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.
Guest blogger Ram Meyyappan explains how severe-OCD sufferers can receive financial help.
If you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits may be available to you. Before applying, you will want to learn more about the application, review, and qualification processes with the Social Security Administration (SSA). The following tips will help you better understand the programs available and the process of applying.
Tip #1: Understand How to Medically Qualify for Benefits for OCD
The SSA reviews OCD claims under the listing for anxiety-related disorders in the Blue Book, which is a manual of disabling conditions and the medical evidence needed to qualify for benefits with each of those conditions.
The listing that applies to OCD requires your medical records prove you experience persistent and severe symptoms that include at least one of the following:
Anxiety
Irrational fears
Panic attacks
Compulsions or obsessions
Reliving traumatic events
In addition to documenting symptoms matching at least one of those listed above, your medical records must also document that your OCD also causes:
An inability to function outside your own home without constant assistance or monitoring
OR
Severe issues that include two of the following:
Pronounced difficulties in completing everyday activities, including essential activities of daily living
Functioning socially
Concentrating, completing tasks, or moving at a reasonable pace
Recurrent episodes of increased symptoms, even while undergoing treatment
Tip #2: Learn How to Financially Qualify for Benefits
The SSA also requires you to meet certain financial or technical eligibility requirements to receive SSD benefits through either or both of the disability programs available:
For Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, you must have very limited income and other financial resources you can draw on.
For Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), you must have worked and earned work credits by paying Social Security taxes, making $1,070 per month or less due to OCD. This is what the SSA considers the threshold for substantial gainful activity (SGA).
To be approved for disability benefits, you must completely fill out the application and ensure the information is accurate and matches your medical records. It is good to have another individual, such as a friend, family member or Social Security advocate or attorney, review your application prior to filing. They may see missing details or contradictory statements that you have overlooked.
Missing or incomplete information in your application will cause delays in the review of your claim. These kinds of errors can also result in your being found ineligible for benefits. For this reason, providing thorough documentation and accurate information on the SSA’s forms is crucial.
Tip #4: Appeal If Your Claim Is Denied
If your claim for SSD benefits is denied, you can file an appeal. The first appeal is typically a request for a reconsideration review of your application. This must be filed within 60 days of that date of the denial notice you receive in the mail.
If you are denied a second time, you will need to request an appeal hearing before an administrative law judge to continue trying to get disability benefits. That request for appeal must also be filed within 60 days of the denial notice you receive.
Late last year, as I was looking for a new therapist to replace the one who retired, I decided to clean the slate and get a new primary care physician, too.
Choosing a new doctor can be a difficult process. We can get comfortable with the doctors we have, even if they’re not doing us any good. We might not like doctors at all, making us resistant to seeking one out.
But if we all need help maintaining our mental and physical health. When we have mental or physical issues that need frequent monitoring, doing nothing is a perilous proposition.
So I cleaned the slate and it’s been good. But it hasn’t been without pressure.
Mood music:
I found a therapist I believe is a perfect fit. We’ve been working specifically on reshaping my daily routine so that I remember to spend time on the mindfulness techniques I learned a year ago. The only problem is that it’s an hour-drive to reach her. That can be a pressure in itself. But the work of maintaining all the progress I’ve made in recent years compels me to suck it up. Better to drive far for a good therapist than drive down the street for a shitty one.
The new medical doctor has caused me more stress. Or, more accurately, it’s what he found.
Despite a diet devoid of flour and sugar, where most meals are carefully measured, I managed to gain close to 20 pounds last year. The problem was that I made adjustments to the diet but didn’t up my exercise to compensate. I also got a bit sloppy with my food during business travel, and I travel a lot.
My cholesterol went up with my weight, and so did my blood pressure, to the point where the doctor put me on medication.
I spent the better part of December angry with him. I didn’t like that he was trying to tell me how to eat or which piece of exercise equipment to buy. But my anger was misdirected. I was really pissed with myself for not being more careful.
