A Splintered Mind

This is a new series I hope to publish over the next few Sundays. I’ve made myself a goal of writing an article every day for my various freelance projects, and since Sunday is the day of rest, I figure I can explore recent statements by my church leaders on mental health while not running afoul of other promises I’ve made. It doesn’t indicate any sort of editorial shift on this blog. I’m Mormon. I’ve written about that before. No surprises here. Hopefully, you are tolerant, secular, and educated enough to handle diverse life-views. Recently, there has been a spate of prayer shaming on social media. Otherwise rational individuals have suddenly begun to tell religious people how pointless prayer is in the face of tragedy. Because they are supported by like-minded peers, these humbugs are convinced that they represent rational thinking. But having a non-religious person pass judgement on religious behavior is akin to a meat-lovin’ hunter telling a vegetarian how pointless their di...

As you may have noticed, I have ADHD. One of the ways it manifests itself in my life is something I affectionately call Multi-Irons Syndrome . This means that as I get bored, I have a tendency to abandon one task to pick up another. The shinier the better! Over the years I have trained myself to control that. This is how I was able to finish my book . (I'm afraid I'm so pleased with my accomplishment that I'll be touting it for awhile.) The key to my success, however, was that I didn't expect myself to stay on task 100% of the time. I gave myself mental breaks. Putting ADHD in a full Nelson may seem like the best way to wrestle control of your life, but the effort can be exhausting, and I question whether it is healthy to always control our ADHD so tightly. Increased stress levels and feelings of failure are bound to arise because adult ADD and ADHD defies such constraints. This is why it i s important to recognize that ADHD is not always a detriment. It can be a ...

I finished Zoë Kessler’s book “ADHD According to Zoë: The Real Deal on Relationships, Finding Your Focus, and Finding Your Keys” last summer, but then I became caught up with my own book as I fought to finish it. Now that I’ve caught my breath, I’d like to correct that oversight and let my ADHD readers know what a gem her book was to read. Zoë has a background as a journalist, so her book was filled with citations of studies, authors, and a treasury of books that she has read on the subject of ADHD. However, she also likes doing standup comedy, so there was ample humor in her story to keep things informative yet interesting. The overall affect was witty & smooth. To prepare for this review, I read through the copious notes that I took while reading, but they rather quickly fell into a theme. “Yeah. Wow, she really nailed it there. OH! I can relate with that so much!”, etc. Right from the first chapter, I enjoyed her personal introduction and admired how effective she was at e...

If you or a loved one struggles with suicidism, learn to rethink suicide, and gain coping strategies that work.   According to the CDC, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US for all ages. Even if the numbers seem small compared to other causes of death, the hole left in our lives by somebody who took their own life is immense. Saying "NO" to Suicide explores this growing problem in our society by breaking the process of recovery down into steps from developing awareness to developing coping strategies. Cootey uses his own personal experiences, recorded over the past eleven years on his award-winning blog, A Splintered Mind, to explore the different aspects of suicidism and how he successfully retrained his thinking process to escape the downward spiral suicidal ideation creates. He also uses these cases to discuss how family and friends who deal with suicidal people should develop coping strategies of th...

A funny thing happened to me on my way to greeting the New Year. I put a book up for sale. I know! Crazy, right? It’s like I’ve just been talking about it forever, and now I pull a fast one on you and actually deliver. Where will this lead? I might start posting blogs more often again. I might get on top of my email. I might even file my taxes for 2012. The sky’s the limit! I feel so relieved to have succeeded at this goal. It was a difficult project because the subject matter was not the most cheerful, but I believed in what I was trying to accomplish, so I kept going. Saying “NO” to Suicide explores the growing problem of suicide by breaking down the process of recovery into steps to develop awareness and coping strategies. I used experiences that I’ve written about on this blog to explore the different aspects of suicidism, and I gave tips on how to avoid the downward spiral suicidal ideation creates. I also provide tips for family & friends who deal with suicidal people. Mu...