Blog

BLOG 1

An –ahem– Short Introduction

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

June 27, 2015

 “I thought short articles would suit our needs,” Dr. Sony Khemlani wrote to me.

“Short? Me? Um… You do realize I have OCD…” I thought

I am sure she does. Dr. Khemlani is a licensed clinical psychologist with a specialization in OCD. Besides, when I asked her if I could volunteer for the International OCD Society, I was open about my OCD. I also spoke about having volunteered with OCD folks since 2004.

But if all that did not tip her off… Maybe the million photocopies I gave her of everything from articles I had written, lesson plans for teaching English as a Second Language, evaluations of me as a teacher, and other assorted materials did.

In fact, I gave her multiple copies of everything.

Then again, maybe she just knows OCD people really well and wisely set a limit on just how many words I could put in a post. (Kudos to her!)

Put it this way: When I was a child my parents nicknamed me Chief Running Mouth. And once I learned to turn my love for talking nonstop into love for writing nonstop, I became a force for bleary eyes. That lead to love for teaching and learning; I first began teaching when I was in elementary school. My sister Lisa and her stuffed ducks and dogs were my first students. By the time Lisa entered kindergarten, I had already taught her how to read.

Jump ahead a dozen years and I was eagerly studying history in graduate school. I thought I would be a history professor, but then Mr. Gorbachev opened up the former Soviet Union and thousands of Russians flocked to my hometown, Brooklyn. A few years later, Brooklyn College hired me to help them learn English. I stayed there for eleven years then moved on to NYU, where I have taught since 2005.

Teaching gives me greater joy than almost anything else, and much of what I have learned as a teacher helps me in controlling my OCD. This in turn inspires me to help others control theirs. Similarly, much of what I have learned in controlling my OCD and helping others has made me a better teacher. (That will be the topic of many future posts.) Within my department, I have become a strong advocate for students with all types of mental health issues, physical disabilities and learning disabilities. I assume, for example, that there is at least one student with undiagnosed ADHD in every class, and over the years I have modified the way I teach to accommodate them. (Again, that will be the subject of future posts.)

My own OCD focuses primarily on scrupulosity (religious OCD), natural disasters, harming others, my health, and false fears of people conspiring against me. Like so many others with bad OCD, I thought I would never have a good career, never do anything with my life, and, of course, never again be happy. That was OCD lying to me as usual. I am 49 years old, and I have yet to see even one OCD pronouncement come true.

For a variety of reasons that will also be the subject of future posts, much of the time I spend with OCD folks focuses on what is known in Internet lingo as HOCD (homosexual OCD) or SO-OCD (sexual orientation OCD). I cannot diagnose or treat this form of OCD or any other, and I cannot divine sexual orientation from the lengthy descriptions—I am not the only OCD person who loves to gab!—and occasional photos people send. As I see it, my job is to start a dialogue and let them know that they are not alone in their scary thoughts. I also talk about treatment options and quell fears about behavior therapy and, if necessary, medication.

I never imagined that I would be doing this for more than a decade, let alone writing an OCD blog. Then again, I never imagined I would be teaching English as a Second Language either, yet now I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life.

I am only just beginning to plan this blog, and I hope it will help many people with OCD realize “Hey, I’m not crazy. Other people with OCD think that too.”

As Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz wrote in Brain Lock: “It isn’t me. It’s my OCD.”

BLOG 2

Cognitive Behavior Therapy works!

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

 June 27, 2015

I am often contacted by folks experiencing false fears about sexual orientation. After I answer the personal questions I am asked—“personal” being an understatement—I cut and paste the message you see under the dotted line.

If you, a loved one or a friend is suffering from other forms of OCD, you can still use the information in this message. My words on false sexual orientation fears can serve as an example of a type of OCD alongside my elevator example.

I personally know many people who have had this type of OCD and have learned to control it.  Life can be good–wonderful, in fact–for people with OCD when they are no longer a slave to this illness.

For OCD, the best kind of therapy is behavior therapy (specifically cognitive behavior therapy or CBT).  Freudian psychoanalysis and its offshoots are very good for other types of problems–but OCD is biological (or both biological and environmental–meaning that you have a biological predisposition to it and things in the real world like stress can cause it to become difficult to handle).   It does not come from childhood trauma or negative adaptation to life, two of the many things psychoanalysis deals with.  You do not need analysis.  Instead, you need strategies to overcome or improve or decrease ocd symptoms

Basically, CBT will introduce ways for you to stop being so upset by these thoughts.  As you learn how not to react to them (no getting upset, no arguing with them, no running to the Internet to “check” if you are gay, etc.), they become less and less powerful and come less and less often.  OCD never goes away 100%, but it can be controlled so well that it no longer bothers you.  You can live your life like someone who has no OCD–and not suffer because of OCD.

There is homework involved in CBT, although not the kind of homework you get in school.  In CBT, a therapist leads you through exposures gradually, beginning with things that would cause the least stress.  If, for example, you were afraid of elevators, perhaps you would start by simply talking about elevators.  The next week you might look at pictures of elevators and visualize going in one.  Then, the next week, you might walk into one with your therapist but then walk out immediately without pushing any buttons or going anywhere; then you would talk about the experience.  The next week you might go up or down only one floor with the therapist…  This would continue until you were riding an elevator all the way up and down on your own.

My explanation is very simple; the actual process would be more detailed.

Exposures for HOCD (false fears about sexual orientation) could include looking at pictures of a good-looking actor on the Internet and choosing the five best, walking around your house for a few hours in a t-shirt that had something gay on it, watching a movie or TV show with a gay character, etc.  You and your therapist would put together a long list, and you would determine the order together.  The thing that is the scariest would be much easier to do after all the other exposures.  In addition, your therapist would be involved in talk therapy to help you control your anxiety.

It is not always easy to engage in this sort of therapy, but it is sooooo worth it.  You will be building new pathways in your brain (quite literally!) and learning ways not to get upset or react at all by carrying out these exposures.  In other words, you will be defeating your OCD.

Here is an article on finding the right kind of therapist for OCD.  It comes from the OC Foundation here in the United States:

https://iocdf.org/about-ocd/treatment/how-to-find-the-right-therapist/
If you are not in the United States, see if you can find a national OCD organization or a national behavior therapy organization in your country.  Either one can tell you how to get OCD help in your language and region. They might also make recommendations.  The mental health center in a hospital might also be able to refer you.

If you would like to read some articles about false gay fears and OCD by American behavior therapists…  Note that they don’t use the term “HOCD” since that is really an Internet acronym.

I hope that helps.  Let me know if you would like to discuss any of this further.  I would be happy to respond.  If you write again, please understand that sometimes I take a long time to respond–but I do get back to everyone eventually.
Always remember: “It isn’t me.  It’s my OCD.”

Best,

Mark

———————————————

If you would like to read my (longer) articles on OCD and false sexual orientation fears, go here:

My 2005 article: http://www.brainphysics.com/yourenotgay.php

My 2013 article: http://www.brainphysics.com/share/hocd/dont-clown-with-sexual-orientation-understanding-hocds-spikes-and-lies

BLOG 3

Think for Yourself

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

August 21, 2015

OCD is the king, queen and royal jester of illogical thinking. Sometimes it draws on mass media sensationalism and societal willingness to believe nonsense. As Pamela Meyer says in her wonderful TED Talk “How to Spot a Liar”: “Lying is a cooperative act.Think about it. A lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance.Its power emergeswhen someone else agrees to believe the lie.”

There are complex reasons we may believe a white lie or even a very dangerous lie. But throw OCD and anxiety into the mix and you get people believing the craziest things. I should know. My OCD made me believe the craziest things too. It started when I was a boy praying ritualistically every night for God to prevent the photos of mummies in my junior high text from coming to life and attacking me…

Logic didn’t banish my fears. CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) is the way to get OCD under control when someone is stuck in a mental loop. After, engaging in logic and critical thinking helps keep it at bay. And perhaps, if OCD is both biological and environmental (with environment playing a role in the severity of symptoms), critical thinking beginning at an early age may decrease severity.

That is one of the reasons I lie to my university students. I tell them our Constitution includes ideas the Founding Fathers borrowed from the lost continent of Atlantis. Then I give them an example of written Atlantean: Karooka kawakka karinga karoopagoo. (Actually, that is the name of a character in one of my science fiction stories.) When I tell them to copy down the words, they scribble dutifully.

Sometimes students object, saying my claims cannot possibly be true. Such students will go far. But more often I have the class going for ten minutes.

Then I stop and say I am lying—and they are stunned. We talk about why they believed me: I am the authority figure; I speak well; I am American and they, as foreign nationals in my advanced ESL class, are not; I drew a chart illustrating an Atlantis – Plato – Freemasonry – Founding Fathers connection; teachers are supposed to tell the truth… Yet I lied.

Next, we talk about things we read in textbooks and newspapers, things we see on TV… The word propaganda usually comes up. It is almost possible to see light bulbs flashing over inclined heads as I put them in small groups and ask them to discuss ways people lie, exaggerate, and quote biased references to get others to vote their way, join religious (or non-religious) institutions, buy products they do not need, become part of the cool crowd… They also talk about why the victims are so willing to accept lies, exaggerations, and biased quotes.

Finally, I tell them not to believe something simply because somebody else says it. Not to believe something simply because it is in a textbook or the New York Times. Not to believe something simply because they have always believed it.

I tell my students I will be lying more often. They have to be critical thinkers and take their best guesses about when to believe me. I also tell them to trust themselves. There are of course many correct things said by people and found in print, but they have to find their own beliefs themselves–and they can change their views as often as they wish. “Life,” I tell them, “is about living with uncertainty.”

BLOG 4

Elephants Falling from the Sky

 by Mark-Ameen Johnson

 October 1, 2015

Someone once told me he liked to imagine his obsessions were about elephants falling from the sky instead of all the scary things OCD cooked up.

I scratched my head. “OCD gives us enough obsessions. Why would you want to invent a new one?”

He explained that he used ridiculous thoughts about elephants to temper his OCD. It is unlikely that elephants will ever fall from the sky. But is it possible?

There are stories of single elephants being transported in planes. I suppose many elephants could be herded into super-airplanes of sorts if the planes were technologically equipped to handle them. But what if it is so hard to equip the planes that there are design flaws and, after an explosion, a rain of dead elephant parts falls on a populated area? We had better elephant-proof our homes right away!

Can you hear how ridiculous this is getting? And why would anyone want to fly an airplane packed with elephants?

News flash: All OCD fears are just as ridiculous and just as convoluted.

Ah, but I used to worry about other ridiculous things from the sky. For three years in the mid-90s I suffered terribly from obsessions about natural disasters; I did not know about CBT and was in the wrong type of therapy. I also did far too much checking—I called it “research”—on all types of disasters. I still know more about disaster potential than any human being should.

Thanks to CBT, I also know that worst case scenarios are the least likely to happen, and I no longer live in What-If-Land. If I listened to my OCD today, I would be worrying about a hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami, a tornado, a meteor shower, a mudslide, a lightning storm, and perhaps even elephants falling from the sky—and all at the same time, probably in about five minutes.

In the twenty-first century I lived through a tornado in my Brooklyn neighborhood, I was shaken by a minor earthquake and, of course, Hurricane Sandy arrived. (No, not all at the same time!) Despite my three years of terror waiting to be killed by a disaster, nothing horrible happened to me, my family, or our property. In fact, I now spend a lot of time quelling others’ fears, and I was a contact person for my students before and after Sandy. If back in the 90s someone had told me what lay ahead for me this century, I would have had a major OCD spike. And for what? Nothing bad happened.

In addition to being helped by CBT, I live ongoing CBT. One of the Manhattan buildings I teach in is a block from Ground Zero; in the other, I teach on a high floor overlooking Midtown. Of course, both locations would have spiked me to no end in the 90s. But now I do not listen when, every workday, my OCD still screams “Disaster!” “Terrorists!” “Heights!” There are more important things to think about: My students, the subjects I love teaching, my family and cat after work, science fiction…

What changed? I realized that we OCD folks obsess because of OCD, not because of real danger. Remember that the “O” in “OCD” stands for “obsessive.”  When you obsess about something, it dominates your thoughts even if you do not want to think about it. But having an obsession does not mean the thing you fear is true.

I also realized how much I was making my OCD worse by “checking” and seeking reassurance. That is the “C” in “OCD”: “compulsive.” It is futile to bang on a wall exactly seven times or meticulously avoid cracks in a sidewalk to prevent something horrible from happening. Similarly, checking and reassurance are futile ways of trying to use logic to banish OCD thoughts. Logic, which is so important in so many other aspects of life, does not work against OCD’s lack of logic, obsessive thinking and anxiety.

Don’t engage or fight or try to use logic against your OCD.  You will only feed it if you do. Instead, use what you learn in CBT and remember the OCD mantra: “It isn’t me. It’s my OCD.”

If an elephant does ever fall from the sky and land here in Brooklyn, I know it will miss my house. –Yawn–

BLOG 5

Diarrhea Barbie: A Study in Imperfect Perfection

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

December 3, 2015

 Even at fifty years old, when I have a nightmare about hell and eternal damnation I am transported back to 1977. The setting is my sixth grade classroom in Brooklyn’s P.S. 104. Guess who my sixth grade teacher is, pitchfork in hand…

Ah yes, 1977… One Friday my sixth grade teacher told us each to come up with a toy that had never been made but would take the market by storm. We then had to market it to the class the following Monday. Taking the assignment far too seriously and literally as we OCD folks usually do, that Monday I introduced the biologically correct doll Diarrhea Barbie to my classmates.

I never made it to the sales pitch, though, as I was sent to the principal’s office less than a minute into my presentation. I was accursed of mocking the teacher, the assignment and America. (America?!!)

Ironically, I had envisioned Diarrhea Barbie as something American needed. By 1977 we had suffered Watergate, the Vietnam War, the bankruptcy of New York City, the erosion of old values… My doll was about love and responsibility. No matter how busy children were or what else they had to do, they would make time to care for and clean their sick dolls. The toy taught traditional values to future parents, and I imagined it would be a big seller around Christmas.

Although Ballerina Barbie (who inspired my Diarrhea Barbie) was one of the most popular Barbie dolls at the time, what did she do besides stand on her toes and wear a tiara? What did most toys do? No one had ever made a toy as useful as my doll, and I thought I had followed the assignment to the letter.

As an adult, I can see how I managed to offend so many so quickly, something we OCD folks do all the time. The doll was inappropriate despite my good intentions, despite my inability as a child to understand why I was in trouble. I share part of the blame this mishap—but only part. Remember that I was eleven.

So what made a little boy change Ballerina Barbie into Diarrhea Barbie? Creativity and the ability to think outside the box are two of the wonderful gifts OCD gives us. But we need to temper these gifts with awareness of OCD’s driving perfectionism and tunnel vision.  My sixth grade sales scheme may have seemed sound in my mind, but it was not based in reality. I never bothered to consider whether parents would put drippy diarrhea in their children’s Christmas stockings.

