2011 - The Year I Overcame OCD

The year’s end is a pertinent time for reflection, and such personal reflections belong more in a personal journal than a self-indulgent blog post. I don’t intend to run through highlights, lowlights, top-10s or any of that shit, but it was a significant year as far as my OCD and anxiety goes. And a primary purpose of this blog is to document my recovery from those afflictions.

Indeed, 2011 was the year I beat down my OCD, from a menacing beast to a humble, quiet dog. A little black dog that still lets out a yelp or two, but sits, largely restrained, in the corner. It may return – almost certainly will threaten to – but I now have the tools to manage it. Mild anxiety still lingers at times, and probably always will, but I continue to pursue a calm, happy life, knowing now that I can. The dog's days are over.

Most important was the understanding that recovery was not a fight (as depression so often is) but rather the ability to accept and let go, rather than waste tense energy fighting, which merely gave strength to my demons.

I’m now almost eight years into my ‘recovery’ so the progress made this year has been a long time coming. Where did it come from? I can’t fully know. Partly from the natural desire to change as time passes and the implications of resisting change become more uncomfortable.

It’s fair to say the acceleration in recovery was kick-started by a girl I became close friends with late in 2010. She understood me like few, if any, other people I have ever known and demonstrated the required tough lover to unashamedly and relentlessly push me in the right direction.

In January this year she walked away. So 2011 started amidst a fog of heartache and confusion; yet through it I could sense a newfound notion of clarity, and was equipped with a determination to pursue it now that I knew in which direction to head.

I started yoga in November 2010, at her behest, but moved to a new studio early this year. Yoga was something I’d long considered, and quickly saw the benefits. Some of those first classes taught and forced me to let go of my OCD/anxiety safety net (my mental compulsions) and were emotionally challenging to say the least.

Once I settled into my new studio in Hawthorn, which is a fantastic place run by friendly instructors, I gradually got into a routine habit. I came to crave the peacefulness it provides and sought to translate it into everyday life. Compared to this time last year I have a clearer mind, sharper focus, better health and fitness, and calmer thought through (finally) successfully practicing of mindfulness and being better able to let go of irrational, obsessive and unwanted thoughts. I have changed long-ingrained thought processes, something that takes time and effort but it enormously rewarding.

Yoga didn’t necessarily teach me anything I didn’t know about my OCD and anxiety or how to combat it, it just helped me (enormously) to put the pieces together, and forced me to let go of those damn compulsive thoughts, thus minimising the obsessive part.

2011 was also the year of my grand ‘coming out’. After telling all to this blog, in April I was featured on a Hungry Beast story on OCD. Other telling immediate family and a few select friends, I didn’t make a big deal about it being on, but the response from people who saw it was amazing. Even in the last couple of weeks I’ve had a former colleague tell me she saw it but wasn’t sure what to say at the time (when we worked together). With the secret out, a massive burden lifted from my shoulders and my perspective shifted. No longer was this in any way something I battled alone and bottled up. People, friends and strangers, actually contacted me for advice. I felt in a very good place and wondered why I’d been so secretive about my depression in the first place; but really I know – there are millions of people still out there, including people I know, no doubt, battling on in silence, unaware that there is far more help and understanding waiting for them than they realise.

Unfortunately, my TV appearance did not lead to stardom…

As a result of all of this, 2011 has been the best year of my life. I have achieved more than any other year so far. I’ve written more, read more, exercised more and played (even recorded!) more music. I got a great new job. I’m the fittest I’ve been in my adult life. I am surrounded by beautiful and inspirational people.

And I can only expect 2012 will be even better. I have much more growth and progress left in me, and some exciting challenges for the coming year. I don’t ever want to be a ‘grown up’, it implies no room left to grow – growth and learning are what life is about. I’ve learnt so much from my experience with OCD and anxiety; I never want to live through the worst of it again, but I wouldn’t remove it from my past.

