A Splintered Mind

If there is one attribute of ADHD that embarrasses me the most, it is my inability to remember names. Like many adults with ADHD, I have problems with short-term, or working, memory. I forget what I’ve heard all the time, unless I make an extreme effort to force the information into long-term memory. When it comes to social events and names, I’m simply horrible at it. I still remember an incident in college where I saw somebody I recognized from a quarter mile away. I made way across the quad, rushed up to them making waving motions, and promptly forgot their name mid-sentence as I said, “Hey… (insert awkward silence here) ”. He even called me on it rather unkindly. Yeah, that was embarrassing. To be honest, I’d probably still be embarrassed about it, except I’ve forgotten his name again. Oh, well. I thought days were far behind me because I’ve become more adept at redirecting the conversation until my memory caught up. There used to be d...

One of the distinctive aspects of ADHD in adults is an overwhelming sense of underachievement. Sometimes this is due to them never getting out of the gate while their peers race ahead, and sometimes they have actually accomplished a great deal, but from the wrong ToDo lists. Both examples can leave ADHD adults with a pervasive feeling of underachievement, even if they accomplish a great deal more than their peers. I imagine the skeptics out there are sitting up and asking, “But doesn’t everybody miss goals? Don’t even overachievers miss goals? Everybody misses goals!” I’ve heard similar comments like that for years from people who believe ADHD is a myth. It makes me wonder if they are the type of people to dismiss the sickness of a loved one with “What are you complaining about? Everybody sneezes. Everybody coughs.” As you can guess from the example, it’s not the symptom itself that marks a problem, it’s the intensity and quantity of the symptom. Yes, everybody does indeed miss goa...

Entry 18 – 11:46 PM: Just a quick update before I head off to bed. Finally, sickness left me so that I could attend Life, the Universe & Everything . It’s an academic symposium on science fiction & fantasy held every year in Provo, Utah. I used to help run it when I attended BYU. There isn’t anything else quite like it out there. I missed yesterday’s programming (economics of the undead and a discussion on folklore with Jessica Day George and Dene Lowe , to name a few), and I worried that I simply wouldn’t be able to shake off this virus. In a fit of unusual slumber, however, I retired to bed at 7:50pm and woke up refreshed early this morning. Well, refreshed sometime after 1:30am, then I was up all night, insomniac that I am, but refreshed I was, and off to the con I stumbled! I was delighted to bump into old friends from college. Life takes us in so many varied directions, it’s hard to keep track of everybody. Sometimes we let friendships go....

Sometime before midnight on January 31st, my blog crossed a threshold that I’ve been waiting for a long time to see. A Splintered Mind has hit 500,000 unique visitors. Considering the blog just had it’s twelfth birthday on January 2nd, this seems a fitting month to achieve such a milestone. Thank you, one and all, for your support over the past twelve years. I’ve grown so much as a person and as a writer. In fact, we’ve come so far together since the days years ago when I would blog about my wet socks, and you could leave comments—back before my blog template became damaged beyond repair. Maybe that’s a bad example. My socks are still a water magnet. It’s so irritating. I change them almost twice a day. I just stepped in a puddle a few minutes ago. Why was water waiting to lovingly soak my socks in that particular corner? How did the water get there? Why didn’t anybody else step in it? And why am I talking about wet socks, anyway? I didn...

Day 17 – 11:56 PM: I’ve put together a heavy schedule—a roadmap—that will lead me towards achieving my goals, but as usual with lists, life has a way of giving them a flat. Fortunately, the lists still work as roadmaps, even if distractions and responsibilities put detours in front of my deadlines. The point of writing openly like this is to share a bit of the process. I believe strongly that if we identify our stumbling blocks, we can learn to work around them. Some people who don’t have mental health issues look upon that belief as letting my diagnosis limit me—as if I could suddenly, for example, not have a tic disorder if I just stopped thinking about it so much. On the other extreme, I’ve met multitudes of people who allow depression, anxiety, ADHD, and other disabilities define and rule them. They give up and behave exactly as those who stigmatize mental health expect. I’m caught in the middle, just like a lot you. I can’t help ignorant or clue...

5:56 PM: I’ve had a flurry of productivity and focus lately. I know exactly why, but I haven’t decided to share the reason yet. Last night, I fell asleep while watching Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes “The Final Problem”. This was not due to the plot boring me. I’ve had a hard week of family drama, family emergencies, and ticking. In fact, minutes before I fell asleep, I had just been laughing out loud during the scandalous nude scene. There I was minding my own business watching Sherlock investigate Mona Lisa forgeries, when this guy 👇🏼 suddenly mugged the camera before heading off to chat with the nude model. It’s like the plot jumped the tracks for a few minutes and headed out behind the shed with the other giggling school boys. So strange. And I bet you thought Cumberbatch’s “Woman” was scandalous So I decided to go to bed early at 10pm. I’m all grown up now! Except at that point, I couldn’t fall aslee...

“Oh please, dear Lord, take me home.” ☜ Somebody posted this on Facebook last night. I had been reading this woman’s cries for help for weeks, but never spoke up because dozens upon dozens of people jumped into each post to give her love and encouragement. I didn’t believe that I could add anything that her peers hadn’t already expressed. Last night, however, this post bothered me. If you’ve read my blog, you know how I feel about drive-by suicide notes . These types of posts are cathartic for the people who leave them, but they burden the folks who read them. They aren’t constructive and smack of wallowing. I felt compelled to leave a comment, but what would be the best approach? How could I help her believe that she could take control of her suicidal tendencies? I didn't want to scold her. She was as down as a person could be, but she didn’t have to needlessly suffer, either. Most drive-by suicide notes posted in the comments on this blog were us...