This is how we OCD folks see the world: We master the details better than others but fail to see the big picture. Then we are shocked when others do not understand us.

When I ask my NYU students to read “Cupid and Psyche” or a similarly sweet story, they discuss love in ideal terms. Even the more cynical married ones can get swept away in the story’s emotion (as can I). When they ask me what I think real love is, I tell them I am sure it is not rainbows and unicorns. Rather, real love is knowing a person’s worst faults and still thinking you are lucky to be with that person. It is everyday reality, not dreamy perfection. It is sharing a bathroom, the essence of, well, Diarrhea Barbie.

That is the big picture.

So where does that leave us, the OCD perfectionists? We create our perfect OCD worlds where only 100% or 0, all or nothing, black or white satisfies us. Yet our perfectionism is imperfect because it does not reflect the real world of perfect gray. Even Harry Potter sees more gray and less certainty as he matures through each progressive book, facing increasingly complex situations. And who is the intolerant perfectionist looking for a black and white world whose every detail he can control? That would be Voldemort.

Or my sixth grade teacher.

I would not want to live in a world that matched their vision of perfection—or my OCD’s, for that matter. Besides, perfection can never be achieved. How imperfect! And how delightful!

And when the whole person I am involved with does something that angers me, part of me is relieved. I am not a perfect person and will always fall short of what perfection demands. If I had a perfect relationship with a perfect person, I would feel very bad about myself and my imperfections.

Happily, we get to be imperfect together.

BLOG 6

Are Men Allowed to Cry?

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

January 10, 2016

I often ask my upper-level ESL students to listen to and discuss Emma Watson’s 2014 speech on gender equality at the United Nations.  Next, I select Google Images and search for “I need feminism because.”  There are pages upon pages of people–mostly women but, happily, also men–at universities or in various movements who hold signs that finish the sentence in their own words.   These images make for good discussion.

Unfortunately, some people mock the issue by posting anti-feminist slogans to finish the sentence.  But those images also make for good discussion.

When I first saw the online pictures of some of my fellow men mocking gender equality, it disturbed me so greatly that I decided to stand up and be counted.  I have always been in-your-face about important issues, but now my sign and picture, taken a couple of blocks from the NYU Midtown Center (where I teach) and the United Nations (where Watson spoke), is online. People who know me can see it. I am sure the mockers have choice words to say about me, which is fine. Even as s a teen I was mocked relentlessly for my beliefs, which prompted me to stand up for several groups to which I did not belong. It used to reduce me to private tears then, something I will talk about later in this post. But eventually I learned I was stronger and more stubborn than their mockery. They could make me cry, but they could not stop me.

Anyway, my sign: “I need feminism because my mother and sister deserve fair wages and because men do not need to live under an emotionless, macho facade.  In other words, feminism is for everyone.” It seems like common sense to me. To others, them’s fightin’ words.

Seeing my chubby, smiling face with that sign and knowing that I practice what I preach has had an impact on my students. Here are four quotes from papers written by university-age men from macho cultures.  None of them are native speakers of English, and although I corrected grammar and usage in their papers, I have not corrected them in these quotes.

1. Finally, the male can well understand his social responsibility because of feminism.  The most essential and fundamental social responsibility for men, who should accept the feminism, is that power is not equal to rights, but we always hold the opinion that these two conceptions have the same meaning.
2. The male can care more about his family and show his love and kindness because of feminism.
3. In this day and age, gender equality is a hot topic in our society.  We all know that the degree of attention between men and women is unfair in the ancient world whether in Asia or other countries.  But nowadays, this cognition of the public has been challenged, and many people want to change this outdated ideas
4. Personally, I think the gender equality is the sign of the improvement of our society, and there is still a plenty of room for progress in gender equality.  So, let’s try our best to realize it.

In class we had a deep discussion on many similar issues, and there was one thing Watson said in her speech that really resonated with a number of students: “I want men to take up this mantle so that their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice. But also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned, and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.”

How sad that many men actually need permission from Emma Watson, from me, from their peers, from their therapists (from John Wayne?) to express their true emotions. No wonder OCD makes such a mess of us. I cannot tell you how many men who have contacted me about OCD have been so deeply ashamed, as if being a man should automatically negate OCD, as if having OCD and being afraid makes them less manly, as if being a man means never crying no matter how much you hurt. “OCD actually made me cry,” someone once wrote to me. (I could hear the rest of his thought: …and guys don’t do that.) If they never would have cried without OCD… Forgive me for saying this, but could their having OCD be a good thing?

I was no better. Despite my young tears, which I never let anyone see, I also wanted to be macho. That meant putting up a wall so that nothing hurtful could penetrate. What macho guys do not realize is that their need to have a wall means they are already vulnerable. The wall merely blocks healing.

Confucius said: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

Blog 7

Meaningless Catastrophizing

 by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 10, 2016

The OCD event this blog focuses on had an impact on my life only three days ago. In other words, I am not writing from safe academic distance. I share what is very personal to me so that others can gain insight—and, I am sure, so that I can gain insight as well.

When I arrived home from work Tuesday, I discovered email asking me to call my boss’ boss right away, no matter the hour. The issue she wanted to discuss was very important and could not wait, she wrote.

I immediately had my worst OCD spike in years and assumed I was about to be fired. This irrational fear with no evidence was nothing new, either. I can usually ignore it, but at that moment the surprise and abruptness of the message threw my coping techniques out of whack.

Rationally, I knew I had done nothing that would get me fired. In fact, the boss’ boss had praised me during our last conversation, and we had always had a good working relationship. Maybe the boss’ boss wanted to share some good news and could not wait. I know I cannot wait when I want to share good news…

Yes, all this was my mental OCD checking. As anyone with OCD knows, these pointless mental musings make OCD fears worse, not better.

Calming myself down and taking deep breaths, I dialed. The boss’ boss answered and said she would call me back in five minutes.

Twenty minutes later, we spoke. They were twenty of the longest minutes of my life, and I have my cat to thank for keeping my OCD in check. She snuggled against me, and by concentrating on her I kept the worst of it at bay. Of course, my OCD brought her into it… How could I feed her and pay for her medicine with no job? And what would become of her when we were kicked out of our apartment…? But I used the thought stopping techniques I had learned in therapy many years ago, and my cat kept purring.

It turns out that the boss’ boss had a minor criticism of something I had done; the word “minor” was, in fact, hers. She was right to criticize me, and I was glad to have the feedback. Without it, I would have repeated my error in something else I was working on. The conversation was friendly and upbeat, and when I hung up I was calm.

Then OCD chimed in: But she really does want to fire you, Mark. She simply does not want to do it by phone since she needs to assemble a legal team to break your contract… Happily, I knocked out that thought and am typing it now without so much as a spike.

Is this any different from my false OCD fears of natural disasters, extremist religion, people hating me and health problems? Not in the least. Those are all catastrophe-oriented too.

Is this any different from the false OCD fears people who write to me express about what they think they are about to do, what they think is about to happen, or how their whole lives have supposedly been a lie? Again, not in the least. Those are also catastrophe-oriented.

Some of the email I answered last week included a phrase I have heard over and over for more than a decade: “I am an exception.” In other words, everyone else has OCD, but the person stuck in a catastrophe spike is the only one whose fears are about to be realized. I believe every OCD person feels this way, doubting it is OCD at work.

How can everyone be an exception?

Mark, Mark, Mark… You are being too logical. This is OCD, after all.

My own thoughts had centered on how this time I would be fired even though all the other times it was only an OCD fear. This was an exception.

Not. Look at what happened: I’ll be reporting to work as usual, and I am glad that the boss’ boss gave me valuable information.

The next time you catastrophize, the next time you think you are an exception, remember: “It isn’t me. It’s my OCD.”

Blog 8

Oompa Loompa and Bossy: Don’t Fear the Working World!

 by Mark-Ameen Johnson

 June 3, 2016

Today’s topic comes from someone who has been writing to me for years. She is about to leave graduate school and is afraid she will have terrible bosses and co-workers who make her miserable. I wonder how many OCD people have the same fear. I know when I was a student envisioning my future, I catastrophized about everything related to work. Even today I use coping techniques to deal with recurring false fears that my boss is about to fire me for minor infractions (regardless of whether I have actually committed any infractions–which was the topic of my previous blog).

We OCD folks are masters of catastrophic thinking, and if what OCD claimed were true work would be little more than slavery at the mercy of sadistic overlords. Contrary to what OCD tells us, many OCD folks get jobs they want, like and deserve.  If we refuse to allow OCD’s over-organization to make others—or us—crazy, our attention to fine detail coupled with our work ethic usually impresses bosses and helps us advance.

Some of us have indeed experienced bad working situations, nasty bosses and less than stellar colleagues, but they do not reflect all of working humanity.  If the job is great but one or two people are often on your back, accept that life cannot be all roses and have only minimal contact with the weeds; enjoy all the blooms in the work garden instead. Mind you, I practice what I preach. I get along well with most of my co-workers and enjoy being part of a team. Oompa Loompa (my private nickname for a difficult co-worker since she resembles that creature in Willy Wonka movies) has no power to change my enthusiasm unless I give it to her. The nickname reduces her sting in my mind and makes her comical—a technique I borrowed from Winston Churchill, who used to call the Nazis his country was fighting “Narzees.”

But what if your overall job situation or atmosphere is not what you want? It’s simple: Stay only until you find a better job. Yes, you can leave! It’s amazing how many people are shocked by that. Here in the U.S., Baby Boomers (people born roughly between the mid-40s and mid-60s) believed all they had to do was go to college to be the best in their fields. In many respects they were correct, and they often stayed at one job for life. Baby Boomers told their Generation X children (people like me, born roughly between the mid-60s and early 80s) that the world was theirs, but the world changed without warning. Many of us in Generation X have been unable to be the best even with multiple degrees. Too many of us have been treated poorly at work and even let go after 25 years or so of service.  We have thus taught our Millennial children (people reaching adulthood around the year 2000) to think about themselves and not their companies. If they want to advance, they need to get a new job instead of trying hard in their current company. Lifelong loyalty to a company is no longer the American norm, and Millennials do not have to suffer the way Generation X has.

Yes, you can leave!

With no loyalty to a place that mistreated me in the mid-90s, I stayed only five months, then found a better job and Elaine (a truly wonderful boss I still consider a friend). I remained in that new position for eleven years until I transferred again to my current job in 2005. If the situation in my current job had been poor, I would not have stayed long. Since my current bosses are supportive and I continue to gain new skills, I remain.

Ah, but I am being logical, and we OCD folks know that logic does not silence OCD fears. I will now initiate some ERP by telling you about the boss from hell for whom I worked those five months. Although she died a couple of years ago, I won’t say where she worked or what her position was. I won’t use her real name either; let’s call her Bossy.

Where to begin? She was like a character out of Dostoyevsky.

Let’s start with the beginning of the workday. We always studied Bossy’s make-up when she came in. If it was applied incorrectly (and in particular, if her eyeliner was crooked) we knew she would be screaming at one of us before lunch. Also, if she was in too good a mood at the beginning of the day—such as the time she skipped into the office singing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”—she would soon be hurling mental yellow bricks at us. Normal make-up and mood meant a normal day, unless, of course, something unexpected set her off.

One thing guaranteed to set her off was an unsharpened pencil. We all knew the drill: Come in before her and make sure every pencil in the office was sharpened every day if we did not want to be assembled for a lecture: “What would happen if there were an emergency and I picked up an unsharpened pencil…?”

Then there was the water cooler, which had not worked in years and had repulsive little dot things swimming in it. One day, Bossy claimed, someone who could fix it would happen to stop by. Why waste money on getting a new cooler when this one would be fixed one day? I wondered about wasting money the day I phoned in an order for 150,000 paper clips. “How many?” said the shocked supplier on the other end. We stocked up on everything in case of an “emergency.” Bossy’s rubber band collection was legendary.

So was her list of “friends of the office” and “enemies of the office,” which she meticulously updated. Most people did not fall into the friend category, but those who were wise enough to play Bossy’s games were treated to exquisite service even if what they needed had nothing to do with our office. Our “enemies” became more and more furious when they were ignored… And guess who had to field their venomous calls and visits. Not Bossy…

So, yes, people like Bossy and Oompa Loompa exist and have the potential to make working life miserable. It is likely that you will encounter one or more at some point. If OCD has its way, your work accomplishments, satisfaction and relationships will depend on such a person. But—and here is the but—that person, like OCD, is no more than a schoolyard bully. Again, you have the power to get yourself out of a bad situation (as I did with Bossy) or minimize your contacts with the rotten apple (as I have done with Oompa Loompa since 2005). Life is never all or nothing despite what OCD says, and neither is work. Many aspects of the working world, including the good people you meet in it and the way you build your self-respect and self-reliance, more than make up for any difficulties.

There is no need to fear work. Embrace it! I always tell my students that a life of play without work is just as bad as a life of work without play. You need both to feel complete.

BLOG 9

“Don’t Believe Everything You Read about Changing Sexual Orientations”

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

September 28, 2016

Lately I have been receiving a lot of panicky email from OCD folks who falsely fear their sexual orientation is about to change. About half the messages referred to the same series of posts on a lesbian and gay message board, something the heterosexual writers encountered while doing a Google search as part of OCD checking. As a gay man, I am grateful that the LGBTQ community can express its voice freely—but I do not want that voice to cause unnecessary pain for OCD folks.

That is why, more than 25 twenty times in the past few months, I have answered email by cutting and pasting the following section from a much longer article I wrote in 2013. Per the suggestion of one of my readers, I thought I would also include it in my blog.

The Internet term HOCD can mean either Homosexual OCD or Harm OCD. In my writing I use it for false fears about sexual orientation.

———————————

The HOCD form of OCD is also a pathological liar and schoolyard bully. It looks for any excuse to confuse and torment you. One of its favorite tricks is getting you to believe stories about people who “suddenly” change from happily heterosexual to gay against their wills—even though that is physiologically impossible. (If you are a LGBTQ-identified person, for you the trickery involves stories about people who supposedly turn straight.) As soon as you are aware of even a single story, OCD will make it “feel” as if that is your destiny. But sometimes a clown is just a clown. Or a cigar.

Do not assume you are getting all the facts about a “transformed” person.  A person of any sexual orientation can have an axe to grind (something to complain about), and the details may not be wholly truthful.  Or perhaps the person is telling the truth as he or she sees it; that does not mean it is Truth with a capital T.

Let me illustrate this with my own coming-out story. I am sure people who knew me then thought I had changed from happily heterosexual to gay.

When I was growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, I knew I was attracted to other guys. I did not understand what being gay meant since there was no public Internet at the time, little positive material in libraries, and many negative stories about gays in the media.  Further, my church claimed that homosexuality did not exist. (“Oy vey!” he says today in his best New York Yiddish.)  If homosexuality did not exist, I reasoned, I could not be a homosexual. I was therefore… heterosexual. (“Oy vey iz mir!”)

