A Splintered Mind

The chaos that is the Brownie is at her mother's, finally asleep. All that remains of her is the debris left behind in her tornado's wake. Not even my latest claw acquisition remains as a cute accent on the dump I call my apartment. With her angelic absence, I was finally able to work on the business cards I intended to use later today. What a handful she has been this summer! You have no idea. After all, how could you? I have kept the drama tight to my vest. And here I am, changing the subject. Now I can at last prevent entropy from destroying my kitchen, finish the laundry before the cycle of chaos begins again Sunday night, and wind down with ethereal shoe-gazer music in the background. Morpheus calls, but he's a dull old boy and easily ignored. In the morning, I will rush off to Fedex Office and print the business cards that I didn't have ready for the last conference I attended, then I will race along the Wasatch Front to arrive at the Community & Family...

Saturday: It's about this time of the summer every year that I suddenly realize there is a very good reason why I have not accomplished even half of what I set out to do: Summer vacation. I must live in a fantasy bubble , but I forget year after year that when the kids are home over the summer, I don't get much done. Every year I set big, amazing goals, and every summer I beat myself up for failing at them. Then I remember, duh, hello? Summer vacation. You'd think with only one kid at home that I'd manage to master this conundrum, but I'm afraid the Brownie has the best of me. It could be that my brain damaged, learning disabled, epileptic daughter with cerebral palsy is time consuming. I'm just going to throw that one out there as a possibility.  Here's what I can tell you that has been done. My work on my upcoming Fighting Depression book is coming along, as in, I've reworked the first chapter so many times that I've lost track of the edits, bu...

Sometimes days don't go as planned. With my tic disorder and a sudden bout of depression, Sunday started off poorly: Having a very difficult time with #depression today. Worst I’ve had in a while. So, sunshine & a mountain hike is my prescription. — Douglas Cootey (@SplinteredMind) July 31, 2016 That tweet was the turn around moment for me. Before that, I missed church because I was ticking, but I was also too depressed to get out of bed. I was wallowing!! When was the last time I did that? Since my daughter, Bri'anna Joy, was in town from Germany, we had planned a big daddy/daughter hike with me and my four girls, and there I was lying in bed thinking of cancelling. That thought was so distasteful to me that it shocked me into awareness: I was depressed. Once I diagnosed the problem, I began to think of solutions. Get up. Eat. Shower. Get ready. Go have fun with your daughters! I tweeted my resolution and got to work. Identifying depression is an enormous step. It can sl...

Just like almost everybody else on Earth, I have been enjoying the augmented reality game, Pokémon Go . I'm sure you've heard about it. There has been a lot of bad press for this game. It seems each week there is a new scolding article letting people know that they're having fun wrong. Most of it is clickbait fluff with no merit. When you have millions of people playing a game, there are bound to be negative incidents, but they are the exception, not the norm. I can assure you that I have not come across any dead bodies, I haven't been assailed in the dark by roving gangs hellbent on stealing my stuff, and I haven't driven into a tree while I was trying to capture a Pokémon. What I have had is a lot of fun while playing the game with my daughters, as well as by myself. Pokémon Go is a variation of a popular game available only on Nintendo handhelds. Having a Pokémon game on a non-Nintendo device is a big deal. The original games for the past twenty years have been r...

Week Three and Four were total busts. So embarrassing. I became sick AND had a ticking bout that lasted days. When that happens, I default to just the bare minimum: taking care of my daughters. That's my primary responsibility. Learning to squeeze blogging and writing into my life around my responsibilities is secondary. That doesn't mean I'm pleased with the results. It just means that I chose to succeed at being a dad and fail at being a writer. And by fail, I mean not meet my unrealistic expectations. Later in week three, I used Pokémon Go as an excuse to go outside even when sick or ticking. That was a fun distraction. Being shut inside during the summer is so depressing, but the game had definite mental health benefits. I wrote all about it for my next article. Nevertheless, all was not lost: I finished the first chapter of my new book on fighting depression. I'll be posting it later this week. I've decided to post the first draft of each chapter as an exper...

Two things of note today: On Thieves & Lowlifes Last month I moved all the boxes in my rented garage space into my living room. I’m moving in two months, so I figured I’d save money while pruning the boxes down to fit into a smaller space. The detritus of my half of twenty-three years of marriage still awaits my sad, pruning heart. If there weren’t so many precious things mixed in, I’d dump the lot. Instead, it’s like I just got a messy new roommate. The only problem I had was what to do with my mountain bike and disabled daughter’s adult trike. I refer to her as the Brownie on social media since she’s a fourteen-year-old minor. You’ve probably heard me mention her here before. She has epilepsy and cerebral palsy, and she’s a lot of work. In fact, tomorrow we’re heading over to Shriner’s Hospital to have a gait lab done, and we just finished an MRI for her last week. Like I said, she’s a lot of work, but I...

I woke up this morning to discover I had been quoted! Finally! Somebody noticed my insightful commentary on the world and felt it noteworthy to share. I could expect to see a boost in page hits, maybe some social media traction, and dare I hope, more sales of my book, “Saying ‘NO!’ to Suicide” . Then I noticed a tiny problem. As much as I appreciated the signal boost from Healthy Minds on Facebook and Twitter, I wasn’t actually quoted. In fact, I hadn’t said any of the comments attributed to me. The cited quotes were the cheeky bullet points and summaries of the article author, Sabrina Rojas Weiss. Healthy Minds was just trying to bring attention to an important issue, and should be commended for their efforts, but I want to make sure that the right people get attributed. Just in case you missed the article when I shared it last year, here’s a link: ‘Cancer Is Just An Excuse’ – Insensitive Things People Say About Mental Illness, Translated ...