I’m not going to go into goals and resolutions for 2012. I have a few things I’m focusing on – better and more regular writing, being more assertive, continuing my mental health improvement, maybe drinking less…

But I don’t believe in resolutions as such. The end of the year is an opportune time to reflect, and 1 January is a milestone date, but not one to be used as motivation for change. If you have identified necessary change, now is the time, not on New Year’s Day. I don’t know, I just feel like those milestones just provide excuses to put things off, and demand sustained change, where it often takes a few tries.

Anyway, happy New Years to anyone reading this. Thanks for dropping by during the year, I’ve enjoyed it. There’ll be more to come in 2012.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Not Season's Greetings, Merry Christmas.

I'm not religious (anymore) but it will always be 'Christmas' for me. That is what it is, and what it has become is an all-inclusive holiday anyway; consumerism has done more to take Jesus out of Christmas than any leftist school or council looking to appease non-Christians. Whether or not he had an almighty Dad, Jesus seems to have been a pretty cool guy, so he can keep the naming rights for mine.

That rant behind me, I think I've become much less 'scroogey' in recent years. Not only because of the fact my niece and nephew are reaching the age where they actually know - and remember - if I bought them something (and something they actually like). I'm kinda tired of just railing against what I don't like about what Christmas has become. Yes the focus on shopping makes me sick, our love of the white-Christmas American carols from the 1950's makes me cringe a little and I will battle through another Christmas Day with people I'm obliged to spend time with rather than those I'd most like to.

But there is a lot to make you smile in these chaotic weeks leading up to the big day. I love the way it brings people together. I've been lucky enough to spend some time with almost everyone that's important to me in recent weeks. I've imbibed too much, but laughed, hugged, cheers'd and shared smiles with people more than any other month of the year. That's pretty special. You can't wrap that.

Since moving out of home five years ago I haven't had the decorations around at home. This year was the first that I found myself pining for it a bit. The Christmas rebellion in me is fading. Maybe I'm subconsciously preparing for a family in coming years...

Tomorrow I will enjoy hearing some of those old classic carols and thinking about the differently exciting Christmas' of my childhood. Then I will tire of them as they reach their third rotation and Bing Crosby's voice turns from suave to savage on my brain, and I'll attempt to put on some Dirty Three late in the afternoon when everyone is getting sleepy from the big lunch and booze.

I will be embarrassed handing over the presents I bought my family, especially the kids, not fearing my attempts at something special backfired famously. I will try to avoid watching the kids open theirs, as only one has learnt the importance of polite thanks. But I will burn off many Christmas lunch calories playing with them and enjoy watching them enjoy whatever toy is their new favourite - temporarily letting their smiles and excitement push aside my nagging social conscience and the humbug fact they already have many more toys than they'll ever need... It's not their fault after all!

And, of course, I'll eat like a pig - especially the pig, savouring the sweet crackling my mum does so well! - and make a hypocrit of that supposed social conscience anyway.

I'll cherish the time with my immediate family, and make the best of the other obligatory conversations. These people are part of me after all. Throughout the day I'll send text messages to the close friends and compare our days, and no doubt check Facebook and Twitter too much. I'll think of others I'd like to see on the day. I will desperately miss my brother in America - the old drinking buddy who helped me through the day in years past - and hope his young family are with us in the next year or two.

It is not my favourite day of the year. Not by a long way. But it is still pretty special.

And why be a humbug when there's so much to enjoy?

Merry Christmas

Mien famillie

Sam

Human Rights in Asia

First few paragraphs of another piece for Right Now, full article on their website.


"In a time of rapid change, human rights continue to be a central concern in Asia.

On 7 December, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, Elaine Pearson, and SBS’s Dateline presenter, Mark Davis, discussed human rights issues in the region – focusing on Sri Lanka, Burma, the Philippines and West Papua – and Australia’s response, at a session entitled “Human Rights in Asia – Situations of Concern”.