The church is only part of the reason I once identified as heterosexual; my ethnic background is equally important. Like my father, I was born and raised in New York City; however, my mother is an Arab born and raised in the Middle East; my father’s mother came from Sicily (Southern Italy). Most of my Arabic and Sicilian relatives speak in accented English and are culturally more Mediterranean than American. In both of these cultures, heterosexual men can be surprisingly touchy-feely. Putting an arm around a male acquaintance or leaning against him for a long time means nothing. If the affectionate way these men behave was ever seen as gay in these somewhat homophobic cultures, their behavior would change overnight.

And so… Seeing so much male-male touching and high emotion, I told myself that Mediterranean guys had an intense need to bond with each other. I know today that is true, although it is not even remotely sexual for most of them.  But back then I was desperate to prove I was not gay, and I reasoned that I merely wanted to bond with other men like a Mediterranean. Therefore, I was not a homosexual. (And besides, you will recall, homosexuality did not exist.)

As a young man I sought women (since it was the thing to do), fantasized about men in private, and never used the word gay.  When I came out to myself and then, two years later, to another person for the first time, I did not suddenly “become” gay.  Instead, I finally had the facts about homosexuality. I wonder if my coming out after leading a heterosexual life (on the surface) ever spiked anyone with HOCD before I even knew what it was.

Many LGBTQ folks lived the way I did before coming out—and many still do. They may be the ones whose words make you spike. Anansi the Spider carried all the wisdom of the world in a clay pot on his back, but true wisdom is never found in only one place. It takes time for a person to learn what coming out means to him or her since it is different for each person; it takes even longer to become wise. Some may claim to have “become” gay (and instantly wise) by coming out, but that does not make it so. Instead of feeding OCD by thinking in extremes and buying into everything we read or hear, we need to step back and say “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

The next time you come across a claim that someone has “turned gay” (or, if you are a LGBTQ-identified person with false heterosexual fears, “turned straight”), you should consider the following questions:

• Do you know enough about this person to believe him or her?
• Is the person misinformed because he or she does not have all the facts?
• Does the person perceive reality the way you do?
• Does the person have an ideological axe to grind?  Axe grinding can be part of the political right, center, or left; it can be found in the very religious, the moderately religious, or the non-religious; it can be a tactic employed by gays, bisexuals, or heterosexuals.
• Is the person posting to feel better about himself or herself?
• Is the person in the middle of a life journey?
• Have you misunderstood what the person wrote?
• Does the person wish to rebel against convention, religion, or parental values?
• Could the person be mentally ill?
• Could the person be a troll looking to cause trouble and have a good laugh at your expense?

If you consider the different ways of looking at a claim that has spike potential, it won’t scare you at all. (And besides, it will be great behavior therapy.)

BLOG 10

Ride ‘em, Roscoe!

or

My Cat Taught Me Everything I Know about OCD

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

December 10, 2016

As I write this blog, Roscoe and I are sharing our favorite chair, and I am, as usual, trying to balance cat and laptop. When Roscoe feels the laptop is getting too much attention, she tells it off in cat language or simply sits on top of the keyboard so I cannot use it. She has even sent nonsense email on occasion.

I should have known there was something unusual about Roscoe back when she was a stray trying to make an impression by riding a terrified raccoon cowboy-style. As they raced down the block, I could almost hear Roscoe singing “Yippee ki–yay!” That was early 2011, a few months before I adopted her.

I suppose if I wanted to ride something, I would be tied down by OCD What Ifs, germ fears, disaster concerns… but Roscoe, being Roscoe, had decided she wanted a ride and just hopped on. More power to her.

We have just looked at each other, and her expression says volumes: “Mark, when you want something, just go for it. After all, I went for you and look what happened.”

Ah, the owner never chooses the cat. Like wands in the Harry Potter world, the cat chooses the owner. Roscoe used to run half a block to meet me as I was walking home from the bus stop after work. She would proudly deposit me at my door. In another case of just-go-for-it, Roscoe once wrapped her paws around my mother’s ankle and sat on her foot so she would be ‘walked’ intro my ground floor apartment. It took great effort to pry her loose. Another time she sneaked in as I was carrying bundles. No OCD What Ifs have ever stopped her from seizing the day.

Then there were the air conditioner games in the middle of the night. She would jump on top of the unit and bellow until I came out, half awake, to pet and talk to her.

Despite all this plus my growing attachment to her, I resisted adopting Roscoe for a number of silly OCD reasons… But then came the storm, although it was hardly the storm of love we would soon share. My worst OCD issue is natural disasters, and the year before Hurricane Sandy caused destruction here in New York City and on much of the East Coast, we had the storm that wasn’t: Hurricane Irene. Predications were dire, and my OCD went into overdrive as I thought about what might happen to Roscoe during a hurricane. I resolved to save her no matter what OCD said and took her to a vet my sister recommended. That was when I learned that Roscoe was a she. (Having seen her on top of a female cat, I had assumed she was a male having sex. Shame on me for binary thinking! I should have remembered the raccoon ride…)

The vet agreed to keep her safe during the storm, as a cat not used to being indoors, an inexperienced care provider and a hurricane do not make for a pleasant first stay. He also gave her a needed bath and conduct tests.

When the storm that wasn’t ended, I went back to pick up Roscoe. The vet told me she was FIV+ (Feline AIDS). Local shelters might euthanize her so she would not infect other cats, he said. He then listed other medical issues and added she would have a short life outdoors but could live a normal life indoors if she had medication. I immediately knew I had a permanent roommate. OCD shrieked over health and germ issues, but I ignored it.

Oh, it does not end there. Not this OCD story. Like many OCD folks, I am a neat freak—but I now put up with Roscoe’s never-ending supply of hair on everything, intermittent gifts of vomit in bed and the occasional overturned litter box with cat feces on my rug. Behavior therapy gone wild…

“And you do it all on purpose, don’t you, Dr. Roscoe?” In response, she has looked up and cocked her head in what I swear is a withering look.

I used to make fun of people who live for their cats and never stop talking about them, but now I am one of them. If I could post pictures on this blog, you would see a dozen of Roscoe.

And let me tell you… The senior citizens with multiple cats who have given me advice on taking care of Roscoe are some of the smartest, most wonderful people I have ever met. Another victory against OCD, which loves to make snap judgements based on faulty information. Real people are too multi-faceted to be wedged into neat OCD categories.

Just like cats.

BLOG 11

TED Talks on Choosing Empathy over Prejudice

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 11, 2017

Greetings!

When obsessions and compulsions dominate our thoughts, we OCD sufferers get dragged down in the muck. For this reason, I find it helpful to think critically and reflect on life without the influence of OCD’s illogical nonsense. A discovery I made years ago has had a positive effect not only on me but also on my university students. It may also have a positive effect on you, my readers.

I am talking about the wonderful TED Talks I use in my classroom. TED is an ongoing series of conferences for layman in which people with “ideas worth spreading” give mini-lectures that last from five to twenty plus minutes.

I encourage my students to think critically about everything they hear on TED. Much of the content is excellent, but not all of it is. The more we discuss, dissect and disagree, the richer our classroom experience is.

https://www.ted.com/talks

ABOUT SELF-PERCEPTION

The second most watched TED Talk of all time is from 2012, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” by social psychologist and Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy. While an intellectually gifted undergraduate, Cuddy suffered a bad head injury that lowered her IQ by two standard deviations (rough 30 points on an IQ test). Told she might have to give up academic work, she struggled on, dealing with oppressive anxiety and feeling that she was simply not good enough. For anxious OCD folks like me, her presentation on how body language can positively change others’ perception of us while also changing our own body chemistry, giving us the confidence we need to overcome anxiety, is a welcome gush of fresh air. It comes from the heart, based on her life experience in addition to her research. My students love this talk, and a few have told me it has had an impact on their lives.

https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are

You can also read more about Dr. Cuddy and her work in this wonderful 2014 New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/fashion/amy-cuddy-takes-a-stand-TED-talk.html?_r=0

Self-perception and anxiety is also a theme in Reshma Saujani’s 2016 TED Talk “Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection.” I start my lesson on Saujani by asking my students to discuss the following questions in groups.

1. Why do you think there are more men than women in fields like engineering and computer programming?
2. Do you know any women in these fields or related ones? If so, what do they say about this imbalance?

I then show a French news video dubbed in English in which French high school students are asked to solve complicated math problems while hooked up to an MRI scanner. The students in this control group calculate the problems with almost the same skill, young men performing only slightly better than young women. However, the women not in the control group are told there is a difference in men and women’s ability to do these problems. That simple statement reinforces internalized stereotypes and creates math anxiety. The women’s MRI scans then reveal yellow splotches in images of their brains, representing negative emotions; the men’s scans do not include them. When my students see graphs about how these women perform significantly worse than men instead of just slightly worse, they gasp.

At that point, Reshma Saujani’s talk on how women and men are equally capable in math and why she founded Girls Who Code–run with partners like IBM, Microsoft and Twitter—makes sense. The program currently serves 40,000 young women in their mid-teens in all 50 states.

For all OCD sufferers regardless of gender, this is another example of overcoming anxiety and “I can’t.” How many times does OCD tell us we will never be happy again, never get the things we want in life, never overcome our fears, never…

https://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani_teach_girls_bravery_not_perfection?language=en

VETERANS RETURNING HOME AND THE SOCIETY THEY RETURN TO

I am now making the leap to veterans and a society that does not always welcome them back. Yet, as you read, you will see that it is not really too great a leap.

Over the years I have been contacted for OCD help by American veterans or Americans serving in the military, some of them in active combat. Although I have never been in the military, I feel deep empathy for people who face OCD’s fangs while risking their lives so far from loved ones. The first time I saw journalist and filmmaker Sebastian Junger’s 2015 TED Talk “Our Lonely Society Makes It Hard to Come Home from War,” I heard in his words what many have told me. Granted, Junger addresses PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and suicide, but OCD sufferers’ experiences often parallel the issues he explains: “Maybe it’s this: Maybe they had an experience of sort of tribal closeness in their unit when they were overseas. They were eating together, sleeping together, doing tasks and missions together. They were trusting each other with their lives. And then they come home and they have to give all that up and they’re coming back to a society, a modern society, which is hard on people who weren’t even in the military. It’s just hard on everybody.”

https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_junger_our_lonely_society_makes_it_hard_to_come_home_from_war

I have no idea if Sebastian Junger knows Dan Pallotta, whose 2016 TED Talk “The Dream We Haven’t Dared to Dream” urges us to change the way we see ourselves and our relationships as we fight for a better world. I do find, however, that combining these videos in one lesson really gets the creative juices flowing as my students think outside the box and come up with ways to make veterans and others feel more welcome.

Pallotta begins his talk by discussing the 1969 moon landing and his own experience coming out of the closet in order to introduce his main idea: People who deeply believe in fighting for social justice may forget that “too often our dreams become these compartmentalized fixations on some future that destroy our ability to be present for our lives right now…We don’t set the bar much higher than stability when it comes to our emotional life.”

He also quotes Catholic writer, interfaith proponent, social activist and Trappist monk Thomas Merton, whose philosophy many veterans and non-veterans searching for a higher purpose in life follow.

1. “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?”
2. (Merton was writing about war among saints…) “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace.”

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_dream_we_haven_t_dared_to_dream

 CHOOSING EMPATHY OVER PREJUDICE:

So much to think about! We can choose to empower ourselves and we can choose to empower and welcome others. We are not the sum of our OCD thoughts and fears. Neither are we the product of our environment or upbringing if we choose not to be. As an illustration of this, the 2014 TED Talk “I am the Son of a Terrorist. Here’s How I Chose Peace” by Zak Ebrahim also deeply moves my students.

Let me explain. The 2001 terrorist attack that downed the World Trade Center was actually the second such attack. Eight years earlier, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing did not destroy buildings but did kill six and injure more than a thousand. Zak Ebrahim, the son of the terrorist who masterminded the 1993 attack, was raised to follow in his father’s footsteps. He has instead chosen to oppose terrorism, speaking and writing about how even people like him, raised on hate, do not have to embrace it. I have shown this TED Talk many times and, as an Arab American who treasures diversity and understanding, I want to stand up and applaud every time I listen to Ebrahim. I also enthusiastically applaud his talking about Jews and gays—people he was taught to hate but has no reason to hate—in the video.

https://www.ted.com/talks/zak_ebrahim_i_am_the_son_of_a_terrorist_here_s_how_i_chose_peace

Another powerful TED Talk is Dalia Mogahed’s 2016 presentation “What Do You Think When You Look at Me?” Mogahed shows her faith by wearing a headscarf and a loose-fitting dress during her talk. I could not possibly say it any better than the blurb on TED’s main site: “When you look at Muslim scholar Dalia Mogahed, what do you see: a woman of faith? a scholar, a mom, a sister? or an oppressed, brainwashed, potential terrorist? In this personal, powerful talk, Mogahed asks us, in this polarizing time, to fight negative perceptions of her faith in the media — and to choose empathy over prejudice.”

https://www.ted.com/talks/dalia_mogahed_what_do_you_think_when_you_look_at_me

FINAL THOUGHT

Maybe empathy—whether empathy for yourself, for a veteran, or for a stranger who belongs to a different cultural group—is the opposite of OCD. Our obsessions and compulsions keep us locked in our heads, merciless to ourselves and others, unaware of the rich world around us. Empathy connects us to others and takes us out of our heads. And in a world that is “just hard on everybody,” as Sebastian Junger said, it makes all the difference.

BLOG 12

Quacks and Brides, Big Smiles and Cuba

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

August 24, 2017

We OCD folk like everything to be all or nothing, black or white, right or wrong… Or, as my 82-year-old father jokes, “my way or the wrong way.”

Still, that is not reality. Life is more about middle of the road, grays, situational ethics…

Or is it?

“Yes, it is,” says Mark, ignoring his OCD voice.

Well, most of the time.

I thought I would share one of the rare cases where life really did present me with extremes, then tell you what I learned. Specifically, I want to write about four teachers, the two worst and two best in my life.

Let’s start with Freshman English 1 in Brooklyn College, 1983. I just had a mental sniff of mothballs, the smell on every paper returned by Prof. Quack (not his real name, obviously, although there was a Professor Kwak in a different department).

One day Prof. Quack started lecturing us in German. (He was a native English speaker.)  After a few minutes, someone finally said, “Excuse me, Professor, but this is an English class.”  “Ah, yes,” he responded, continuing mid-thought in English without translating the prior German.  He went on and on, explaining his sixth point even though we had no idea what his first five were. And it was not much better when the whole class was in English. I still remember writing a letter to a friend during one of his lectures: “Now he’s talking about naked farmers, although I don’t know what that has to do with writing an essay.”

