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Sarcasm or Gallows Humor?

It’s appropriate to start with Dilbert’s take on the topic at hand:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO1UWmRS7yc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

My wife just read my post on the Power of Sarcasm and decided to go digging for the actual definition. She’s an editor. That’s what she does.

Here’s what she found:

“Sarcasm” is “a keen or bitter taunt : a cutting gibe or rebuke often delivered in a tone of contempt or disgust” or “the use of caustic or stinging remarks or language often with inverted or ironical statement on occasion of an offense or shortcoming with intent to wound the feelings.”

She pointed out that I’m not really a bitter person, and that my jabs are playful. So why bring myself down in the gutter and suggest I’m a bad person when I’m not?

In the comments section of that post, she wrote:

Why you say the off-color remark is as important as what you say. If the intent is to show your contempt, to point out an offense, or to hurt someone, you are being sarcastic.

But if your intent is to make light of a tough situation as a release, not to wound, that seems to me to be more of a black humor: humor marked by the use of usually morbid, ironic, grotesquely comic episodes.” It may be something else altogether as well; I won’t pretend to be an expert on humor and all its vagaries. But I do sense different emotions and intents behind different humorous responses.

Sarcastic seems very mean to me (esp. in light of the definition above) and a very different thing from a gentle teasing, not meant to wound at all.

Fair point. I would definitely describe mine as a dark humor. Or Gallows humor. Sarcastic when I’m in a bad mood, perhaps.

As I said before, sarcasm is also a root of dysfunction in other parts of my family. Several of my family members are equally sarcastic, if not more so. But I sometimes get offended by it because I feel like people are laughing AT someone instead of laughing WITH them. This has produced a fair share of strain on that side of the family, and I have to claim fault on my end.

I described it as hypocrisy on my part in the last post. But if one is to take these definitions in their purest meaning, maybe I’m not being hypocritical after all.

Which means I’m now free to unleash even more sarcasm. Or dark humor.

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The Third Brother

Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.

The first time I met him was my second day as a reporter for The Stoneham Sun. He was an oddball who wore a jacket and tie to go with his sneakers and sweatpants. He was rail thin with a mustache that could comfortably hide a pound of whatever crumbs got caught there.

He wore a a strange-looking hat over a thick mop of hair. I was absolutely certain from Day 1 that the hair was fake, but never asked about it.

This is the tale of Peter Sugarman, another older brother who left me before I was ready. But he taught me some important lessons along the way and — oddly enough — his death was the catalyst for me finally getting the help I needed for what eventually became an OCD diagnosis.

My friendship with Peter really blossomed over the course of 1997, though it was a year earlier when I had first met him. I was in a bad place. My best friend, Sean Marley, had recently died and I had just taken a job as editor of the Lynn Sunday Post, a publication that was doomed long before I got there. I just didn’t realize it when I took the job.

I worked 80 hours a week. To get through the pressure I binge ate like never before and isolated myself. I had no real friends at the time because no one could compete with a dark room and a TV clicker.

But Peter was a bright spot, even though he was infuriating my editor side. A lot. His writing could be off the wall and opinionated when I was looking for straight, objective articles from him.

He once wrote about a blind man who, instead of offering a story of inspiration and living large in the face of adversity, led a bitter existence and talked about that bitterness during his interview with Peter. I opened the story on my screen for editing and saw the headline “Blind Man’s No Bluff.” I let the headline go to print, though I shouldn’t have. But the dark side in me thought it was funny, and the higher ups weren’t paying enough attention to The Post to notice.

He would write one story after the next questioning the motives of city councilors and the mayor. He would tag along with firefighters and write glowing narratives portraying them as heroes. That would have been fine if the assigned piece called for opinion. But it didn’t, and I edited it heavily.

That Sunday, I found a voicemail from Peter. He was furious, ripping into me for letting the J-School in me take over and ruin a perfectly good piece of journalistic brilliance.

I quickly got used to getting those messages every Sunday.

