A Splintered Mind

PEM: Thinking Tactically

2025-10-06T05:18:00.006-06:00

(These AI images make me laugh. Yes, I know the calendar is messed up. Allow me my silly moments.)

I’ve decided to think dramatically about my obstacles in my first attempt to blog about my new condition with a sense of humor. Honestly, there hasn’t been much to laugh at. For example, I got distracted playing Chess on Duolingo the other day and gave myself Post Exertional Malaise (PEM). First, I noticed the headache, then I noticed that I was panting, and then I realized that I was dizzy. It was just chess! But I lost track of time, got caught up in it, and overtaxed my brain. Stamina spent. Crash incoming. An entire day wasted. It’s hard to laugh about things like that. I had big plans to implement. Instead, I watched TV—until that gave me a headache, too.

Every day I have lists, but I rarely make it to the end of them because of the drain cognitive, physical, and even emotional events have on my stamina levels. Chronic fatigue is complicated.

That’s when it occurred to me. If ADHD is heading to the grocery store and ending up in Vegas, depression is a dreary, overcast day with frequent downpours, and Tourettes is a random mugging on my way to the park, then Post Viral Dysautonomia is like climbing up a hill, then getting run over by a truck.

Since I don’t live in a Japanese light novel, that truck isn’t sending me off to an isekai adventure. It’s more likely that truck puts me in bed. When I began my new neuro PT exercises last week, I did too many of them and ended up in bed for three days. This illness requires careful planning and tactical thinking, contrary to my ADHD impulsiveness.

For example, I have problems now with dangerously low oxygen saturation levels thanks to COVID–19. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been playing any woodwind instruments in a long while, so maybe I could add that to my daily routine to increase my lung capacity again. Perhaps that would help.

So I practiced for a timed 15 minutes for two instruments, and found that I could only sometimes make the full 30 minute session without getting dizzy and light-headed. Yesterday, I shortened the session to 10 minutes per instrument. It’s a far cry from playing for hours like I used to enjoy, but there are other things that I need to do daily, and if I can tolerate a 20 minute session, then that’s fantastic. I can build up from there. However, I will cap it at 30 minutes. My goal isn’t to play the shinobue and ocarina professionally. It’s just lung exercise and a bit of fun. Other things like freelance work, packing to move, and writing require vast energy reserves. I need to plan my time better. Using a timer is key, but being mindful of the calendar helps, too. Laughter is another tool that I am only now using again. It’s rusty, but I’m sure I can get it shiny again—assuming I can avoid getting hit by more trucks.

~Dˢ

A Moment of Sunlight

2025-09-19T07:51:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was conquered by fatigue and Tourettes. I didn’t get much accomplished aside from taking care of my daughter, which left me feeling a tad discouraged since I had just written in my journal before going to sleep about what an awesome day it was going to be. Still, all was not bad. For example, dealing with my daughter is a joy as it gives my life purpose. There was something else that brought a smile to my stressed out face, however.

My daughter is autistic and learning disabled, and we work with a service that provides in-home therapy. They teach her coping and life skills. Today, she had a new therapist. There is an uncomfortable period, as you can imagine, when a stranger enters one’s home, but we’re used to this routine, so we make jokes and idle chitchat as we try to quickly establish a professional rapport. I was fully present for a while, but then I began a Tourettes episode and retired to my room to wait it out in private.

Later, my daughter barged into my room and brought the therapist with her, who hung awkwardly by the door. This, too, is something that I am used to, though it’s not a favorite moment. I do wish my daughter had more social awareness, but life is what it is, and we adapt. After answering their question, I felt I needed to explain the difference in my behavior and gave her a bit of info on my condition. When I explained that the day hadn’t quite gone as planned since I needed to pay the car loan and run an errand, she asked if those errands could be taken care of tomorrow. They could, I explained, but I don’t like to leave the car payment to the last minute because of this very reason: I don’t drive when ticking and the payment was due in two days.

I explained that leaving the car payment to the last day is stressful because I don’t know if I’ll be ticking that day or not. “And if you get stressed out, you’ll tic more,” she finished for me.

I don’t often meet people who understand the impact Tourettes has on my life, but she did. Angel choirs from heaven, a shaft of golden light, a great peace in my heart… All such images came to mind. Not many people understand this aspect of Tourettes—that stress can induce or exacerbate ticking. I thanked her for her understanding, and they left my room.

Compared to the often unkind treatment I receive from others who see my inconsistency as a personal failing, I am grateful for those who are able to see beyond the inconvenience my condition may cause and perhaps see what I struggle with, even in part. I know I extend similar empathy to my children, but do I give others the same kindness? I’d like to believe that I do, but perhaps only to the kind ones. I have a hard time with rude, drive by jerks.

This therapist had been instructed by her mother to have empathy for a girl with Tourettes when she was young. This was a lesson she carried into her adulthood. Good job, Mom! On a day when I was dangerously close to berating myself for things I had no control over, this therapist’s kindness corrected the course my attitude was taking. I can only hope I educated my children in as positive a manner.

