As someone who takes work very seriously, an article on LinkedIn by Jeff Haden really hit home. The man in his story had a life in which the personal and professional were so tightly wound that he lost all hope when the business ran into trouble.
For me, family and friends come first, and I know I’d have all the support in the world if I ever ran into trouble on the business side. But there was a time when all my self-worth was tied to work. That’s not good when you’re in an unstable industry like newspaper publishing.
This article captures the lesson I ultimately learned, with one caveat: I never found myself in a situation as severe as what this unfortunate soul encountered.
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. There were pictures of my favorite rock stars, recreated scenes from my favorite movies (particularly the violent ones) and doodles that captured my frustration during school and periods of depression. 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.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/xQvuZvrH0Yw
Eddie is a master at capturing the human element. His latest works, “Faces of Defcon,” are a prime example. He made these images from ink, lime juice, soy sauce, wine, coffee, tea, pencil, acrylic, and water. I know many of the people he captures. They are hackers and other security practitioners who have a burning intensity for their profession. They throw their souls into the work, and you can see it in their eyes.
Eddie has done a lot of rock ‘n’ roll artwork as well, and you can see the influence in his security professionals work.
Much has been written about Eddie’s history with bipolar disorder and depression. He’s been an outspoken advocate for art as a powerful mental health tool.
My acrylic work is usually the result of mania; the digital darker art is usually created during my depressive phases. People who know me know how I’m doing by the qualities in the work.
Music, art and writing have been critical tools in my own effort to manage mental health, and I appreciate the hell out of people who share their work publicly, where it can then help other people climb out of whatever mental holes they’ve fallen into.
In my day job, I host the Akamai Security Podcast, an audio program about all things information security. On occasion, the topics of my profession bleed into the focus of this blog.
In the following podcast, I chat with colleague Christian Ternus, a member of Akamai Infosec’s Adversarial Resilience Team. He’s been the driving force behind Humanity in Security, an effort to address burnout, depression and stress in the security community.
One of his main messages is that people in the industry need to be kinder. He touched on this some months back in a post from his “Adversarial Thinking” blog. He wrote about what he sees as infosec’s jerk problem, where cynicism and negativity run so deep that it poisons the atmosphere in many a security shop, dampening spirits and causing burnout and depression across a team.
He stressed that if you practice kindness, good things will follow.
I got this question from a reader over the weekend, after he read my “Suicide in the Blood” post:
I was just curious after reading this article: As much as I think about suicide and sometimes homicide, am I capable of carrying this out? I’m bipolar and have very serious depression also. Bipolar personality disorder and ADHD make it very hard to keep my mood swings down and my mind focused. I really need some perspective on this. Please help. Thanks.
It’s not an easy question to answer, as no two head cases are the same. I have my own experiences but what worked for me won’t necessarily help everyone. Still, those personal accounts are what I have to offer. These are my experiences with depression, from the circumstances and feelings to the tools I acquired for coping with the demons.
Happily Ever After Is Bullshit & That’s OK: When depression slaps me upside the head, it’s on the heels of a prolonged period of good feelings and positive energy. These setbacks can be discouraging, but you can survive them with the right perspective.
The Mood Swing: When moods shift with little warning, the risks are severe. As with most problems, knowing you have one is the first step to better management.
Metal Saved Me: Hard rock is one of my most powerful coping tools. It’s not for everyone, but there’s a common element: Music heals.
The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill: I resisted medication for a long time. Here’s why I finally took the leap of faith. Most importantly, here’s what I’ve gained as a result.
Debunking the Shrink Stigma: Many people resist the idea of getting therapy. But in the battle over one’s demons, a shrink is a powerful ally.
Happy Depression: Can you be depressed and happy at the same time? I can.
I lead a pretty regimented life. I’ve gotten good at juggling multiple activities at once and sticking to carefully mapped out schedules. Regimens are good for me. I need specific plans for eating, exercise and career/family management.
But I have to admit, all that regimentation is like a noose around my neck lately.
Mood music:
I recently reined in my eating plan and got back to exercising because my health was beginning to drift. I have a new therapist and a new doctor. And though the going has been tough, we’re adjusting to the boys’ new school.
All in all, good progress.
Yet I’m almost constantly on the road. I drive to and from work. I pick up the kids from school. Then it’s back out for this appointment or that activity. This is the grind multiple days per week usually.
It’s all good. It’s what I signed up for, so to speak. But I’m realizing more than ever that my shoulders aren’t as strong as they should be to carry the weight.
I don’t need or want a change in routine. But I do need to find a better way to manage it all without feeling beaten down.
Better eating and steady exercise is a big step in the right direction. My sleep needs work. I’ve yet to figure out why I keep waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for an hour or more at a time. Better sleep would most definitely make everything else more manageable. I use a CPAP that sometimes feels like more trouble than it’s worth because the mask doesn’t fit right. One more thing to work on, which means more appointments.
