A Splintered Mind

I might get myself in a bit of trouble with my daughters with this post, but I recently sat in on the Brownie’s session with her therapist (she’s learning disabled). We were discussing ways to regulate moods. She used to have anger issues, and although those days are behind us, she still doesn’t know what to do with strong, negative feelings like disappointment, irritation, and frustration. I can’t recall exactly how the topic came up, but I used my “Heartbroken” playlist as an example to make a point. This playlist used to be a point of contention for my older daughters. After the divorce, I filled this playlist with all the most painfully sad love songs I had in my vast music collection. I labeled it “Heartbroken”. Not surprisingly, most of them were country. On bad days, I would hit play and dive deep into the music before I could come up for air again. It was cathartic. But my girls hated it. Because of our current living arran...

I picked up TIME Mental Health: A New Understanding a year ago in the grocery store and slowly worked my way through it. I assumed I would race through the magazine and produce a shining review for my readers to enjoy. Then ADHD happened, which is like saying, “And then I breathed”. When I say “slowly”, I refer to the speed at which glaciers raced across the North American continent. Ultimately, I finished, which is the lesson I take away from my tortoise and hare situation. I wasn’t in competition with anybody, except, perhaps, Father Time, but I must admit that I had an assist from COVID–19, which gave me lots of time to break my news addiction. After all, there are only so many ways in which you can be told “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” before you tune out and suddenly decide that sorting that four year old bag of junk mail you’ve been kicking around seems like a better use of your time. Fortunately for me, this magazine was on...

On this World Suicide Prevention Day , I wanted to write to people who hide behind the illusion of strength. They give the appearance of mental well-being by posting excellent advice, uplifting memes, and beautiful quotes, but privately they struggle with the overpowering tidal forces of suicidal depression. When that tide sweeps them away, their friends are left surprised and stunned. As many of you know, Ronnie McNutt ¹ took his own life while live streaming on Facebook last month. It was traumatic and devastating to those who witnessed it. According to his friend, Ronnie was severely drunk, so it’s easy to assume that he might not have been thinking clearly when he posted such a strong, demanding, yet earnest post before ending his own life. What can we learn from his example? Ronnie didn’t reach out for help. He posted on Facebook, then, while inebriated, streamed his last moments. That is such an extreme and unusual situation, you may feel you have nothing to l...

I came across this old blog post that I never shared here. It’s from March 2013. I updated it a bit. I hope you enjoy it. If I thought ADHD could throw monkey wrenches into my plans before, divorce was like dumping the entire plumber’s toolbox into the works instead. It’s taken a bit of time to heal, to sort out the mess, and to know what to do with all those monkey wrenches. We have joint custody so we split parental duties as well as time spent with the kids right down the middle. She gets medical, and I get school. Since I am in charge of making sure my girls’ school paperwork is in order, I like to use my iPhone to keep things straight with the Calendar, Reminders, and Clear (todo list) apps. With those apps I keep track of everything that needs to be taken care of. My skills are awe inspiring—that is assuming I remember to write things down in the first place. Unfortunately, life gives me helpful reminders of how important it is to use my reminder system, like that week...

22K Pageviews? Not bad! Have I mentioned I was sick for a long time at the beginning of the year? I may have mentioned it once or twice ¹ . Well, while I was down for the count, my editors over at ADDitude Magazine were counting pageviews for an article I wrote for them a while back . Apparently, I hit 22,213 pageviews for that article alone. They told me all about it last February while I was slightly inconvenienced. I just recently discovered their post when I had to use carefully placed demolition charges and a pick axe to catch up with my email. I know my mother wasn’t reloading that page over and over again as she wardrived from free wifi network to free wifi network all around town. Not only would she not think of doing that, she wouldn’t understand what I just wrote! Instead, I can only assume that there was a sizable amount of people who were interested in The Reinvented Chore Chart That Actually Motivates My Child It was a fun article I wrote about how I f...

I’ve been blogging about ADHD & Depression since 2005. In that time I have met many wonderful people. One of them was Elena Díaz de Guereñu. Elena would translate my blogs into Spanish for her TDAH (ADHD) readers. I was always grateful for her efforts. I haven’t heard from her in a while, and now that I’ve visited her blog again ( Dra ELENA DÍAZ DE GUEREÑU – Diagnóstico y tratamiento del TDAH ), I know why. She stopped blogging due to health reasons over a year ago. And now she’s gone, which feels off to me. The magical aspect of online relationships is that people live forever in our minds. Sometimes, we have no idea who they are in real life or what impact they have had on others. Judging by the dozens of tearful comments left on her facebook page, Elena left behind a legacy of grateful patients who she taught to manage their ADHD. She touched so many lives. Here are the six articles she translated of my work. Most of them were written for ADDitude...

I’ve been rethinking the purpose of my blog lately. Haven’t I written enough on ADHD & Depression ? I don’t write exclusively about either subject, which turns some readers off, so I’ve never had the meteoric rise of some bloggers who target one or the other subject (although with ADHD bloggers & YouTubers, they usually blaze through the sky then disappear after awhile). Writing about comorbid conditions isn’t sexy, though I think I look pretty good in my newest jeans. Seriously, though, it’s hard to compete with Facebook. Remember when RSS, not Facebook, made the blogosphere go round? Heck, who even uses “blogosphere” anymore? It makes me wonder where I should be putting my focus. The first blow to my blogging schedule was getting sick last Fall for SEVEN months (I cannot write enough about how disruptive that was to my life). Then COVID–19 arrived just as I was getting better, and my learning disabled daughter needed e...