Posted on

Truth-Based Fears: Helping Us Adapt

This blog has dealt extensively with fear, specifically how I’ve let it disrupt my life in the past — ruining what should have been moments of joy and causing moments of embarrassing behavior.

Mood Music:

The topic has returned to the forefront amid COVID-19. There’s the personal impact of fearing the unknown, and the societal fear where we hand government too much power in hopes of being safe.

It’s a tricky subject to write about because, like anxiety and depression, fear has many different facets. I’ve focused mostly on the bad and perhaps not enough on its usefulness in helping us adapt and meet challenges. I’m gaining a better perspective lately, especially when trying to apply things like the OODA Loop to daily routines.

I’ve been re-reading John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, and it has helped clarify where fear helps and hurts amid the current pandemic.

He writes about two kinds of fear:

  • The kind built on mistrust and distortion, where people make tragic choices because federal, state and local officials refuse to be straight with them about the extent of the contagion’s spread
  • The kind based on truth, which scare people at first but quickly give them the wisdom to adapt

In order for an authority to maintain the public’s trust, it can’t avoid some scary truths. Barry writes:

The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society. Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. Those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. You don’t manage the truth. You tell the truth.

—John Barry, The Great Influenza

How leaders tell that truth matters, though. They can’t talk solely in abstractions and euphemisms. “A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete,” says Barry. “Only then will people be able to break it apart.”

Barry expanded on that second point in a recent interview, saying:

Authorities need to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable — especially when it’s uncomfortable. This is important for two reasons. First, it lessens fear. People are always more afraid of the unknown. When people don’t think they’re getting a straight message they feel uncertain. In a horror movie, it’s always scariest before the monster appears. Once the fear becomes concrete we can deal with it. We can deal with reality. Second, if you want people to comply with your recommendations — and compliance is crucial to success — they have to believe you and trust you. If they doubt you they will ignore you.

I’d like to think I’ve abandoned the unproductive, panic-inducing fear that’s based on the unknown and put the truth-based fear to good use.

My approach is admittedly fatalistic on the surface: I’m just assuming we’ll be in this fight for a long time. I take nothing for granted — my job, my health, my ability to avoid episodes of depression. Losing ground in these areas is all within the realm of possibility.

By accepting that things are and will remain bad for some time and that anything can happen, I can adapt and focus on what’s in front of me — and what’s in front of me is pretty good.

In the face of the current crisis, we are already seeing humanity’s ability to adapt: we’re keeping business and learning going remotely, repurposing plant operations to churn out medical gear and moving from lost hospitality jobs to those that are in demand — grocery stores and medical facilities, for example.

To adapt is to survive and thrive. But we can’t adapt unless we face our truth-based fears first.

Posted on

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

Posted on

Pain Leaks from Mind to Body

Mental illness can lead to physical sickness. It’s a simple fact that some people find hard to believe.

Mood music:

I often hear people arguing over whether this person’s or that person’s aches and pains are “all in their head.” You know the type: There’s never any real underlying disease, but they’re always calling out of work with a headache or some intestinal discomfort.

It’s all in their head, you say?

Well, yeah.

It’s called psychosomatic illness, when mental anguish leads to physical sickness.

I’ve been there. Migraines. Brutal back pain. A stomach turned inside-out.

But it wasn’t always clear that what ailed me was in my head. As a child I was sick a lot with Crohn’s Disease, and that confused matters later on.

To throw the Crohn’s Disease into remission, doctors used the maximum dose of Prednisone, which caused migraines. You can read more about that in “The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill,” but the bottom line is that these headaches came daily and always made me sick to my stomach.

Later in life, I developed severe back pain, the kind that would knock me onto the couch and keep me there for weeks.

In the last month, I’ve gotten an unwanted refresher course in what all that was like. I wrecked my back and was prescribed Prednisone for my troubles. The mood swings and depression I remembered returned. Thankfully, I’ve turned that corner.

