A Splintered Mind

In which Douglas goes off on anti-depressants, medicated pets, and sugar pills. Not necessarily in that order. Yesterday, I came across two articles that starkly contrasted each other. In one, Australia struggled to come to grips with its national depressed pet crisis. In the other, British researchers revealed studies that showed anti-depressants were no more efficacious than sugar pills. I found the articles interesting in their own ways. Any headline that reads “Suicidal pets get anti-depressants” is bound to get sniggers unless you are Giselle from Enchanted , and “Study casts doubt on anti-depressants” is bound to tick off an entire industry built around the opposite fact, not to mention their patients — some of them even my own readers. How could I not write about these? The first story had me snickering by the first blurb: PETS at risk of self-harm are increasingly being prescribed anti-depressants because they cannot discuss problems in their lives with others, a leading vet...

Is there something in your life you'd like to improve? Set a goal and track it with us here. I discovered a socnet called iRovr today. It's an iPhone only socnet so it intrigued me. NOT because it would allow me to be an elitist boob looking down my nose at all the poor people saddled with their clunky, unsexy cellphones ( as some pundits pontificate ), but because the site was designed to utilize iPhone features and I'm a geek and that sort of thing is like pollen to a bee for me. Any web browser can access iRovr, but as you can probably see it is formatted for the iPhone. My splendiferous profile is here . I can go on and on about the iRovr stream and how freakin' cool it is and how you should all buy an iPhone so you can experience the pure joy of social networking iPhone style (did I mention the freakin' cool the iRovr stream interface yet?), but I recognize iRovr for what it really is: A time vortex. As I told somebody earlier today, iRovr (and socnets in gen...

Pete Quily's got a fairly comprehensive list up over on his site ADD Adult Strengths listing ten management techniques you could be doing to rein in your AD/HD and be more productive. He really pushes the "Pills Don't Teach Skills" meme, which I highly support. Years ago when ADD meds began to fail me I was left floundering with no managing skills. Perhaps for the first time in my life I had to actually deal with having AD/HD and it wasn't pretty. Save yourself the headache and look over Pete's list. One day either your prescription is going to run out, you're going to need a vacation from your meds, or they will lose their efficacy. There's bound to be something you're not doing in the list that you could benefit from. The only caution I would offer for his list is that his solutions aren't easy, quick fixes. All require thought and fore planning, but you shouldn't shy away from that if you are serious about taking charge of your life. Ha...

If you have AD/HD and look at your email inbox with dread, or if you just loathe email's demand on your time even without all the poor attention spannie bits, then I have some tips for you. I send a lot of email. I receive a lot of email. It may surprise you to learn then that I hate email. It's not that email isn't important to me. Ideally, it is communication with others and that is always important. The problem is that email isn't just about communication. It's more like looking for important letters stuffed inside the daily pile of ads and grocery store inserts you find in your real world mailbox. Who has time for that? In fact, the more cluttered and backlogged my inbox gets, the lower on my priorities email becomes. Why do it at all? Why not just never check my email again? Why? Because of guilt. Oh, the terrible guilt. You can't throw away that email filled with photos your Mum took during her trip into the mountains. They have your kids in them. You can...

Teen international classical cross-over sensation, Hayley Westenra , has been an influential person in our lives. We've never met her in person, though I've chatted with her in the forums of http://hayleywestenrafans.com during its heyday (and before its demise). She's never spoken to us, though she's answered one of my girls questions on her website . We have seen her perform live when she toured with Celtic Woman last year, and we've studied her life with great scrutiny. Even with such sparse contact it is though she has directly advised us every step of the way in fostering our children's talents and ambitions. I was, therefore, predisposed to like this book. Published in 2005 in New Zealand and written by Paul Little , this book was an official peek into the life of this amazing girl. Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to read at first because the author is too busy strewing petals in Hayley's path. Hayley, the perfect child. Hayley, the Saint. H...

In order to cut down on drive-by commenters or traveling shrinks, I thought disabling anonymous posting would be the ticket. Unfortunately, for some of my readers it was a ticket to Inconvenience, USA. Google's Blogger allows for logging in from multiple sources like AIM, Livejournal, openid, WordPress, and TypeKey - in short all the major blogging platforms on the internet, plus one popular instant message client. I thought my bases were covered. People could log in with whatever ID they had, or easily get one from the listed sites. I was mistaken, however. When my Mum complained that my site was broken because she couldn't leave a comment, I had concern that maybe this new change wasn't going to work out, but when I was forwarded an email from a blogger on ANOTHER site from a user that wanted to comment HERE but couldn't, I cried "Uncle!" I'll live with the occasional rude, self-important traveling shrink if it means regular readers can contribute in the...

Well, here I am. One day late and a dollar short as usual. I'm sick as a dog as they say, though as I tweeted yesterday I could say that I'm sick as a Doug — except that I go by "Douglas". I've been sick all week as a matter of fact. My sweet little six year old is now in mainstream public school and likes to share with Daddy every germ she comes in contact with. The last year and a half of home school may have had its stresses, but sickness wasn't something we really had to deal with on this level. Ouch. My poor immunity system is bruised. At any rate, here is the next open chat. I won't post a theme this week or even start with the first comment. I'm going to let you folks take the lead. To modify the famous words of Kurt Cobain, "Here I am now. Entertain me." Comments will close on Sunday night Update 2/19/08 1:22:52 AM: Comments closed Like reading The Splintered Mind ? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, or subscribe !

Catching up with some of my figure drawing sketch book Links to other Wordless Wensdays! tags technorati : Wordless Wednesday #5 Like reading The Splintered Mind ? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, or subscribe !

