A while back I mentioned a problem I was having with my guitars, a problem only someone with OCD would have. Yesterday, a buddy shared a cartoon that illustrates another problem I could find myself dealing with if I ever decide to play live again:
Well, that wouldn’t really happen. But it made me laugh.
I think that the title should read OC/DC, however. I get the need to have O-C-D together. But it just doesn’t look right if it’s going to be a tribute to AC/DC.
As someone who has struggled with both compulsive behavior and binge eating, a blog post from Pilates instructor, movement therapist and martial artist Kevin Moore called “The 6 Most Shockingly Irresponsible ‘Fitspiration’ Photos” strikes a big chord with me.
Moore takes aim at the advertisers who put out photos of rail-thin men and women with six-pack abs with messages suggesting you’re inferior, even pathetic, unless you find a way to get ripped. Number three especially resonates with me. It’s a saying I’ve seen a lot on places like Facebook:
I won’t say this one offends me. But as someone with OCD, a condition where obsessive behavior is a form of slavery, I find it spectacularly stupid. Especially the part about people being lazy if they are not of this “dedicated” mindset.
The saying describes the dedicated as those who spend hours upon hours in the gym, pushing their bodies to the outer limits until they reach physical perfection. Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to be obsessed with both exercise and the more obviously self-destructive behaviors like binge eating: Being that dedicated is not always a good thing.
I have a lot of friends who are very athletic and I’m inspired by them. Some have lost a lot of weight that caused them a variety of health problems. Getting in shape wasn’t easy for them, but they got it done.
But when you start to feel subhuman because you only exercised an hour instead of two, or you only lost two pounds in a week instead of five, you’ve blown past the parameters of healthy.
The biggest reason I find this slogan stupid, though, is that I know from experience how obsessive exercise is used to mask ongoing bad behavior in the eating department:
I’ve heard this kind of behavior described as athletic bulimia. I found it easy as hell to become dedicated to athletic bulimia. But health had nothing to do with it. My obsessions were all about body image.
And slogans like the one above only made the obsession worse, because it was always a reminder that my body was not perfect.
When my OCD was at its worst, fear, anxiety and paranoia crippled me. People who didn’t share my ideas were enemies out to destroy me. It was never true, but a damaged mind concocts crazy shit.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/IQHqJiebKKA
I call this Nixon-itis. Richard M. Nixon trusted no one. He saw conspiracies everywhere. Opponents were enemies to destroy before they could destroy him. It’s the stuff the enemies lists and the Watergate cover-up were made of. A favorite book on the subject is Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein.
Here are four personality traits of Nixon-itis and ways I try to fight it.
Inanimate objects attack when I enter the room.
Whenever my car broke down or I stubbed my toe walking into a chair, those objects were, in my eyes, sentient beings out to fuck with me. My solution has been to yell at the objects or punch them. I put quite a dent in the roof of my first car, a 1983 Ford LTD station wagon with a constantly flooded carburetor.
Attempted remedy: These days, when a device malfunctions or I stub a toe, I remind myself that these aren’t living things and therefore can’t possibly be out to hurt me. There are still days I forget, but only momentarily.
Co-workers are back-stabbing SOBs.
Work environments all have their stresses, and when colleagues are tasked with competing objectives clashes happen. If you work in sales or marketing at a newspaper, for instance, goals often conflict with the ethics drilled into editorial people. Or you might work for a tech company and come up with an idea that your bosses shoot down. Over time you see these folks as co-conspirators out to make you fail.
Attempted remedy: When someone goes against me in a work setting, I try to look at their own pressures and mandates and realize they’re not out to get me. They’re simply trying to fulfill their own tasks. By seeing their side of things, I find ways to compromise with them. Then we all get something accomplished.
The government’s out to get me.
When life sucks, it’s easy to blame the government for your every misery. You can’t make it because they make you pay taxes. Regulations exist to beat you. I once followed political events as if my life depended on it. As I get older, I become more convinced government affairs have little to do with my day-to-day life. But I know people for whom politics and government are very personal, dangerous matters that lead to hatred.
Attempted remedy: I stopped watching news programs. I no longer subscribe to Time or Newsweek. I still scan headlines so I have a general sense of what’s going on. But I’m largely detached from it all — and much less paranoid.
My family wants to kill me and take my money and kids.
In every family there’s dysfunction. When loved ones can’t reconcile their differences, emotions boil over and fry the brain, leading to all manner of irrational behavior. Parents who go through a bad divorce are a good example. They’re so bitter with each other that they see every differing opinion as a plot. Maybe it’s a scheme to leave you homeless and destitute. Maybe it’s to poison you so you’ll die in your sleep. Maybe it’s to poison everyone against you. As ridiculous as those notions are, they become feasible if you are at odds with a former loved one. Then you try to hurt that person back, using the children as weapons.
