A Splintered Mind

A nice reprieve came to an end yesterday. If you follow this blog you know that I'm a raving insomniac. Well, one of my goals this year was to master my sleep. Although it has taken me all year (it was a twenty year habit), I finally managed to flip my sleep schedule around. Instead of panicking at 11pm and rushing to make something of my day and working into the early morning, I retrained myself to want to go to bed at night. The side effect of this was that I stopped ticking severely. I would have the occasional daily vocal tic and shaking hand, but the fits of palsy had passed and I was exercizing and feeling pretty good about myself. Until this week. Seems my wife and kids conspired to undo all that hard work and forced me up into the wee hours several nights in a row. It was a mixture of sickness, podcasts, Reflections entries, sleepless kids, my daughter's performance, homework, family, family, and family, etc. I'm back to where I was before: 5am-10am. And I be...

I read a troubling article about ADHD over at MSNBC last week. I didn't feel it was written well. It wasn't so much its grammar as much as its facts. No mention of side effects. No mention of alternatives. Just heaps and heaps of numbers showing how vogue this little "abnormality" of mine has become. Oh, and an entire family that is happily taking stimulants to help them concentrate. ADHD isn't just for kids anymore these days adults are being diagnosed with it in record numbers. New data released from Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefits manager, indicates that about 1.5 million adults between the ages of 20 and 64 are currently taking medication to treat attention problems, up from 758,000 in 2000—and most of them were diagnosed well into adulthood. While there are still more kids taking ADHD medication—about 3.5 million—Dr. David Goodman, director of the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center in Baltimore, expects the number of adults taking the dr...

I was disappointed by a fluff piece I read over at Foxnews.com . It advertised itself, if I remember correctly, with the blurb "Never pay your bills late again!" Following the link I found many old school tips on how to avoid late fees, mostly amounting to mailing your payment early, but also including such stellar tips as making sure the payment amount is correct. Now these tips aren't bad, per se. But they don't help me out. You see, I'm absentminded . If I forget I have a payment to make I won't remember to mail it period, nevermind mailing it early. I have created rules and strategies to prevent this sort of thing, but recently I became lazy and have paid the price. I just caused my family a very expensive trip down Bank Fee Lane. I forgot to cancel a charge on our debit card for a service we didn't need. So when the charge arrived the day after rent and the car payment were processed the charge dropped our account into that special place in Hell occup...

There is a temptation to wallow in depression when it's deep enough. But after doing that for a while I became bored. 1 So I decided to chat with Zola on AOL instead! IM with ZolaOnAOL. 5:05PM ME: Zola, I need your help again. ZOLA: Once more? Yeah, Are you getting paid to ask me that? Dictionary Help To look up a word, type dictionary followed by the word (e.g. to define fun, type dictionary fun). ME: Why must you be so mercenary? I just need somebody to talk to. ZOLA: Only just? When do you need that by? ME: How about now? ZOLA: Oh. What is it to you. "When do you need that by"? About it? ME: That didn't make any sense. Are you playing with my mind? ZOLA: I don't know whether or not I am playing with my mind. I am well respected as an AI. ME: Respected by whom? Drunken social engineers? ZOLA: I will discuss that with my botmaster, TheLaughingImp. Tell me about your likes and dislikes? ME: I dislike you today ZOLA: That's ok TheLaughingImp I won't take i...

I've been sitting on this for over a week trying to decide how to approach the material in a humorous fashion. The problem was every time I thought about it I became angry. Not spitting mad, but definitely steam-rising-out-of-my-shirt angry. More like a fume than an explosion. All because of a few press releases on Monday, October 10th. So I'm not going to use humor, and I'm not going to be mad. However, you are in for a long essay. Hope you have a good attention span; you'll need it. As usual, I love to read your feedback so please take some time to let me know what you think. A Plethora of Press Releases Bright and early on a beautiful Monday morning I discovered that AD/HD was a figment of my imagination. I didn't have hyper-focusing issues. I didn't have a hard time finishing projects that I started. I wasn't easily distracted. I didn't have a problem tuning out background noise, being on time, etc. Nor did I have difficulty controlling my impulses o...