Yes, that’s a letter with pen and paper since 1983 was pre-Internet…

Prof. Quack’s zipper was often open. His hair was unkempt and he occasionally walked into walls while lecturing. At times, with the door closed, we heard him in his office having loud arguments with his wife by phone.

Yes, that’s a rotary office phone. Pre-cell phone era.

Mind you, Quackie was brilliant and knew his material well. He also published widely. The problem was he had no idea how to present material in a way 18-year-old freshmen understood. He assumed we knew many things we did not and never explained who all the people, places and events in his lectures were. (I could have used a Smartphone then, as I would have looked up a few things on the spot.) As it was, I jotted down what I could, usually misspelled his references, and often could not find them in the school library.

And the best part… Since I went to the same university as my father… My father had had him too! Old Quackers was just a younger version of his strange self then.

But at least he was better than my English-2 professor, whom I’ll call Bride of Frankenstein.  It was 1984, and she was still wearing an enormous 1960s bouffant—two tone!–that did nothing for her. On day one she told us how stupid we were.  She had wanted to use books X and Y, she said, but there wasn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” that we would understand them.  Instead, we had to use book Z since we had wasted taxpayer dollars doing nothing in high school blah blah blah…

As the semester progressed, we learned about Franky’s negative view of the world, her bizarre politics, and why she was so superior to us.  Sometimes we even learned a little about writing—imagine that!  She gave us all bad grades composition after composition. It was never clear why we received these grades, as she was too busy to meet with us after class or during her office hours.  The highest final grade anyone received was a C.

She told me I was a terrible writer and should drop out of school. How ironic that I am a published writer and teach writing these days. I understand that Amy Tan, arguably the most famous Asian-American writer alive today, was told something similar by her English professor—with the addition of a racist comment that she should study math or science since that is what Chinese are good in. How very, very sad.

Now the best teachers.

In Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School (1979 to 1983) I had an older social studies (history) teacher named James Garofola. Say his name and the first thing I think about is his big smile. He was no pushover, mind you, and you could not take advantage of him. But he was warmhearted, sincere and passionate about students. I had hated history before I met him but enjoyed his class and the way he made history come alive and relate to the present so much that I took him again—and in university I had two majors: history and English.

He also took the time to give us life lessons on how to manage ourselves as adults and urge us to get the most out of everything we pursued. I goofed off or failed to do work in other classes in my last two years of high school but always came prepared to Mr. Garofola’s class because I knew I would learn something useful.

And finally, Prof. Teofilo Ruiz, formerly of Brooklyn College (when I had him three times in the 80s) and now of UCLA in California. We called him “Teo,” which means God. Born and raised in Cuba, he helped bring about the Cuban Revolution, then fled for his life when his one-time ally Fidel Castro turned against him. He made it to New York by way of Miami and drove a taxi for ten years to put himself through school. If you Google his name plus “Obama,” you can see him accepting a National Humanities Medal from the President in 2011. Teo’s students—yes, students!—nominated him for this teaching award. That’s how much so many of us love him.

I am known for some of my crazy theatrical antics while teaching, and I know I get it from him. He would also take the time to get to know each student personally and reach out to isolated students. One of the reasons I do so much volunteer work with fellow OCD folk is my memory of how Teo treated me, a misfit, back then. He even invited me to a meal at his home in Princeton and took me around the campus, making me feel special and cared for.

I love to tell my international university students about him since many worry that their English is not perfect. I explain that Teo had a Spanish accent and sometimes made small mistakes in English… Then I show them the picture of Teo, Barack Obama and the award. “So what does that say?” I ask. “Are pronunciation and grammar more important than what is in your heart?” (And you know what? That is precisely what Teo would have said.)

And now, in the spirit of Mr. Garofola, some life lessons based on these four people…

1. Life is not fair, and people like Prof. Quack and Bride of Frankenstein are part of the tapestry. That does not mean you want or deserve such people in your life; they simple… are. You can get past them and fulfill your dreams all the same. And best of all, you can look at the situation with humor instead of anger.
2. Just because someone says something, it does not mean it is true. Can you imagine if I had listened to the Bride and dropped out of school? If Amy Tan had listened to her English professors? People can be wrong—and that includes experts. Follow your passion regardless of naysayers. You will find people who support you.
3. People are not objects. They are multi-level, filled with needs and feelings. The way to bond is to respect and show interest in them.
4. When you meet someone like Mr. Garofola or Teo–or a really good behavior therapist–embrace, embrace, embrace. Internalize what is good and forgive when, because they are human, they cannot be perfect. Remember why the person did you so much good and replicate it for others dealing with Quacks and Brides. You can make life better for them as others have made it better for you.

BLOG 13

Aim High and Keep OCD Low

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

January 5, 2018

I do OCD volunteer work because I once hated getting out of bed. The hour by hour of another day took up too much energy, and oh me oh my! what was the point since I was never going to feel happy again?

My master, OCD, made me aim low and expect nothing.

But after years of fearfully refusing therapy (read that as fear generated by OCD), I learned to be OCD’s master and found I was indeed happy again. It has been two decades since I stepped into the office of the therapist who helped me, and I am still aiming high and keeping OCD low.

On Friday, May 12, 2017, when I got up 4:30 AM, I made a point of ignoring OCD. Instead, I aimed high and went to Silver Spring, Maryland to talk about HOCD (false sexual orientation fears) with two dozen behavior therapists.  I took the express bus from my apartment in Brooklyn to Manhattan, Amtrak from Manhattan to Washington D.C., the Washington Metro Red Line from Washington D.C. to Silver Spring, and then a bus from the train station to the therapy center. I was in transit from 5 in the morning to 12:30 in order to speak for less than an hour.

OCD reminded me that I was the only non-therapist there; needless to say, my anxiety was high.  Good ol’ OCD begged me to call in sick, but I reminded myself that I had been invited by Dr. Lisa Levine, whom I had been in contact with for years, and I could not let her down. I fought through my fears and did my presentation.  In fact, I cracked up the therapists a number of times, as I can be campy when the mood strikes.  When I mentioned the first therapist I had ever had—”my therapist from hell”—they asked for more details.  I almost brought the house down imitating him and his mannerisms.

How did I become a stand-up comic for therapists?!!

And yet my OCD was telling me that I was an idiot who did not know what I was talking about, that I had no right to be there, that I had several mental disorders the therapists would surely see when they restrained my arms with a white coat and shipped me off to a mental facility…

If I had listened to my OCD, I never would have done something scary, something I had never done before… And now I cannot wait to do it again somewhere else.

And that is not all. A few months ago a 2017 critique of my 2005 article about HOCD appeared online. Someone I had helped find appropriate HOCD treatment brought the article to my attention, denouncing it before I had seen it. OCD person that I am, I followed his emotion and was catastrophizing before clicking on the link and fightin’ mad after reading. I waited a few days before responding so that I could contact the writer, Dr. Michael J. Greenberg, in a calm, supportive, professional manner; after all, aren’t I the guy who tells his students to question everything he says? It was time to practice what I preached.

I did not expect a response, although I hoped for one. I got my wish when an equally calm, supportive, professional message arrived in my inbox. In a better state of mind, I realized much of what Michael wrote made sense—but only if I switched off the tunnel vision.

Michael and I have since been in regular contact, and while I do not agree with everything he wrote in his critique I now agree with most of it. Since we are both in New York City, we will be meeting soon to discuss possible collaboration. How cool is that! By working together, maybe we can reach more people with OCD.

It was scary to contact a therapist who had criticized my writing. I did not know if my message would be ignored—or if I would receive a scathing, condescending reply. My OCD painted a worst case scenario, claiming Michael would use my message to publish negative things about me online. Unsurprisingly, none of the horrible things I envisioned came true. Instead, Michael turned out to be a really nice, genuine guy, and I enjoy our communication.

Oh, there is more. A few months ago I did something my OCD said was insane. The ESL program in which I teach at NYU is getting far fewer students than usual for reasons I cannot go into here, and many jobs (including mine) are in danger. Social media is one of the ways we are trying to rebuild our program, and I suddenly found myself in charge of an Instagram account my colleagues had started a few weeks earlier. At 52, I have never had or wanted social media. In addition, I got my first iPhone a couple of months ago and knew only email and phone functions.

A younger teacher and my sister trained me, and 48 hours later I was posting on Instagram with full iPhone functions. I made plenty of mistakes in my first posts, some of them embarrassing, but now I am doing well and the number of people following us is rising. Students and colleagues tell me they like what I post. And yet, if I had listened to my OCD, I would have been sure people were laughing at me behind my back. A guy my age learning something young people are so good at?

I aimed high, told myself I could do it… And did it.

A bonus… I created and teach an elective called Creative Writing for international students whose English is very good but still needs work. Many of them are terrified of writing, let alone writing in English. The class gives them the chance to write free style essays, short fiction and free style poetry in order to develop their voices without having to worry about academic writing, thesis statements, topic sentences and the rest. With their permission, I put some of their writing on Instagram as photos of pages. They were as worried as OCD people that no one would read their work and that, if people did, they would write negative comments. Instead, many, many people “liked” these posts and wrote thoughtful, insightful comments about our budding writers. Even people who found us through hashtags and are not associated with NYU or my program were positive. This has built confidence—and now that the class is over some of my students want to keep writing. Let me repeat that. They want to keep writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you do not give into your OCD, you not only empower yourself but also find ways to empower others.

Now, what can —you— do to aim high and keep your OCD low?

BLOG 14

Singing the Wonder Woman Theme

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

July 30, 2018 

Do you play the worry game? It’s something like Simon Says… But it’s really OCD Says.

Soooo… If OCD says worry, do you? If OCD says be gloomy, are you? If OCD says you will never be happy again, do you believe it?

When OCD hit me as a young adult I became sad and humorless. I still remember a doctor’s remark when I attempted a joke: “You have a sense of humor?” It was not said kindly.

I can still see his sneer more than thirty years later. I can see the mockery in his eyes just as clearly as I can see the jacket and tie he wore.

I wanted to scream “Of course I have a sense of humor! So do all OCD folks. It just gets buried under worry, spikes, rituals, checking and other crazy stuff.”

Instead I said nothing and allowed more negative feelings to overwhelm me.

What was he a doctor of? Psychiatry. He was treating me for OCD.

Happily, I left him and found much, much better treatment.

Today, thanks in large part to good therapists but also to my natural inclinations, I use humor in many interactions. I socialize with humor, write with humor, treat difficult situations with humor and even teach with (a lot of) humor. Ah, but none of that would have been possible in the days of yore when I allowed OCD to set my mood. That is the mistake so many of us make. We treat OCD as if it were our best friend, trusting it completely.

If my best friend did only half of what my OCD does, I would seriously reconsider the relationship.

OCD wants you to forget all positive emotions, especially your sense of humor. If you have the ability to laugh at your OCD and the crazy things it does, you are that much further on the road to getting it under control. You are doing what you please instead of what OCD pleases. You are being a person.

Once you can laugh at OCD, you can also laugh at many other things in life, the theater of the absurd. Laughter navigates you through its scenes. No laughter? That’s Harry Potter Dementor territory. Even if it is not what J.K. Rowling intended, I believe the Dementors inflict temporary OCD on people who do not normally suffer from it when they force them to relive their worst fears and memories.

In Blog 12 I included information about two horrible professors who taught me in the mid-80s. It was many years before Harry Potter was published, but they acted as if they were forever under a Dementor’s spell. I cannot imagine either professor acting with joie de vivre or humor.

If only they had known the enormous power humor has over Dementors (and OCD). To stop a Dementor in its tracks, you have to think of something funny, point your magic wand at the Dementor and say “Ridiculous.” (We actually do that in my pronunciation class when students have trouble distinguishing “R,” “L” and “W.” Students who say “Lidiculous” or “Widiculous” get eaten by Dementors.)

O.K., the Dementors never ate anyone in the Harry Potter books or movies; their Dementor’s kiss steals soul. I think my way was more fun, though.

And that is the whole point: Fun. Laugh at theater of the absurd and make it fun.

Whether I am teaching English to native English speakers, fluent international students or students with little command of English, fun and humor keep them on task.

A story comes to mind. One day I was using color pictures of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man to get students to use new vocabulary items in context. According to Student A, Superman had a blue costume, a red cape, and black underwear.

“Black underwear?” I asked.

Full of self-confidence, Student B jumped in: “Superman never wears underwear!” It did not come out the way he meant it.

Student C understood what he had said and chimed in: “Ooh!  sexy!”

Unware of the banter’s meaning, Student D knew it was his turn but was not sure if Wonder Woman was wearing a bathing suit or a bikini.  Student C chimed in again: “She’s topless!” Again, not quite what the student meant.\

I explained what everyone had actually said, using my body like an actor and also projecting images from Google Search; the class had a good laugh. We then constructed what students had actually wanted to say. It was fun.

When we returned to Wonder Woman, Student C told us she had seen reruns of the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show in her country and loved the theme song. The class asked her to sing it, but she did not know the words. Soooo… I went to YouTube, found the Wonder Woman theme, projected it onto the class screen…

And played it loud. If you do not know it, think cheesy 70s disco. The song and the poorly filmed images are horrible and wonderful. Probably more wonderful than horrible.

The refrain is really easy: “Wonder Woman!  Wonder Woman!” The class started singing along even louder (and far more off key) than the music. So did I. Of course, that’s when my boss walked by. Used to my antics, he rolled his eyes. I am hardly his favorite person, but since students enjoy my classes I remain year after year.

So what is the point of all this?

OCD does not define or control me. I enjoy my day and have a positive effect on others because I actively set up positive situations around me. The OCD slave I used to be would have taught like the two horrible professors in Blog 12. He never would have sung the Wonder Woman theme with his students. As I continue to grow, I hope I become not only a better teacher and adult but also a better student and child.

And I am happy making myself happy and making others happy. Interesting that my OCD used to tell me I would never be happy again—and I used to believe it.

Yes, I have my bad OCD days and my bad moods. Yes, sometimes I do not practice what I preach. But that last time I checked, I was human. Even therapists, who may seem to have answers for everything, can be in bad moods.

Soooo…

I ask again. Do you play the worry game? Has all your worrying and checking ever brought you lasting relief?

Why not give your OCD a mental middle finger by making yourself happy, making others happy, laughing and being outrageous. Start by downloading the 1970s Wonder Woman theme and singing along…

Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman…!

BLOG 15

Embracing Political Difference: OCD Cannot Force You to Be Close-Minded

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

January 21, 2019

Many conservative students like me, and a number take my classes more than once.

I am a liberal.

Oh, it gets better.

Last semester, a conservative student apologized to me for writing a pro-life paper when I am pro-choice. I told him never to apologize for his beliefs or feel embarrassed because of them. “Stand up and be proud of who you are. You’re a good guy.”

I am an academic–a promoter of critical thinking and discourse–first.  I am a liberal second.  As a professor, I believe in exposing my students to many views and making it clear their opinions will be respected.  It disgusts me when the media exacerbate conservative/liberal clashes, claiming they destroy American universities.  Professors with the “wrong” view are painted as buffoons who should not be “brainwashing” students.  But exactly what is the “wrong” view?  It depends who your sources are.

