Rob Toledo's Blog

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder’s Infinite Loop – When My Brain Gets Stuck

For Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to open up about my OCD. This is something I’m extremely uncomfortable doing, hence the reason I’m doing it. 

 “The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.”

― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Have you ever thought something really weird or inappropriate? Just a passing jolt of lightning that hits your consciousness, you think to yourself, “where the heck did that come from?” It might be accompanied by a little bit of anxiety, but this likely fades pretty quick, and you go about your day.

In psychology, these are known as intrusive thoughts, and they are extremely common. A survey of over 700 healthy adults suggests that 94% of people have intrusive thoughts (and I’m guessing 6% of people are lying). These commonly include inappropriate violent, sexual, or blasphemous themes, but can span a spectrum as wide as the human imagination. They come at seemingly the worst possible times, and can attach themselves to the things we hold most dear. But most people are able to let them come and go without paying them much mind, simply shrugging them off with, “that was weird.”

But not me, nor the 2.3% of adults who suffer with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Most people probably have no idea that I struggle with OCD. I didn’t even really know that I struggled with it until recently. I don’t have to wash my hands repeatedly, or check the oven dozens of times to make sure it’s off, so it wasn’t easy for me (or others) to recognize less obvious symptoms. It’s common for OCD to go undiagnosed upwards of 17 years for most sufferers (PDF). It is also a very misunderstood disorder, perpetuated by the public’s belief that it’s about repetitive hand-washing or keeping things more organized than normal. But for a better understanding, check out the Wikipedia article on obsessions and compulsions to get an idea of what it’s really about. It has far more to do with the inability of an OCD sufferer to handle an unwanted thought than it does with organization or cleanliness.

To put it simply, OCD is mostly about intrusive thoughts (obsessions) causing anxiety, followed by a series of compulsions to try and make the anxiety go away. These compulsions get lengthier over time as their effectiveness fades, resulting in the anxiety worsening; a vicious cycle for sufferers. They can take many forms, from physical rituals to mental rumination.

For me personally, if something triggers an “obsession,” I deal with a seemingly overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread (known as spikes) that I can’t seem to kick unless I go to battle with my own mind. I try to figure out if the thoughts mean anything about me while I search for 100% certainty that they don’t (an OCD trap). After these grueling sessions, likely out of sheer mental exhaustion, I am able to go about my day. In the past, I kept these mental compulsions very private, embarrassed of how I couldn’t magically control my own thoughts. I wondered if I was slowly going crazy.

Instead of being able to shrug an intrusive thought off, here’s how my brain works:

1. An intrusive thought is triggered.
2. Instead of letting it go, I immediately need to know if the thought means anything about me.
3. My anxiety spikes, and my brain jumps into a compulsive routine to make the discomfort go away.
4. I try to reason everything out repeatedly, going in circles searching for more and more certainty. I seek out reassurance (I love a good Google search). I check to see how I’m feeling to make sure I’m “the right level” of upset by the thought (a lovely trap, that if a thought doesn’t cause me *enough* anxiety, I get panicky that I’m now accepting them as facts).
5. Anxiety subsides naturally – but the previous steps perpetuate the false belief that the mental compulsions solved the problem.
6. I experience an overwhelming desire to revisit the thought to check to see how I’m now feeling about it, which can start the process all over again.
7. Because of all this time spent on the thought, I have made it seem very important in my mind, perpetuating the thought’s existence, creating an infinite loop of brain activity.
8. I then try and avoid any and all triggers to prevent this battle from happening again (another OCD trap).

So what am I doing to work on this excessive brain activity? While there’s no “cure” for OCD, I’m currently working with a therapist who is trained in Exposure-Response Prevention (ERP), one of the most proven methods for helping lower the symptoms of OCD. It’s an exercise in facing these scary thoughts head-on and resisting the urge to go through compulsive loops to neutralize the associated anxiety. Long story short, it’s retraining my brain to understand that thoughts are just thoughts, anxiety is temporary, and no amount of compulsions are going to help the anxiety go away faster.

Some days are better than others, but overall, things are definitely improving in this process. If you’re worried about your own thoughts, I encourage you to talk to your doctor. I waited way too long to do so myself.

Further reading:

• The Imp of the Mind
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorders – A Complete Guide to Getting Well and Staying Well
• The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD

Go Mariners! This is the Year, Right?

Every year in Seattle, as the sun starts to come out for a few moments each week, and temperatures begin to trickle upwards slowly enough to just not notice it, everyone starts to get really excited about the baseball season. This is the year The Mariners are *totally* going to make the playoffs, right? I mean, they have to at this point?

Until the 2013 Seahawks won the Super Bowl in superb fashion, Seattle sports ranked as one of the most depressing cities in the world. Don’t worry, the following year, our NFL season fell right back into form. At least it’s easier than ever to stream NFL games online, right?

This upcoming Mariners season has been the first I’ve seen in the past few years where no everyone is predicting that we’re a shoe-in for the World Series.

Regardless, I think we’re all holding out for some positive signs this year. Last season was close, certainly, and it seems likely we’ll make a good run this year, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is holding their breath. Watch your favorite MLB team online here.

Go Mariners!

We should probably just enjoy all this sweet VC-subsidized stuff

I hear it a lot, that the world doesn’t need another food delivery service or ride sharing app.