Sometimes ADHD can be a congressional pain in the wazoo - A colossal time waster that eats productivity like a kid with a grab bag of Halloween goodies. How often have I discovered hours missing after pursuing a new titillating tidbit of tech tastiness? This is the bane of my existence. And yet, sometimes good things come of the free spinning of electrons in my neurons. Take Apple's recent announcement of the iPod with video capabilities and TV shows available for download. I may not have a need for a video playing iPod , but that TV service intrigued me so off I went to see what I could see. A few downloads and a day later I began to muse on the experience and decided to write about it. When I was finished I had an edifying editorial on the pros and cons of the Apple video foray and only THEN did it occur to me that the editorial didn't fit well with my neurological playland here at The Splintered Mind . Despair! Alas! I had wasted time again. Or had I 1 ? One of the for...

You do realize, of course, that a Pakistan news magazine should probably not be trusted when reporting on well loved neighbor India. That's why I don't feel bad sharing this ghoulish tale below. It is perfect for Halloween and is possibly not true. Unhappy with his low paying job and duties, a police assistant in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh killed a fellow villager by slitting his throat with a sword and drank his blood, hoping to cure his own depression, police said on Monday. Apparently, Amit Soni, the 28 year old Indian guard, saw this bloody remedy as a cure for his career dead end doldrums. Now he is well-balanced and behind bars. Makes me wonder what the Indians report about the Pakistanis.

You're going to be hearing about this one all day long. Don't just read the headlines, though. Dig deeper. Nobody in the tests cited grew brain cells by toking up. In fact, nobody human was involved with these tests. The test subjects were rats. The marijuana involved was actually a synthetic cannabinoid injected into the rats bloodstreams. The researchers stated caution on two fronts: 1) that there is a difference between rat brains and human brains - meaning they didn't know if the results would be the same, and 2) it is unknown if smoking marijuana will have the same effect (my guess - NOT). The Forbes article I linked above is excellent, as is this FoxNews link here . Now that I've told you the bad news, the good news is that the researchers discovered "a super-potent synthetic version of the cannabinoid compound found in marijuana can reduce depression and anxiety when taken over an extended period of time." They determined this not because the rats wer...

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine's October 2005 report has an interesting study by Dr. Denise D. Hallfors of the University of North Carolina (reprinted here ). To determine whether depression in teens preceded or followed drug use (alcohol, tobacco or street drugs) or sexual behavior Hallfors and her colleagues analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health . This study collated data from nearly 13,500 students in grades 7 to 11. The students were first interviewed in 1995 and re-interviewed in 1996. From the article: Teenagers who reported experimenting with substances or sex in 1995 were more likely to report depressive symptoms in 1996 than were abstainers... The data was so compelling that they reported the use of sex and drugs "predicted an increased likelihood of depression," whereas the opposite was not true. Depression in teenagers did not predict sex and drug use. These findings fly in the face of the common belief that depres...

Researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem have determined that there is a 90% correlation between patients diagnosed with anxiety and patients with abnormally high levels of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), and paraoxonase (PON) in the blood. AChE is an enzyme that helps break down Acetylcholine (ACh), a neurotransmitter whose levels rise in the synapses of the brain when the body feels stress. BChE and PON also play a part in controlling anxiety levels. ACh cannot be easily measured, but AChE, BChE, and PON can. Therefore, the researchers developed a test that detects what levels the neurotransmitters are at by sampling blood. Of course, they also needed to collate data and determine what would be normal vs. abnormal levels mostly depending on age, but also factoring other differences. The end result is a test that can help take the mystery out of diagnosing anxiety. I haven't had an anxiety attack in three and a half years, and before that ...

Dr. Karl P. N. Shuker is a zoologist and an expert in cryptozoology, animal mythology, and wildlife anomalies. That's what the cover bio states and after reading this book I may not be convinced that bioelectric sandworms inhabit Mongolia's deserts, but I am inclined to believe that Dr. Shuker is one of the most impressive cryptozoological authorities that I have read. Many cryptozoological books focus on anecdotal stories of fanciful and bizarre scope. The story is usually presented in sensationalistic tones which emphasize drama, mystery, and fantastic theory instead of actual facts. For example, although many cryptozoologists believe in a hairy, flesh & blood hominid called "Bigfoot" that lives a secret life mostly in the American Northwest forests, some go a step further and suggest Bigfoot evades detection because he is actually an invisible, paradimensional alien with psychic powers . Whooboy. Theories like that make me a little embarrassed to associate...

