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We’re All Broken

The author finds that sometimes his church family is too judgmental.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3p7XSsT6AFs9lCkv6FtLbj]

Father Mike went on another tirade against politicians in his Homily yesterday. He always makes a lot of points I agree with when it comes to politics and corruption, but this time I walked away feeling that he was judging people in a way we’re not supposed to do.

His main gripe was against the idea that there are people who will vote for pro-choice politicians even though they are pro-life. He called it “Political Schizophrenia.” [For more context, here is where I stand politically]

He then went on to say that politicians are all about keeping their own power, and how the removal of God from public life has gone too far.

I agree with him on some of that, particularly when it comes to schools not putting up Christmas decorations in December because it might offend someone. Separation of Church and State is often interpreted as the removal of God from government affairs. What it’s really about is government not forcing a particular religion on citizens and giving us the freedom to worship or not worship as we see fit. Schools should be teaching kids about all religions and how they reflect various aspects of global culture.

But I’m getting off track here. What really irked me yesterday is that Father Mike was painting all politicians with one brush. But reading between the lines, he was painting all DEMOCRATS with one brush. He noted that politicians are trying to remove the people from government and simply enact laws telling us all how we should live.

But the Church is made up of people who do the same thing.

Are there a lot of dirt bags out there who are Democrats? Absolutely. But there are a lot of dirt-bag Republicans in the world, too.

Just like there have been pedophile priests and priests who fought hard to expose the former.

My point is that we ALL struggle. We’re all broken in some way. It can be an addiction or an illness. It can be the way you conduct your business. Father Nason, our pastor, did a brave thing years ago and went public about his battle against alcoholism. As a recovering addict, I love him for that.

To lump one group into the “no hope” corner is wrong.

We are all people, and people screw up every day. God knows I do.

I’m reminded of the story where the people wanted to stone a woman to death for cheating on her husband. Jesus’ response was that “He who is without sin should cast the first stone.”

We’re all sinners. We could all do better. And yet we judge others anyway.

I do it, too.

I guess when we judge someone else, it makes us feel better about ourselves and makes us forget about the ghosts in our own souls.

But it’s a hollow, unsatisfying thing.

Judging others and thinking of oneself as better or above someone else is a disease that runs deep in the Catholic community. I’m sure it exists in the Baptist community, Jewish community and so on. But I’m part of the Catholic community, so I’ll stick with what I know.

I’ve seen educators in my parish put down other people behind their backs because they made a mistake or wasn’t skilled enough at a sport. I’ve seen fellow parishioners lump whole groups of people in the trash can of society because those people are not as pious as they are.

It’s human nature. We ALL do these things. Including me.

But it is wrong, and we could all do better.

Judging others despite one’s own flaws is also a disease that must be identified, managed and driven into remission.

Some of you are probably asking why I stick with a Faith that can be so flawed. My answer is simple: Every church, no matter the denomination, is made up of people who are broken, just like the government is.

But I show up because I believe Jesus died for my sins and is the only one who can save me from myself. What He did for everyone is what matters.

The misguided people who attach themselves to the church, the politics and the judgmental nature of faith communities is beside the point. These things are distractions.

To put it another way, my faith is all about my personal relationship with God.

Everything else is crap.

Some people might think less of me for being a devout Catholic. Some in the Catholic community might read this post and be angry with me.

Either way, so be it.

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Helter Skelter

The author admits that his OCD behavior includes an obsession with the Manson Case. Here’s why.

Ever since I was a kid and I first saw the 1976 TV movie on the Manson Murders, I’ve been fascinated. I’ve read “Helter Skelter,” the book by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, dozens of times.

I own the 1976 and 2004 versions of the film on DVD, along with a documentary called “The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter,” where host Scott Michaels, keeper of the popular Findadeath.com site, takes the viewer on a tour of places connected to the case, including Cielo Drive, scene of the Tate murders:

Why the fascination with such an awful tragedy?

Not because of the brutal nature of the murders. I’ve seen the crime scene forensic photos, and they made me sick to my stomach.

It’s really part of my fascination with history. Like it or not, this is a piece of American history. It’s a snapshot of everything that went wrong in the 1960s, where a counterculture born of good intentions — a craving for peace in Vietnam and at home — lost it’s way because there were no rules, no discipline and there was no sobriety. I agree with those who believe the promise of the 1960s died abruptly in the summer of 1969.

I’m also fascinated because it shows how easily seemingly stable people can be brainwashed and controlled to the point where they would willingly heed orders to commit the worst of sins.

I’ve learned from my own struggles with mental disorder that when a person is at their lowest and they’re looking for purpose, even the sweetest among us can fall prey to a monster like Charles Manson.

It shows the dark path someone can take without help from the right people.

That’s not to say I see myself in these people. I don’t. I could never embrace what they embraced, even when I was at my lowest.

But the bottom line is that these people were controlled, that a defect of the mind allowed this kind of programming to happen.

It has nothing to do with my own struggles with OCD. But since that struggle has forced me to do a lot of homework on the brain and what makes it tick, I can’t help but be drawn to these cases.

This one is a lesson in history and mental disorder all wrapped into one.

How could I resist?

I just hope others who are fascinated by this case are sucked in for similar reasons and not because they glorify what happened.

Unfortunately, the latter certainly exists in society.

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The Politics of OCD Management

The author finds an unlikely tool for OCD management in politics. Specifically, watching liberal and conservative friends fight over the subject.

This isn’t a post about the politics of having OCD and getting folks at home and work to accept it. It’s about enjoyment of the political debate as a tool for sanity.

Sound odd? Well, it is. But hear me out:

I have a lot of friends who are bleeding-heart liberals. I have just as many friends who might qualify as nut-job conservatives. The common thread between them is that they are wonderful, caring people who work hard and cherish their children’s future. Their beliefs are based on what they think is right, not on selfish impulses.