The earlier examples were all legitimate physical problems. But at some point my brain lost the ability to differentiate a real Chrohn’s flare-up or back spasm from an imagined one.

When the mind thinks the body has suffered a trauma, it has a habit of becoming real.

Doctors always warned me that mental stress could trigger Crohn’s flare-ups, and I guess it did, especially when my parents divorced. I’m fairly sure my brother’s death set off the last real flare-up in 1986.

The migraines and back problems, meanwhile, seeped seamlessly into the things that were going wrong with me mentally.

Anxiety attacks felt essentially the same as a heart attack, complete with the pain shooting from the chest to the neck and down the arms. Migraines followed. Work stress often sparked migraines and back pain.

While it was difficult to separate other legitimate physical problems from those stemming from mental distress, I can tell you that dealing with my underlying OCD, depression and anxiety made a lot of ailments mostly go away.

When you deal with what’s in your head, the pain in the rest of your body can be eased and even eradicated.

Psychosomatic illness still visits me on occasion. But it’s much better than the old life of perpetual pain.

black and white picture of a bald man with his face in his hands

Posted on

Cancer: Faces of Bravery, Faces of Fear

The photos tell the tale clearly. Beth Whaanga, mother of four, has been through hell. She has the scars to prove it. And when she decided to show the world, people on Facebook unfriended her.

Mood music:

Whaanga has been in a long and brutal battle against cancer. Multiple surgeries have left her body mangled, though when fully clothed, the scars are hidden. She chose to reveal those scars in a photo series called “Under the Red Dress.” According to The Huffington Post, she lost 103 Facebook friends over it.

“When Beth posted these images on Facebook, 103 of them UNFRIENDED her immediately,” columnist Rebecca Sparrow wrote. “Some felt the images were inappropriate or even pornographic.”

Some say the people who did so are jerks, uptight prudes who prefer that life’s unfair twists remain hidden from view.

I prefer to think that they just acted on fear. They see the danger to their own lives and those of their loved ones in the photos. The first thing most people do in the face of fear is turn and run away. We’ve all done that. I certainly have. The hope is that over time we learn to turn back and face the fear. In time, I think at least some of them will.

What Whaanga did was brave and beautiful. She shows us that despite the damage she suffered, life goes on. She continues to live and love.

I know too many people with cancer. Some are distant friends, some are in my immediate family. They’ve shown bravery in the face of cancer in their own ways, but I hope Whaanga’s photos offer them additional inspiration and hope.

red dress

Posted on

Downworthy: The Answer to All Those Stupid Headlines

I loathe the link-bait bullshit that’s taken over my Facebook newsfeed. Upworthy. Opposing Views. Even The Huffington Post. They’re all guilty to varying degrees.

Call me a snob, if you will. I was a journalist for 20 years, and I like my headlines straightforward and to the point. All I see these days is shit that goes something like, “Michael asked his mom for a Pepsi. What came next will blow your mind.”

Mood music:

My friend Alison Gianotto, chief technology officer at Noise, hates it too. Instead of merely rolling her eyes as I do, she built a free, highly amusing browser plug-in called Downworthy that’s currently available for Google Chrome. When you add it to your browser, a little icon of poop makes itself at home in your toolbar.

Turn it on and it’ll take all those hyperbolic headlines and replace them with something snarky that people like me consider more realistic. For example, “Be Overused So Much That You’ll Silently Pray for the Sweet Release of Death to Make it Stop” is translated to “Be Overused So Much That You’ll Silently Pray for the Sweet Release of Death to Make It Stop.”

A couple examples of the end result:

winter phenom

glacier lake

When you’re having a hard day and Upworthy throws all that annoying garbage your way, this plug-in will make you feel better.

Life is hard. Some days the challenges threaten to drown us. You certainly can’t blame the publishers of Upworthy for that. It’s simply how life is sometimes.

But if a toy like this can distract us from the darkness, if only for a few minutes, it will help us live to fight the next battle.

Posted on

The Power of Admitting Ignorance

I’ve often gone through my career feeling like an impostor.

