mental illness to get attention. A couple years ago it would have offended the hell out of me. But knowing myself as I do today, I see a lot of truth in there.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/WEus6w9UlG0

People with big egos often think of themselves as supremely awesome and interesting, even when they’re not. As I’ve said before, we OCD cases have big egos. Of all the mental disorders out there, it’s probably the one that is most connected to attention seeking. (See “The Ego OCD Built.”)

As part of my recovery — and my larger faith journey — I’ve had to deal with this issue head on. It’s the most unsettling of truths: my mental disorder comes with a hole in the soul. Like anyone with this problem, I’ve tried to fill the hole over the years with addictive behavior.

In recent years, social media has become as addictive as coke and heroin. It’s so easy for people to spout off and get attention on Facebook and Twitter that once they get the ball rolling, it’s hard to stop. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

By 2011, a lot of my writing was to get attention. Two years earlier everyone told me how brave I was for being so open about my mental illness, and that was as satisfying as any fix. I had to keep it going. People occasionally called me on it, but just as many people kept giving me the validation I wanted.

I started to realize that this wasn’t necessarily healthy. I started writing posts that explored whether or not I was a narcissist, and I had to admit there was definitely some of that in play.

Was I faking mental illness? Absolutely not. Was I using it as a crutch and tool of validation? To an extent, yes.

Fast-forward to 2016. I don’t write nearly as many posts here as I used to. Some of that is because I don’t have as much to say as I used to. Some of it is because my work-related writing responsibilities have grown. And some of it has been a deliberate effort to pull back and not be such a social media hog.

That last point is part of a larger realization: that while it’s healthy to talk about my mental illness, especially when it comes to sharing the coping tools that have helped me, it’s only part of who I am.

I don’t want to let my mental challenges define me. I don’t want to be the guy who uses them as an excuse when I screw up or fall short of a goal.

I’m glad more people are opening up about their own mental illness. When done right, it can inspire others to deal with their own issues.

But if you find yourself getting bummed out because people aren’t lining up to tell you how awesome you are, it may be a sign that you’re doing it wrong.

Looking Glass Skull

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The Humanity of ShmooCon

I’m missing the ShmooCon hacker conference for the second year in a row because of family activities. But it remains a favorite of mine for several reasons. One is how its not afraid to explore how the human condition affects the security profession.

Mood music:

For starters, ShmooCon has given Johnny Long a platform.

Long, one of the world’s foremost hackers, has given presentations on why he started Hackers for Charity, a nonprofit organization using the skills of technologists to solve technology challenges for various non-profits and provide food, equipment, job training and computer education to the world’s poorest citizens.

Besides the obvious good that comes of this, the organization has done much to humanize hackers and help the world see them as more than introverts in basements using technology to break into networks for nefarious purposes. More than ever, hackers are seen as agents of positive change. Long deserves our thanks for that, and ShmooCon deserves thanks for giving him valuable exposure.

I also appreciate how ShmooCon has showcased the gifts of those who are different.

A powerful example of that was a talk renowned security engineer Marsh Ray gave at ShmooCon 2011, where he used the fragile mental condition as the basis of a talk called “A paranoid schizophrenia-based model of data security.”  In that talk, he described working in a psychiatric hospital more than 20 years ago and getting to know Keith, a fellow who usually sat on the park bench strumming his guitar for spare change.

“Sometimes I would take a break from reading microprocessor manuals and listen,” Ray said at the time. “Keith had paranoid schizophrenia. He could explain how the world worked: ‘There is a great international conspiracy…’ he would say. Electromagnetic fields, government satellites, resonant dinner plates, you name it: He had it all figured out.”

Ray noted how Keith couldn’t trust the conflicting information coming from different parts of the brain. He knew he was vulnerable and spent much time and energy thinking about it.

“Does this not also describe our current relationship with data security?” Ray asked. “Our architectures have become so complex that they are inherently susceptible to internal schism, leaving us vulnerable to sudden manipulation by shadowy external forces.”

Ray noted that many of the things Keith predicted have come to pass. For example, including radio transmissions being monitored by satellite and underground markets emerging for the purpose of trading information.

There are many more examples from previous years. But those are the ones that really stand out for me.

Sorry to miss it this year, but I wish those who are there a fabulous, enlightening weekend.

 

ShmooCon logo

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Dear Prudence, I’m Coming For You

By the end of 2015, I made a decision: I wasn’t going to let newfound pressures and responsibilities overtake the most important things in my life. Managing the loose ends of a family business — a task I inherited when my father died in June — had done just that. It was time to stop. I asked a friend for advice, and he told me to practice prudence.

Prudence is about using reason to govern oneself. In my case, prudence means putting the added responsibilities in their proper place, behind the things that are more important, specifically my wife and children and my career.

Indeed, 2015 was about doing the best I could with the added pressures. I think I did OK, for the simple reason that I still have a pulse and can stand up. I was able to keep doing my day job well. I can’t say I would have achieved the same results if this all happened a decade ago.

But 2016 is going to be about taking my life back.

The need to do that came into clearer focus last night. I went to a wake for a mentor from my North Shore Community College days and ran into several people who were part of that circle 25 years ago. We talked about what we were up to these days and the twists and turns our lives had taken. It reminded me of how hard I’ve worked since then to get to where I am now. If I turn my back now, I’ll be putting all those years to waste. I’m not going to let that happen.

I’m not tossing the new responsibilities aside, however. But from here on out, they’re taking a backseat to my real work.

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