The Car Wreck of My Life Has a Name

2025-08-23T12:23:00.004-06:00

Since the pandemic, I have discovered something harder to deal with than Tourettes. It challenges my efforts to be upbeat and optimistic, and has given me very little to laugh about.

I manage my ADHD & Depression just fine—or should I say I deal with them just fine. They represent road bumps that cause me to slow down, but then I get back up to speed. My Tourettes acts more like an IED that blows up my schedule. It takes a bit more effort and time to recover from, but I always get moving forward again. Post Viral Dysautonomia, as I’ve been recently diagnosed with, has been more like a head-on collision with demolition charges for the past four years, taking out both the car and the roads. It leaves me exhausted, susceptible to illness, and with oxygen saturation that routinely drops below 88%.

Recently, I had a setback in my efforts to overcome dysautonomia. It was just back surgery. I had a cyst removed. Nothing drastic. It was day surgery. I laughed and chatted with the dermatologist and his assistant while they did their work. It was a lark, I tell you.

And yet coming off the anesthesia hit me like a truck. I still needed to finish packing to move, so I implemented pacing techniques to manage my stamina, but I made myself sick and crashed out after a few days anyway. I did manage to maintain my 3200 steps daily baseline, though. Victory? ✌🏻

No, clearly I did too much. This is where ADHD and Dysautonomia come together like a four car pile-up. I become so focused on what I need to do that I forget to take notice of how I’m doing. And I stop. No energy. I might fall asleep right where I am, like a narcoleptic behind the wheel.

With each new day, I square my shoulders and push myself forward. I try to learn from my mistakes, but not dwell on them. What will today look like? Part of the crashout was getting over eight hours of sleep. I’d been functioning on less than six all last week. So I feel much better.

I’d like to…

I don’t know how well I’ll do. Making lists helps, but I don’t hold myself to them too tightly. When I poop out, time is lost as I recuperate. Then the day ends, and I prepare for the next one. Overcoming dysautonomia calls for careful pacing, not exceeding one’s limits, as well as pushing forward without crashing. It’s a very, very hard balance to achieve since cognitive and physical activities pull from the thimbleful I have of stamina. This is my new life, but at least I’m getting guidance finally—a roadmap to skirt around the crashes. Perhaps in time, I’ll even learn to laugh about it (like I did when Grok spit out this “station wagon”).

April Snow Brings May Slow, But I Keep On Fighting

2023-06-29T03:45:00.025-06:00

The biggest challenge in my life right now is Long COVID. The post exertion malaise leaves me depleted with no extra energy for blogging. All that energy is directed towards my Daddy Duty (I have an adult, learning disabled, autistic child at home) and my current work in progress. Yes, I am writing, and it’s filled with attitude and humor, but I’m not writing here. Let’s change that.

I’ll start with recent Facebook posts, elaborate on them, and then start charting my progress—perhaps even with a bit of cheek.

April 4, 2023: Nice weather we’re having! 🌱🌿🥀

(To be honest, snow in April means I have to continue staying indoors. The reprieve from illness that I typically get with warmer, sunnier weather is delayed with every day that Spring doesn’t return from Arizona or wherever the heck she gets off to during Winter.)

April 12, 2023: Just working on getting healthy again. Not succeeding very well.

Current location: Bed
Current mood: Annoyed.

My Post COVID became worse with my 2nd bout of COVID last February. I’m currently increasing my stamina, but the effort takes me down afterwards. I’m desperate to get back to normal before I get this blasted virus again. But! I’ve made it up a local hill 3 times this past week. Progress!

What baffles me is the large amount of people I bump into who dismiss COVID–19 as a mere cold. Maybe it was for them, and bless their superior hearts, they were truly fortunate, but some of us didn’t fare so well.

I consider myself blessed that I avoided hospitalization the first time, but I have to admit that I’m a bit bitter because that virus ravaged my vision, health, and quality of life. When ppl treat me like I’m overreacting, I feel rage. Then the rage saps my stamina, and I have to lie down. I’m a veritable dragon of fury from underneath my covers.

It’s a touch pitiful, to be honest, but I’m determined to reverse this damage. Part of my efforts to recover is achieved by avoiding the people with glib advice, the cynical retorts, and those who assume I didn’t vaccinate (and therefor deserved to get sick) from my life. None of them are helpful.

The worst thing about Post COVID (or Long COVID) life is that I’ve lost my ability to laugh things off. That’s all on me. I’d dearly like to see the mirthful, cheeky side of me come back to full health, too. I want to spread my wings and cackle and caw as I soar above my hardships. This bird with a wounded wing routine is getting boring.

April 17, 2023: Hipstamatic’s Tintype app is fun to play around with, and it simulates the effect well, but I always appear years older than I actually am, and often unrecognizable as myself. And those bug eyes! Makes me laugh.

At least Old Man Selfie brings a smile to my face.