I don’t tell you all this to complain. This is more an exercise in self-assessment. I need to make more adjustments to how I live my days, and posts like this usually mark the turning points.
I also share it because a lot of you have the same pressures. There’s no getting around the craziness, but it always helps to know that you’re not alone in the struggle.
You could also say misery loves company.
Or, as Red Green likes to say, “I’m pullin’ for ya. We’re all in this together.”
A good friend forwarded me “Why I Hired an Executive with a Mental Illness” by Rob Lachenauer, CEO and a co-founder of Banyan Family Business Advisors. Lachenauer describes hiring someone after a job interview in which the candidate came right out and told him she had a mental illness and was on medication. He writes:
My reaction to the candidate’s disclosure was, frankly, disbelief — disbelief that she found the courage to make herself so vulnerable before she was hired. She had to be interviewed by other members of the firm before I could invite her to join us, but we did hire her — and over the past few years, she has become not only a core member of our team, but a large part of the glue that holds the firm together.
He correctly points out that while The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prevents employers from discriminating against people who have a mental illness, the discrimination still happens a lot. In fact, he notes, when he told a former VP of a major investment banking firm about his column, he warned him against publishing it. “Clients are afraid to work with firms that have mentally ill people on the professional staff,” the former VP told him.
I’m glad that didn’t stop Lachenauer from running with it, and I’m grateful he gave that job applicant a chance to prove herself.
I outed myself when I was already comfortably entrenched in my job, having proven myself a thousand times over. I still felt I was taking a risk by starting this blog, but my bosses and colleagues turned out to be very supportive.
By the time I interviewed for my current job, the blog was already well known in the industry. My current boss had been reading my work by that point, and my continued blogging about life with OCD, depression and anxiety was not an item up for debate.
I’ve been fortunate, and I’m happy to see, through stories like Lachenauer’s, that the needle continues to move in the right direction.
In recent days I’ve watched an interesting online discussion about depression and bipolar disorder. One one side is author and speaker Natasha Tracy, whose writing pulls no punches about the dark side of such maladies. On the other side is a blogger named Sarah Ryan. She believes the approach to addressing the subject should be uplifting and sunny.
The truth is somewhere in between, in my opinion. But I must say that the sunshine part is useless if we don’t pick apart the darkness first.
Mood music:
Taking a shot at Tracy and her work, Sarah suggests a new voice is needed. Her beef: Tracy’s articles are dark to the point of ridiculous. She writes:
I am struck by the negativity that many major health-care websites are perpetuating, such as healthyplace.com, healthline.com, and answers.com. They are advertising Ms. Tracy as an expert on those sites, so if that is the case, I’m sure the vast majority of her readers will assume they can trust her message and treat it as fact-based. Here’s the rub: I find her message to be wrought with negativity, misinformation, and deeply internalized social stigma.
Sarah hopes to be a “much needed counter balance to this sort of negativity.” Sarah’s blogging is part of a larger project called “Find More Out There,” designed to explore the realities of bipolar disorder via film and other media.
As a long-time sufferer of depression and OCD, I appreciate what she’s doing. Sufferers do need hope, and in my own blogging I try to outline all the light I’ve found at the other side of the darkness.
But I also respect Tracy’s work. Sure she leans more toward the dark side. The titles she uses demonstrate that:
How Are You? – I’m Not Fine, I’m Bipolar
Can You Die From Bipolar Disorder? (*Saving you more time, the answer is yes)
More Ways to Die from Bipolar Disorder
Trying Bipolar Therapy You Don’t Believe In – Mindfulness Meditation
I’m Too Tired to Keep Fighting Bipolar Disorder
Sarah uses those titles as proof Tracy is too negative.
But here’s the thing: Depression and all the mental disorders that feed it are a nightmare. When you’re in the thick of it, all seems lost. It sucks. People need to say it sucks. My healing — an ongoing process with plenty of setbacks and advances — couldn’t begin until I peeled back every layer of my fear, anxiety and depression. That took years.
For the sufferer to find tools to get better, they have to know they’re not alone. The old cliché that misery loves company is true. When you realize you’re in good company, it becomes easier to stand up and do something about it.
But once the sufferer has that epiphany, they need guidance to start building the tools of recovery. Sarah’s project holds promise there.
I’d love to see these two voices collaborate on something. The fruits of such an effort could be powerful.
I write a lot about my own episodes of depression and that of others. But I’ve never written about a web server suffering from it. That is, until the student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) gave me reason to do so.
Instead of the usual 404, you get a depressed web server going on and on about how dismal it is to be a server that can’t deliver a simple web page. It then goes on to suggest that we users ask for too much. After all, it’s not like the server knows us.