Opening the discussion, Davis noted that the governments of Australia, America and Europe have lost “their moral authority on key issues like torture, unlawful imprisonment and the torment of refugees” in recent years, and he now holds greater faith in lawyers as defenders of human rights internationally."

The rest ...

Travelling with anxiety, and why I'm at it again

Here I am again.

When I started writing this, 'here' was the international departure lounge at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. Three dollars only got me so long. The way my mind operates, I need much longer than 'only so long' to filter my thoughts and feelings into a somewhat comprehendible blog post.

Approximately 45 hours later I now sit alone in the swank, empty house of a friend, somewhere in New Delhi. After 33 hours or so in transit - including a 14 hour stopover in Doha, having flown past India only to fly back - I arrived in Delhi at about 4am. In the darkness and utter chaos of the early morning Delhi streets - I mean, why have lanes, indicators, speed limits, or rules at all if they're widely ignored! - it was impossible to get any sense of bearings. With my friend away until tomorrow on business I had about ten hours to myself before heading to Varanasi, leaving this little cocoon and finally get a true taste, smell, feel of India. I am excited and cautious.

As always Mum and Dad dropped me at the airport. This is one of the most excruciating parts my overseas journeys. It's convenient, but the goodbye lingers so long and their undisguised anxiety - particularly my mother's, who unintentionally bestowed upon me my own natural anxiety but - makes me tense. After checking in I graciously allowed them to buy me a 'coffee' (hot chocolate) and we held stunted conversation. I do love them dearly, I just wanted the goodbyes out of the way so I could relax for the long flight. As we hugged and I turned towards the doors through to customs, Mum said, 'We love you Sam' in that in case anything happens kind of way. Well intentioned as it was, this made me feel neither assured or additionally loved. Just tense and reactive. I told her I didn't want her stressing - firstly its making her unwell, thirdly I'm away for a total of three weeks in India and the USA and they're more likely to be in an car accident while I'm away than I am to be seriously harmed, and most importantly I didn't want to be worrying about their worrying and at such times almost callously refuse to encourage it.

Truth is I am carrying a mild anxiety - one that wasn't aided on Sunday night before I flew out by my four year old nephew presenting me with a drawing that was an early birthday present (next week). 'It's a bee called Sam,' he said, 'and it's dead'.

'It's a bee?' I asked graciously.
'Yeah a bee called Sam. And it's dead,' he said without a smile but with genuine love, unaware that this had the potential to freak me the fuck out.

This is my first overseas trip in a little over two years. By the end of the last one, a five week trip to Canada and the USA, I was a mental wreck and not sure I would leave Australian shores by myself again.

I should really have known. I remember sitting in the departure lounge at Tullamarine writing in my journal that I wasn't really sure why I was undertaking the journey. Yes, it was to visit my brother for the second time in three years, as well as a Canadian friend that I had previously quite fancied, carrying on with plans made between her, myself and a mutual friend from England who had earlier pulled out without much explanation. I also had a few days planned in Vegas with a friend from home that were so much fun we missed our flight out. And I genuinely wanted to see the Canadian Rockies.

However, I spent much of that trip alone. Solitude was something I had looked forward to, especially in such beautiful and cultural places as Vancouver, Quebec and the Canadian Rockies.

I was aware of the possible impact of prolonged isolation after my month-long trip to Britain a year earlier had brought me emotionally unstuck. But I believed there were other issues at play there. The first week was spend with the same English and Canadian friends and it was here I confessed to the Canadian I quite liked her. She rejected me in the soft and super friendly way that only Canadians know how. But I was now alone for the best part of three weeks and my melancholic, irrational mind had already bolted. And I hadn't the tools to reign it in, especially without the distraction of familiar connections.

