“Shutter Island” and Joe Pantoliano interviews
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Hey everybody, below is my interview with “Shutter Island”, “Gone Baby Gone” and “Mystic River” author Dennis Lehane.  Program Director Chris Kinard sat it on the interview as well because he read all of the books.

And keeping with the crazy nature of “Shutter Island”, check out my first OCD blog entry.  I will create a new one each Wednesday when I get back from the doctors. 

OCD BLOG ENTRY #1
Wednesday 2/24/10 – Double Feature

Today, I visited both my psychiatrist and psychologist. Though, instead of a normal double feature where you get two for the price of one, I had to pay co-pay on both. I was a little bitter to see that my psychologist co-pay went up but I guess trying to “fix” your brain is worth it. Before I start, I want say that I had a mental-altering interview with actor Joe Pantoliano recently. Joey Pants, who starred in “The Matrix” and “The Sopranos”, started an organization called “No Kidding, Me Too”. Information on this organization can be found at www.nkm2.org. The whole point is for people with mental illness to band together and understand that there are many other people in the world with similar mindsets. For example, if I am talking with a group and I say that I have OCD and another guy says “No Kidding, Me Too,” it makes it all the more comfortable. Essentially, the idea revolves around not being afraid to admit that you have a mental illness and to try and embrace it and use it in a positive light in your life.

INTERVIEW WITH JOE PANTOLIANO -

Before talking to Joey Pants about my OCD, I always had a negative look at it. Yeah, OCD runs my life and makes me check things constantly. My life is completely inundated with fears, compulsions and the need for reassurance. Yet, I always sat back and just felt bad for myself instead of channeling the negativity and turning it into a positive aspect. Having OCD can really work wonders and give you drive to reach goals. In fact, the entire reason I have ever became a movie critic is that the Sports Junkies morning show brought me on to talk about my OCD. I was under the impression that I was being brought on to review a film called “Just Friends” and they brought up my OCD. To this day, that is the main reason I was brought on and five years later my reviews have turned into a Friday segment and a segment on FOX 5 T.V.

Now, I was diagnosed with OCD when I was fourteen years old. At first, I was reluctant to take medications because I thought I did not have an issue. I just figured I was washing my hands until they cracked and bled because I wanted to be clean. I had no clue it was an obsession and compulsion. I have been on a ton of different meds ranging from Zoloft to Luvox to Anafranil. Every person is different and the way the medication works on each person is always different. The worst part of the meds is the side effects, i.e. weight gain, loss of sex drive, wanting to eat more.

I recently stopped taking Luvox CR 150mg and am now part of the PROZAC Nation! Now, I kind of messed up though. My psychiatrist prescribed Prozac to me last month to start off on 20mg each morning. I was having OCD about taking it in the morning and driving because I was worried it would make me fall asleep or something. I only took it like 4 or 5 times over the month and my OCD grew increasingly worse. Each day, my thoughts became worse and worse. Luckily, I had an appt scheduled on Wednesday Feb 24th. He told me that the meds will not effect my driving and that I need to be taking it regularly to get results. So this morning, I woke up and took the 20mg with an A&W Rootbeer and drove to work. Soda probably isn’t the best way to take your medication but it tasted great! What sucks is that I am now a month behind on my meds so I need to catch up.

The flip side of the coin is to not take meds and see if you can use Cognitive Therapy to get over the worries. Think of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” Granted, he was schizophrenic, he had thoughts of seeing people and talking to those people. Eventually, and this may be a spoiler if you haven’t seen it, he gets to the point where he has to get over it. He has to realize that these people he is talking to are not real! At the end of the film, we see him walking by these “fake” people as they try to talk to him; he simply ignores and walks past. I have to realize that my OCD thoughts will always be there but I need to ignore them and hope that they will eventually leave me alone. Cognitive Therapy helps with that. If I have a particular worry, the cognitive therapy would essentially throw me into that worry to deal with the anxiety. So if I had a worry about germs, I would be forced to NOT wash my hands for a certain period and deal with the intense anxiety until it goes away. My worries revolve specifically around driving, bumping into people, falling asleep while driving, etc.

Throughout the weeks I will blog about my new medication and how I am trying to overcome this anxiety that has essentially taken over my life. I would love for people to follow the Joey Pants mentality and share their feelings and worries as well!

Please leave comments!

Thanks,

Kevin “BDK” McCarthy