A Splintered Mind

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book "Saying NO to Suicide" , with added commentary. Morning Blues Friday - Entry 5: I believe it is high time for me to acknowledge that my depression is out of control. I have been trying the past few weeks since the lay off to keep it at bay, but I'm not making any progress. I'm simply sad all of the time. I am too depressed to write my book or draw. I'm too depressed to clean. I only stir to life when the girls arrive. Then responsibilities force me to move and function. And I still don't write or draw. This is not living. I woke up this morning contemplating suicide. In the same moment I thought about death, I realized that the Depression had taken too deeply a hold. One thing that happened in September that could be accounting for my recent descent into darkness was the sudden change in the amount of daylight. I felt the change rather keenly this year. I usually expect Winter Depression to hit me by the e...

Tuesday - Entry 4: When I began offering a donation button on my blog, I had mixed feelings. I have long resisted the urge to load my blog with ads, yet with work being so spotty this year my blog was the only resource I had that was working for me. With 200-300 unique visitors a day, up to 9000 individuals a month, I figured a buck here and there from donations might help. Two weekends ago we were struggling with an issue. I had just started a freelance job but the paychecks hadn't started rolling in yet. And when they did start rolling in, it wasn't going to be enough. I had rent coming up, bills due, and my children all needed new school clothes. Especially the Brownie. She was running around with sneakers that had worn through at the ankle, exposing the frame wire. It dug into her foot constantly and hurt. I tried wadded up paper to be a buffer between her foot and the sneaker mouth, but even with me rebending the wire back every day there was only one solution that...

Thursday - Entry 3: Earlier yesterday, as I settled down to turn keywords into scintillating text that would entertain not only Google but web users for generations to come, I got a call from Nana. The school had called her to let her know that the Brownie was having a seizure. For some reason Nana’s number was at the top of the schools contact list. For a moment, that concerned me more than the seizure. The Brownie has had seizures at school before. They’ve become an infrequent but routine part of life with her, but this time she had stopped breathing. Not quite a tonic-clonic, but scary nonetheless. She loses control with her head and body perpetually turning to the side; she often loses her vision; and sometimes she stops breathing. When that happens her lips turn blue, her face a cadaver-like gray. It isn’t a good look for her and fills us with more than a little fear as we give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We have diazepam on hand for times like that. The school rightly calle...

Sunday - Entry 2: Sometimes I wonder about transparency. Do I reveal too much about myself? I've been so sick this week. With little energy available to work, I've tweeted from my sick bed. Yesterday was the worst. People tend to expose their worst sides more easily when they are tired or run down, and my non-stop barrage of tweets yesterday revealed my mind to be a 900 pound puppy in a field of twinkies. So this morning, as I considered damage control, I thought to organize my mind and get it back on track. I launched Lift, the new community goals app that links into Twitter, and took a look at my past week: Abysmal. I'm only keeping track of four goals. It's too easy to bury yourself in goals with that app so I keep my list small. Read scriptures? Nope. Draw? Nope. Run? Ha! Write 250 words? Ah! One pitiful goal reached. Now the Lift world knew how pathetic I was. Then it occurred to me, “How transparent are other people on Lift?” Tap tap tappity… Fifty one people kept...

Saturday - Entry 1: It is time I admit that I am less than thrilled with how my life has turned out. Yes, being divorced isn't a party. Being a single dad is hard. Being in debt is stressful. Wah wah wah. Who in my situation doesn't find it difficult? Mostly I'm just unhappy with what I've accomplished. I have big plans… but small successes. Truthfully, I shouldn't expect to accomplish much when I'm struggling with a recent bout of Depression, two ticking episodes this week, and a virus, but… I expect myself to succeed anyway. After all, many people with worse problems accomplish so much more. Don't jump to conclusions, though. This entry isn't about feeling sorry for myself, nor am I asking for cheers and accolades in the comments. I'm simply frustrated with myself. I could list for you ALL the accomplishments I have had recently and still feel like I come up short. This is a self-esteem problem, not an ADHD, Depression, chronic tic disorder problem...

As of last month, I was laid off my third job in one year. Truthfully, the economy has been a weak one. So why do I feel like I've been fired? I recently finished a job selling clothes for extremely oversized men. The largest shirt I dealt with was a 7XLT. You don't realize how massive such a shirt is until you have to fold it. Then you begin to understand just how small you are in the Universe. I was hired to be a salesman, but things didn't work out that way. They started me in the stock room on some days and trained me on others. Then a big wig came in from out of town and I spent two weeks prior to her arrival cleaning and sorting and folding and cleaning. Did I mention cleaning? After that, the job wasn't the same. It was non-stop stock for me then. They wouldn't even give me access to the register. I knew the writing was on the wall, however. The store was constantly failing to meet its target sales goals. There simply wasn't enough business. T...

Ugh. I think I'm done using the Bamboo app for sketching. It's a li'l bit too crude for my style. It didn't help that I lost my Wacom stylus, and I drew instead with a piece of sponge stuck in a pencil extender. I'll experiment with Paper, Sketchbook Ink, or Sketch Club next. Which art app do you enjoy using? ~Dˢ