By 2009 I was back in regular touch with my shrink and making progress. I was also off medication. It was decided the one I had been on wasn't working and we gave 'going clean' a brief trial. A sufferer of anxiety possibly shouldn't have exposed myself to the harsh mental terrain of prolonged solidarity in this circumstance. But, as I said, I was doing relatively well (for the time) and both myself and my psychologist thought it would be good for me. Still, while I was excited for all the fun, beautiful and adventurous things, I still wasn't aware of a true reason for going. Did I really need one though? Travel is what everyone does when they get the opportunity.

It was a disaster. The first few days, with my brother in San Francisco and friend in Vegas, were good - at times highly enjoyable. I flew with my friend, on a newly arranged flight, to Vancouver where we spent a day or so together and went our separate ways. I felt like I needed space anyway, as I always tend to when travelling with people, so I wasn't concerned at the time. But the wheels quickly started to shake. All sorts of doubts and irrational thoughts entered my mind, chipping away at my confidence, bringing back old methods of reassurance that served only to feed the beast and push my anxiety to levels not experienced for some time. When this starts there are only two ways for it to end: you find a way to let the thoughts go, or you battle them until they break you and slam you to your rock bottom where you finally find the exhaustion to no longer care and move on. The latter is the easy option in the moment, but obviously can be extremely painful mentally and eat up a lot of valuable time. Unfortunately I'd yet to fully understand the importance of letting go of thoughts, let alone the tools for doing so.

I started counting the days until I could get home, and anxiously waited for hours to pass when I should have been relaxing or enjoying the adventure of a foreign city. Even staying with my friend near Toronto for a few days didn't offer any mental relief. I think escape was still too far away.

About a week before the end of the trip I emailed my psychologist telling him I wasn't sure I could last the next seven days. I made plans in my head to abruptly head home if it got to that point. He reassured me. From thousands of kilometres away, it provided only mild comfort.

A few days later I returned to Vancouver (as planned) and joined a Moose Tour of the Canadian Rockies. I had been off medication for my own anxiety and OCD for a few months and seemed to be doing alright but it all fell apart early in the trip. The resumption of real, meaningful interaction with people and some amazingly beautiful natural surroundings offered the genuine distraction from my thoughts and circuit breaker I needed to move on a little. My mood improved mildly, but I was still keen to get home. When I did, I questioned the value of such travel by myself and realised I will never do the extended tour of Europe that is a pre-requisite for many young Australians. That doesn't bother me, I'm too old now anyway, but I do want to see the world.

Two years on and here I am, temporarily alone and in India of all places to test myself. A challenge, yes, but with the connections and accommodation I have it is far from doing it rough or unsupported. In the past two years I have also made the most significant progress of my life in terms of my mental health. Firstly, I started in new medication when I got home from that trip in 2009, which seems to be the best so far. And twelve months ago I discovered yoga, mindfulness and meditation which has calmed my racing, anxious mind and given me the tools to let go of unwanted, unnecessary and - most importantly - irrational thoughts. Though I'm still learning how to use those tools properly.

I've also learnt through experiences on a road trip last year and, more pertinently, in Perth this year that I need to look after myself to stay on top of it all. That primarily means ensuring I'm well rested, healthy and take my meds.

The next three weeks while undoubtedly throw up various challenges, particularly in periods of isolation, which are no longer than two days this time, but there will be plenty to enjoy about the wonderful and wild adventure (especially over the next six days in India) if I can maintain the right frame of mind. I'm in a far better state of mind and mental health than I was one, two, three and more years ago, and I intend to maintain it! I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing my friends and family: here in India, the (same) English gal and another Canadian friend in New York and Washington, and my brother yet again in San Francisco.

And I am looking forward to the inevitable challenges. It begins now.

Wondering about weddings

People marry for all sorts of reasons: to celebrate love; express a lifelong commitment; fulfil a perceived moral or religious obligation; lose virginity; monetary, legal or tax benefits; national residency; as a splendid, expensive excuse for a piss up with (or rather, for) friends; or because it’s just what couples after a certain time.