At the same time, we became constant companions. Whenever I left my dark bedroom, it was either to be with Erin, by then my fiance, or Peter. We hung out in every coffee shop in Lynn. He showed me the dangerous neighborhoods, introduced me to the city’s most colorful characters and showed me hidden gems like the Lynn Historical Society, where I was treated to boxes of old correspondence from former Mass. Speaker Tommy McGee, a colorful pol who, like many a Speaker who followed, eventually left the Statehouse under a cloud of corruption. I wrote about the old correspondence and interviewed McGee in his Danvers condominium. I couldn’t help but like the guy.

Peter and his wife, Regina, became constant dinner companions. When I finally escaped from The Post, our friendship deepened. I still hired him for the occasional freelance article in the Billerica paper I was editing. He would show up to cover meetings wearing his colorful collection of hats, including one that had “Yellow Journalist” emblazoned across the front.

He became my favorite person to talk politics with. He was at every family gathering. He and Regina were a constant presence when both our children entered the world. They were at every kid’s birthday party. They were here for our Christmas Eve parties.

Peter was in bad health, though, and was often in the hospital. His colon had been removed long before I met him and he continued to smoke. He was also a ball of stress when traditional J-School editors were tampering with his writing. I would call him and he would rage at whoever the editor was at that moment.

I enjoyed the hell out of it. His tirades always entertained me, whether I was the target or not.

I ultimately came to understood what it was all about. He wasn’t in journalism to write the traditional reports people like me were taught to write. He was in it to root out the truth and help the disadvantaged. He was a man on a mission to right the wrongs he saw. And he did so cheerfully. Even when his temper flared, there was a certain cheerfulness about it.

In the spring of 2004, he developed shingles. He grew depressed, though not beaten by any stretch. Regina later told me he was “bolting” down his food. Swallowing quickly without chewing because the shingles had irritated the heck out of his mouth and throat.

One night, he choked on a piece of chicken. He lost his breath just long enough to cause insurmountable brain damage.

He lingered for about a week in the hospital, essentially dead but still breathing with the aid of life support. For the first time in our friendship, I saw what he looked like without the hairpiece. I was right all along.

In the months following his death, I really started to come unhinged. The OCD took over everything. Fear and anxiety were constant companions.

I finally reached the deep depth I needed to realize I needed help. In the years that followed, I got it. It hasn’t been easy, but then I can always remember that things weren’t easy for Peter. And yet, he carried on with that warped cheerfulness of his.

I’ve endeavored to do the same. I’ve also come to understand the value of the writing he tried to do, and have embraced it.

Thanks, Peter.

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How To Play Addiction Like A Piano

The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/fKZRcIGnaqE

I hear it from addicts all the time. They put down the thing that’s caused the most chaos and heartache in their lives, but then they find themselves latching onto smaller addictions to fill the hole. Chain smoking, for example.

That hole inside is what compels us to harm ourselves in the first place. Fail to address the source of the pain you’re medicating and the demons will be back. You end up pushing down on all the different addictions like the keys on a piano.

I’m lucky in many respects, because I started dealing with my pain source years before I even tried to address the addictive byproducts. I also have a powerful ally in God, and got a lot out of praying the Rosary on the hour-long commute to work this morning. I can also indulge in some perfectly harmless and always therapeutic metal music.

But truth be told, I still struggle with other addictions when the big one is under control, just like everyone else. They are the less destructive kind, but troublesome all the same. Especially when you can’t afford them the way you once could.

My addiction to coffee is well known. No apologies there. At this time, I have no desire or plan to kick it, no matter what the therapist tells me. It’s cheap. It doesn’t impair my ability to function. It’s really the most harmless addiction I will ever have.

The computer, the BlackBerry, the social networking sites — all addictions. But like the food this is a tough one, because all of those just happen to be vital tools of my trade. I can practice putting them away on nights and weekends, but banishing them completely is simply out of the question.

I also have a habit of spending money on stupid things when I need a quick fix that’s no longer satisfied with food or alcohol. Maybe it’s on a book I’ve already read and really have no reason to buy. Some of the desk trinkets were most certainly purchased on a spending jag.

Now we’ve arrived at the problem.