Sometimes days don't go as planned. Sometimes weeks, months, and years don't go as planned either. As I sit here letting my ramen boil (imported over the Rocky Mountains by the finest asian yaks) and wondering how I'm going to salvage my day, I know that the day is not at its best because I've contracted the lousy cold my family was cultivating over the weekend. I'm not whining about it. Colds come with Winter, my all time favorite season. After all, with a history of Depression, Insomnia, and a laughably silly immunity system I know far too well that this is the season for being sick. I know, also, that being sick isn't the only thing I'm dealing with. In fact, it is not even the worse thing I am dealing with. Right now, my brain has ceased functioning because of all the noise. Apparently, having my furnace and water heater replaced at the same time tends to produce noise. Lots of noise. My daughter troops along with her online homeschool courses ( "I...

I want to share with you a tip that helps me keep up with the comments across all the posts I've made over the past three years. Much of the action on The Splintered Mind occurs in the comments section. This section is home to some of the most insightful, thought provoking comments I have read on any mental health blog, proving that my readers are, in my opinion, a cut above the rest. I am constantly amazed, intimidatingly so, by the wisdom that some people share with me as they deal with their own issues. None of us are the same. We all have different ways of coping. Mine involve no meds, some involve all meds, and others involve a balance between the two. Comments are for the most part upbeat and positive, but never sappy. There are some great conversations happening in there that you may not be aware of. The problem is, of course, that nobody has time to reload old articles over and over again hoping to find a new comment to respond to. That's why I use a dedicated comments ...

Welcome to another Splintered Chat, an open forum for any topic that fringes upon the subjects of AD/HD, Depression, and halitosis. Depressed about Romney pulling out of the 2008 Presidential race? Depressed that Hillary Clinton is staying in? Depressed that Ron Paul only appeals to the tin foil hat crowd and your crazy uncle who believes that we never landed on the moon? C'mon in! This is the final haven for the hollow earth crowd. No, I'm teasing again. I don't really care about that stuff. Unless you want to throw Bigfoot into the mix, THEN we might have something. A hollow earth theory that involves invisible, paradimensional Bigfoots with psychic powers could be quite a heady conversation indeed. Meds, anyone? Actually, I sorta want to believe in Bigfoot, but that might be admitting too much. Anyway, it's an open chat and you are welcome to meet and greet with other readers of this blog. I know you like to lurk and keep your opinions to yourself, but I promise not ...

Sometimes being an insomniac can be fun. I can do anything I want without distraction. No ringing phones. No squealing girls. No fighting. No distracting conversation. I can work or spin (my term for living in the AD/HD moment of hyper focused distraction) to my heart's content. I get a surprising amount of work done at night without the pandemonium of family life. Last night, for instance, I redesigned my daughter's website and worked until 5am. That was by choice and I felt pretty good about things when I reached the end of my goal. Sometimes I'm awake for no reason, however. My body says "Hey. Four hours of sleep is enough. Weee!" I know I'll pay for it later in the day with the inevitable ticking episode, but what can I do about it? It's insomnia. "Take a pill!" is the usual helpful reply. However, as you may have noticed, I frown upon using meds. Modern pharmacology and I don't get along. The last time I tried sleeping pills (Ambien) I...

Is there something in your life you'd like to improve? Set a goal and track it with us here. After spending the morning reading Super Tuesday coverage, then walking to the local fire station to vote, then spending 3 hours driving around Salt Lake Valley like a madman sprinkling my children all over the place like seeds, I suddenly remembered I needed to set goals for this week. I say "suddenly" with tongue in cheek because I had previously not remembered what I was going to set as my goal. Monday turned into Tuesday and finally it came to me as I lay in bed pretending to sleep. A quick sticky note later and I could relax and let things go and get back to tossing and turning. Unfortunately, I didn't look at that sticky note before leaping into the world wide web for my morning news fix. But here I am now, ready to pretend I know what I'm talking about. My goal for this week: Find Focus First My morning routine is a random event. I like there to be more order in my ...

(Therese pointed out to me in an email that the word "crutch" used the way I did has another meaning which is negative. Taken that way, what I wrote is insulting which is not what I intended. I have edited the article accordingly. Douglas, 2/4/08 7:56:21 AM) I'm taking a moment out of my hectic evening to reply to an article I read while I was taking a break. My blogging friend, Therese Borchard, a fellow Psych Central Best of the Web Mental Health Blogger , writes Beyond Blue over at Beliefnet . Recently, she wrote about the death of Heath Ledger as I had done. Although her commenters are legion compared to my silent bunch, she, too, was chided and reprimanded for her belief system. Apparently, it upset her a great deal . Therese and I don't see eye to eye on one issue and that is the issue of medication. While Therese advocates the use of pharmaceuticals to abate her Depression, I advocate the use of determination and positive thinking. We both respect each other...

Here we are again. A brand new weekend. I hope you have a good one planned, whatever your style. I'll go ahead now and open comments up in our weekly open thread. I'll start the chat off by asking you about comments, though you can still feel free to discuss anything. I've been thinking of doing away with Anonymous comments. I'd like to cut down on negative posts, and I'd like to get to know some of the positive commenters who have posted Anonymously. However, I haven't shut off Anonymous comments because in the past I feared forcing a login to post comments seemed like comment death. Besides, it is insidiously easy to forge an ID. All an Anonymous poster has to do is create a dummy Blogger account and then flame with with carefree abandon. However, Blogger has added some new login features you may not know about. Check out this picture of the various sites now supported by Blogger: Do you think this will help or hurt comments here? Do you think it will matter? ...