I get into heated discussions with them all the time. And it’s very, very good for me. I get to focus on issues bigger than my own petty concerns. When my political beliefs are challenged, it’s great exercise for the mind.

I’m getting a lot of this kind of exercise of late, because a heated campaign is under way to fill the seat of the late Edward Kennedy.

I live in the bluest of states, and yet the Republican candidate, Scott Brown, is surging in the polls. Chances are better than average that the Democrat, Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley, is going to lose.

She’s run an unbelievably inept campaign and it would serve her right. In fact, I’ve been undecided on who to vote for because of her. I like Brown as a person, but think his record as a state senator is overblown. I also believe the Democrats deserve more time to make their agenda work, because the Republican agenda of the last decade didn’t work out so well. That doesn’t mean I wholeheartedly embrace the Democrat agenda. I am a pro-life Catholic, after all. But I embrace the old saying of Franklin Roosevelt that what we need is action and bold experimentation. If an idea fails admit it frankly and try another.

If the Democrats fail, I’ll try another by voting for the other guy in the next election. But I’m not there yet.

On the other hand, Coakley offends my Catholic sensibilities, and that includes her handling of the priest sexual abuse crisis. As a district attorney for Middlesex County, she didn’t go nearly far enough in going after the abuse.

Who will I vote for? I’m not saying, because I don’t have to. And I can still change my mind between now and tomorrow’s election.

I consider myself a centrist. I believe the checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution were meant to keep our policies and laws on the middle road instead of the extremes to the left and right.

I like my leaders to be pragmatic and act on reason — not ideological fever.

I vote for Democrats and Republicans, based on who I see as the strongest leader for all seasons, not just the season when their political party has the House-Senate majority. I’m a history buff with a fondness for Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan as well as Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton.

I have a saying: If you’re a liberal, conservatives can’t tell you anything. If you’re a conservative, liberals can’t tell you anything. If you’re a moderate, you can’t talk to either people. I think that when you delve too far to the left or the right, you’re on walking on the lunatic fringe.

So I tend to say things to get a political argument started between friends and family. Then I get out of the way and watch them go at it.

By listening to both sides, I get that mental exercise I crave.

Some of my best friends are right wingers. I love my father-in-law dearly, but find his brand of conservatism misguided. Some of my best friends are also liberal to the core and see Republican conspiracy everywhere. It’s fun to watch. My wife is far more liberal than I am at this point, though she’s one of the more sensible liberals :-).

The other thing I like to point out is that mental illness is a bipartisan thing. The pain strikes Democrats and Republicans. Faith is also bipartisan, though a lot of priests and ultra-conservatives will tell you otherwise.

So while we all have our disagreements, we are truly all in this together.

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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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More On Famous People With Mental Illness

A good list on the subject is available from the  National Alliance on Mental Illness, NH branch. A few of those on the list:

Art Buchwald, Columnist

    Depression

Drew Carey, Actor

    Depression

Winston Churchill

    “Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished,” wrote Anthony Storr about Churchill’s bipolar disorder in Churchill’s Black Dog, Kafka’s Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.

Charles Dickens, Writer

    One of the greatest authors in the English language suffered from clinical depression, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb, and Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson.

Tony Dow, Actor

    Depression

Patty Duke, Actress

      • Bipolar disorder
        The celebrated artist’s bipolar disorder is discussed in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb and Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Van Gogh.
        Bipolar disorder
        Depression

The Academy Award-winning actress told of her bipolar disorder in her autobiography and made-for-TV move Call Me Anna and A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness, co-authored by Gloria Hochman.

Ted Turner, Businessman

Vincent Van Gogh, Painter

Sol Wachtler, Former New York State Chief Judge

Mike Wallace, Television Journalist

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Why Lincoln’s Melancholy Is A Must Read

I’ve always been something of a history nerd and am especially drawn to stories about those who have achieved greatness despite the crippling impact of mental illness. Winston Churchill was a sufferer (he called it his Black Dog). Theodore Roosevelt suffered from bipolar disorder. And Abraham Lincoln’s depression is well documented.

I just finished reading an excellent book on the latter: “Lincoln’s Melancholy” by Joshua Wolf Shenk. For anyone who has struggled with mental illness, it’s a must read because Shenk goes beyond simply detailing Lincoln’s episodes of depression and outlines the coping mechanisms he developed to get through the fog. In fact, the author argues, those very coping mechanisms fueled Lincoln’s greatness.

On the promotional website for the book, the author answers the question of how Lincoln was able to convert depression into greatness and how his coping tools came into play:

“First of all, in dealing with his depression head on — addressing it, staring it in the eye, grappling with it, and getting a hold of it within himself — Lincoln did work that turned out to be enormously character building and valuable to him. In one sense, the muscles he developed over a lifetime of suffering prepared him for the challenges that he faced in his presidency. Second, he had a tendency to see the dark truths of a situation, and he drew on this powerfully in his rhetoric and his actions. Experiments have shown that people who suffer from depression also exhibit something called “depressive realism” — and this applies to Lincoln. Finally, the depths of emotion that he explored as a result of his depression contributed to a deep creative capacity — as a writer and thinker. In his first inaugural address, he urged that the country would be well again when touched by “the better angels of our nature.” He didn’t say that that the worse angels would be killed or that they would go away. To the contrary, the image suggests that selves, and nations, are multi-faceted, capable of better and prone to worse, and locked in a struggle. It’s justifiably a famous phrase, and it reaches deep into the psyche because it reflects an experience that every human being knows intuitively, one of division and conflict, broken-ness and harmony, suffering and reward. These were ideas that Lincoln lived and struggled with much of his life.”

Check it out.