I work with some ridiculously smart people and know many more in my industry. They seem interested in my opinion on things, and I try to deliver. But many times I don’t know the answer. So I sit wondering how the hell I got here. I know people who can bullshit their way through the answer to a question, but I lack that special talent. So I usually just admit that I don’t know.

Mood music:

That answer has only led to more good fortune. We think we’ll be dismissed if we admit ignorance, but the smarter folks among us actually appreciate the honesty. When I write about complex security issues in my work blogs, I often admit my befuddlement and open the floor for discussion in an effort to make readers — and myself — more aware of the given topic. In this blog, my frequent admission of ignorance clicks with readers, who find comfort in knowing they’re not the only clueless people on Earth.

The benefits of admitting you don’t know is the focus of a new book, simply titled I Don’t Know by Leah Hager Cohen. I haven’t read it yet, but I have read the essay it’s based on and have listened to her on WBUR, the Boston NPR affiliate.

It’s a refreshing, comforting, even, take on learning to honor one’s doubt. In the essay that started the project, Cohen writes:

Fear engenders lying. If we want our colleges and universities to be bastions of academic integrity, we need to look honestly at the ways they might encourage fakery by stoking fear. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Émile: Or, Treatise on Education,” the philosopher writes, “’I do not know’ is a phrase which becomes us.” Too often we fear uttering these words, convinced that doing so will diminish us, will undermine our status and block our advancement.

In fact these words liberate and empower. So much of the condition of being human involves not knowing. The more comfortable we become with this truth, the more fully and unabashedly we may inhabit our skins, our souls, and — speaking of learning — the more able we become to grow.

As someone who used to suffer from crippling fear and anxiety, I get that now. Fear of being diminished in the minds of those you respect makes the lies pour from your mouth before you have time to process what you’re actually saying. Then you’ve made matters worse.

By admitting ignorance from the outset and saying “I don’t know,” you’ll have spared yourself a lot of future pain and indignity and instead set yourself up to become wiser. It’s good to see that point has been articulated in a book.

I Don't Know book cover

Posted on

Hope and Happiness Amid a Government Shutdown

Forget about the effect the government shutdown has on mental health services; government mental health services suck anyway.

Instead, let’s focus on keeping ours head on straight when political horror stories send our fear and anxiety into orbit.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/lpRzYEHwnUo

I mentioned last week how I used to latch onto world events as if my life depended on it. TV media reports political squabbles as it would report about war: loud graphics, chilling music. Coverage of the government shutting down at midnight was no different.

I don’t want to minimize the impact. A lot of good people get screwed when the government shuts down. Family trips to national parks are ruined. If you need a passport renewed in time for, say, a honeymoon abroad, you’re likely throwing things across a room about now. Some of my conservative friends are making comments about how nobody will notice the shutdown and how, as a result, they’ll have proof that we don’t need government. Some of that is true. But some of that is hyperbole, too.

All that is beside the point. Here’s why I’m not quaking in my boots right now.

I realized a long time ago that I can’t tie my happiness to the success or failure of government. I used to believe that electing the right people would lead to a sunny future for me and everyone else.

But our leaders disappoint us again and again. Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t matter. Politicians are far more interested in keeping their jobs than standing for the greater good. To some extent that’s always been the case, yet it seems worse today. A few years ago, I realized I’d have to find my hope and happiness someplace else.

In the process, I found that the main components of that happiness were in front of me all along: loving family members, loyal friends and work I could take satisfaction in. I also realized it was completely in my power to be loving and loyal to others as well. That support system keeps the world spinning, and no folly of government could ruin that.

We’re all imperfect individuals. While I try to be a good father, husband and friend, I’ve done a lousy job getting along with some family members. And while I’ve exercised my absolute power to have a healthy, fit body and mind, I’ve also done my fair share of abusing both, consequences be damned. The government hasn’t played much of a role in either of those things.

Realizing that elected officials could only have a minimal role in my day-to-day life set me free in a lot of ways, for better or worse. The government shutdown isn’t bothering me in the slightest.

