A Splintered Mind

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book "Saying NO to Suicide" Part 1 | Part 2 Some people have asked me how I manage depression without medication. Please keep in mind that medication is not the answer for everybody. Some people either can't afford medications or are hypersensitive to them, which is the case with me. I can't take any medication without worrying about side effects. So today let's get down and dirty. This will be a little lengthy, but I'll list ten steps I might take on any particular day to shake off the black beastie. My challenge today is to make you smile about depression. I may have just conceded defeat with that last sentence, but I'll make the attempt anyway. Since anybody can make up a list and put it on the web, let's make this real. I'll take an actual bout of depression and chart how I dealt with it. It is 5:30pm and I hear the lilting voice of my wife as she comes home. Instead of happiness I have an instan...

While I'm finishing up the illustrations for my double sized column for this week I wanted to pass along some warnings from the FDA. If you've followed my blog for a while you know that I stand against medications as a first line of attack for treating neurological problems. I see them as rife with side-effects and a poor substitute for coping strategies. This attitude doesn't make me popular. I'd wager that a more popular pro-meds stance would help me retain higher readership around here. Some could argue that my lack of a medical or psychological degree makes me ill-qualified for passing out advice of any kind concerning meds, and I would agree with them to a certain extent. If you really do read my column you know that I don't carelessly tell people to stop taking their meds. I simply encourage them to be careful. What I can offer with absolute certainty is my life as a worse case scenario. My experience with meds has always been filled with almost every biz...

This week was going to be a departure from my usual Adult ADHD topics. I was going to cover my session Monday with my Cognitive Behavior Therapist . Some people had expressed interest in what that was all about. Too bad I forgot to go . Let's see. I had the reminder phone call from the secretary. I had my PDA set to beep at me. There were no scheduling conflicts. Kids were picked up on time. So what happened? Well, I got caught up helping my kids and didn't have my PDA by my side 1 . Out of earshot, out of mind . But my humiliation makes great grist for a column on easy distractibility , the mainstay of the AD/HD mind. Coincidentally, the very next criteria Hallowell and Ratey list for Adult ADHD is this very topic . As evidence that at least one of them has Adult ADHD , Hallowell and Ratey list the most commonly known attributes of ADHD as number eight, somewhere after pathological boredom and bad breath . 8. Easy distractibility, trouble focusing at...

Last week's column didn't strike a chord in as many people as others I've written. I can only think that is a good thing . There is hope for the survival of the species. We can't all live like maniacs at the far edge, dangling off cliffs, betting the house on a football game, juggling machetes , etc...but would you be surprised to learn that all that high stimulation activity is a subset of something you probably CAN relate to? The seventh symptom in Hallowell and Ratey's Diagnostic Criteria for Attention Deficit Disorder in Adults is: 7. An intolerance of boredom. A corollary of number 6 . Actually, the person with ADD seldom feels bored. This is because the millisecond he senses boredom, he swings into action and finds something new; he changes the channel. If there is one aspect of AD/HD I wish people who don't have it could fully understand it is the intolerance of boredom . One of the loudest complaints I have heard from people who don't have AD/HD ...