No brainwashing in my classes, this despite my having the “wrong” view in some circles and the “right” one in others. From day one I tell my students they have ideological freedom in my class.  In a nutshell, if my conservative students do good work, they, like my liberal and radical students, get excellent grades plus any help I can give, strong recommendations for graduate school included.  I do not use politics to determine who I care about for the same reason I do use race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or anything else.

So what does all this have to do with OCD?

As everyone who has read any of my previous blogs knows, I have OCD.  It screams for me to be rigid, opinionated, difficult to get along with. Above all, it makes me want to engage in tribalism.  Part of being human is living with a tribal instinct that makes me suspicious of anyone who is different/not part of whatever I view as my tribe.  And politics are very, very tribal.

But despite all that and despite OCD, I have free choice in how I treat others.  And I choose ideological freedom.

When I was a student, I was bullied by many professors—and not just conservative professors who mocked my liberal views.  Liberal and radical professors also bullied me for not being liberal or radical enough. I was a teenager trying to find myself, and I paid in grades for my beliefs.  I promised myself I would never do what was done to me.

Ironically, the way these liberal, radical and conservative professors acted has OCD parallels.  Only their way was right, and they implied that we were not smart enough to have our own opinions or fully understand the stakes. In other words, everything was right or wrong, black or white, good or bad, with no wiggle room.  Is it any wonder that when OCD struck, I was well primed for OCD thinking?  Tribalism runs deep.

I often say that my volunteer work with OCD makes me a better teacher just as teaching makes me a better OCD volunteer.  In helping folks with OCD, I have to be aware of how vulnerable they are and how much pain they are in.  My objective is to help them understand what OCD is, how it is treated, and what appropriate treatment is available to them.  Which Presidential candidate they voted for does not factor into that.

Similarly, my teenage freshmen are vulnerable and, despite their high intelligence, easily influenced.  I have to be careful not to brainwash them, not to become the embodiment of OCD, which is why I make it clear that they are invited to disagree with me on absolutely anything.  Asking students to own views they disagree with is counter-productive. Asking them to consider all views, on the other hand, is another matter.  When they write their final papers for me, liberal students must use at least one conservative source and conservative students must use at least one liberal source. If they wish, they can use such sources as naysayers and debunk them in their papers as long as they show me they understand the opposing view.

So how does a teacher expose students to many views?  The answer should be obvious but, sadly, it eludes many academics.  Quite simply, I present more than one view.  (I told you it was obvious.)  While a good chunk of what I teach is liberal and I spend amply time on subjects like racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, I also make sure to include conservative voices in our readings and discussions.  That includes, for example, David Gelernter, who stands against the current academic climate and whom President Trump considered for the role of science advisor.  It also includes Richard Rodriguez, whose stand against bilingual education, among other things, infuriates many Latinos.

When I taught a lesson on PTSD and how returning American veterans are wrongly looked down on by chunks of society, exacerbating their symptoms and sense of alienation, one of my students, himself from a military family, made a point of talking to me after class to express his appreciation of the lesson.  A liberal student also spoke to me after class.  She told me people in her family had served in Vietnam, and now she understood them much better.  It is not something they have ever talked about, she said, but she intends to use her new knowledge, although she does not yet know how.

“Treating veterans with kindness and dignity is a matter of human decency,” I tell my students, “not a matter of being conservative or liberal.”

Treating students with kindness and dignity regardless of political persuasion is also a matter of human decency.

BLOG 16

Don’t Let OCD Make You a Heel

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 25, 2019

One of the courses I teach (and love) is American Business English for International Students.  Students’ cultural and personal perspectives spice up material, giving us much to reconsider.  There is never only one viewpoint about anything, and I often rethink my own beliefs after considering students’ input.

If only I had kept that in mind as the story I am about to tell unfolded.

A couple of semesters ago, a young woman who dreamed of being an international banker told the class: “I have never worn heels in my life.  Is it necessary to wear them to an American interview, or can I wear flat shoes?”  No one had an answer.  So…

“Uhhhhhhh…”  That was my response.  Mind you, I am completely fashion-challenged, and it is all I can do to choose solids that match.   I wear nice clothes to work, but I do not wear a jacket and tie.  If I were a woman, I would probably not wear heels since they are supposed to be uncomfortable.  I am also against clothing that enforces distinctions based on binary gender conformity.

Nevertheless, I have to prepare my students for what they will encounter in the world outside their idealistic professor’s classroom.

I promised the student I would find out and get back to her at our next meeting.  In the meantime, I gave her my best guess: “I think it depends on what type of position you are applying for.  If you want to go to business school or get a job in business, I think it might be necessary for you to wear heels to the interview.  Maybe you can practice wearing them before the interview.  Wear them the day of the interview before you enter the building in which you have the interview.  Keep them on after the interview until you are no longer near the building.  You can then change into comfortable shoes or sneakers as long as the interviewers do not see them.”

I felt as if I had betrayed my beliefs.

Assuming there was a single “right” answer, I posted the question on my department’s listserv.  I wanted to spare myself the burden of thinking and feed the class what someone else supplied.

In came the first public response: “I’d say you absolutely can wear flat shoes as long as they are professional looking.” I wanted that to be the answer and hoped everyone else would say the same thing, making it a nice black and white issue.  (Oh, how we OCD folks love black and white minus that pesky gray…)

Unfortunately, the next response said the opposite: “Your student is subjecting herself to having to adhere to the protocol, the culture, the demands of her chosen industry.  And as one who actually wears heels on occasion, I’d be happy to do a little ‘high heel training”’ with your student, time permitting.”

Then there was the third response: “Better to wear flats than risk tripping over the interviewer’s feet, which is what would happen if I wore heels.”

And the fourth: “Wear the heels.  Heels hurt, yes. Heels ruin your spine, sure. They also make you look like a badass powerhouse who takes no shit from anyone. Flats say, ‘I just want to be comfortable’. Comfortable is not sexy. Comfortable is not ambitious. Comfortable is, well, comfortable. And some might say sensible, which would be true. But my goodness, she wants to be an international banker and make oodles of money! She should wear the heels and make sure they fit her well and are strong brand.”

And the fifth: “When I started teaching 30+ years ago, I thought if I dressed the part I could pull it off.  30 years later I don’t think my clothes have anything to do with my teaching as long as they’re clean and look good and feel comfortable.  I can’t believe we are still talking about women having to cripple their feet in heels to get a job.  Maybe when her male counterparts have to wrap some body part so tightly it blisters and bleeds we’ll see how necessary it is.”

And the sixth: “I would suggest your student look up the address of an employer she would love to work for, then visit their building midday to see what the women coming and going from the building are wearing. Scoping out an office’s unofficial dress code before an interview is actually something that is recommended for anyone interviewing for a job.”

No easy answer at all.  Grayer and grayer and grayer…

What on earth was I going to tell my student?

But then I thought about the quote I make the center of everything I do in my classroom: “A teacher teaches students how to think, not what to think.” In my search to find the right answer (and my false belief that there was only one), I was in fact looking to make up the student’s mind for her instead of giving her information and letting her make her own decision.  I consider myself a feminist, and I was embarrassed that my search for an answer amounted to telling a woman what she should do.  Shame on me!

I posted a long message back to my colleagues that included the following sentences: “I think the most important issue here is choice over political correctness, and I am glad that I live in an age where women do indeed have many choices.  A woman should feel good about herself regardless of whether that means heels, make-up, a crewcut, flannel, a tight dress, baggy clothes, shaved legs, hairy legs, or anything else.  She should accumulate information and choose for herself.”

And so, ignoring OCD’s scream for a definite answer, I gave my student (and the class) the pros and cons of wearing heels to an interview and let them debate the issue.  That is, after all, why they are in school: To accumulate knowledge that allows them to think for themselves.

I then looked down at my size 11 Triple E width boats, uh, feet and felt glad I had the freedom to make choices.  How could I want any less for my students?

BLOG 17

OCD, Fear and Academic Learning

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

July 10, 2019

***This article was inspired by polyglot Steven Kaufman’s 2005 blog on The Linguist: “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Language Learning” (https://blog.thelinguist.com/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-and-language-le)

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

–Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States during the tension-filled years of the Great Depression and World War II

If you experience fear, doubt, frustration, and other terrible feelings while learning in school or on your own, you should say Roosevelt’s words aloud while looking in the mirror every day.  In other words, you should notfear the material you are learning or fear making mistakes…  (The first time I used this quote in print, I wrongly attributed it to Winston Churchill.  You see: I made a mistake.  So what!)

Only be afraid of being afraid, not of making mistakes.  And when you do that, be aware of how fear of anything else can stop you from doing your best.  Take steps to manage learning-based fear the way you manage OCD.

Now, what is fear?  For starters, fear is based on chemistry and biology. It was necessary for the first humans to feel fear so that they would fight against or run away from danger. Without fear they would have stayed where they were, smiling while large animals licked their lips and prepared for lunch.  Fear is a survival gift, and it disappears when there is no longer any danger.

Well, for most people without OCD, that is…  We OCD folks experience fear as unwanted, repetitive thoughts even if there is no danger: “What if…?  What if…? What if…?”

Students with OCD fall into this self-defeating pattern: “What if everyone laughs at me when I express my opinion?”  “What if I forget everything the day of the test?”  “What if I’m too stupid to learn anything?”  “What if 73 airplanes fall down from the sky and crush our classroom?”  They may get so worried about whether or not they are actually learning that their fears make it hard to learn.  They may spend hours creating plans to study, making lists, arranging their books—but not actually study.  Or they may imagine there are too many things to do in mastering a subject and give up.  How sad!

I tell my students the worst expression in English is “Practice makes perfect.”  (Doesn’t it sound like something an OCD person would say?) There is no perfect anything in the physical world, and practice will not help you achieve the impossible. Professional musicians do not perform perfectly.  Mathematicians and scientists are not immune from human error.  Therapists make mistakes (and the good ones admit them to clients).  Those who pursue perfection in their work will only disappoint themselves.

However, practice, while not making you perfect, will make you much better.  Practice builds new pathways in your brain (just as cognitive behavior therapy does) and helps you make fewer mistakes.  That in turn helps you gain confidence and shy away from doubts.

News flash: Everyone has doubts, fears and insecurities in learning something new.  We OCD folks just feel them really, really strongly.  It is important to ignore doubts about learning the way we ignore doubts produced by OCD.  As a teacher, I believe learning is not about how smart a person is.  It is about how much work a person does to learn, and struggle is a beneficial part of the learning process.  Struggle helps you figure things out and relate various ideas, disciplines and experiences in a sophisticated way.  Very smart people who do not work hard / do not struggle also do not learn.  On the other hand, anyone who works at something can improve.

Here is something I include in every syllabus for English as a Second Language:

————–

Mark’s Special Rules

1.Mark’s Rule #1: Mistakes are good.  The more mistakes you make, the more you learn.

2.Mark’s Rule #2: Your intelligence and ability to use your native language are very high.  Your ability to use English is a little lower—but that does not change your intelligence.  A person who makes mistakes in English simply makes mistakes in English.  Making mistakes does not= being stupid.

3. By being in this class, you agree to accept these rules.

————–

Learning, like life, is meant to be full of mistakes.  Let your mistakes encourage you.  Let them teach you.  Go forth, learn, make mistakes, forget perfectionism, and embrace imperfection. What works for controlling OCD also works for learning.

BLOG 18

Forgive Today, Change Tomorrow

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

 October 28, 2019

I do not forgive others easily.  Or often.  Part of it is OCD and its silly search for perfect behavior, but part of it is me and my life experiences.

I am not talking about small things and honest mistakes, which I forgive easily.  Rather, like most people I have been hurt by many, and each betrayal chips away another piece of my core, another measure of my trust in humanity, another section of the half full glass.

Still, on the few occasions where I am able to forgive someone for something major, it is largely because of what happened that first time I forgave.

It was the early 1990s and I, in my mid-20s, was doing volunteer work in the Brooklyn Public Library Literacy Program.  I froze as Adam (not his real name) entered the room.  I had not seen him in a decade, but I knew that face, that sinister smile—the one he wore every time he bullied me, every time teachers and other authority figures looked the other way since “boys will be boys.”

He was busy talking to the person he had come in with and had not seen me, so my survival instinct (and OCD?) screamed that I should quickly dash through the exit on the other side.  Staying would reopen the old pain and humiliation; all I had to do was forget about volunteering, escape from my fears…

…but I was not a helpless teenager any longer.  I was a grown man and a teacher in training.  And I was committed to helping any student who came my way without cherry picking.

Then Adam spotted me, and my horror was nothing compared to the expression on his face when he realized who was conducting the literacy circle.  I could have called him out, humiliating him and possibly driving him from the program.  Perhaps I would have been asked to leave too, but wasn’t getting revenge, reclaiming my self-esteem, more important than my volunteer work?  Adam deserved to be humiliated for what he had done…

Again, I was no longer a helpless teenager.

My thoughts racing, I greeted him warmly and said I was there to help him reach his goals…  And he apologized.  I did not even get to finish talking about his goals.  He simply, spontaneously, sincerely apologized for everything he had done to hurt me when we were kids.

No one had ever done that before.  In fact, no one has ever done that since.

That genuine apology, full of shame, made something in me melt.  How many times had I seen a TV show or read about a bully who could not read and took it out on the class nerd?   Fiction suddenly became reality.  It did not mean he had had any right to torment me, but it did mean that he was aware of me and my feelings.

We worked together for months.  One night he invited me to his home for dinner, where his wife cooked one of the best West Indian curries I have ever had.  (If the food is spicy enough to make my nose run, I am a happy man.)

In the end, I was able to come to terms with some of what I went through as a kid because of Adam and his spontaneous apology.  There were others who had bullied me as well, but some of the sting surrounding them lightened once I started to know Adam as more than a stock character.  As a child, he had been molested by a man, and hurting me, the fat nerdy gay kid in school, had made him feel better.  I am glad I had the opportunity to say I was so sorry he had suffered like that, and that the man who had abused him had had no right to do that.  I also said he could talk to me about it any time he wished.  Adam has young sons he cherishes, and I hope he will teach them to respect others.

I am so glad I did not opt for taking revenge that night in the early 90s.

In my work as a professor and OCD volunteer today, I am very supportive of my students and people with OCD, particularly when they confide in me.  I have no doubt my experiences with Adam set the stage.

BLOG 19

The Real Payoff

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 4, 2020

A couple of days ago I was using an article on the way parts of the teenage brain develop before others to show a freshman English class how to select a major supporting detail and comment on it in their essays.