My new therapist helped me to see that — proof that she’s worth the long drive.
So I’ve doubled down: I tightened my food plan and increased my exercise. I found an elliptical in our price range and turned a corner of the garage into a mini-gym where Erin and I plan to exercise together once the rest of her equipment arrives.
I’ve used the machine almost daily, and I’m down 9 pounds. The blood pressure is down, too.
I’m much happier since I decided to own up to things and accept the new course set by new doctors.
As it is when dealing with addiction, the first step is to admit you even have a problem. Once you take that step, the rest becomes more manageable.
So here we are at that time of year when everyone is supposed to be happy and glowing with Christmas spirit. As for me? This time of year really fucks with me.
Mood music:
[spotify:track:1kh2KHdYc1xCejan0h5ZUv]
This has traditionally been a time of year when bad things have happened to me. The suicide of a friend at the start of one holiday season. The death of sibling at the end of another. Several childhood hospitalizations in between. An emotional meltdown during the 2004 season.
For the definitive story on why the Christmas season throws me for a loop, read one of my first posts on this blog, “An OCD Christmas.”
The holidays have been far kinder to me in more recent years, though not without its occasional bumps. There’s the seasonal depression that throws me off balance every year and the struggle that comes with being a recovering binge eater at a time of year when my drug of choice is all around me.
My story isn’t special. It’s pretty typical, actually. I’ve talked to many people who struggle at the holidays for a variety of similar reasons.
All is not bleak, however. Over the years, I’ve worked hard on changing my Christmas attitude for the better. Some examples:
I work to keep my eye on the big picture, specifically the fact that this season is truly about celebrating the birth of Christ. Since I’m a believer, that one has kept me increasingly grounded.
Prozac and Wellbutrin go a long way in keeping my brain out of the dark, ice-encrusted gutter.
Family and friends have always been a crucial ingredient in seeing the joy of the season. It just took a long time for me to appreciate that.
If more bad things happen during the holidays, I know that family and friends are always there to soften the blow.
I have a thicker skin than I did back when holiday pressure was beating me into rubble.
And with that, I enter the 2013 holiday season full of hope that this year will be better than previous years.
With another Veterans Day upon us, I want to thank our servicemen and -women for a very specific sacrifice they’ve made.
Mental sacrifice is always implied when we thank our veterans for the larger sacrifice of life and limb to protect our freedom. That’s as it should be. Still, as someone who has never seen combat but has struggled with mental illness, I’m especially grateful to troops past and present for carrying the mental burden.
Mood music:
I have many friends who have served in the military and have seen combat. They’ve been shot at, lost limbs and lost buddies they served with. They suffer with depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
I wish they could have been spared all that. But I hope they can get some satisfaction and even happiness in knowing that they raised the profile of mental illness as a scourge to be confronted more than perhaps anyone else could have.
Soldiers are known for their courage, and when that courage extends to confronting mental maladies left by war, they are breaking stigmas that have held us all back.
Amid the last decade’s War on Terrorism, we saw an alarming rise in suicide among those who came home and couldn’t reconcile their former lives with where they had been and what they had seen. We saw a lot of troops struggling with depression as they came to terms with the loss of arms and legs. Many of them shared their struggles publicly and, in the process, showed us all how to move beyond adversity toward something better.
One example that sticks with me is that of U.S. Marine Clay Hunt. He survived Iraq and Afghanistan but ultimately fell to depression, taking his life in 2011 at the young age of 28.
Before he lost his battle with depression, though, he managed to help countless people suffering with the same disease. As James Dao wrote in a New York Time‘s blog post, “News of Mr. Hunt’s death has ricocheted through the veterans’ world as a grim reminder of the emotional and psychological strains of war — and of the government’s inability to stem military and veteran suicides, which have climbed steadily in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.”