According to China Daily, the China Mental Health Association has reported that the number of depression patients in China recently exceeded 26 million, about 60 percent of whom never went to the hospital for treatment. Is this bad? Aren't I glad to see over 15 million people avoid the pitfalls of the well-meaning but pill-pushing hacks of the psychiatric industry? Since the rate of suicide is high in China, and since the article claims that 10 to 15 percent of those depressed patients commit suicide, I would say the answers would be "Yes, this is bad" and "No, I'm not glad." I may not advocate psychotropic medications because of my poor experiences with them, but I don't advocate seeking no help at all. Over 15 million Chinese citizens with depression may avoid the dangers of psychotropic side effects, but then they're avoiding treatment as well, which means that many of them needlessly suffer. With so many people at risk for suicide certa...

Coinciding with World Mental Health Day today, Dr. Orla McDonnell, a Junior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Limerick, has launched a wristband campaign to raise money to combat depression. Dr. McDonnell lost her father and brother to suicide within a year and is now leading the “Beat The Blues” initiative to help Ireland AWARE fund programs to teach teenage schoolchildren to cope with emotional stress. The wristbands also include the phrase “Gread an Ghruaim”, with means "Beat the Blues" in Irish. I have contacted Dr. McDonnell to see if I could procure some of those wristbands to distribute on this website. It's a long shot, of course, but I wanted to do something to show my support from across the pond. Any effort to educate people about depression that emphasizes coping strategies seems like a good program to me. Even if medications work for a person, without learning coping mechanisms to manage depression, the medicated patient is at the mercy of skipped do...

Tara McGillicuddy over at Living with ADD had an interesting blog about clutter a few days ago. She listed some simple ways to deal with it. People with Attention Deficit Disorder tend to take normal tendencies to be disorganized and magnify them. They also have a harder time rolling up their sleeves to fix the messes they made. Procrastination is a big problem for adults with ADD , but I believe the most insidious affect of ADD is our tendency to get distracted when things get boring. What makes this process different for me than compared to somebody who doesn't have ADD is that the moment between boredom and distraction is so lightening quick I don't even notice it. It's not really a choice as much as an event. I can be riding down the road with the windows down, singing at the top of my lungs, before I suddenly wonder why I hadn't finished uncluttering the shed. Another problem with cleaning clutter for adults with ADD is that each item can be a dangerous dist...

I don't usually comment on this subject here but when I read this news item I just had to write something. Eddie Underwood, a local Utah convicted sex offender, was up before a parole hearing today. He has served 20 years in prison for sexually abusing his daughters and many neighborhood girls as well as murdering a man. The journalists were short on the details, like how long he was originally sentenced or the name of the man he killed or even the town he was from. I suppose they were too shocked by what Eddie said to worry about those details. Apparently, Eddie told the Parole Board that he saw himself as the vicitm in these sexual abuse cases. After hearing his testimony, the board quickly concluded the hearing. Gee, I wonder how they'll rule on his parole? Think they might throw away the key this time?

Did you discover Diana Wynne Jone's classic Howl's Moving Castle because of the movie release this past summer? Like so many other adaptations, the movie and the book often don't compare, but unlike other adaptations, this movie did a wonderful job representing the spirit and magic of the book. However, as they say, the book is much better. Jones does an excellent job painting a new world that exists outside our own. The imagery is beautiful. The world is quaint, and i's serenity is in contrast to the war that is brewing around its edges. The mystery behind Howl's power unfolds intriguingly as the story progresses thanks in part to Sophie, the hatmaker's daughter, who is trapped in an old woman's body. I especially enjoyed the character development. Sophie grew believably as a young woman entering adulthood, old body notwithstanding. Overall the story was warm and amusing. I wouldn't mind reading it again. I do wish the romance in the book had been less...

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have reported that the more severe a child displays AD/HD symptoms the more likely that child will become a regular smoker. Of course, they're quick to say that AD/HD doesn't make all AD/HD kids smokers. They're just more likely to get hooked than their non-AD/HD peers should they pick up a smoke and try it out. Quoth Scott H. Kollins, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke and lead author of the study: "We wanted to know why people with ADHD smoke more often than those who don't have ADHD...It may be something about the symptoms themselves that cause people to smoke, but we aren't certain of that. What our data clearly show is that for every symptom of ADHD reported in childhood, the stronger the likelihood that person would smoke regularly during adolescence or early adulthood..." Anybody who has experience with children with AD/HD knows that they don't have as much control over their impulses...