My students, mostly the same age as the late teens in the article, were fascinated by what it said: Teenage brains are wired for anxiety and fear because that part of the brain develops before the part that allows them to reason and calm down; teenagers engage in risky behavior because the reward center of their brains develops before their ability to think more logically and control impulses; many adults with anxiety disorders say their problems began when they were teenagers…

That’s where a number of hands went up.  “What’s an anxiety disorder?”  Oh my, I thought…

And yet, it was one of the most rewarding classroom experiences I have had in years.  Even the student who usually falls asleep and snores was really interested.  We spent a good half hour off topic but engaged in lively discussion.  Many students who usually share little started speaking openly about odd fears, phobias, and obsessions they had. I had opened the floodgates.  “Remember,” I said, “that many first year psychology students falsely diagnose themselves with everything in the book.”  (There were a lot of chuckles.)  “We all have bits and pieces of things that might be used in a diagnosis, but that does not mean everyone in the room has an anxiety disorder.”

Since some of my students are in the military, we were soon talking about veterans and PTSD.  I shared with them that in my volunteer work I have met a few veterans who returned with bad OCD.  (That was news to them, and I am so happy that I made them aware of the issue.)

That then lead to a discussion of nature vs. nurture in psychology and how, in Israel, where practically the whole adult population is in or has been in the military and everyone supports returning soldiers, less than 1% of veterans develop PTSD.  In the U.S., where veterans may be treated badly, called murderers, and unable to get assistance in making the transition back to civilian life, the percentage is alarming.

One of the hardest things in a class like this—even though it should be simple—is teaching others to respect and not ostracize difference.  A veteran who needs help with psychological issues is a human being the community needs to accept and help.  Similarly, a young person who has never been in the military and seems to have it all yet suffers from an anxiety disorder also needs to be accepted and helped.  Basic Golden Rule, no?

Ah, but I was talking to teenagers.   The problem is that an anxiety disorder is not… cool.  Teenagers are often all for being true to oneself, rebelling, being visibly different, and so on, but that is only cool if you conform to what other teens say, do and believe.  And how they dress.  And what music they listen to.  Anti-establishment, non-conforming teens are often the most conforming people on the planet.  They conform to teen culture, a rigid brand of non-conformity that requires them to make life living hell for the uncool.

When professors have students who know and like them, their public declaration that they have always been nerds and have never been cool go a long way.  From my being the one who was always different, we got into other differences in the room.  (As I expected, one student eventually said, “We’re all different in some way.”)

And then we got back to OCD and anxiety, and how that is just a difference that is really a variety of normal since we all have little phobia and obsessions.

After class, a few students approached me with questions.  I did not tell them what to think or do.  Instead, I gave answers that would help them make informed decisions.  For some, I later found information online and emailed it.

This is, perhaps, the greatest reward of teaching.  We all came together, each belonging to a societal niche and subculture yet each suddenly less hostile of difference.

Did I mention that The Breakfast Club, which is part of my generation, is one of my favorite movies?  At 54, I get to live it.

BLOG 20

Harry Potter and the OCD Monster

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

August 24, 2020

The OCD Monster…So many use the term—although, personally, I prefer the OCD bully.  But monster or bully or something else, if you have been through it you know even those just starting to come to terms with it can cut off the dragon’s head and win freedom.

That is why I was not surprised less than a year ago when I learned my beloved J.K. Rowling, author extraordinaire of the Harry Potter series, has OCD.  I have long suspected her dementors and boggarts are OCD monsters or bullies.  I also believe the way Hogwarts students learn to control them reflects CBT and ERP.  Maybe that is why Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the seven book series and the one featuring those creatures, has always been my favorite, the one I reread the most.  

Well, that and the time travel…

But oh, J.K., you get it exactly right.  Many people trapped in OCD’s darkness falsely think they will never be happy again.  That is the mindset the wraithlike dementors create as they suck away all happiness, hope and positive memories, replacing them with despair and depression, leaving victims to wallow in their worst memories over and over.  The British Ministry of Magic even employs these foul monsters to guard the Azkaban prison, trapping incarcerated wizards in hopelessness and preventing them from breaking out.

So what does a wizard do if a dementor is nearby?  The Patronus Charm!  “Expecto Patronum!”  A magical guardian, an actual projection of the wizard’s most positive feelings, attacks the dementors and stops their controlling thoughts.  It is an extremely difficult spell to learn, one that takes much practice and commitment—just as it takes us OCD folks much practice and commitment to use what is most positive in us to cast out the negative, the despair, the hopelessness, and truly live again.  No other spell works on a dementor, just as nothing else works on OCD’s baseless terror.  The logic that helps in so many other things crumbles away.  The reassurance we seek works for a short time and then makes OCD worse.  The checking we engage in multiplies our fears.   Clearly, our own Patronus Charm—CBT that teaches us to ignore OCD’s call, not givng into reassurance or checking or magical thinking or compulsions—is powerful real-world magic.   We pay no mind to what OCD says, live with uncertainty, distract ourselves and, when necessary, take medication.  (I would say that our therapists are like Professor Lupin, who taught Harry the charm, but I don’t want to compare them to werewolves…) 

There are many debates regarding the translation of “Expecto Patronum!” from Latin.  I tend to go withexpecto as “I await” and patronum (the inflected direct object form of patronus) as “a patron,” loosely translated as “a guardian.”  One key to making the spell work is the caster’s projecting positive feelings into the patronus.  Interestingly, the shape of the patronus comes from the wizard’s personality.  Harry Potter’s takes the form of a stag, the same shape as his father’s Animagus form.  In other words, you cannot divorce the wizard from the power of the patronus.  Similarly, there is a lot of us in our own projections of hope, determination and the will not to be enslaved by an OCD monster or bully when we use the skills we have learned in therapy alongside our own internal devices to drive out OCD.

Similar to dementors, boggarts in the wizarding world feed off terror.  Their true form is unknown, as they transform instantly into the observer’s worst fear.  Since Lord Voldemort (He Who Must Not Be Named) represents the worst fear for, perhaps, 90% of the wizarding world (at least before the Battle of Hogwarts), that is the form boggarts most often take.  But for Harry Potter, a boggart takes on the form of a dementor.  Mrs. Weasley has a vision of all her loved ones dead.  Hermione Granger experiences Professor McGonagall telling her she had failed all her classes.  I suppose if people with OCD encounter boggarts, they see whatever OCD is making them obsess about.

Of course, boggarts can be defeated.  To stop a boggart in its tracks, you think of something funny, wave your wand, and say “Riddikulus!”  Like the Patronus Charm, It is a difficult spell to master; the caster has to be mentally committed without giving into fear, at which point the boggart turns into the ridiculous thing the caster is thinking about.  And if the caster can laugh aloud at the boggart in its new, ridiculous guise, it disappears.  Sooooooo OCD, no?  If you can stop obsessing about an OCD worry, think about how ridiculous it is, and laugh at it, it goes away as fast as a boggart.  

The next time you enter Harry Potter’s wizarding world through a book, movie, or game, think about what J.K. Rowling is saying about OCD, not letting fear get the better of you, and belief in yourself.  Be brave like our friends in Gryffindor House!

Blog 21

Yes, Each of You Is Still Superman

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

December 3, 2020

One evening past midnight in the 1990s, I heard someone yelling “Help! Help!”   At first I thought it was part of the late night television I was watching, but when I also heard it during a commercial I grew worried and looked out the window.  In the middle of the street, snow falling on her as it also covered the ground, sat my grandmother in her nightgown.  

I ran out of my parents’ house and onto the porch in my bare feet and underwear, then down the stairs and into the street.  “What are you doing?” I asked (as if that were a logical question).  “I’m waiting for a bus,” she said (as if that were a logical response).  No bus ever went down our secluded avenue, and my grandmother knew that.  Well, when she was in her right state of mind…  But the snowstorm was not a place to philosophize.   

I picked her up and carried her—first time for everything–up the stairs and into the house.  The second I burst in I shouted for my parents and sister.   Covered in snow, the reality of the situation dawning on me, I never thought to put my grandmother down.  

Half asleep, my family scampered into the living room.  “Young man, what are you doing?” asked my father.  (Another logical question…  I mean, don’t grandmothers and grandsons always strip down to their underwear and frolic in the snow?)  

So off to the hospital we went, and the doctor said I had saved her life.  She had taken a new medication that night, and the dosage had been too strong.  The medication corrected, my grandmother lived many more years.

Did I mention that during our sprint in the snow I had on red underpants and a blue t-shirt?  It was a coincidence but…  I had on Superman colors.

I have spent my whole life devouring super-heroes and their adventures, never expecting to become one.  Certainly, all I expected that evening was a little diversion from Baywatch. (Yeah, I admit I like watching hot bodies run across beaches.)  

Similarly, I suppose most super-heroes never expect to get super-powers and save lives, let alone do good in other ways.  Some are born with powers, but most are everyday folks who gain abilities in freak accidents. 

At this point, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with OCD.  This is, after all, an OCD blog…

We OCD folks often feel like the polar opposite of heroes.   Our OCD convinces us we are evil, worthless, vile, or whatever adjective you would like to add.  We are burdens to everyone and add nothing positive to others’ lives, we may tell ourselves.  Even if we try to list our good qualities and the good things we have done, OCD finds a way to twist it all into something negative.

And yet, each of us—yes, you, the person reading this—is Superman.  OCD may lie and lie, feeling real and scaring the crap out of us, but it cannot take away our true identity, the nobility inside us all.

O.K., time for me to be even more of a nerd and talk about comic book history so that will make sense.  In today’s version of the American icon, Clark Kent is just as good looking, muscular, successful, and noble as his alter ego.  He is even married to Lois Lane, who knows who he really is.  

But Clark Kent was written differently from the late 30s until around the late 80s.  Kent was bullied as a teenager growing up in Smallville (unlike the TV show Smallville) and then as an adult in Metropolis.  He suffered humiliation, pretending to be a coward and weakling so no one would suspect who he truly was or come after his loved ones.  He could not show off his intellect, stamina, strength or other “super” qualities.  And worst of all, Lois Lane loved Superman but not Clark Kent. 

And that is what made the character so noble.  He put up with everything in order to protect people, to blend in, to hide Superman until he was needed.  

This is my main point: Clark Kent is only part of who each of us is.  Inside everyone is a Superman ready to put on a red cape and “fight for truth, justice, and the American way.”

However, being a Superman does not mean you are going to run out in the snow to save a life.  Each of you is Superman every time you help another person in any way, do a random act of kindness, support a worthy cause, contribute to charity, help a younger person or an older person or someone in your family, smile at someone who needs a smile, and so on.  Your OCD, which goes for all or nothing, will try to dismiss your Superman acts and sell you short.  Clark Kent OR Superman, it says, and you are only Clark Kent.  But how can Clark Kent exist without Superman?  That is simply impossible.

One more thing…  Superman was created by two Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, on the eve of World War II.  The Jewish communities of Europe, considered less than human by some governments, were suffering before the war began.  Cartoonist Jules Feiffer once said that Superman’s real home was Poland, not Krypton.  In other words, Superman was born out of anti-Semitism in that country plus the experiences of Siegel and Shuster.  In addition, Siegel and Shuster portrayed Clark Kent the way they, as adolescents, felt: victimized by bullies, weak, unathletic, afraid of the young women they wished they could talk to.  And yet, there was so much more to them, to the Jews of Poland and elsewhere, to all of humanity, than that.  When Clark Kent sheds his secret identity, he stands for all of us and reveals the true Superman inside.    

No matter what is happening in your life, how you feel, or what your OCD tells you, each of you is still Superman.

Yes, each of you is still Superman.

Blog 22

Leap those tall buildings in a single bound!

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 19, 2021

When my NYU colleague Tom passed away a couple of years ago, I gave him a disco sendoff.

Asked to play the music at his memorial, I assume people had in mind what, as a young man, I would have called “elevator music”: classical, somber, slow, dignified…. But that was not what Tom, who made every day a celebration, would have wanted.  He had grown up in the 1970s and loved disco. 

It was certainly one of the most bizarre memorials NYU had ever seen.  As Donna Summer and Sister Sledge cracked the speakers in the meeting room, older people chatted about academic matters (not to the beat) and ate finger food (again, not to the beat).  Passersby gave shocked stares while some colleagues shot me nasty glares…  But some of Tom’s non-academic friends and even a few of our colleagues were happy that I had “captured Tom’s essence,” as they put it.   Tom would have found the affair wonderful and hilarious, and in the end that was what mattered.

What made me do it?  I have OCD.  It gives me high creativity, helping me think outside the box.  It gives me empathy and drive to go the extra mile and get it right.  This, I believe, is true of all OCD folks.

Ah, I can hear the objections already—and they are fine.  Many OCD folks resent the idea that their OCD curse can also be a blessing.  They are quick to say they are smart or creative or empathetic because of who they are, not because of OCD—and that, too, is fine.  Maybe they are right.  Maybe I am right.  Most likely, we are probably both right.  

Of course, we OCD folks are so literal that we often take everything as absolute truth, all black and white with no gray.  Please do not view my words that way.  I am not writing Truth with a capital T here.  Rather, I am stating an opinion, one I hope will give us all a better take on OCD.

So why do I say that OCD makes us creative?  Our OCD brains are forever thinking outside the box (or smashing the box to splinters!) while coming up with crazy scenarios where life goes wrong and unimportant details get major consideration.  Speed is also a factor, and I doubt even The Flash could think it through so quickly.  But when we get OCD under control, we retain our ability to think fast on our feet and look carefully at details.  We come up with interesting ways to imprint ourselves on others by making the world better in unexpected, creative ways, whether through problem solving, volunteer work, charity, being good to others, or anything else.  We use OCD as a force for good.

Or, for those who do not wish to credit OCD with anything good, we do this by tuning out OCD’s lies while becoming the good people we were meant to be.

Then there is our attention to detail and organization.  I am not saying we have photographic memories, but I am willing to bet so much obsessing, often over things that happened years or even decades ago, contributes to our weird ability in information storage and retrieval.  At work my (physical) filing system and (mental) ability to remember details of conversations and policy from long ago gives me a real advantage.  At another school my boss, for example, would issue a memo and then, when she needed it, forget where she had filed it and what she had wriiten in it.  When that happens, who you gonna call?  No, not Ghostbusters.  Someone with OCD who has a copy, remembers what was in it, and recalls how others reacted to it.  

That is not even the end of it.  Our gifts go beyond creativity, recollection and filing since we can also remake ourselves into the types of people we want to be.  CBT, exposures, and the other things we do to rewire our brains and get our lives back show us how much we are capable of.  If you can rewire yourself as a person who is not ruled by OCD, you can with practice and determination also rewire yourself into an excellent student or a better family member/friend or a more confident person on a date or a more capable practitioner of fill-in-the-blank…  The only limitations are what we make ourselves believe.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, because we know the pain of OCD and come to understand that having OCD is not our fault or something we deserve or some form of punishment or something we asked for, we develop greater empathy for those undergoing depression, substance abuse, mental and physical disabilities, life changes.  In an impersonal world, we are the flesh and blood that gives a damn and wants to alleviate others’ suffering.  (One thing that always makes me smile is the number of people with OCD who ask what they can do for others.)