Despite the ravages of PTSD, Hunt threw himself into volunteer work. Dao wrote that he built bikes for Ride 2 Recovery, a rehabilitation program for injured veterans. He journeyed to Haiti and Chile with Team Rubicon to help organize events for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and appeared in a public service announcement encouraging veterans to seek help for mental health problems.
Despite how his life ended, I hope his friends and family know how much he did to fight the mental illness stigma.
I want to thank him and all the other veterans who have taken arms against the enemy of the mind. Peace be with you all.
Clay Hunt participating in a 2010 Florida ride with the Ride 2 Recovery veterans organization. Hunt, who was active in various public service groups, took his own life in March 2011. Photo by the Associated Press
A few months ago my therapist retired and moved to warmer environs in the south. He said I was managing my OCD well and that I didn’t need therapy until the autumn.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/Ils9GXqU03c
That last appointment was in the spring, with the season’s increasingly long periods of daylight, the environment I function best in.
Now it’s late October, with shorter days, and the seasonal issues are starting to kick in. Sunday I started getting chest pains and Monday I was breaking out in a sweat for no good reason. I’m familiar with these symptoms. It usually starts as heartburn and then my OCD runs wild with thoughts that I might be having a heart attack. When that worry increases, the sweat appears.
I used to get them all the time, but in recent years they’re few and far between. When I get one, it usually means I’m experiencing some big stress in my life.
I thought about what might be causing it. All in all, life is good. My wife and children are healthy. I love my job. Most things are status quo, except that we’re still helping the kids adjust to life in a new school. But that’s been an ongoing processes and hasn’t kept me up at night. So what’s the deal?
Of course, that’s what therapists are for: helping you yank out the underlying issues you can’t see on the surface.
I’ve been shopping for a new therapist for a couple months now. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve called several that I researched online. Most haven’t called back. The rest weren’t the right fit.
Fortunately, I have great friends looking out for me. One friend, herself a mental health specialist, is working her contacts and getting me names. From that list, I may have found the therapist I’m looking for.
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.
With last week’s terrible Washington Navy Yard murders, politicians are preaching the importance of better mental health services. In the process, stigma building has reached disturbing heights.
Mood music:
This massacre, like Sandy Hook and Aurora, Colorado, before it, was perpetrated by a troubled soul with some degree of mental illness. Navy Yard killer Aaron Alexis had told authorities weeks before that he was hearing voices in his head. Aurora shooter James Holmes had colored his hair red and was dressed head to toe in black tactical gear when he murdered people. After he was arrested, he told police he was The Joker. Adam Lanza had a history of deep mental illness when he grabbed his mother’s guns, killed her and headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School.
As a result, the media is sinking its teeth into the crazy factor, the notion that if you’re mentally imbalanced, you might be the next mass murderer. The NRA, in an effort to deflect renewed calls for tougher gun control, suggests the problem is that too many homicidal maniacs are running loose. NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre went as far as suggesting more of the mentally ill need to be committed.
What LaPierre and others are saying is “If someone is mentally ill, they are a potential threat to public safety.”
Whether they they really believe that or not is debatable. It’s true that recent shooters were deeply disturbed emotionally and mentally. But the words LaPierre chose paints everyone with mental illness as a dangerous lunatic and they build an undeserved stigma.
My struggles with mental illness are well established. It’s the reason I started this blog. At my lowest lows, I never considered picking up a rifle and wiping out a school. I know many, many people who have struggles similar to mine. I don’t know of a violent soul among them. They include business leaders, cops, doctors, friends and family.
Suggesting these tragedies are about the need to register mentally ill citizens in a database and commit them if necessary is as stupid as suggesting that tougher gun control laws will prevent more mass shootings. It hasn’t worked in the past, and it won’t work now.
Recent shootings didn’t happen because we have an epidemic of crazies on the street. I don’t even think weak gun laws are to blame. They happened because somewhere in the sequence of events, someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
Lanza’s mother kept a lot of guns around the house, even though she knew how disturbed her son was. She could have kept the weapons locked up and out of sight. Instead, they were easily accessible at the moment her son snapped.