Attempted remedy: Like the second remedy, I try harder to see the other person’s side of things. I try to be more forgiving and accepting and no longer see family I don’t get along with as enemies. But the art of compromise in this arena is something I haven’t even come close to mastering.
I’ve written previously about how my OCD gives me the tendency to latch onto certain subjects and research them obsessively. Examples include the history of the Manson and Amityville murder cases, to the point of getting a closer look at sites related to those cases.
I’ve always considered this obsession harmless. It makes me read a lot of books on the subjects and visit places when the travel schedule permits, but what’s wrong with that? The obsession expands into other areas of America’s past, including White House history. That one got me in trouble once but also led to a West Wing tour for Erin, the kids and me.
Now I find myself captivated by the history of Whitey Bulger, his associates and their arrangement with the Boston FBI.
Mood music:
I’ve always had more than a passing interest in Whitey and his brother Billy, who ruled the Massachusetts statehouse with a corrupt iron fist for decades. But the recent trial of Whitey rekindled my interest. I recently read Black Mass, probably the best one on the subject, and now I find myself Googling everything related to the subject.
Since I live and work in the Boston area, I now have the compulsion to drive around to every place connected to the case: the Lancaster Street garage Bulger and his associates used as a front, the South Boston liquor store he extorted from a husband and wife immediately after they opened for business, the places where his victims were exhumed.
These outings are always more fun with friends, especially those with photography talents.
Who’s in?
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’m tickled to discover that my birthday is a special day to The Ramones, too. Turns out, yesterday was also the 37th anniversary of the band’s debut album. They were always an important band for me, especially after I learned that Joey Ramone was a fellow OCD sufferer.
Mood music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7PEzQQYWag
I owned multiple Ramones albums on vinyl, and wore them out from playing them so much. A favorite was Halfway to Sanity. Back then I knew nothing about my own OCD, let alone Joey Ramone’s. I just loved that the songs were loud and simple and that the band members were ugly like me. But looking back, they were the ideal personification of OCD. Their songs revolved around simple chord progressions with a lot of repetition. Repetition fits the OCD mind like a glove.
I skipped my senior prom and attempted to get into a Ramones show at The Channel in Boston. I didn’t have a date anyhow and getting kicked in the stomach by punk rock was more appealing than dancing to Bon Jovi.
Also noteworthy: There was a time before Erin and I started dating that she was driving behind me on the way home from Salem State one day, and I noted she was bopping her head up and down and back and forth. It turns out she was listening to The Ramones. I believe it was “All the Hits and More” she had in the tape deck. The strawberry-blond hair flailing around was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
When I was researching famous people who shared my mental disorder and I saw Joey on the list, his status as one of my all-time heroes was cemented. That someone with OCD could stand in front of a raging crowd of punk rockers every night floored me. By the time he died in 2001, he had amassed a body of work that will inspire people forever.
When someone thinks they’re doomed to a less-than-wonderful life because they have a mental illness or physical defect, just look at what Joey Ramone did. Then try to tell me you can’t soar above the things that seem like limitations.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to the first Ramones album — repeatedly, obsessively and unapologetically.
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.”
This was originally written after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. Many tragic events have happened since then, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns, the resulting economic calamity and now race riots in cities across America after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after being pinned down by a white officer. Now more than ever, we must put aside hate and be a force for good in the lives of our friends, family and neighbors. In other words, be the blessing.
***
I get frequent messages from readers. One was from someone tormented by current events — be it the government spying on citizens or any number of potential calamities. She asked how to make it stop.
I didn’t have an answer. I have no psychiatric degree — only my personal experiences.
Mood music:
The reader’s message said, in part:
I deal with scrupulosity, ruminations over heaven and hell, conspiracy theories and intrusive thoughts. It’s gotten to the point where it’s become impossible to function when I read a new headline about what the government is doing to us. I get depressed and I get obsessed. I see my intense fear and read things about the government tracking us, and suddenly I regret all the research I did about conspiracies over many years. I don’t know if I even believe it all, but I somehow feel like the more I know, the more I can somehow save my family.
I don’t know what to do about current events. I don’t know how to save my family from government tracking (even though we’re not doing anything illegal or anything that would be of concern), yet I feel like my OCD is making me out to be this inadvertent target due to the fact that I’m always obsessively searching through conspiracy websites attempting to find “answers.” How did this stop? How do you deal with this?
I can relate to her fear of current events. It’s something that used to paralyze me on a regular basis. I felt the need to give an answer broader than the fear of current events part, because to me that’s merely a symptom of the bigger problem people like us must confront. And so I mentioned how, for me, the biggest helpers have involved:
I noted how, even after adding these tools, I still struggle. Some days I forget to use some or all of those tools for a variety of reasons. Using them actually takes more energy than I have some days. And if something really big dominates the news, it will still have an impact on me. The Boston Marathon bombings come to mind.
