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Packing for #RSAC 2016: An OCD Case Study

At the end of the week, I’ll be packing for five days in San Francisco, where I’ll write about the goings-on at RSA Conference 2016. When you have OCD, packing a suitcase is as ritualistic as the compulsive hand washing you’ve heard about.

Mood music:

Before I had the OCD under control, packing was an all-day affair. I’d line up all my clothes and accessories in order of the days I planned to wear them. I would undergo a similar ritual when gathering toiletries. I’d pack extra for fear that I’d be without something on the second-to-last day of the trip.

Today I do things a lot differently. I still keep track of what I stuff into the suitcase to ensure I have enough for each day, but I only look over my cargo twice. It takes less time to do than when I used to look things over 5 to 10 times.

I save space in my suitcase because I don’t stuff it with cigars and cigarettes anymore. While I carry my vaping pipes, they take up less space. I also used to stuff books in to have something to read during downtime. I don’t do that anymore, because those books always sit unread. I’ll still have a supply of Starbucks Via packets in case I can’t find my preferred coffee in the airport.

Last year I walked around San Francisco in my big, heavy boots. This year I’m being smart about it and going with the sandals that slip on and off effortlessly.

One year I forgot to grab my Prozac bottle on the way out of the hotel and only realized my mistake after getting through the airport TSA line. Now I just pack the exact number of pills I need for the trip. The rest of the bottle stays home.

Packing the laptop bag has gotten easier, too. I used to cram five notebooks and a handful of pens in there. Now it’s one pen and no notebooks. At this stage of my career, I’m pretty good at storing notes in my head. I don’t let then sit in my head for too long, either. I usually write up the talks and demos within 10 minutes of seeing them. Some talks I write up while I’m watching.

I still worry about having enough power cords, though, so I pack every cord I own. But I don’t lay them all out on the table to count them multiple times. I just stuff everything into the bag.

I’ve also gotten bolder about when to go to the airport. I used to get to the airport three hours before the flight because I worried about unexpected problems and wanted time to fix them. I’ve scaled that back to two hours during recent travel. So far, it’s working out fine.

I may not travel the lightest I can, but when you have OCD and learn how to simplify packing, it’s a victory.

Safe travels, all!

Suitcases and Briefcase

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This Time, Anxiety Won

A confession: This past week, I’ve done a miserable job using my many coping tools to manage OCD and anxiety. What makes this particularly sinister is that I’ve just finished a week of vacation with the kids.

Mood music:

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Everything I’ve told you in past posts about learning to enjoy the precious present and not let worry take over is true. Weeks like this simply drive home the reality that I can never be fully free of my demons. I can only manage them and keep them from overtaking me most of the time. I’m fine with that. We all have our special challenges that dog us for life. It produces a pain we gain wisdom from. And from that wisdom comes joy.

So what set me off this week? Travel plans.

Tonight I fly to San Francisco for a few days of covering RSA and Security B-Sides. I was supposed to leave tomorrow morning, but was forced to leave a day sooner because of another impending winter storm in the Northeast. That made me resentful right off the bat. I was expecting a nice day with my wife and kids before leaving, and this was a big monkey wrench in the plan.

It also stoked my anxiety. Not the fear part, but the part where I worry to the point where I can’t see two feet in front of me. I watched the weather like a hawk. I downloaded no fewer than three weather apps on my Android and followed them all throughout the days. I checked all the weather sites every time I opened the laptop or switched on the TV.

If the predicted snow count went up, I grew depressed. If the projected amounts went down, I became unreasonably euphoric.

That kind of mood swinging does terrible things to the human body. Hormones go nuts, muscles tense into headaches and you sleep terribly.

I have no one to blame. I did this to myself. I sometimes get so cocky about my ability to manage the demons that I’m thrown for a bigger loop than I otherwise would be when things don’t go as planned.

As for the anxiety, it didn’t have to be that way, because it really was a good vacation otherwise. I got in a lot of quality time with the kids. Erin had to work most of the time, unfortunately, but Wednesday we had a nice dinner out and Friday we had a family day with a visit to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, N.H. After that, Erin and I did groceries together for what was probably the first time since the kids came along. That was pretty cool.

