A Splintered Mind

Update 2016: This article was featured in my book "Saying NO to Suicide" , with added commentary. (credit: Kendrea Johnson Family) Recently, I read about Kendrea Johnson, a six year old girl who allegedly hung herself with a jumprope. Her case has bothered me deeply not just because it was a senseless death of an innocent child, or because of the sadness she must have experienced by being put into the foster care system, or even just because the idea of a six year old struggling with suicidal ideation is so disturbing. I was bothered because I do not know how I could have helped such a child if I had been given the opportunity. “I’m sorry.” “I’m sad for what I do.” These notes, written in purple marker, were left behind. They break my heart. Her foster mother claimed she talked about jumping to her death out of a window because Kendrea claimed nobody liked her. She drew a picture at school of a child hanging by a rope. If the coroner’s report was to be believed, s...

It has been one month since I decided to train myself to be a writer . You may recall I was inspired by the output of other writers. I just didn’t compare well to their prolificness. I had all these great ideas covered in cobwebs in my head because I didn’t write fast enough. I wanted to take my writing to the next level and worried about all my downtime. Yes, yes, I am disabled and sick all the time. However, if I wanted to make a living as a writer there had to be some changes. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized there wasn’t much I could do about that downtime. It was due to disability, right? But there was a ton I could do about my uptime. How did I spend it? How focused was I? Was I watching too much TV? Playing too many games? Heck, did I want this book finished by my birthday or not‽ So I made some goals to start my days off right and got busy. A little over a week later I came across a blog post by Dave Farland on being prolific . This...

Just a brief break from book writing to mark this amazing date. Ten years online. I still can't believe it. Thank you for all of your support. I originally began this blog because a neighbor told me that ADHD didn't exist. She was a school teacher, and she felt that ADHD was just an excuse parents used to get kids out of doing homework. I was more mad at myself than her, however. I stood there gobsmacked instead of helping her understand how wrong she was. I was still ashamed then to tell people about my ADHD, but I was more ashamed of myself for not standing up to her misconceptions. I decided to start this blog to force myself to not be afraid of talking about my ADHD & Depression anymore. I also figured this blog would help me learn to be a writer, and maybe connect me with a community of people with similar issues. The blog has been a success on all three accounts. Not only am I no longer stigmatized by my ADHD or Depression, but I've vastly improved my writi...