Pardon the mild cynicism. Truth is, I’m a hopeless romantic; truly, truly hopeless.

Many young girls dream about their wedding day, and I was often no different ... just a boy. Amid torturous crushes I'd sometimes imagine the girl, looking absolutely gorgeous, walking down the aisle towards me in a grand old church.

A church. Loads of people have walked away from practising religion, yet go back to it for marriage (a legal more than religious instituion these days), making vows they aren't necessarily even likely to attempt such as "accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church". No! They will choose to have children, and hopefully bring them up in accordance to the laws of love, respect, empathy and integrity. These may be the laws of Christ, but why not fspell them out, because many people have a funny idea of how Christ wanted us to act.

Even after strolling away from the Church and its ordinary old men in my teens [NB. there are some awesome people in the church - they just don't seem to have/want/need high positions], the presumption of a wedding in a church stuck with me unquestioned until a long-term girlfriend, who was headstrong and agnostic, challenged this ingrained thought. 

The doors flung wide open a couple of years later upon seeing a photos of a beach wedding that a Canadian friend attended in the Dominican Republic. It looked amazing, perfect. So wonderfully simple and beautiful, everyone happy, naked sun shining on the lovely couple.

Last Friday, I found myself in a suburban church tuning in and out of a sermon being delivered by a priest – who has vowed not to have intimate relations with another human – on the meaning of union (under God (and the law)). He meant well and had some valid lines, but it was so generic and detached I couldn’t help wondering who would think it was a good idea for him to preach at us about this occasion for two people he clearly didn't know.

For God's sake, was this primarily a celebration of the bride and groom or Christianity? I knew all the lines and gestures that were expected of the us, but stood silent and still. It seemed too artificial now. So different from the wonderful ceremony I’d enjoyed a week earlier.

We knew that one would be 'different' - this was a couple not tied down by convention and the wedding reflected their down-to-earth, genuine and loving nature superbly. Possibly the best wedding I've attended, and felt like the closest to something I'd like.

We gathered at a chapel on a small winery before a mini-celebrity celebrant, Mr Jon Von Goes (of Melbourne’s RRR radio). He was funny, entertaining and, of course, mildly theatrical and self-indulgent. For some it may have seemed more borderline novelty than unconventional, perhaps even disrespectful to the pure sensibility and sanctity of a marriage ceremony.

Bullshit. He was engaging, genuine, and talked all about the love between my two friends, having gathered a background from a couple of catch-ups over a beer. He is a performer, but he commanded the congregations attention and imagination, and deflected it to the lovely couple. I’ve never seen a priest who could do that so well. It was a genuine ceremony.

Yes, it was a little different - but we've all seen videos of some wildly odd, usually American, novelty weddings - and wasn't for everyone. For some the religious aspect is important, others just the tradition, and that's fine.

Both of my brothers acknowledged their upbringing by marrying in a church, despite neither (or their wives) being practising Catholics. Both were beautiful ceremonies, and a nice church is still to my mind a lovely place for such an occasion; just not some of the bullshit often spoken inside (yes many celebrants talk shit too). I just can’t help feeling they somewhat accepted the idea of a church wedding rather than embraced it.

Wedding dress, rainbow socks and Volleys

Although my middle brother and his Californian bride displayed some awesome subversive quirkiness that probably pushed the boundaries of comfort for a few of the more conservative (my folks) in the congregation. For instance, the bride wore rainbow socks and Dunlop Volleys (who sees her shoes anyway?); the foreboding tune of Hall of the Mountain King echoed through the church, building to its dramatic climax as they signed the certificate stirring an urge to run to the altar screaming "NOOO!"; and and a groomsman (me) followed them out of the sacred place arm in arm with one of the male 'bridesmaids' for a bit of attention and fun. This is what I remember about that day three years ago; I have no idea what the priest said (or even looked like). I may disappoint my mother if I don't marry in a church, but hell, it's my (future, yet unmet wife's) day.