But I let my worry overshadow it all, and for that I’m a little pissed with myself.

It’s time for me to regain my control.

Def Leppard Hysteria album cover

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Stoned and Panicked on the Interstate

The memory was buried until yesterday, and frankly I’d have been happy had it stayed buried. Funny thing about suppressed memories — they spill out during the damndest moments, like a drive down I-95 in Maine.

We were returning from a family camping trip near Old Orchard Beach yesterday, and as I drove the camper south, my stare caught the north-bound lanes.

Sometime in the summer of 1991, Sean Marley, a couple others and I sped north into Maine around midnight. We were in my beat-up 1981 Mercury Marque, and Sean was driving. I was in the back, about to have a panic attack thanks to my decision to read a newspaper after smoking weed.

Mood music:

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I can’t remember if Sean was high, but I do remember him being in the midst of some fucked-up sleeping experiments. One phase of the experiment involved him sleeping in a different room of his house each night, the goal being to break himself of the comfort you get from going to the same familiar bed at the end of each day. Another part of the experiment involved not sleeping at all for multiple days.

He was pretty gone at that point and kept chanting “Jesuses penises” over and over. The more he did it, the more unhinged I became. My uneasiness was based on four things:

  • I was paranoid from the weed.
  • It was dark, lonely and scary on that highway — probably because I was stoned and paranoid.
  • Sean was driving my car like an asshole, which had already suffered a smash in the rear from a hit-and-run driver a month before.
  • There was a newspaper in the back seat.

News about scary world events used to trigger my anxiety back then, and this was just after the first Gulf War. A headline in the paper said something about Saddam Hussein having come closer to getting a nuclear bomb than anyone has previously thought. I spent the next week worrying that my corner of the world would go up in a mushroom cloud, courtesy of an evil dictator pissed off over all the bombs we dropped on his country a few months before.

It’s kind of amusing that the headline set me off, given that we would learn 12 years later there were no weapons of mass destruction.

But at that moment in the middle of the night, it seemed like an imminent threat. In reality, the more imminent threat was of the car sliding off the road and into a tree.

Three years later, the sleep and drug experiments caught up with Sean, and he had a breakdown. Two years after that, he died by his own hand, another victim of depression.

I would be done with marijuana within two years of that night, but I’d spend the following decade and a half living with a more muted but persistent depression and continuing bouts of anxiety and panic. I would occasionally lean on pills (prescribed for back pain) and alcohol to numb the fear. More often than not, I would simply shove a massive amount of food down my throat.

But I survived and eventually got well. Now I can travel at all hours and not freak out over it. I might get tired and annoyed, but I don’t get scared. In a way, you could say I’ve come full circle, traveling that same stretch of road clean and sober, hauling a camper with a Chevy Tahoe full of family.

But that old memory still bothers me a little, because it shows how unhinged two close friends were slowly becoming.

Bill and Sean

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The Wit And Wisdom Of Sean Brenner

Today is Sean’s 11th birthday, and we’re all very proud of him. In honor of this special day, I share with you some of my favorite Sean-isms.

Mood music:

–Heard in the bathroom: Sean singing to no one in particular, “Your butt’s too big to be real…”

–Me: “I missed you Sean. I love you.” Sean, staring intently at the drawing he’s working on as I tell him this: “Dad, go get me a pencil”

–Sean, grousing about his loose pants: “This is ridiculous. If Eve didn’t eat that stupid apple, I wouldn’t have to worry about pants!”

–Sean, explaining The Prodigal Son to Duncan: “If there were a third brother, he would have just sat there chilling out, taking it all in.”

–Sean-ism of the morning: I learned Australian in second grade. It’s my second language.

–Sean, exasperated that Duncan is running around sans pants: “For Pete’s sake, Duncan! You’re a lot of work.”

–Sept. 23, 2010: I feel a strange sense of satisfaction for a Dad who was just informed by his oldest that “You are ruining my life.”

–Sean: “Babies come out the you-know-what” Duncan: “Gross. Why’s that?” Sean: “That’s just the way life works.”