I have massive urges to spend money these days, but I have a powerful reason for mostly abstaining. Unlike previous spending sprees, the money simply isn’t there. OK, it probably never was there. But Team Brenner is down to one steady salary and a spending binge now could keep essential items from being paid for.

This isn’t a complaint. In fact, it’s a gift. Not one I wanted, but one I need. If lack of money is what it takes to put down another addiction, so be it.

Erin is worried about the money supply, as am I. We haven’t struggled to make ends meet in a long, long time. But we both chose this path willingly because starting the freelance business is something Erin simply must do, just as I simply had to pursue the career I’m now enjoying. I don’t regret it for a second, and in the end I know all will be well.

God’s Plan can certainly be infuriating at times. But I’m going to keep following it to see where it leads.

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6 Guys I Look To In Times of Trouble

This is the perfect time to write about why I’m such a history nut. I’m in a rotten mood because my office technology is on the blink, keeping me from getting things done.

People with OCD don’t just shrug off such things. We zero in on the problem like the proverbial laser beam, trying anything and everything to fix the problem until, exhausted and bewildered, we realize what we knew in the first place — that some things are beyond our control no matter how much we’d like to make it so.

Now that I’ve found my bearings and poured another cup of coffee, I’m ready to sit back and let the IT professionals do their thing.

What does all this have to do with history? Plenty.

Yesterday I wrote about all the pictures and statues of historical figures I have scattered across my desks at home and in the office. Today is about why these people are important to me.

Bottom line: The historical figures I revere all had to overcome disease, mental illness and personal tragedy through the course of their lives. I look up to them because they dealt with challenges greater than anything I will probably come across in my own lifetime. And they achieved what they achieved despite crippling personal setbacks.

I’ll stick with six examples, though there are many more:

Teddy Roosevelt was a sick kid who wasn’t expected to live a very long life. He had serious asthma and other ailments. His first wife died giving birth to his first child the same day his mother died in the same house. Yet he went on to fame as the Rough Rider and President of the United States. He wrote countless books throughout his life, went on a danger-filled journey to South America to map The River of Doubt after he was president and already in declining health.

FDR was a pampered child whose world view changed when he was crippled by polio in 1921. A lot of people would have given up right there, but he rebuilt his life, became a mentor to other polio victims and was the longest-serving president in history, dealing with war and economic calamity that could have broken the spirit of healthier leaders. Through it all, he carried on an outward cheeriness that put people at ease.

Abraham Lincoln has been covered at length in this blog. He suffered crippling depression his whole life and lost two of his four children, all in a time before anti-depressants were around.

JFK had plenty of flaws. But he achieved much for a guy who spent most of his life in bad health. He suffered searing back pain, intestinal ailments, frequent fever and he had to see two siblings die and another institutionalized before his own death.

Winston Churchill held his nation together and led it to victory over the Nazis despite a lifetime of suffering from crippling depression, which he often called his Black Dog. He also spent every waking moment in a constant buzz and smoked long cigars that I’ve tried but couldn’t handle.

Now for the most important example of all:

As mentioned before, I’m a convert to the Catholic Faith and would be nowhere today without it. Jesus appears sixth because I wanted to save the best for last.

The picture above speaks volumes to me. Here was a man who went through suffering of the most brutal kind. And he did it to give me and everyone else a second chance.

I don’t dare put myself in the same light as these individuals. I relate to what some of them went through in their lives, though, and here’s the point:

When work isn’t going the way I want or I’m going through an episode of depression or other compulsive behaviors, I can look up to the people tacked to my workspace walls and be reminded that my troubles are nothing compared to what the REALLY BIG ACHIEVERS went through.

And when my ego blows its banks, the sixth fellow on the list is there to take me down a few pegs and remind me of where I fit in the larger order of things.

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Prozac Winter

The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.

My therapist and I recently agreed that my Prozac intake should go up a bit for the duration of the winter.

I’m doing well for the most part, but there’s a three-hour window of each day — usually late afternoon — where my mood slides straight into the crapper.