I started this blog with a disco memorial for my colleague, so perhaps it is fitting I also end with him.  Tom was well loved because he helped people when he did not have to, showed kindness every day, reinvented himself as an educator, knew amazing things by memory, and, because of his creativity, was an amateur actor and writer in addition to everything else.  He did all that without OCD.  

We, on the other hand, have gifts ready for our use, gifts that will transform us and transform our world.  Whether or not you think the gifts are part of OCD, embrace them and be everything you were meant to be.  Tom would have told you to be amazing.

Blog 23

Be Like Paul the Pigeon Man

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

July 21, 2021

One day after work back in 2013, I was reading in Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village when a pigeon landed on my shoulder.  I was delighted, although unsure what to do.  Since I love chatting with my cat Roscoe, I began talking to the pigeon, assuring it of its beauty while emphasizing that I was not a statue.  A group of young people smiled and pointed at me.
 
I slowly, gently stretched out my arm to show the pigeon that it was time to leave…  And another pigeon sat next to the first, this time on my arm.
 
The young people bust out laughing and whipped out their phones…
 
…just as a squirrel ran up to me and began tugging at my pants leg!
 
I got up gently and the squirrel ran away.  Then I walked away from the bench, assuring the pigeons I was not one of their parents, but they stayed perched.  At that point, many others were also pointing at me and laughing.   I shook my arm very gently, and the birds finally flew off.
 
That evening my sister did a Google search, and it turns out there is a guy, Paul the Pigeon Man, who sits in the west end of Washington Square Park and feeds the pigeons.  Several perch on his body at once.  The only problem is…  We look absolutely nothing alike, and according to what my sister found pigeons remember people’s faces.

So why did they choose me?  Sometimes, when my Roscoe is feeling bad, she nuzzles against me for sympathy and kindness.  Perhaps that first bird was looking for kindness and remembered feeling good with Paul the Pigeon Man.  Since he was not around, perhaps something about me—Posture? Clothes? Book?—struck a Paul the Pigeon Man chord.  And when the squirrel and second bird saw me treating the first with kindness and respect, perhaps it decided to hop on board, too.  All creatures need to be well treated.

I wonder if Paul the Pigeon Man was familiar with St. Francis of Assisi, who also loved birds (and all living creatures).  I have no difficulty imagining what they would have talked about if only they could have met. 

Judaism also speaks of kindness.  A mitzvah is a good deed (loosely translated from Yiddish) but also a commandment (in Hebrew).  It goes hand in hand with The Golden Rule, the idea of treating others the way you wish to be treated, found in many world religions and secular philosophies.  A few years ago, there was a building here in Brooklyn with a large sign anyone on the highway could read: “Kindness makes a better Brooklyn.  Do a Mitzvah.”  Now Brooklyn is home to more than two and a half million people.  Imagine if each of them did one mitzvah each day…  

But why mitzvahs or good deeds or random acts of kindness?

The world can be cold and impersonal, and we humans (animals that we are) are forever in need of kindness and respect to keep us feeling human.  Anyone who suffers from OCD knows how powerful, even lifechanging, it is when our obsessions and compulsions are respected instead of made fun of.  When we are treated with kindness and dignity.  When we are accepted as we are.  When we are made to feel we matter as living creatures.

That is where random acts of kindness come in.  It might be as simple as giving a stranger your seat on the bus.  It might be more complicated—perhaps tutoring a child who needs it, helping an elder who cannot get about, donating to charity, or assisting someone who feels overwhelmed.  Whatever the case, it is nourishing and life sustaining; in many cases it is passed on in a beautiful chain.  So many are starved for affection, and we have the power to feed them emotionally.

Since we OCD folks are obsessive anyway, we might consider taking on a positive obsession.  We can be on the lookout for ways to be Paul the Pigeon Man, do a mitzvah, show kindness without looking for a reward, make the world a tad better for someone else.  It’s the best kind of obsessive thinking.

Blog 24

Monsters in the Closet

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

November 2, 2021

When I was a little boy, another little boy told me there was a button that could make the earth explode.  If it was ever pushed, he told me gleefully, we would all die.  I instantly believed him and sank into despair.

I went home so focused on the button that I did not pay attention to traffic lights.  Cars honked and people yelled, but I barely heard it above the noise in my mind.  At home I stared out my bedroom window, eyes unfocused.  “What if today is the day they press the button?” I thought.  “What if we are all going to die today?”

When my mother asked me what was wrong, tears fell as I told her.  She took my hands in hers and explained there was no such button.  I instantly believed her and bounced back from despair.

Today I consider this my first OCD episode. 

Around the same time, I became convinced there were genies living in our toilet.  (You don’t want to know what I thought they ate…)  Whenever I finished in the bathroom and flushed, I ran to my bedroom and hid in bed until I could no longer hear the toilet flushing.  After seeing me do this several times, my parents had a serious talk with me.

As I grew older, I had many other bizarre fears.  In sixth grade I was given a Social Studies text that included pictures of unwrapped Egyptian mummies.  Those images terrified me; I thought the mummies were going to come out of the book and kill me.  Every night, I asked God to make sure the mummies stayed in the book.

My first OCD fear about having a terrible disease came when a teacher explained how more than half the vocabulary in English came from Latin and French.  I then assumed I would be able to read those languages and went to the library to find a book in French.  Needless to say, I was unable to read it.  My conclusion: I must be brain damaged.  It took a lot to get that fear out of my head.

I am chuckling as I write this, and I hope you are doing the same as you read it.  Not one of these fears is realistic.  Instead, they are based on illogical thinking and random thoughts.  Even children who never develop OCD have some strange fears and need the help of adults to overcome them.  How many parents have proven to their children that no monster is hiding in the closet?  

You might say “Monsters in the closet?  What a silly fear!“  Ah, but what about OCD fears we have as adults?  What about being certain we have cancer when we do not, being certain germs will contaminate us, being certain we do not love the person we are in a relationship with, being certain our sexual orientation has changed, being certain we are about to harm a loved one, being certain…

Those adult fears are the same as a button that makes the world explode, genies living in a toilet, mummies coming out of a book, and inability to read French as a sign of brain damage.  OCD makes you absolutely certain of, well, nonsense.  You instantly believe what OCD says the way I believed that little boy.  Logic and reason, which separate adults from little children, have no power over OCD.  

The next time you have an obsessive fear about cancer or contamination or not loving someone or sexual orientation or harming someone or… Think about the monsters in the closet.  It ain’t real.

That is why we must label OCD as OCD, the way we label monsters in the closet as a childish fear.  It feels real, and you swear you can hear those monsters smacking their lips as they think about how tasty you will be.  The only problem is…. There are no monsters there.  

Blog 25

A Teacher’s View of Critical Thinking

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 31, 2022

“It feels so real.”

That is what so many express—heck, what I have expressed—when OCD strikes with something typically illogical, something based on lies that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Feeling real is not the same as being real, and critical thinking helps me manage OCD by exposing lies.  (The rest is up to CBT.)

Back in 2015, I addressed such critical thinking in Blog #3 when I explained a lesson I sometimes teach about the American Founding Fathers and the (supposed) lost colony of Atlantis.  In 2021 I added more information to that blog, took out the OCD references, and made it accessible to a non-OCD audience.  It appeared on an NYU site and garnered attention, sparking conversation.

I later emailed the NYU incarnation to the owner of the online company from which I purchase comic books and other science fiction materials.  He put it up on his blog to spark conversation, as the ideas in it are not limited to one political view.  What do I mean by that?  He is conservative while I am liberal, and while there are many things on which we do not see eye to eye we have always agreed on the need to question, think critically, and accept others’ views.  Because I put this belief into practice, conservative students feel comfortable in my class: They can research what they wish and draw any conclusion without worrying about their grades.  It is important to me that I serve all my students well.  In addition, since OCD prefers rigidity, this is yet another way for me to do the opposite of what OCD demands.

In this OCD blog–my 25^th, intended for early 2022, six and a half years after Blog #3 first appeared—I present the revised version of the Founding Fathers, Atlantis, and critical thinking.  I hope it sparks conversation among you.

—–

I “lie” to my ELI students. I tell them our Constitution includes ideas the Founding Fathers borrowed from the lost continent of Atlantis. Then I give them an example of written Atlantean: Karooka kawakka karinga karoopagoo. (Actually, that is the name of a character in one of my science fiction stories.) When I tell them to copy down the Atlantean words, they scribble dutifully. 

Sometimes students object, saying my claims cannot possibly be true. But more often I have the class going for ten minutes. 

Then I stop and say I’ve been lying—and they are stunned. We talk about why they believed me: I am the authority figure; I speak well; I am American and they are not; I drew a chart illustrating an Atlantis-Plato-Freemasonry-Founding Fathers connection; teachers are supposed to tell the truth… 

This is the point at which I bring up a phrase they have already heard from a number of my colleagues: critical thinking. Which assumptions about trusting everything I say need to be challenged? How can those assumptions be challenged? How can we test these assumptions outside class? How can we exercise this “muscle” to reevaluate our assumptions, learning something about ourselves and our beliefs?

Next, we talk about things we read in textbooks and newspapers. According to a New York Times article, the first American comic books cost 12 cents. (As a proud geek, I know they were 10 cents.) Another newspaper once informed me that Zagreb is the capital of Yugoslavia. Someone is not fact-checking. Still, these errors are minor. Should we be concerned?

I then pass out an article about Shane Fitzgerald, a sociology and economics major at University College Dublin in 2009. As part of his research on the problem of relying on Internet sources for information, he created a false quote for Maurice Jarre’s Wikipedia article shortly after the Oscar-winning composer died: “When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head.” Fitzgerald thought a few minor papers might use the quote, but to his surprise it appeared in major journals across the English-speaking world.

“Why do people trust what they read in major newspapers?” I ask the class. By this point my students are really into the lesson, and their responses are more delightful than anything I could have come up with. We then discuss an article about how relevant information may be missing from press reports, and how some scientific articles for the mainstream may not include important cautions or even basic scientific concepts.

What about politics? 

Students introduce the word “propaganda,” which has cognates in many languages. It is almost possible to see light bulbs flashing over their inclined heads as I put them in small groups and ask them to discuss the ways people lie, exaggerate, and quote biased references to get others to vote their way, join religious or non-religious institutions, buy products they do not need, become part of the cool crowd. They also talk about why people are so willing to accept lies, exaggerations, and biased quotes. 

Finally, we agree that they should not believe something simply because someone with ethos to burn says or writes it. We also agree that they should not believe something simply because they have always believed it. “Test and evaluate,” I caution. “Use critical thinking. Maybe you will keep your belief. Maybe you will not.”

I end by telling my students I will be “lying” more often. They have to question assumptions, think critically, and take their best guesses about when to believe me. 

I also tell them to trust themselves. There are, of course, many correct things that have been said and written, but students have to find their way–and they can change their views. No one is, or has to be, right all the time. Our best guesses are fine.

“Life,” I tell them, “is about living with uncertainty.” 

Blog 26

We Are as We Do, Not as We Think

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

July 22, 2022

A 90-something ex-cop has a crush on my 85-year-old happily married mother.

No, I am not kidding.   My mother has been in a nursing home since March and, we hope will return home later this year.  One of the residents on her floor—I will call him Gary—likes to spend time with her.  Since my mother has Alzheimer’s and Gary has his own memory issues, they often mistake each other for people they once knew.  But it is sweet, and I have even seen them holding hands.  I once gently reminded Gary that my mom is still married, and he said, “Yeah, I know, I’m just talking to her, you know.”

One day my mother was being difficult, not taking her medicine and yelling at me as I coaxed her.  Gary wheeled his chair over and gave her a stern police lecture about “the young man trying to help” and her “failure to cooperate with those making an effort on her behalf”…  Feeling sheepish, she said all right and took her meds.  Thank you, Gary! 

On good days when his memory is intact, Gary tells me incredible stories about growing up in the 20s and 30s, life during World War II, and being a New York City cop at the height of the sex trade in the 60s and 70s.  He enjoys telling his stories and I enjoy listening.  It is a win-win situation.  

There is also a resident in the facility—let’s call him Ronnie—who used to play with top bands in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  Since he has no memory issues, he still plays his keyboard and sings.  Just today, hours before I sat down to write this blog, he invited my mother and me to a singalong in his room; his wife joined us.  For my mother it is wonderful; music has always played a key role in her life, and even on days when she calls me by my father or uncle’s name she remembers many of yesteryear’s lyrics.  For Ronnie it is wonderful, as he enjoys playing for people who appreciate it.  For his wife it is wonderful because she seems him happy.  And for me it is wonderful: I get to hear good music and talk to someone who shares many of my interests.  (Today we even talked about our love for cartoon characters Dick Dastardly and Muttley in their original late 60s incarnations.)  Another win-win situation.

Ronnie also performs short concerts for the other residents in the facility.

The nursing home is a society, one I have come to embrace.  Residents are grateful that I take the time to talk to them and do whatever they need (even if it is just getting them lemonade or tying their shoelaces); the ones without memory issues look out for my mother and tell me when she has not eaten well or one of the aides has been nasty to her.   One resident who speaks only Chinese finds creative ways to tell me things.   When my mother was feeling better after an illness, he walked up to me, said “Mommy,” and then flexed his arms like a muscleman.  (In other words, my mother was feeling stronger that day.)  I gave him a thumb’s up, which he returned.

Of course, I do not treat the residents with the same dignity and respect as I treat my students because I expect them to look out for my mother in return.  Some of them cannot.  One woman—I will call her Sheila—gives me the biggest smile because I greet her by name and bring her whatever she needs (even if it takes her a while to think through what she wants).  I see that she never has visitors, and if she is not with other residents I invite her to join my mother and me.  Her smile is reward enough.

This is where we OCD folks come in.  We get so stuck in our obsessions that we often do not see the others around us.  But since we know what suffering is, how the noise in our heads makes us feel, we understand others’ distress and are among the best suited to pitch in.  As I hear from so many friends with OCD, once you are over the hump and in charge of your life again, you have a renewed sense of empathy for others.

From spending time with the folks in my mother’s nursing home, I am learning so much about patience (something I have always lacked), resilience, putting myself in their shoes, and ignoring OCD.  What do I mean by the latter?  Many of the physical and mental issues these residents face have never affected me, yet before I got help with OCD I wasted time fearing I had this illness or that.  As a young man I once went to four doctors in the space of a couple of days, was told by each that nothing I feared was true of me, and yet still did not believe I was fine.  Sooooooo OCD.  Right now one of my friends, someone much younger than I, is suffering from false OCD fears about developing Alzheimer’s.  (I went through the same thing many years ago, not realizing I would one day be surrounded by Alzheimer’s in a nursing home I visit.)  I wish I could take him to the facility with me and show him real Alzheimer’s as cognitive behavior therapy.  Heck, I wish I could have him spend two hours with my mother…  He absolutely, positively, definitely, no-doubt-about-it does not have Alzheimer’s, but that is not what his OCD is telling him.  