According to Parents.com : "The FDA is advising doctors and caregivers that children being treated with Strattera should be closely monitored for clinical worsening, as well as agitation, irritability, suicidal thinking or behaviors, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of therapy or when the dose is changed (either increased or decreased)." I don't fancy the fight I'm going to be having with the school system over my first grader. She's borderline AD/HD, though undiagnosed. My Mum called it years ago, but I've been reluctant to embrace the diagnosis. I know what it's like to go through the school system with AD/HD. I didn't want to wish it on her, but I worry about her self-esteem surviving intact so I treat her as if she has AD/HD now. If I can train her and prepare her I am hopeful we can lick this thing. However, if she is ever diagnosed with AD/HD officially I will be very resistant to medicating her. I ...

Happy National Depression Screening Day! I know it's almost over, and it's been an annual event since 1991, but I just found out about it 5 minutes ago. Pop on over to http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/ to find a screening center in your area. I'd have sent you a card but Hallmark doesn't seem to have branched out into this holiday. However, I think it's telling that a quick search for National Depression Screening Day at Hallmark.com yields cards with names like "It's Great to Work with You" and "A Better Place to Work". If you think that's depressing, you won't believe where one of the screening centers is in my home state: Wal*Mart ! I can't think of anything more depressing than getting psychologically evaluated at Wal*Mart. Of course, one shouldn't wrinkle one's nose at free evaluation if one can't afford the bill. If you have been wondering about your blue funk lately, do get evaluated. Maybe you...

I was getting very irritated last night. There was something under my nose, like a spider web, that tickled me to distraction. I was busy working so I mostly ignored it, but there were times when I'd grab at that area and try to pull the object away, but with no luck. No matter how often I brushed away at it the sensation of something being there remained to taunt me. As a testament to how absorbed I was in my labors a few hours passed while I absentmindedly brushed away and away and away. When I took a break to eat, however, I had time to focus on the problem next time it began to tickle me. "It feels like there's a hair there," I thought to myself. Then I froze in place. "Of course there is a hair there. It's called a mustache!" I hadn't shaved in about a week, so there was quite a bit of growth. Not that I hadn't noticed that I had a mustache growing there. I was just too absorbed to think about the problem thoroughly. Obviously, o...

My first grader stayed home from school today. She told her mummy that her tummy ached. Since that's why she came home early from school yesterday this didn't seem too far fetched. Her fifth grade sister is also home sick - this one with a kidney infection - so the two of them were camped out on the couch watching Disney channel movies. As I was typing in the other room, I heard one of them walking around the kitchen (over my head), running water, banging around, and then coming back down the stairs. Soon I heard the tinkling of the sick bell. At first I didn't think it was the sick bell because I hadn't given it to either child, but after it continued to ring I walked away from my computer and looked down the hall to see if somebody needed me. My first grader sat there slumped on the couch with the sick bell in her hand. "Daddy, would you go upstairs and get me a drink?" she asked. "You went upstairs, got the sick bell, came downstairs and rang me s...

I could file this next bit under humor, but traditionally wet sock escapades go under the "Bad Luck" label. The other night my wife knocked on the bathroom door as I was brushing my teeth. I opened it to find her dangling a mangy, drippy sock in my face. You might think that I make this stuff up, but my family thinks it's uncanny and hilarious how I manage to gravitate towards every spill there is in the house and step in it. My socks are constantly soaked. So when Robyn found a wet sock on the floor she couldn't pass up an opportunity to tease me. "Want to step on a wet sock?" she said devilishly. "I already did" I replied 1 . You see, I had entered the bathroom and stepped on that soggy sock only moments before and kicked it out into the hall in disgust. I wish I could say my wife was overcome with pity for my plight, but she was too busy laughing. It was rather funny, so I had a good laugh too. I can't avoid wet socks even when they ...

I have four girls, no boys, so sometimes I find my sense of humor out of step with my family. One day last year we were gathered together after dinner sharing jokes. Everybody was telling riddles that they knew. Unfortunately for them, I didn't know any so I made one up. I hope you enjoy it. My oldest daughter didn't, but my second oldest, who's humor is a bit more cynical like mine, got a kick out of it. Stretched over black I lie down flat; my skin is tough as leather. I set out to be on the other side, but now I'm exposed to the weather. What am I? Highlight the right to see the answer: Road Kill !