Alexis had called police a week before the shootings and told them he heard voices he feared were “sending vibrations through his body” and were out to hurt him. Police questioned him, and then notified the Navy police. Naval police sat on the information, and Alexis held on to his security clearance, ability to carry a weapon and access to the Washington Navy Yard.
Along the way, people with the authority failed to follow the most basic of security protocols.
Maybe it’s time to stop debating whether the problem is too many guns and too many crazies, and demand those responsible for security do their jobs better.
People often ask me if I get offended by jokes and movies about OCD. The answer is usually no, because I think it’s healthy to see the humor in one’s afflictions, and the movies, when done right, educate the masses on what it’s like to suffer from this scourge. But one thing does piss me off.
It’s when people say they “went OCD” after doing such routine tasks as cleaning their house, cooking or completing a work project.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/72rWAe0pUdQ
When someone says they “got all OCD” with particular tasks, I usually keep my mouth shut. In most cases no one gets hurt from such talk and everyone I know who has tossed around the acronym so casually have done so without malice, and are good people I’m grateful to call friends, colleagues and family.
But I also think if someone is going to say they have OCD, they should know what the disorder really entails. Having a Type-A personality doesn’t cut it.
Sure, there are parts of my own OCD that look like Type-A activity. I tend to swing for the fences when a task is before me, and I have had a lot of career success that was in part fueled by the freakish drive I get when the OCD runs hot.
But there’s more to it. Much more.
For me, OCD also means crippling obsessions and compulsive behavior: worry that has spun out of control and made me physically sick. The itching urge to check doors over and over to make sure they’re locked or check my laptop bag multiple times to make sure the computer is in fact in there. The nagging itch to go on a binge or spend money on something I can’t afford.
I’ve learned to manage these darker aspects through therapy, medicine and life experiences. But I never forget the fear and anxiety I lived with for years as the OCD spun furiously beyond my control.
I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Obviously, I sure as hell wouldn’t wish it on friends and loved ones.
So next time you describe how OCD you are, think about what that really entails.
I think there might be confusion about cause and effect here. Also, depression is not just a mood you experience some times.
I bristled at that for a moment, because I’ve been pretty open about my long battles with depression and, to my recollection, have never suggested it was a little mood I sometimes find myself in. We went back and forth a bit more on Twitter and reached a consensus of sorts. He thanked me for clarifying, adding, “Too often I see people treating depression like a paper cut.”
It’s easy to feel that way when someone starts picking at the various causes of depression from around the edges. In the case of sleep apnea, the lack of proper sleep isn’t the primary trigger for my bouts of melancholy. For me, a variety of triggers feed the larger monster.
But over time I’ve found it important to stop and ponder every little piece of the puzzle. The sleep apnea is just one more discovery, and the treatment could be a new arrow in a quill that’s grown fatter over time.
Along the way, I believe I’m improving myself and making the depressive episodes smaller as I go. I’m getting a constant education and I try to apply those lessons to my daily life.
I’m not going to stop doing so, even if people occasionally suggest I’m letting small details get in the way of the bigger picture. I know the big picture all too well.
The depression I’ve experienced amounts to wasted years, long periods where I hid indoors, lying in front of the TV, eager to escape the real world. I missed out on a lot of quality living in those years.
Thanks to the right mix of medication, years of intense therapy and other lifestyle changes, I’m a different man today. I don’t fear things like I used to, and I’ve racked up many priceless experiences in the last half-decade as a result.
I still suffer from periods of depression, especially in winter. But my time no longer goes to waste.
If picking around the edges keeps me from sliding backwards, so be it.
Clay Hunt participating in a 2010 Florida ride with the Ride 2 Recovery veterans organization. Hunt, who was active in various public service groups, took his own life in March 2011. Photo by the Associated Press
