A Splintered Mind

Ever wonder what it was like to have ADHD? I can help you out with that. I’ve recently made a goal of tagging all my published blog articles so I can see which ones haven’t been published. OS X allows me to tag files with colored dots. That way all the untagged files will stand out. OS 9 used to allow the entire filename to be colorized so that it would shout out at me from the din, but now we are living in the future where small dots of color are considered more noticeable than one inch long filenames in pulsating bright green. Regardless, now that I’ve slogged through the past three years of posts, I have discovered an alarmingly high number of posts that never saw the light of day. It’s as if some unnamed power gripped my mind and caused me to wander off. I wonder if there’s a name for it… Some of the lost blogs have great descriptive names like “Untitled 3.txt” and “Food.txt”. Today’s entry is based on a text file with the sagacious label of “I share the.txt”. I know you’re g...

This will be a phenomenally busy week with doctor visits, writing, and preparations for a symposium. Then punctuated by a presentation at BYU just when things get really crazy in the middle of the week. I’ve been asked to talk about publishing e-books, and I’ll be joined with my editor. I did this class two years ago, but unlike last time, I’ve been preparing. We have some ideas we think will be fun, including putting together a very quick & dirty ePub. I also spent the weekend finishing projects like the paperback edition of my Pokémon book, and writing articles that I plan to submit here and there. But I don’t want to talk about any of that. I can’t stop thinking about a recent arranged marriage proposal I received. I dropped by a local Vietnamese grocery store on Saturday. My family and I have shopped at this store for over 10 years. When I want to get import ramen and all the fixings, this is where I go. The shop carries a wide variety of products from all over Asia. There ...

Comorbid is an icky word. Say it with me. “Ko-’Mor-Bid”. It means people with mental health issues usually have to carry more than one condition on their backs. I lug around ADHD , Major Depressive Disorder , and Adult Tourette’s. It’s a lot of fun, and you should see the muscles on my legs. Atlas would be jealous. Last Saturday, Tourette’s was the issue that ruled my day. I had so much work to be done, including posting an article on this blog, but instead I was in slow motion. Everything was harder to do than usual—as it usually is when my brain feels as if popcorn was leaping to life underneath it. Tourette’s triggers boredom and frustration , which my ADHD self has a low tolerance for, and I wasn’t accomplishing what I needed to accomplish, so depression was starting to press in. By the beginning of the evening, I knew my day was doomed unless I did something about it. I had boosted my protein intake to help reduce the ticking, but my ...


 I may need to change my name to Douglas Cootey, Pot Assasin . I’m not sure who drew first blood years ago, or why we battle in the kitchens of my life, but for decades we have vied for dominance. I must admit it is not usually the fairest of fights. The pot is striving to fulfill its destiny, sitting on a burner, heating the contents inside. Then I come along and slay it. The worst incidents usually involved ramen or eggs with smoke detectors going off, but the absolute worst was the time when I set water to boil, became distracted in my studio, and came out of my reverie when strange pinging sounds began to irritate me. The water had long boiled away and nothing was left but for the pan’s bottom to return to its molten state on my burner. In every case, Adult ADHD was totally at fault , I promise. I set out to cook, then became woefully distracted. This stuff was ancient history, though—far back in the 90s. I’m not a clueless tweenager anymore. I am conscientious and careful w...

I posted something on Facebook this past weekend that didn’t have the effect I wanted. “My recent timeline is filled with baking cookies, reviewing children’s picture books, and now I’ve discovered I’m spending tonight & New Year’s Eve home alone reading a book. Something is terribly wrong with my life. 😜” I had intended it to be snarky. That’s what the emoji was for. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. It’s nobody’s fault but my own that I don’t have a special somebody to spend New Year’s Eve together. I’m not logged into online dating sites desperately lining up a date—any date—to ring in the new year. I’m not writing angry screeds on Twitter or Tumblr about the tyranny of happy people. Yet several friends gave me a sad face in response to my post, as if what I wrote was terribly tragic. The problem here is that we can’t control how people interpret what we write. I’ve written befor...

By now, Fidget Spinners are collecting dust in bargain bins across America, marked down to $1.99 or 3 for $5. My local Walmart is selling them for $1 each! The fad hit America like a whirling tornado. In April and May, they were selling out faster than you could say “pet rock”. By June, dealers had palettes of them stacked to the ceiling. It was easy to see there’d be a glut. Now that they’re so cheap to get, are they worth it? The tl;dr answer is “Yes” , but you can be forgiven for cocking an eyebrow of doubt. After all, most online ads for Fidget Spinners on Amazon.com read like this: Figit Spinner Hand Toy for Relieving ADHD Anxiety Boredom! Helps Focussing! Stress Reducer. Cure Toenail Fungus! OK, I added the fungus bit, but dang! These sound like miracle toys! It seems China was on the verge of obsoleting the psychiatric industry with these things, but aren’t these just spinning plastic toys? How does a rotating gizmo relieve symptoms of anything,...

Sometimes Writer’s Block is due to Road Work Ahead. I wish the roadblocks of life would announce themselves better. Then I could chart my detours in time to avoid them. Maybe they could have mechanized arms to wave at me, catching my attention as I rocket from Point A to Point B. Most roadblocks in life do give me advance warning. It’s the ones that family members throw up in my way that catch me off guard. It is as if they announce the upcoming construction by standing on the side of a road with a postcard filled with tiny hand scratchings that somewhat resemble English. They don’t even so much as nod their head at me. Sometimes, I’m blowing by them so quickly, I don’t notice them, but for the most part, their troubles go off like bombs in my life. Then I find myself swerving out of the way, slamming on my breaks, or just careening into their manmade ditch. Surprise! Somebody’s having a bad day! My life has been like that lately, especially over the Summer. I wish I could offer m...