A Splintered Mind

New commenting policy in effect. For over ten years I have reached out to this community. I have shared my experiences with you so that you don’t feel alone, and I have tried to comfort commenters to the best of my ability. Although comments are severely down since we have entered the Age of Facebook, I appreciate all the thoughtful, intelligent replies that my readers leave. I am not always neurologically online and able to respond to them in a timely manner, but I do make an effort to reply to everybody. Lately, however, there has been a new breed of commenter. Ever since my article “What To Expect When You Call a Suicide Prevention Hotline” overtook “Depression: Ten Ways to Fight It Off”, Part 1 and Part 2 as my most popular article, there have been lonely, desperate posts left in the comments section. Most of the time they are anonymous. I call them Drive-by Suicide Notes or Death Spam. Imagine you wake up one morning and discover an anonymous...

On Thursday somebody unfriended me over the Charleston shooting. It was early in the day, facts were still rolling in, and the shooter had just barely been arrested. My Facebook friend of years had posted a link to an article that proclaimed Roof was a terrorist. It was an informative article about the church where the shooting took place along with the church’s place in black history, but the article began with one sentence that mentioned the shooting, and only one sentence. It seemed like a cheap link-bait tactic to me. I stated as much in response to the post, and suggested it was too soon to jump to conclusions. I also stated that the shooter had priors with drug possession. My complaint was with the article, not my Facebook friend. Instead of responding to my post, that person unfriended me. It’s their right to do so. We weren’t close by any means. However, I found the reaction intellectually weak, but a popular one all over social media. By midday, America learned more ab...

I recently read a book that really impressed me despite how simplistic it initially seemed. Penguin Random House contacted me to see if I’d like to review How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad): A Creative Workbook by Lee Crutchley. The subject sounded like a great match for my readers here, but when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a workbook. I somehow missed that bit in the title, but once I adapted I began to see the great potential being a workbook gave the material. Being told how to think better can be helpful, but being shown how to do it is infinitely better. Instead of empty exercises with an emphasis on touchy feely explorations of feelings & moods as I have seen elsewhere—with the counterproductive affirmation of sadness as a reality—this workbook teaches by emphasizing positive thinking and using clever visuals to downplay negativity. One key aspect of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is training yourself to think about things differently, ...

Here's a story about four steps to coping with ADHD goof-ups . They're going to happen. You might as well prepare for them: Recently, I paid off my iPhone 5, and carrier unlocked it. This required resetting my device. While I erased all my data after making a backup, I did a happy dance that sounded a little like this: Whoohoo! I finally paid it off! I can jailbreak it now and sell it for big bucks and then get an iPhone 6 and get more than 16gb of storage which was a phenomenal mistake I mean, what was I thinking? 16gb is too small! Oh, is it ready? Heywaitaminute…where's all my Health data? Yes, once you reset your iPhone, your Health data disappears. Six months of meticulously entered health data such as blood pressure, steps, sleep analysis, and weight—all gone. Isn't that what backups are for‽ At first I was angry at Apple. As you know, my experience with iOS 8 hasn't been the smoothest. I've been one of the lucky ones to bump into most of the bugs. ...

Being distracted goes hand in hand with ADHD like crime & punishment, yet sometimes a harmless stroll around the internet has damaging repercussions. Late assignments, missed deadlines, bank fees, lost friendships, addiction… It sure seems unfair to be born this way. I mean, normal people never get distracted on the internet. Only we, poor, ADHD adults struggle with this great human tragedy. Except you know that isn’t true. The dopamine hit that everybody gets for likes, favorites, and new posts works across the human spectrum. Adults with ADHD just fall into the trap quicker and often with more intensity. It’s a good thing that technology is here to help us with our problem with technology. 🙈 See No Evil The best solution I have found is to prevent myself from having access to the sites I currently waste time on. I usually fire up TextMate to edit my hosts file buried deep in the hidden /private/etc/ folder. I’ve also been known to use vi to do...

Time for a Writing Update! What? Don't bail yet! Nope. Too late. I lost them. Apparently, quite a few people spend less than five seconds on this page before leaving for shinier pastures. That people searching for ADHD articles on the net get bored and leave in under five seconds must break a record for irony somewhere. But you stayed with me, didn't you? So let's ignore the ironically challenged and move on. Although I have been busiest with my new, annoying friend, Insomnia McEvil, there has been progress on the writing front. I thought I would let you know what I've been up to. Then, as the list of writing projects grew, I suddenly realized that I had become victim of that old malady Multi Irons Syndrome . Everybody struggles with having too many irons in the fire from time to time, but adults with ADHD are positively experts at it. We don't mean to build with our own hands the obstacles that get in the way of our success, but something about new i...

I’m not very excited about the Apple Watch. You could say my level of interest is only somewhat higher than I regard floor wax. Don’t get me wrong. I am impressed with its gorgeous stylings and design. I certainly think that it is beautifully made. I’m just not very interested in it, and I believe my ADHD is partially at fault, though most of the blame I lay on Apple. Every time that Apple comes out with a new product, the internet is filled with griping and grousing from anti-Apple fans who seem to resent that Apple gets a lot of press. Oh, I realize they feel Apple is overhyped, but for the most part their complaint stems from them not being Apple fans. There is flak from the Android guys. There is guff from the PC guys. Now the anti-corporate-greed crowd has a new reason to mobilize due to the Apple Watch Edition being expensive—because apparently rich people shouldn’t be allowed to waste their money the way we poor folk do. Somewhere somebody feels that...