But despite this general stance being commonplace, these businesses keep popping up, and VC money keeps finding its way into the bank accounts of these seemingly doomed ideas.

The cynicism is not without merit, certainly. Most of these companies will probably fail after they struggle to find profits. Some of the biggest names in the industry continue to bleed money, even at scale.

But maybe it’s best to think of this from a different perspective.

The other day, a friend said to me, with a hint of sarcasm, “what a world we live in, where I can order pie on my phone and it’s delivered in under an hour.” The thought suddenly hit me, that maybe it’s best to just enjoy this VC-subsidized services economy while it lasts instead of being so cynical about it.

We’re living in a time where it’s possible to get dinner delivered to your door for FREE, a world where the two major ride sharing services offer discount codes for rides at a cost just a bit more than bus fare, and we can get just about anything, including alcohol, a doctor, laundry delivery, etc,  at our front door in under an hour.

While it’s certainly easy to step back and think, “this definitely won’t last for long!” maybe that shouldn’t be our concern. Instead, let’s just enjoy the good times!

That coupon code for a free meal delivery? Take it!

The discount on a local massage parlor or yoga studio? Take it!

The free month of access to some new streaming service? Take it!

Let the chips fall where they may as these businesses figure out how to make money, that’s not our job as consumers.

Taking myself just a little bit more seriously

TL;DR – launching a new project: exstreamist.com

For those of you who know me, you’re probably well aware that I enjoy a sarcastic comment or two, a good battle of wits, and perhaps that I have the slightest addiction to the internet. My many exploits come in random explosions of output, and for every “successful” (using the term loosely) side project, there are probably at least a half dozen left dead in its wake.

One of my most fun projects to date has been my Netflix blog that was my first major push into a targeted blog about a specific topic. I recently started to feel limited by the hyper-optimized domain name (so I have SEO roots, sue me), and while having many (at least a dozen) back and forth conversations with my buddy Jacob Klein, I have talked myself into a bit of a reboot.

I want to cover the entire “SVOD” landscape as I believe we’re staring at the future of television, a topic I find extremely fascinating. With Nielsen’s recent report that 40% of households are now subscribed to a SVOD, I can’t wait to dig in deeper on this topic as a whole, covering the entire landscape of these streaming services, from iTunes to Hulu to Amazon Instant Video, I believe the future is going to be far more modular than one monthly subscription to a major cable provider. Consumers are going to be choosing 3-5 services of specific content distributors that suit their needs and will subscribe/unsubscribe as other content offerings improve/decrease in relevance. It’s going to be an extremely competitive few years fighting for market share for these brands.

This new industry is going to be a technological revolution in the entertainment industry, and I can’t wait to cover it in its entirety. Alongside this news reporting, there will be several stealth projects on the side that will hopefully come to fruition in the coming months. More on those later.

Looking forward to this new project, hopefully you enjoy my constant spamming…. err I mean healthy promotion through social. If ever you have any direct feedback, I would absolutely love to hear it.

The bizarre loopholes in building permits, proximity to airports and nuclear shelters

Random Wikipedia adventures often lead to some of the greatest, and rather pointless, informational revelations.

As an extremely curious person, I often can’t help myself from researching and discovering as much potential information about any given *thing* as possible; a tidbit of information about some random historical event, a factoid about a piece of pop culture such as a movie or song, a minor detail about something I see every day. The more information the better; I’m really annoying at parties, which I rarely attend.

For an example, just this evening I ended up on the Columbia Center’s Wikipedia page, the tallest building in Seattle that stands slightly below 1000 feet, with 76 functioning stories, and was a potential target of the attacks on 9/11, pretty well-known facts.

But what I didn’t know was that the original architect of the tower was planning to make the building over 1000 feet tall had he not run into permitting issues with the FAA. Turns out with its close proximity to Sea-Tac airport, the tower was not permitted to be taller than 50 stories.

But where there’s a roadblock, there is almost always an alternative wheel to grease.

Just for a clear picture, the Columbia Center sits between 4th and 5th avenue, one of the highest vertical differences between any two streets in downtown Seattle. As someone terrified of driving his wife’s manual transmission car, I absolutely 100% avoid driving in this area, as I am certain if ever challenged with an attempt to get said car into first gear on these hills, I will roll straight back down the hill for several blocks until I either hit something or end up in the water.

There was  (perhaps still is?) a strange land use loophole that if a building includes retail access on the first floor, the architect is granted extra height in the building, allowing it to extend several floors beyond the maximum 50. So with the grade of the city offering THREE street access points on separate floors, developer Martin Selig managed to apply three individual bonuses to the Columbia Center, thus lowering the odds that anyone would be able to make a taller building in Seattle.

So I got curious.

What other real estate loopholes exist? There are quite a few.

Robert Scarano is particularly famous in, ahem, unique designs. Such as adding space for a second bedroom hidden behind a thin layer of drywall in order to conceal square footage for a variety of unsavory reasons.

Or how about in Alabama, where if you build a nuclear fallout shelter you’re given a $1000 tax deduction on your property.

Want to become an expert in navigating permitting loopholes and exemptions? Here’s an entire book dedicated to loopholes when building that exists. It almost comes across as an art form in the architectural community to attempt breaking these rules.