But that’s just my personal experience. If you do depend on government services, I’m sorry you have to go through this.

Super Broken Government

Image source: CNN.com

Posted on

Flying on September 11

One of my biggest moments of shame came a week after September 11, 2001, when I scrubbed a planned trip to Arizona for a relative’s wedding. I was terrified to get on an airplane, and fear won out. Not only did I miss an important day in a loved one’s life, I also deprived my wife of the same thing. I didn’t want her flying, either.

Mood music:

I’ve talked to many people over the years who have similar stories and whose fear of flying lasts to this day. I got over the flying fear several years ago and love doing so now. But it’s always been hard to fault people who have vowed not to get on a plane if it’s the anniversary day of the attacks. For some, it’s not even about fear and superstition. The memories of that day are simply too much to take, and nothing will make you fix on such a thing like being on an aircraft on the anniversary.

But last year I flew on September 11. And it was one of the most peaceful flights I had all year.

I was coming home from the CSO Security Standard. I was managing editor of CSO at the time, and the Brooklyn event was a favorite, because it always coincided with the anniversary. New Yorkers showed us how to stare down adversity during and after the attacks, and there’s something special about being in NYC around that time of year. But I never managed to fly on 9/11 until last year. I always left on September 9 or 12.

Truth be told, I didn’t think much about the anniversary when I went to the airport. I was too tired to think about much of anything after a super-busy few days. I was also more focused on being annoyed with the third-world experience that is LaGuardia Airport. But once we took off, I looked out the window and could see Lower Manhattan, with the Freedom Tower rising up next to where the Twin Towers once stood. I could clearly see the two memorial pools built in the footprints of the towers as well.

It brought my mind right back to the anniversary. But it also inspired me in a major way, which suppressed any feeling of dread or sadness I might have otherwise had.

I’ve been to the site many times. But on the ground it can be hard to get the full appreciation of what’s taking shape there. It is, after all, a large construction site with all the noise and barriers that drive a person to distraction. It’s also not easy to get a clear view of the memorial unless you’re right there, behind the fencing, boards and signage. Seeing it from above was quite a trip, indeed.

It wasn’t an exercise in banishing fear, since I had already overcome the fear of flying years before. But it was one of those moments that marks you forever.

In this case, it’s a mental mark I’m happy to have.

World Trade Center

Posted on

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

Posted on

Perception or Reality?

A couple friends who were at the 1992 Lollapalooza show I recently wrote about agreed with my general retelling of events but experienced something much different than I did.

Said one: “I guess it’s true: Perception is reality.”

Mood music:

I couldn’t agree more. It reflects a point I’ve repeatedly tried to drive home: The events I describe in this blog are based on my own personal truths, the most accurate retellings I can offer. But I know my perception of things isn’t exactly the whole picture.

I’ve heard from family and friends over the years who have suggested that my take on particular events was different from how they remembered them. One family member whose privacy I’ll respect here told me that most of my childhood memories are fabrications.

Many people tend to see the world in black and white. Something is either the truth or a lie. Nothing in between. I’m not one of those people.

From my perspective, we all see things our brains try to interpret as honestly as possible, but there’s no objectivity. We have built-in biases and perceptions of the world around us. The result is that if you put 10 people in a room and something eventful happens — a fight or medical emergency, perhaps — two people will tell you what they saw and it’ll differ from what three other people saw. The rest of the room will add different perspectives to the story. This is especially the case if you ask those people to describe the event a year or more later.

In the case of that Lollapalooza show, what I saw was filtered through a brain that was off-balance and sick, which made my memory one of terror. Others will tell you that they were there and were not afraid. They just had a good old time reveling in rock and roll. Some will have seen events through brains that were also unbalanced at the time, but in different ways. I suffered from heightened fear, but someone else could have been prone to death wishes and such.

To really get at the truth, you have to get multiple perspectives from multiple people. The real truth will usually be something in between the opposing perspectives.

This case is no different.

Lollapalooza II