A sample of what it says:
Variations of this message have been kicking around for at least three years. It just so happens that I’m only now getting around to seeing it, thanks to a Facebook share from my friend Alex Howard.
As I was researching the background of the ACM’s work, I came across plenty more creative 404 pages. I’m finding them at the right time, as I’m in a bit of a snit today. The clever lightheartedness is just what the doctor ordered.
This year’s seasonal depression comes with a twist. It’s not necessarily something new, but it’s something I’m more aware of these days: The calendar is filled with too many appointments.
Mood music:
When you have kids and a busy job, a lot of running around is expected. Lately, though, it seems like running around is all I do. Last week was a pretty good example: A medical appointment for me, two for Duncan (his therapist and new a new psychiatrist), a Scout meeting for each son and the school drop-offs and pick-ups.
It’s all normal, necessary stuff. I have to take care of my health, and we have to take care of our children. The school commute is the result of our choice to put the boys in a new school, and every parent these days is a taxi driver, running kids from one activity to the next. I don’t regret any of it. All the appointments for Duncan have especially been worth it, because we’ve gotten a clearer fix on his challenges and the best remedies.
But with the darkness of the coming winter and the rushing and running that come with the holiday season, each appointment feels like a hot pin prick to the eye.
I long for a week where I can just exist at home once the work day is done. It’s not going to happen, so I have to fall back on my coping tools.
It’s a funny thing about this time of year: I have a huge box of mental tools and know how to use them, but I’m so mentally tired that I have trouble finding the discipline to open the box.
I can’t let that continue, so I’m making a big effort to jolt myself out of the funk.
Last week I started increasing the breathing exercises I’ve learned. When commuting, my habit has been to use the tool of music therapy exclusively, cranking the metal to 11. But I have to add some variety, so I’m trying to do the music for part of the ride and the breathing exercises for the other part.
I’m making a point to play guitar for at least 30 minutes a day.
I’m re-introducing exercise into my regimen. In recent years I haven’t exercised much beyond walking because my food plan kept the weight in check without it. But I changed my eating plan earlier this year because I was getting bored. I didn’t up the exercise to match the increased portions, and as a result I’ve gained 15 pounds. I’ve started jogging laps around the garage, but Erin and I are looking to either buy an elliptical machine or get a gym membership. My new doctor is pushing me toward exercise, too; he isn’t happy with my borderline blood pressure and cholesterol.
Finally, I have a new therapist who is determined to help me build a fresh regimen for using all the tools. Appointments to see her involve 45-minute commutes back and forth, which adds to the overall stress. But she’s good, and I’m betting that the coaching she gives me balances things out.
It’s going to be a long winter. But with some luck, prayer and effort, it’ll be a healing one.
This weekend marks four years since I woke up in a funk and started this blog on a whim, figuring I’d at least feel better if I spilled my guts. It did the trick. But in the years since that day, it has become something far bigger than I could have imagined at the time.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/zQzNBTukO0w
I didn’t expect so many people to connect with the writing. I figured it would be no big deal to people, because we all have our stories — filled with happiness, sadness, love, heartbreak and other forms of adversity. I would just be one in a chorus of online voices sharing my emotions and experiences.
But people did connect, especially work colleagues and others in my profession. I thought my soul venting might raise eyebrows at work, but I got nothing but support. The reaction from the information security crowd was particularly stunning to me. People who intimidated me with their outward toughness started sharing back. They became more than just people I did business with. The friendships I’ve gained through the sharing is a huge gift this blog has given me.
The reaction from family and friends was shock, because I had succeeded in carrying on with a stoic, easy-going exterior. I couldn’t believe people saw me as easygoing. Apparently I could have found success as an actor.
The sharing has allowed me to repair some relationships that were broken. In other cases, it made matters worse. But there was no turning back.
My wife was often bewildered by what I wrote, because I was sharing past experiences I hadn’t shared with her up to that point. That led to us doing a lot of work on our relationship, and that’s the absolute greatest gift this blog has given me. As part of that, the blog has become one of the things we do together as a couple: I do the writing, Erin does the editing and bullshit detecting. When something I write doesn’t ring true, she pushes me in the proper direction.
Admittedly, I’ve expanded the subject matter a lot in the last year and a half. I didn’t originally plan to opine about current events here, but I realized a couple things after a while:
If I were to write about nothing but my own flaws, I’d risk being defined by them and nothing else.
This blog should be about more than just my own personal growth. Part of one’s growth comes from their dealings with the people and events taking place around them. By that measurement, current events became fair game.
In finding the path through adversity, there are many lessons to be had by exploring how we all talk to each other.
I’ve also focused more on the lighter side of life, because few things get us through the fog like humor. That has made this experiment a lot more fun for me. I hope it has worked for all of you, too.
Here’s to many more years of staring adversity in the face and making it blink — becoming better on our own and together.