The reason is simple: People who suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain are directly impacted by daylight levels. When the weather is dismal, cold, rainy and the days are shorter, a lot of folks with mental illness find themselves more depressed and moody. Give us a long stretch of dry, sunny weather and days where it gets light at 4:30 a.m. and stays that way past 8 p.m. and we tend to be happier people.

There are lessons to be had in the history books:

— Abraham Lincoln, a man who suffered from deep depression for most of his adult life, went from blue to downright suicidal a few times in the 1840s during long stretches of chilly, rainy weather. [See Why “Lincoln’s Melancholy” is a Must-Read.]

— Ronald Reagan, a sunny personality by most accounts, was a man of Sunny California. Once, upon noticing that his appointments secretary hadn’t worked time in his schedule for trips to his ranch atop the sun-soaked mountains of Southern California — and after the secretary explained that there was a growing public perception that he was spending too much time away from Washington — Reagan handed him back the schedule and ordered that ranch time be worked in. The more trips to the ranch, he explained, the longer he’ll live.

The WebMD site has excellent information on winter depression. Here’s an excerpt:

If your mood gets worse as the weather gets chillier and the days get shorter, you may have “winter depression.” Here, questions to ask your doctor if winter is the saddest season for you.

Why do I seem to get so gloomy each winter, or sometimes beginning in the fall?

You may have what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The condition is marked by the onset of depression during the late fall and early winter months, when less natural sunlight is available. It’s thought to occur when daily body rhythms become out-of-sync because of the reduced sunlight.

Some people have depression year round that gets worse in the winter; others have SAD alone, struggling with low moods only in the cooler, darker months. (In a much smaller group of people, the depression occurs in the summer months.)

SAD affects up to 3% of the U.S. population, or about 9 million people, some experts say, and countless others have milder forms of the winter doldrums.

So this worsening of mood in the fall and winter is not just my imagination?

Not at all. This “winter depression” was first identified by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1984. They found this tendency to have seasonal mood and behavior changes occurs in different degrees, sometimes with mild changes and other times severe mood shifts.

Symptoms can include:

  • Sleeping too much
  • Experiencing fatigue in the daytime
  • Gaining weight
  • Having decreased interest in social activities and sex

SAD is more common for residents in northern latitudes. It’s less likely in Florida, for instance, than in New Hampshire. Women are more likely than men to suffer, perhaps because of hormonal factors. In women, SAD becomes less common after menopause.

Here’s where the Prozac comes in for me:

As I mentioned in The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill, Prozac helps to sustain my brain chemistry at healthy levels. Here’s a more scientific description of how it works from WebMD:

How Antidepressants Work

Most antidepressants work by changing the balance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. In people with depression, these chemicals are not used properly by the brain. Antidepressants make the chemicals more available to brain cells like the one shown on the right side of this slide:

Photo Composite of Neurotransmitters at Work

Antidepressants can be prescribed by primary care physicians, but people with severe symptoms are usually referred to a psychiatrist.

Realistic Expectations

In general, antidepressants are highly effective, especially when used along with psychotherapy. (The combination has proven to be the most effective treatment for depression.) Most people on antidepressants report eventual improvements in symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, and hopelessness.

But these drugs do not work right away. It may take one to three weeks before you start to feel better and even longer before you feel the full benefit.

I’m convinced the drug would NOT have worked as well for me had it not been for all the intense therapy I had first. Developing the coping mechanisms had to come first.

I’ve also learned that the medication must be monitored and managed carefully. The levels have to be adjusted at certain times of year — for me, anyway.

So next week I’ll start taking the higher dosage and let y’all know how it goes.

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No Year’s Resolutions

The author vows not to make any New Year’s Resolutions, because he has learned that it’s easier to meet all his objectives without that stupid list.

Making New Year’s resolutions used to be a compulsive activity for me. I was always so desperate for something better that I fiendishly and feverishly made lists of what I would do in the coming year:

–Stop binge eating

–Stop worrying about what other people think of me

–Stop trying to please everyone

–Stop letting my mind spin with worry

–Face down my fears

I used to go crazy about all that stuff, all to no avail.

By the end of the first week of a new year, these resolutions were cast aside. The eating resolution went first, then the bit about worrying about what others think.