–Sean, in response to me telling him and Duncan to do a chore: “Dad, if you’re trying to annoy us, it’s not working.”

–Me to Sean: “You’re so stinkin’ cute.” Sean to me: “You’re so stinkin’ ugly. No offense.”

–Sean, noticing the Greek Orthodox church we were driving past: “Gee Whiz! I didn’t even know Greek Mythology was still around!”

–Sean, trying to coach Duncan through a Star Wars game online: “Oh, for crying out loud Duncan… USE THE FORCE! USE THE FORCE!”

–The Sean-Duncan Star Wars feud takes a dark, stinky turn: Duncan says Sean keeps calling him Sen. Poopatine and he wants me to punish him.

–Bathtub chatter: Sean: “Cheese is your favorite food, right Duncan?” Duncan: “Of course.” Sean: “I read they’re gonna stop making it soon.”

–Sean’s take on his grandfather (my father): “I’ll tell you what, Duncan. There is nothing we can’t get him to do.”

–Sean, growing impatient with the DC-to-Boston drive: “What state are we in besides a state of confusion?”

–Sean: “Can I have more computer time?” Me: “No.” Sean: “Wow. That was unexpected.”

–I have a ZZTop concert streaming on the laptop while I work. Sean takes a look and asks if the guitar player is “that @jack_Daniel guy.” (Jack is a heavyweight in the security industry who looks a lot like Billy Gibbons from ZZTop)

–Sean’s Lament: “My workbook project calls for a mural about compassion. Much to my dismay, it makes me want to barf.”

–Sean just proclaimed that my iced coffee looks like cow manure with ice cubes on top.

–Sean: “One of the things I really love about Gramma and Grandpa is that they’re so disorganized.”

–Sean just kicked my ass at 3 games of checkers. Now he’s trash-talking me. My revenge will come later, and it will be spectacular.

–Sean-ism of the day: “Thank God for Dunkin Donuts. There’s always one along the road when you really need to use the bathroom.”

–Bad Sean joke #452 … Sean:”Why did the cop wrap the crook in tinfoil?” Me: “I dunno. Why?” Sean: “Because he wanted to foil the crime.”

–Sean: “I’m looking forward to seeing the White House tonight. Good food there.” Me: “We’re there for a tour, not dinner.” Sean: “Oh well.”

–Sez Sean, because I didn’t look at his computer game fast enough: “C’mon Dad, what’s more important, your son or your Blackberry?”

–Sean, fighting with Duncan: “My life was pretty good till you came along.”

–Sean scolded me for killing an ant cause “They’re God’s creatures.” Then he found one on his Lego sets, and now he wants all ants dead.

–Sean’s description of Duncan’s breath: “Like a cat climbed in your mouth, peed, pooped and died.” His breath was just as bad.

–Sean hasn’t stopped laughing since I told him Bun Bun — the Whites’ dwarf hamster — got caught in Sam’s closet and crapped everywhere.

“You are the picture of evil.” Sean, after I made them do homework on their snow day.

Sean, pretending to be a clone trooper from Star Wars: “I hate this job. I don’t get MLK Day off. Crap, I didn’t even get Christmas off!”

Me to Sean: “I have a thought.” Sean: “There’s a 50-50 chance I’m gonna protest it.”

Sean: “Duncan, how many kids do you plan to have?” Duncan: “20: 10 girls, 10 boys.” Sean: “I can’t watch all those kids. Scale it back.”

Sean’s 9-year-old reaction to news that Uncle Brian is getting married: “Oh yeah? Whatever.”

Duncanism of the day: If the inside of my head was empty, I’d be light-headed.

Sean’s reaction to the Duncanism of the day: “Duncan, you infuriate me.”

“Good luck. You’re gonna need it.” Sean, wishing one of Erin’s friends well in an important business venture

“Get out of the way, Lando! For crying out loud!” Sean, temper flaring, during a particularly difficult Wii game of “Star Wars: The Complete Saga.”

–Said Sean, matter-of-fact-like: “If you don’t want your butt to get burned, don’t live in a frying pan.”