A Splintered Mind

Often I keep my depression at bay with a heavy dose of silliness. You may have noticed. I realize that I take a hit in the respect department, but it's my life and it works and it's a whole heckuvva lot better than moping about wanting to die. This is probably why I've been enjoying playing around over at dailybooth.com . It's a veritable Logan's Run where I am the antediluvian aberration in a very young arena, but the community is so creative with their self-portraits that I find it uplifting as well as inspiring. I could write a blog like other depressives I've come across. Sadness can in point of fact feed the muse. If I were to give in to such urges, it might sound like this: Friday, February 27, 2009 11:49:56 AM Blackness envelops me with it's comforting embrace. Shirts, pants, socks all dark as night. I paint my eyes with the color of my anger. Die, world! Die! I hate you all. Grawlix, I need my meds… Fortunately, I decided long ago that I'd rathe...

As February draws to a close, I am starting to realize that there's something wrong with this month. Did you know that February had only 28 days in it? I feel positively robbed. I am so far behind accomplishing my list of goals for February it might as well be January. Somehow I always fail to include downtime for disability when I make my plans. Silly, isn't it? So many days this month were spent doing nothing more than ticking and helping the kids between episodes. However... The greatest obstacle between my goals and I is usually myself. February was no exception. I simply let ADHD knock me around like a toy dog in the back of a moving pickup truck. If it wasn't for the ticking I'd set out to pull off a miracle. There's still time to burn the midnight oil. Instead, I'll be lucky to finish a few of my goals. I'm not going to let it get me down, however. That's all I need - a bout of Depression while I wrestle with ADHD and Chronic Motor Tic Disorde...

Poor Jon. He seems destined to remain a shlub for the rest of his life. From the looks of things, he's long since settled into his role. That reminds me of another role. I attended a High School play recently and the lead actress seemed to mope about the stage at odds with her supposedly chipper, upbeat character. She rarely looked up at the audience, and smiled only once — at the closing scene. It made me wonder if she was smiling out of relief that the play was finally over. I asked my daughter about the actress later. I wondered if she had a bad case of nerves. Although my daughter acknowledged that was the case, she also made an interesting comment. Apparently, this young actress was so worried about the poor state of preparation of the play she went on stage in low spirits practically guaranteeing failure. Fortunately for the play she was not the only actor onstage. Not to pick on the poor girl, but isn't that just like life? How many people do you know, perhaps even your...

In the corner of my kitchen resided a pile. A guest might have seen it as any old pile, filled with past due bills, old homework papers, obscure catalogues you’d never order from, and mail for people who stopped living at your address sometime before Massachusetts became a state. Just an ordinary pile. But I knew better. That pile was sentient. It leered at me when I wasn’t looking, mocking me with its slowly growing mass. It defied me. It taunted me. It overwhelmed my mind. It knew what guests did not know. It knew it was as old as Distraction itself and had defied my attempts to vanquish it handily for almost a year. It made a hypocrite of all my highly touted organizational skills. I tried covering it with the daily deluge of junk mail, but that only seemed to make it grow stronger. Then yesterday it reached out a tendril to trip me. I knew that I could not avoid the confrontation any further. Yesterday was the time for war. ### I sometimes wish that life’s little wars were as drama...

In the middle of rewrites for a picture book manuscript I've been working on, I somehow found myself wandering the neon blinking streets of the Information Super Heycoollookatthat! I use a Twitter client called Twitterrific to keep me posted on the people I follow. I had set it to only update once an hour — you know, to give myself a fighting chance — but even that was too frequent. Instead of focusing on rewrites for "The Secret Life of My Cat, Sneakers" (a picture book I have previously finished but am rewriting), I saw a news update that said something about Miley Cyrus being sued for $4 billion by angry Asians. I was weak. A half hour later I knew all about this recent hiccup in 16 year old Miley's non-stop flight to Laughingstock City. Hanging out with her 20 year old boyfriend, Miley mugged for the camera, following the example of these other stalwart twentysomething members of society. Why Mum & Dad let Miley hang out at twentysomething parties where alco...