Thing is, I eventually tackled everything on the list. But it was a much longer process than the instant-reset fixes we have a habit of pursuing at the start of every new year.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no reset button. The journey begins when you’re born and ends when you die. Case closed.

In that spirit, I promise to KEEP AT the following:

–I will keep drinking coffee and savoring the occasional cigar. I put down the food and have sworn off alcohol. We all have a collection of addictions, and my approach is to hold firm against those that cause me the most dysfunction. Coffee suits me just fine, and the cigars are infrequent.

–I will keep listening to metal music, because it keeps me sane.

–I will keep enjoying a good humorous tale, especially the off-colored variety.

— I will keep up and increase the devotion to my wife and children. In doing so, I will keep up and increase my devotion to my Faith.

— I will keep feeding my appetite for history and learning from the hardships of those who came before me.

–I will write a TON of articles in the world of cybersecurity because it’s what I do and what I love.

–I will keep trying to be a better friend and colleague, regardless of the date on a calendar.

–I will keep working the 12 Steps, because it is essential to my well-being.

— And I will keep writing this blog, because it’s a mission whose time has come.

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OCD DIARIES 12-30: The Break

The author tries to take a break from writing, but chaos in the form of his two sons reminds him of another lesson worth sharing.

Sean and Duncan have the audacity to fight over video games at this early hour, my usual writing window.

Back before I found control over the OCD, this normal childhood behavior would send me over the edge. Fighting children equals chaos. People like me don’t do chaos well. I am, after all, someone who craves order.

The good news is that I don’t go over the edge anymore. I look up from my laptop screen, tell them to knock it off and get back to my writing. A lot of their fighting amuses me because of the zingers that spill out their mouths.

So I tell them to knock it off and, once hidden behind the computer screen, grin broadly.

I appreciate that I can enjoy these moments instead of being undone by them.

It’s a nice break.

Today will still be a day crammed with chaos. This morning I’m taking the kids to play with their cousin Madison and Uncle Dave’s vast Lego collection. This afternoon I’m babysitting the children of one of Erin’s best friends so the two of them can go have a girls’ afternoon out. It’ll be me and four kids. They’ll be wrecking a house other than mine, so I’m actually looking forward to it. Tonight Erin and I will take the boys to the N.E. Aquarium — one of their favorite places on Earth — for a members-only event.

I never thought it would be possible to feel relaxed with a day like that ahead. And yet I am relaxed, even as the coffee begins to course through me.

It’s nice to embrace life instead of trying to run from it. I’m enjoying a week off from work without worrying about all the stuff I need to do when I get back. If anything, I’m looking forward to all the things I have to do next week. By Saturday, I suspect I’ll be itching to get back to it.

The original purpose of today’s entry was to announce I’m taking a break from blogging for a couple days. It’s a forced break. I’m trying to give folks a chance to catch up with the torrent of writing I’ve done these last three weeks.

For someone with OCD, the compulsion is to keep going. To stop is to lose precious momentum.

But that was the old me. The new me is happy to take a break and enjoy the precious present.

Somewhere along the process of writing today’s entry, I got sidetracked and started going on about my kids. No apologies for that. I kinda like how this entry turned out. It’s all over the place, but it’s nice to meander once in awhile.

It sounds stupid. But it’s true.

Happy New Year, friends.

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OCD DIARIES: The 12 Steps of Christmas

The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory. There’s really no Christmas theme here, other than that the author found the headline catchy.

I’m reconstituting my OA food plan quite nicely since the Christmas Eve scare. I’m lucky for not having slipped completely. Now I find myself thinking about the 12 steps this program is based on. It’s been a bit since I’ve reviewed them to see where I fit in, so here goes:

Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

I have this one nailed. Hell, I wouldn’t have started going to OA meetings if I hadn’t realized I was indeed powerless over my addiction. But as I was reminded last week, this step must always be top of mind. Otherwise, you relapse before you know what hit you.

Step 2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

This one was easy for me. I realized a few years ago that I would be nowhere unless I let Jesus into my life. Thing is, when an addict is busy being an addict, they’re too busy giving in to the Devil to listen to God. Thankfully, God’s voice is much louder as time goes on.

Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

For this, I direct you toward the post about my conversion: The Better Angels of My Nature.

Step 4 – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

This is a tough one. I’ve definitely done a lot of soul searching about where my fault lines lie and how to be better, but I have a lot of work to do on this one. The biggest sign of progress is that I can look back on the past and see that while I was busy smoldering over people who were being jerks to me, I was busy being an even bigger jerk to someone else. [See: Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies] I’ve also realized that I have a bit of an ego problem that needs work. For more on that, see The Ego OCD Built.

Step 5 – Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

I’ve admitted it to God and myself, and a few other human beings. But when it comes to outlining the EXACT NATURE of my wrongs, I’m not always as honest as I need to be. But I’m working on that.

Step 6 – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

I’m ready, but old habits die hard.

Step 7 – Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

I ask Him every day. Of course, I think God helps you see your shortcomings but you have to be the one to work on the removal part.

Step 8 – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

I’m willing to make amends with some people but not others. I know for sure I have harmed others in my life and I’m truly sorry for that. Others harmed themselves. I just happened to be standing too close to the tracks when they put their hands on the third rail. Clearly, I have work to do on this one.

Step 9 – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

See Step 8.

Step 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

I’m working hard on this one every day. I thank you all for being patient.

Step 11 – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

Doing this step a lot, and believe me — it helps. A lot.

Step 12 – Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

You could say that starting this blog was my way of working this step. I’ve also started sponsoring people in OA to help them get a grip on their compulsive eating. I’m not sure I’m all that good at it yet, but I’m definitely grateful to those who come to me looking for help. In asking me for help, they are actually helping me to be a better man. It sounds confusing, but it’s true.

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Scaring the People in Your Life

The author is hearing from a lot of old friends shocked to read about his past. Thing is, basket cases are good at hiding their craziness in public.

To most of my family, the stories I tell in previous posts aren’t all that surprising. They were there. My in-laws may not have known everything that was going on back in the day, but they saw my quirks.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:78iMIaSjeVlUoNa7rehPOU]

Even at work, my quirks were easy to see. It surfaced in the form of my over-intensity on deadline; my habit of hovering over page designers; my overbearing nature toward the reporters I managed on the night shift.

But I was much better at keeping it together — on the surface, at least — around most friends back then.

Which brings me to another truth about people with mental illness and addictions: We do most of our suffering and self destructing in private.

There’s a scene in a “West Wing” episode where Leo McGarry, recovering alcoholic and chief of staff to the fictional President Bartlet, tells someone: “I don’t get drunk in front of people, I get drunk alone.” I ate alone. And I ran through my darkest, most obsessive-compulsive thinking alone. Most of the time, the two went hand in hand.

But there were times in my life where I hid it well.

As a student at North Shore Community College and later at Salem State College, I was really coming into my own in terms of my look and attitude. I played up the long-hair and metal image, stayed thin through bouts of starvation and read a lot of books so I could talk about them and appear smart.

That’s not to say I was walking around with fake skin. I was who I was at the time. In many ways I’m still the same guy. It’s just that I waited till the door to my room was closed and locked before I let the Devil out.

Despite what I’ve written about being the crazy-ass guy in the newsroom, I’ve been pretty good a lot of the time at putting on a calm, cool face, especially in more recent years. As I was diving deeper and deeper into the food addiction to dull the unpleasantness of going through therapy, I was being prolific as hell at work, writing a ton of breaking news and doing so with a smile.

At one point, a boss at the time marveled that I was so relaxed and zen-like for a guy who had just spent 12 hours covering a big news event. I laughed hard at that. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but zen-like was a new one.

On the drive home that day, I ordered $35 worth of junk in a nearby fast-food drive-thru and downed the contents of the four bags by the time I got home.

I was also pretty good at hiding my depression. Part of that is because my brand of depression has never been the suicidal variety that essentially makes the sufferer close down. Mine was more of a brooding depression in which I internalized my feelings and withdrew as often as I could. But on the job, I pushed all those feelings into the proper compartment and went on with life.