And if I am lucky enough to get hitched, I know what I want the focus to be on - love, not God. Whether or not there are religious or spiritual overtones, the best weddings are primarily a celebration of love.

Maybe with greater focus on love – and, on this basis, perhaps letting same sex couple join the celebration and grow the love [*GASP!*] – we'd look a little differently at marriage and have less broken ones? Quite possibly a long bow. But my friends, the ‘unconventional’ couple with the ‘unconventional’ wedding, are possibly the most genuine couple I know and most likely to go the distance.  

So I don't know where I want to get married, but I don't think it will be in a church and by a priest.

Unless that’s what my fiancé wants.

Movie - 'murundak: songs of freedom'

A couple of weeks ago I popped along to the Melbourne Festival and caught the doco murundak: songs of freedom as part of the Give Peace a Chance program for Right Now. The full review, and reviews of the other films as well as a bunch of great human rights-related reading is available at the Right Now website.

First couple of paragraphs here, but it's only fair to head to their website for the full thing.

"Since the height of the Aboriginal rights protest movement in the 1970s, Indigenous Australian music has developed a strong voice of resistance and identity; and it’s only getting stronger.

Feature documentary Murundak: Songs of Freedom (2011) explores the cultural and political significance of this music via the Black Arm Band (featuring Aboriginal artists Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Dan Sultan, the late Ruby Hunter and several others) who travel from big cities to remote communities performing Murundak, a celebration of songs that have captured an essential and often elusive element of Australia’s Indigenous history."

The rest...

Death and dancing on Halloween ... and a birth (that's life)

Amidst an eight-foot corn field stands an evil scarecrow, jack-o-lantern for a head with one of those 360 smiles - where madness takes a smile of happiness beyond the grimace of pain and back into the truly demented realms where a smile is scarier than any expression of anger. He hangs rather than stands, breathing smoke through a glowing mouth and watching over a group of country horror folk musicians, all dressed and face-painted for the occasion. It is Halloween at Melbourne's grand Forum Theatre. This is the one and only Graveyard Train.

The audience is packed with mummies, zombies, murderers, murder victims, witches, ghosts, ghouls and a hipster. On stage a man smashes a chain with a mallet to the beat of a song about werewolves. In some ways, they might seem like a novelty band - and this was their night to play it up - but they are one of the best Melbourne bands going around.

The night finishes with the most sensationally, enjoyably odd of climaxes - a couple of thousand people singing, dancing, stomping, screaming, smiling and celebrating the fact we are all going to die while the band played their unreleased but seminal crowd (and personal absolute) favourite song 'All Will Be Gone'.

Last night was the fourth time I've seen them play this year - with number five lined up at the Meredith Music Festival next month - but that, that, was something else. Ok, the venue was bigger and better than Fitzroy's lovely, cosy Old Bar and certainly the Williamstown RSL, and perfectly suited a Halloween gig with the outdoor ampitheatre feel and gargoyles and roman statues watching you sing and dance. Still, being part of such a raucous celebration of our mortality and general insignificance was just so much goddamn fun and so liberating.

We're not here long. Enjoy it, even (especially!) the dark, scary stuff because then there's really nothing to fear ... and without fear life is so fucking free!

We're all going to die. You, me, everyone you know. And everything you ever saw or conceived of will one day be gone. That's either terrifying or liberating. How does a guy who suffers anxiety enjoy that though? Sometimes I don't. But sometimes you realise life is just so amazing and everything you love is here now, so let go of that fear and damn well enjoy it. What a waste otherwise.

One day Graveyard Train will be gone too. See them.



While I was singing and dancing about death (and therey celebrating life) in Melbourne, just across the Pacific Ocean my sister-in-law was giving birth. My new nephew's name is Dexter. Awesome. Just awesome. What a night.