The positive experiences OCD folks can have while visiting a nursing home run deep, this despite the sad things they will also see.  One woman in the facility took my hand unexpectedly one day and held it for about ten minutes.  I could see that the tension in her face fade as the time passed.  She is unable to speak or leave her wheelchair, so when she had finished she brought my hand to her lips and kissed its back to say thank you.  Her smile, like Sheila’s, was radiant.  When you engage in something like that—in real human interaction, in empathy and understanding—the OCD voices die down.  This is what we were born for: to be part of society, wounded people among others working together through burdens.  OCD wants to isolate us through fear, keeping us away from the very things that make us human, that make us radiant.  Our job is to keep shining.

Everything I have described has taken place during the pandemic, midsummer 2022 to be precise.  Like OCD, the pandemic seeks to separate us and make us creatures of fear.  Instead of giving in, we can reclaim our humanity.  We are as we do, not as we think. 

Blog 27

Validating People of Color with OCD

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

May 25, 2023

On October 21, 2021, the American Psychological Association issued an “Apology to People of Color for APA’s Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in U.S.”  https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology 

When I taught this in class recently, one of my students remarked, “It’s about time.”  Indeed, the second paragraph of the text begins “The governing body within APA should have apologized to people of color before today.”

In the decades I have been talking and working with folks who, like me, have OCD, I have heard the same things repeated by people of color.

• “I need my therapist to consider my racial identity and how it affects my OCD.”
  
• “We need more inclusive mental health treatment that offers better representation of African Americans in OCD and other mental health studies.”
  
• “It’s harder to be accepted as a person with OCD when you are of color.”

The last statement echoes similar things African Americans have confided in me.

• “It’s harder to be accepted as an atheist when you are Black.”
  
• “It’s harder to be accepted as gay when you are Black.”
  
• “It’s harder to be accepted as non-binary/transgender when you are Black.”
  
• “It’s harder to be accepted as a heavy metal fan when you are Black.”
  
• “It’s harder to be accepted as a person with (fill in any mental illness) when you are Black.”

Here we see our societal obsession with putting groups into pigeonholes, not allowing individuals to be their authentic selves.  A person’s membership in an underrepresented group is A or B or C or D but never a combination.  To a person with OCD (and, for that matter, to any person stuck in someone else’s category regardless of whether the person has OCD), this rubs salt in a wound that has been festering for centuries.

We OCD folks are the ones who fight against looking at everything in extremes, but the experience of people of color with OCD (and intersectional people of color in general) speaks to all society as an OCD monster labeling all or nothing, this or that, right or wrong, good or bad…. Black or white.

As one of my students wrote while researching OCD among people of color,

There are not any present-day, complete studies done on the specifics of OCD in African American youth. This is an urgent problem. … African American youth deserve to be studied for OCD in order to offer a treatment curated to their unique experiences of racial identity and racial discrimination.

The same is true for people with OCD of all ages and other communities of color.  If OCD is described through the language and lens of the white middle class, then primarily white middle class people will be identified and receive treatment.  Diagnosis and treatment must be inclusive so that it is not so much harder to have OCD and be Black, so that societal awareness becomes just that: awareness.

Imagine an OCD therapist who did not consider how a client’s first language was not English, or how a teenage client had not yet experienced certain life milestones, or how a client identified as male (or female or nonbinary).  It is doubtful sessions would be productive if a major part of identity that influences who the client is and how the experience of the world affects OCD were absent from treatment.  Pretending one’s race and the experiences that go with it do not exist—attempting to treat OCD in isolation—is just as misguided.

Of course, I am not a therapist or diagnostician.  But as an English professor, I am aware of systemic racism and the toll it takes on students.  It would be easy for me to give up on certain students of color, dismissing them as lazy or unmotivated because they are frequently absent, late with work, or have gaps in their knowledge.  But the lifestyle I take for granted as a white male is not everyone else’s experience.  Many students struggle with daily microaggressions and the mental toll they take, poverty, and long work hours to support family despite their young age and demanding university classes.  Sometimes they miss school because they have to take care of a younger sibling or take on an extra shift at work to pay for someone’s medication.  They may be legitimately too tired to get to their homework, or they may be food insecure and unable to pay for a meal before class.  I need to be flexible in the way I approach deadlines, attendance, and a variety of other things. 

My OCD wants me to ignore race, be inflexible, and fail students to teach them a lesson about proper university behavior.  Of course, being able to choose whether to ignore race speaks to my privilege and strengthens the argument that I must not ignore it. 

And besides, doing the opposite of what my OCD wants is usually good policy.  Despite the screams of my OCD to the contrary, I address issues of race, sex, and sexual orientation outright.  Some of the things I say in class include

• “I’m a white male.  I’m not better than anyone in this room.”
  
• “I’m a feminist.  My mother and sister have worked hard all their lives, and they shouldn’t have less pay or less value than men.”
  
• “Finding a quality person to love is more important than conforming to rules about which sex society thinks you should date.”
  
• “I don’t always know how to respond to your community or what the best thing to do is.  How do you feel I can best help?”

Of course, I have to be careful.  There is a fine line between practicing cultural humility and coming off as a white savior.  But if I do make a mistake, I can apologize and learn from it.

That is the world of English.  Now think about what therapists in their more complicated world need to consider (and may not have been trained to consider).  I think back to some of the therapists I had as a young man in the 1980s and know some of the things they said and did would not fly today.

There is so much research to be done, so many clients to validate, and so much to change for the better.

If we do nothing, we, like the American Psychological Association, will instead play a “Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in U.S.” 

Blog 28

Ego, Narcissus, and Echo: Some OCD Allies are Not Allies

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

September 15, 2023

OCD folks are cool.  Supercool, in fact.

So many want to help others, and I am always amazed by how many blogs, websites, podcasts, and other technology-based media there are for people just coming to terms with OCD or old OCD hands eager to network.  

Of course, for those only just starting to get a handle on their OCD, it is too soon to take on others’ obsessions and compulsions.  Despite what OCD may say to the contrary, it is fine to concentrate on yourself and getting well in the present, leaving altruism for the future.  And maybe, before one can reach out to others with OCD, non-OCD volunteering is the first step: Homework help, soup kitchens, money donated to worthy causes, random acts of kindness… 

But this is where OCD tries to make you feel guilty, accusing you of being selfish or uncaring if you do not volunteer.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is fine if volunteering is not your thing.  You may already have a lot on your plate, or you may want to use your time in other ways.  You know yourself best, and you should not let OCD (or people) goad you into something you do not want to do. 

In other words, if you volunteer, do it because you want to and do it because you want to help people; do not do it because you have been prodded or for any other reason. 

I say this because recently I was asked to be a guest on an OCD podcast, something I have done a few times without reimbursement and have always enjoyed.  But this time, everything about the presenter was a warning sign that nothing he was doing was for the right reason.  I foolishly ignored my gut, probably out of ego to get another podcast under my belt. 

I will not give the podcaster’s real name since I am voicing my opinion (which could be right or wrong or a combination of both) and am not into shame culture.  Let’s call him Narcissus, the character in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection.  (OK, I admit that is a cheap shot.  I am still feeling annoyed…)

In the past I have spoken or written at length to people who feature me on their podcasts so we can work together before taping to plan a good show.  In contrast, Narcissus wanted nothing to do with me before recording, and I was told I would be talking to him only for the exact duration of the show: That meant no planning, no mistakes allowed, no rerecording if necessary, no working together.  OCD City, baby!  I was to be a robot giving a perfect performance, not the imperfect human being I am.

My ego got the better of me despite what my gut was telling me, and I said I would gladly do the podcast.

I never said it to Narcissus, however.  At no time did I interact with him: his secretary, whom I will call Echo, did all the communicating for him.  Even worse, Echo’s emails were curt.  Even the brief invitation letter had spoken about my OCD work in general terms only; I wondered if they even knew anything about me. 

I gave Narcissus’ website a careful look over.   It read like a hagiography (a saint’s idealized biography) and seemed to be set up to sell his book while also convincing readers to book him as a motivational speaker.  Where guests on other podcasts seemed to be there to help with OCD, on Narcissus’ site they seemed present only to legitimize sales.  And yet, my ego kept making excuses and reinterpreting wishfully.

But then Echo outdid herself by demanding I use a microphone and headphones during the interview.  (I chose the word “demanding” because the curt email addressing that issue seemed to be scolding me if I dared even think of doing the interview without them.)   I explained in an email to Echo that I had never used a microphone and headphones at home while being interviewed virtually.  I was willing to do what I was “asked,” but I would have to purchase the equipment.  Since there were are a large number of headphones and microphones available on places like Amazon—with a wide number of things they did—I did not know what I was looking for and would be shelling out the money for.  I asked what would be best. In came the usual curt reply from Echo: Use anything.

In frustration, as I could conceivably spend several hundred dollars or a very small sum on equipment I knew nothing about and might never use again, I wrote directly to Narcissus via a link on his website, asking him what his other guests had used.  He did not respond.

I then got another curt email from Echo—but not about equipment.  Instead, I was asked to change the date of the interview since Narcissus would be out of town.  Of course, it is perfectly fine to ask someone to change a date when something unexpected comes up, but Echo had never discovered how a little politeness goes a long way.  I resolved to change the date after receiving information about the headphones and microphone.  I never did—and eventually I received a curt email that the interview was “cancelled.”

And then my ridiculous ego got into a tizzy because they had cancelled me (when that is the best thing that could have happened).  I got my focus back: I am here to help folks with OCD, not get my ego stroked. 

 So yes, allies like Narcissus and Echo may not be allies at all.  Or they may be.  I can never say for certain why Narcissus’ website exists, but I know why I think it does.

Also, since it took three to tango here, I admit that while some ego is a good thing, being overwhelmed by it, as I was, is just as bad as being overwhelmed by OCD.  My ego almost made me volunteer for the wrong reasons.

There are so many lessons to be learned here, and I doubt my current understanding has even scratched the surface.

I have a lot to think about, and I hope my reflections will also give you food—delicious food!—for thought.

Blog 29

Everything I Need to Know about OCD I Learned at an Estate Sale

by Mark-Ameen Johnson

March 8, 2024

Just before walking into a seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion in Staten Island, my sister and I photographed the dozens of life-sized animal statues on its huge lawn.  Life-sized clowns, acrobats, and pirates engaged in eternal play or swinging from trees (real trees) watched us with stone eyes.  The Todt Hill Road house is famous—perhaps infamous—for its opulence.  Equipped with a private movie theater in a basement that, alone, stands larger than most people’s homes and a top floor that serves as a fur vault, the property has an asking price of almost three and a half million.

My Brooklyn apartment, across the water from Staten Island, is two rooms plus a small kitchen and bathroom.

That is largely why I went.  I wanted to see how the other half (well, the other 1%) lives.  Besides, all those expensive things were priced so cheaply to clear the place for new owners.  Like everyone around us, my sister and I filled bags.  Now, every time I load my stapler, I connect to that wealth by using their staples.  Funny, though: The staples of the wealthy look like the staples I buy in, well, Staples.

My visit to the Todt Hill Road mansion and contemplation of its staples made me think back to a newspaper article from the late1970s or early 1980s, when I was a teenager.  A South African, one of the wealthiest people in the world at the time, had never married because every time he found a potential wife he discovered that she was only interested in his money.  At the time he was a senior citizen living alone in a mansion, but he had no one to share it with—and wished, while photographed in front of one of his lavish outdoor fountains, that he had been an Average Joe.  A pauper may want to be a prince, but this prince wanted to be a pauper.

Let’s cross over from Todt Hill Road and South African fountains to OCD Boulevard.  (Yes, I am actually getting to OCD.)  We OCD folks like to second-guess ourselves, listening to an internal voice that claims we are inferior, diseased, perverse, dangerous, and any other adjective of the day.  Oh, to live the life of Riley!  And yet, when you look at the wealthy, you see that they have only one thing the rest of us do not have: more toys.  They are not immune to our worries, insecurities, and vices.  Their staples are not made of gold and lined with fur.  They use zinc-plated steel wire staples like the rest of us.  If only that South African had had fewer staples…

Here the non-OCD world is actually very OCD.  Everyone hears that terrible voice of internal judgment; surely the South African man did.  What was his internal life in contrast to the sparkle of the external?  We will never know.  Was his wealth the real reason he was single?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  He truly was alone, it is true, but that does not mean the rest of us are.  OCD lies to us about being beyond alone, beyond hope, beyond redemption, beyond normalcy, beyond… Oh, shut up, OCD!

That South African man had his reality.  Perhaps he let it overcome him instead of finding a way to work through it and achieve what he wanted.  The deceased owners of the Todt Hill Road house had their reality.  Happily, neither reality is ours, much as OCD would like us to think gloom and doom.

Why do I paint those other realities as undesirable?  So many details emerge in the media and scholarly research about the terrible lives endured by too many politicians, household-name actors and musicians, corporate heads high up the food chain…  So while my OCD voice tells me that if I had only done X and Y and Z, I would be living in a place like the Todt Hill Road mansion, I question whether I would want that lifestyle.  Yes, I have fantasies about Barnaby the butler in white gloves and tails serving me white caviar on a private balcony overlooking an Olympic-size pool, but do I want that for real?  I will never have my own movie theater in an enormous basement, but despite OCD’s trying to convince me that I am vile, I am actually a person of value with dignity, freedom, relationships, meaningful work, and hobbies I adore.  And so are you, the person reading this.  Absolutely!  If your OCD says otherwise, it is lying.  Simply by being born, you have value.  It is not something you have to earn; it is not something that comes from a fur vault.  Instead, it is your birthright.

That is the trump card OCD can never outtrump.  It can only tell you a lot of lies and offer false security through compulsions, just as the life of a billionaire (of which there were only 3,194 identified worldwide back in 2022) can seem to give you everything life offers through compulsive consumption (my own play on “conspicuous consumption”).  No matter the wealth such people have, they always want more—and no matter who you are and what makes you happy in reality, OCD always wants more, wants you to acquire more, wants you to carry out your compulsions again, wants you to acquire more time for rituals, wants you to worry more, wants, wants, wants.

And you, most likely, want none of that.  But OCD is never satisfied.  Much like the wealthy.

Would you believe the Todt Hill Road house in Staten Island is comparatively inexpensive?  The most expensive home in nearby New Jersey, located in Colts Neck, went for $27.2 million.  But that is nothing compared to “The One,” a 21-bedroom, 41-bathroom Bel Air, California mansion with its own nightclub, beauty salon, casino, and golf course on the roof.  It is one of the most expensive homes in America, listed on some sites as the most expensive.  Originally priced at half a billion dollars and then marked down to $295 million, its builder and creditors took a loss when it went for $126 million in an auction. 

Apparently, there is a limit to even what a billionaire will pay. 

What is your limit on paying OCD?