There’s light at the end of this tale. The therapy, medication, Spiritual awakening and loss of fear have gone far in making me the calm, zen-like guy on the inside as well as outside. I still carry the restlessness of OCD, but I manage it all better and don’t let the condition get in the way of the precious present nearly as much as before.

To those who knew me in the late 1980s and early 1990s: Don’t worry. I’m basically the same guy you knew back then.

The difference is that the man inside has gotten a lot better at being the man on the surface.

But make no mistake: I still have my bad days. I am human, after all.

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OCD Diaries 12-27: Edge of a Relapse

The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.

Mood music for this entry: “Accidents Can Happen,” by Sixx A.M.:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nan4Kdtz-9w&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

It was bound to happen sooner or later. That moment where the addiction would come calling again. [Instead of retreading my history of addiction here, I’ll point you toward the entry that gets into it all: A Most Uncool Addiction.]

I put down the flour and sugar — my whiskey and/or crack — on Oct. 1, 2008 and dropped 65 pounds on the spot. Thursday night was the first time since then that the food came calling.

Here’s how it works:

You’re going about your business and all seems well, then maybe you spot some food on the table that you USED to binge on. You walk away, but the vision of the food sticks in your mind like the edge of a knife. You walk back toward the food without actually realizing you’re doing it. Before you have time to process what’s happening in your thoughts, the food is in the mouth.

The good news is that I didn’t touch the flour or sugar in the end. My abstinence from those ingredients remains intact. But the other part of my program, where almost everything I eat goes on a little scale, faltered. Not terribly. But enough for me to stop and realize I was in the perfect position for a full-blown relapse.

My first brush with potential relapse is unsettling, to say the least. When you work so hard to get to a certain point and come close to throwing it away, it’s downright scary.

This morning I’m feeling the bloat. I’m sure it’s because my dinner didn’t go on the scale as it should have. I was at a restaurant, celebrating my step-mom’s birthday. I ordered the right things, but didn’t pay enough attention to how much was on the plate.

I awoke to the realization that I need to reign it in and double down on the usual discipline.

The good news is that, unlike previous times where I would lose my way with the food, I’m not walking around in a depressed fog. My mind is pretty clear right now. I know what I have to do.

That is an important sign in my evolution. I may still screw up on occasion, but instead of descending into weeks and months of binge eating, I’m poised for a quick rebound.

That’s real progress.

I’m also awakened to the fact that all addicts are at risk for a sudden relapse. You can be right as rain, and then you’re falling down before you can even process what’s happening.

The reason I include that Sixx A.M. video above is because it speaks so clearly on the problem at hand. Nikki Sixx fought heroin and other addictions for many years. He has gone from stone-cold sober to full-blown relapse and knows how it can potentially break a person for good.

The point of the song is that, as the title says, accidents can happen. The part of the song that really cuts to the core is this chorus:

And you know that accidents can happen
And it’s okay,
We all fall off the wagon sometimes
It’s not your whole life
It’s only one day
You haven’t thrown everything away.

The reason those lines are so powerful is that as addicts, we truly believe we’ve thrown it all away when we screw up. There’s the feeling that to fall off the wagon is to undo weeks, months or years of progress; to be right back to square one, as if the program of recovery never happened.

I’ve been there before. Not this time.

In one sense, I’m lucky because I didn’t lapse back into the ingredients and binge behavior of years past. Maybe that makes it easier for me to regain my footing.

But I also think I’m lucky because I’ve experienced some true growth, the kind where setbacks make you stronger instead of undoing you.

So for today, I’m thanking God that I had a fender bender and not a head-on crash. I’m tightening the eating today, not tomorrow or New Year’s Day. The fix starts now.

And since I’m in between OA sponsors, I’m going to stop dragging my heels and get a new one. It’s critical to have someone to kick you in the ass in times like these.

Break time is over.

To be able to get back up and move on, for me, is so absolutely huge.

I Thank God for that.

I’ll end by pointing you toward another song that sums up my closing lines here– “Broken, Beat and Scarred” by Metallica:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ACdgebi4c&hl=en_US&fs=1&]