A Splintered Mind

My poor flowers! I've been so busy with freelance work that I completely forgot to water them. It's been maybe three days tops? The weather has been so hot outside, my plant just baked. Drat. I didn't get a chance to draw them yet. ADHD & me always seem to do this to my plants. I have the best intentions, too.  

Using Nature to Calm the Mind I've been doing a lot of biking lately. Losing weight. Getting out in the summer sun. It's felt good. I've needed the escape from the stress of my life to get out there and combat depression with hard exercise and sunshine. I've rode over 30 miles in the last three days, but none today. Today was spent indoors furiously typing away on freelance work that I was behind on. I'm thankful for the work, but freelance work has been taking over. What I mean is that I'm not spending any time working on my own book which desperately needs the fifth draft to be completed. It seems the faster I get, the more freelance work I have time to do. That's a good thing. Money is good. However, I'm not planning my time correctly, and not leaving time for my own pursuits. My book isn't going to write itself, and I'll need to squeeze even more open slots into my busy schedule if I want to make time for writing fiction. In the past week I...

I had a lot of fun writing this article for  ADDitude Magazine . Everybody misspeaks from time to time, and ADHD Adults can do it more than others. We just have crossed wires and things come out wackbards all the time. Can you relate? In this case I asked for an unlikely condiment to be put on my sandwich. I used that moment to help my girls understand later how they need to be patient with each other and cut each other some slack. You can read all about I'll Have a Turkey Sandwich; Hold the Autopilot  over at the Family Guy . Other Stuff • A year ago. Yes, one year ago , a friend on Twitter send me a link of articles on ADHD over at Psychology Today . Then I forgot about it. I have to say that the one on French kids not having ADHD was a joke, but the other articles were quite interesting. You probably would have found them very interesting, too, one year ago. Here's hoping you still will. • Not quite a year ago Healthline put together a very cool list of Android a...

As an extension of my first blog about ADHD anger issues at ADDitude Magazine I took a slightly more humorous approach to the subject and wrote about my coping strategy for managing anger. It's the "closing the gap" technique I've written about here numerous times before. You can read Taming Your Inner Hulk  over at the Family Guy . If you want me to go more into the "closing the gap" technique here, leave a comment. Thanks for reading! Other Stuff: I came across some iOS apps that are free today that might interest you. Even if the sale is over by the time you read this, I still feel the apps might be of value. The first is Thinglist , normally $1.99, which bills itself as a "want to-do" list maker, but seems to be more of a visual "things I want to spend money on later" list. That's not a bad thing. I often want to remember movies that I want to see or pick up, or books I want to read, etc. but don't have an organiz...

I never believed this type of thinking. Now I know why. As many of you know, I am working on a book based on blog articles I’ve written on the subject of overcoming suicide . The fourth draft was finished a couple of months ago, but the editor I chose for the project was out on maternity leave. We got together last Saturday and went over her notes and ideas. She liked what she saw, had some creative suggestions, and I am very excited to get busy with draft five. Too bad I have so much boring freelance work to do first. I’ve been so busy (and depressed ) that I wasn’t able to work on this article until now. It isn’t something that comes easy to me because I don’t often write about the process of writing, but there was something about writing I wanted to explore. I find blogs by unpublished authors with tips on the writing process a bit pretentious, and, frankly, a bit dull. Writing about writing is as boring as a two hour lecture on the nature of drawing at eight in the morning. ...

Last year at ADDitude Magazine I wrote about how ADHD anger issues hurt relationships with my daughters and my ex-wife. It wasn't a funny article, but a serious one where I shared what I learned, and hoped others could learn from my mistakes. I titled it simply "Anger"  and listed three tips that adults with ADHD needed to manage their anger before they drove away everyone that they loved. Read about it at the Family Guy . Other Stuff • A reader sent me the following. I didn't think it was good from my usual Mailbag segment since it wasn't about mental health, but thought I'd answer it here instead: Hello Doug, I recently started my own blog on my dealing with my depression/melancholy www.melancholymanbag.com and have been searching around for other blogs dealing with depression(geared more towards men). I enjoyed running across your blog. I enjoy the humor and find the content interesting. I also appreciate your courage in letting everyone know...

Last month I wrote about a breakfast fiasco over at Family Guy for ADDitude Magazine. In it I regaled my readers with a culinary horror story made all the more terrifying with ADHD lurking in the shadows. I may never look at maple syrup the same way again. I titled it “Sprinkle a Li’l ADHD on Those Waffles” and readers soon let me know that I was not alone in the dark on this one. One mother tortured her children with soy sauce on their waffles. Fortunately, I only tortured myself. I hope you enjoy the blog. Other Stuff • I wanted to let you know about an event that CHADD has coming up on May 18th. It’s the ADHD Walk & Family Fun Day . They’re hoping to get people to share the event via social media with photos and status updates. Too bad I am busy that day. Contact your local CHADD affiliate to find out how you can participate in this fund raiser. • Last year a new reader posted a lot of comments while she was promoting her business. She di...

Hey! It's summer camp time! Well, not NOW , but when I wrote about it at  ADDitude Magazine it was very timely. This time, however, I didn't embarrass myself. I know! That's amazing, right? I wrote about how hard it was to keep up with verbal conversations while filling out forms and dealing with an interruption. At least my editor didn't post the article as "Church Meetings Are" which is what I titled it. I am very sure there was more to that title, but I forgot to finish jotting it down. Fortunately, I finished the blog before sending it to  the Family Guy .