"How I Laughed At Depression, Conquered My Fears And Found Happiness" - A Neurotic's Hilarious Journey Sometime towards the end of August, Wendy Aron visited my blog and offered to let me read & review her book. I jumped at the chance. Once the book arrived, however, school had started and I was in fulltime chauffeur duties, homeschooling my 14 year old, being dance dad, and hobbling around trying to stay ahead of my disabilities. Needless to say many projects did not get done last Fall, including reading & reviewing Wendy's book. That's why I was glad to find some time over the Christmas holiday. I settled in and dug into the book, finally finishing it about two weeks ago. Now I'm ready to share it with you. Hide & Seek starts with Wendy's 40th birthday and takes us through a labyrinthine path towards positive self-esteem. She has a wry wit that casts a humorous light on the events that take place in the book, and I found myself laughing out ...

How can something so simple be so effective? There's a trick to it. Look at this guy ! It doesn't seem like he has a care in the world. I couldn't smile that way if I received a seven figure advance and a seven book deal in the mail. I couldn't smile like that if God Himself had marked the paths of opportunity with seraphim out into the world for me and pushed me in the right direction. I couldn't look that happy if I had slept for twelve full hours and then received a three hour backrub. I can say that with certain authority. I slept for twelve hours yesterday and don't feel any differently today. To be honest, my left arm hurts like I slept on it wrong and my hair is permanently matted like Alfalfa's, but that might be too much information… Smiling is something that has not come easy for me since I was at least eight – not since entering grade school and having the happiness stamped out of me by a crusty school system and loving peers. Growing up with ADHD...

Here's a way to tame your todo lists and help prevent them from triggering Depression when you don't complete them as planned… Unfortunately for me, I make birthday goals. Each year I race to the next birthday to prove that I am, indeed, not a loser after all, and, in fact, am a person of distinguished greatness. I do this by making a long list of impossible goals that I expect to have completed by the time I'm a year older. For years I have struggled with these birthday goals. I've detailed my struggles here and here , among others. I'm almost desperate to prove myself, so I push myself extremely hard but accomplish some amazing things considering all I have on my plate. My 36th birthday produced my 140 page coloring book. My 41st birthday produced a picture book manuscript and other accomplishments, but my 42nd birthday goals seemed to only produce Depression — all because I didn't meet all my goals. I had forgotten the simple, cardinal rule of goal making: C...

I used to have an Irish Setter who slept as peacefully as the pretty one pictured above. Deeply, she would slumber, stirring only to open her mouth widely and yawn with that peculiar curled tongue of hers. From what my mother says, I have never slept well, even when I learned how to yawn & curl my tongue as my dog did. If I can dig an old photo out, I'll share a baby picture with you of me as an innocent young tike — complete with circles under the eyes. I looked so cute then. After a lifetime of insomnia, however, I look more like this: I had been pushing my schedule forward. Again. Sunday I slept 10:30am-4pm. Monday I slept 2:30pm-9pm. Today was supposed to be 4:30pm-10:30pm. Unfortunately, I crashed around 12:30pm and "napped" for four hours. Now I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. Up is down. Down is sideways, and sideways is how I feel since I'm listing to the left. I even ate my meals backwards, starting with dinner at 9pm Monday, lunch somew...

Finding Optimism just posted about the Top 100 Mental Health and Psychology Blogs over at Online University Reviews . It's a four year old list, but it is so comprehensive that I thought perhaps some of my readers might like to know about it. Have no fear of it going to my head. I'm squeezed in at #98 and if the typist had sneezed I might have been completely left off the list. Scroll downwards, ever downwards, and you will find the Depression section. There are many excellent blogs there for you to discover. One is deleted from existence, and two haven't been updated in half a year, but the others have excellent and current content. Perhaps you will find another kindred voice in the wilderness to help you feel less alone as you struggle with Depression. If this list helps you find a new blog that is helpful, please let me know all about it here in the comments section. Perhaps other readers would like to know about it as well. Like reading The Splintered Mind ? Share art...