After I hit “send,” I remembered something a friend wrote not long before she died of cancer. Renee Pelletier Costa wrote about her despair over leaving all the people in her life and how her pastor replied simply, “Then don’t leave.” That statement made her realize that in a world she couldn’t control, she could still use whatever time was left to be a blessing to others.
That was a huge point for me as an OCD sufferer. I can’t control most of what goes on in the world around me, but I can still carry on each day in ways that make the difference to family, friends and colleagues. It can be as simple as saying good morning to someone and holding a door open for them. You can talk to them about their struggles — or better yet, just listen to them. Bring them a coffee. Make them laugh. Any of these things go a long way when someone’s having a shitty day.
The NSA will keep spying on us. Stocks will rise and fall. But none of that can keep me from being there for my family, from playing guitar and doing other things that make life worth living.
To the best of my ability, I choose to be the blessing. What happens from there isn’t up to me.
One of my biggest struggles has always been impatience. I hate waiting, whether it’s being stuck in a long line at Starbucks or getting adjusted to life’s changes. Since I recently started a new job, the challenge has grown particularly steep in recent weeks.
Mood music:
It’s all good, really; I’m enjoying the new job. But I’m always obsessed about where I want to be in the process, and that has made for a world of hurt in past jobs. That hurt is usually all in my head, thoughts that run wild and make me sick or irritable.
The normal thing to do is take it a day at a time, learn the ropes and realize that it takes several weeks to start hitting the right groove. But that’s not me. I come in with a long list of what I want to accomplish and get bummed out if I haven’t burned through half the list after the first two weeks. If I write 5 blog posts, I feel like I should have done 10 or 15 by that point. If an idea for a new web page isn’t live a month after I’ve laid down the first design, I start to feel adrift.
If I were a carpenter instead of a writer and editor, I’d be bummed out about not getting an entire house built in the first month.
The reality is that a person usually has plenty of time to get acclimated. Some jobs ramp up faster than others. When I worked in a record store in my early 20s, I only had a few days to learn the ropes. By the end of the first week, I was expected to be restocking shelves and working the cash register.
But that’s retail. In the world of writing and editing, the ramp up is a longer process, especially when you’re doing the job in a setting that is not based on an editorial operation.
What I need to do now is going to take time. Relationships must be made and solidified. Ideas have to go through multiple channels for review. That’s as it should be. Push things through too fast and you’ll create a legacy of half-baked works. Push too hard on people you’re just getting to know, and they’re not going to want to work with you much.
So I’m working on taking the new job a day at a time. Doing so should be easy. My new workmates have made me feel welcome and comfortable.
My only enemy is in my head. He’s an old adversary, and I suppose he’ll always be there. It’s an enemy born of false and impatiently conceptualized expectations. He pushes me to move fast and recklessly. But I can’t let him win.
I’ll be working the coping tools hard in the coming weeks as I find my footing. Waiting is hard. But more often than not, it’s necessary and you have to accept it.
And so I’ll continue trying.
It’s a miracle I’ve survived a decade of writing about information security in my day job, considering how technologically inept I can be.
As I try to set up a new analytics tool for this blog, get accustomed to the daily use of Skype and install work email on my Android, I find that my OCD is off the charts. I keep hearing this in my head:
“Look out honey, ’cause I’m using technology!
Ain’t got time to make no apology.”
—The Stooges, “Search and Destroy”
The Skype and phone issues are actually no big deal, but the analytics tool is making me crazy. There are a million plug-ins so you can better access your site metrics, and all are advertised as easy to use. I’ve downloaded one after the next, carefully following the instructions, only to have them all fail.
Some say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. I have to admit that’s an accurate statement. I once spent an entire afternoon freaking out over a VPN that kept dropping. That was two jobs and several years ago. I’m much better at dealing with such things now, but I still have smaller explosions.
The answer to these ridiculous episodes is to walk away, to do something else and try again later. But for all my progress in recent years at managing the more disruptive OCD episodes, I have yet to master that one. There’s a chance I never will.
Yet I continue to succeed in the world of technology from a career standpoint. I actually love playing with new tools and programs and have gotten pretty good at doing it, especially on the smartphone. I like to access the guts of the machinery and learn what makes it all tick. And when I figure it out, I feel pretty fucking brilliant.
My big problem is how I can get when I can’t figure it out.
Fortunately, people around me continue to save me from myself. Erin is a natural at setting up and managing all the feeds and coding that drives me to distraction. A friend at work was generous with his time when I needed help configuring some of the programs I’ll now be using daily.
Eventually, I’ll figure out the analytics tools, too.
Until then, I’ll try not to go off the deep end.