Yesterday, I went out for a walk and caught some much needed sun and exercise. I tackled a local hill, and I’d like to tackle it for the next two days in a row. Sometimes post exertion malaise kicks in, and I spend the next few days in bed, but I’ll live with the downtime if it means I can push my uptime forward.

April 26, 2023: Dealing with a bout of depression today. Going for a walk.

April 28, 2023: The walk on Wednesday was a success. It felt good to get out. It felt good to fight my depression.

The first thing I noticed was all the barren trees. There were birds in the branches, but no leaves. This initially discouraged me. I had hoped that the rebirth of Spring would bring liberation to my doldrums. We’ve had many false starts, so there were dead buds in stages for each week Mother Nature decided to head south to Arizona again.

Yet although many buds died, but there was still hope for Spring. The dogwoods were in open defiance of Spring’s absence. As I turned a corner and walked deeper into the neighborhood, dogwood blossoms greeted me. They don’t have a notable scent, but with flowers erupting everywhere, perhaps Spring will come after all. It’s been eight months of cold, wet weather, and I welcome the change.

Later that day, I decided to ride my longboard. I managed five minutes on the board before my heart threatened to burst through my chest while my legs became jelly. FIVE MINUTES. It’s not the usual 3–4 hours I am used to, but it was a humble start.

Then I recuperated on the couch before going for a two mile hike. The only way to overcome this limited stamina is to exercise my way through it. I was so tired afterwards that it didn’t feel like progress, but it was.

April 29, 2023: Yesterday was wonderfully productive, but I pushed too hard. Now I’m sick in bed. I’ll try again tomorrow.

April 30, 2023: 3.8 miles walked today, plus I did 60 modified ab rolls. I feel like a phone battery at the end of a long day, but I’m also feeling better about myself. Here’s to dead batteries!

I’m experimenting with one day of stamina training and one day of recovery, then repeating. So far, I’m pleased with the results, although overall, I am fairly exhausted from the effort. Post COVID syndrome is not made up. I believe the chronic fatigue is my hardest challenge to meet. Tomorrow will be a recovery day whether I want it to be or not.

Until now, I’ve been trying to string together more and more days of exercise in a row, but it takes me down, i.e. bedridden, for three to four days afterwards. It used to be two days of exercise and FIVE days of recovery, but I’m pleased to report that I’ve improved on that, even if only meagerly.

I’ll just keep at it until I win.

~Dˢ

Depression: The Highway to Success Has an Awful Lot of Detours

2022-11-03T19:22:00.002-06:00

I’ll write a bit vaguely today because I want to touch upon some things that are family matters and how they impact me.

Recently, I have noticed longtime readers of my blog have leapfrogged over me while my life has become stagnant. I caught myself beginning to feel bitter about it, so instead of letting that bitterness settle into depression, I will share some things that I have learned instead.

My life took a detour a few years back, if eleven can be called of few. It was as if I was forced to take an exit and found myself on the service road bumping along besides the highway, falling behind all the other traffic. I could see where I wanted to go, but I just couldn’t get there as fast.

I called that detour “divorce”, and it took me a few years to get back up onto the highway. I finished two books and blogged professionally during that productive time. Managing my depression while optimistically making big goals helped me to move forward.

The next detour is a touchy one. I’ve never spoken about it in public. It involved pummelings and kicks, objects thrown, property damaged, bruises, and frequent calls to the police while I lived as a punching bag for two people. One of them was a sole instance, but it was bad enough that it changed their life permanently with police, counseling, and a new residence. The other person is precious to me and under my care still.

I couldn’t defend myself well in that sole instance because I was having a Tourette’s episode. My forearm crutches were up against the house, and I was laying down on the driveway. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. The majority of the events, however, involved the precious one. How could I defend myself against a child? I would take punches while I waited for the police to arrive. This precious one also had epilepsy, so there were many, many emergency calls. I called this detour “911 Hell” and it lasted over seven years.

Autistic children are hard to raise, more so when you don’t have a diagnosis. Teachers and social workers were quick to point fault at us as being negligent. The problem was compounded because the precious one would become Dr. Jekyll after I called the police on Mr. Hyde. Fortunately, we persevered and had our child properly diagnosed, which opened up avenues of treatment that have been life-changing for all of us.

The lessons that I learned were to ignore the petty tyrants in the school system, to not take social workers’ advice (they hastily pass judgement, then move on to the next case), and to proactively seek medical expertise. Also, have your doctor print out and sign your child’s diagnosis on paper with an official letterhead, then laminate it to show to any doubting officials. This saves so much time.

My third detour was less of a side road and more of a bridge that was blown out while I was driving across it. Having Major Depression Disorder and Persistent Depression Disorder, Tourettes, and ADHD while dealing with all of this suppressed my immunity system and caused me to become sick all of the time. I call this detour “the lingering death”. It began in 2014. The last year has been the worst, and I have detailed it more than enough in these pages. I’m still trying to get back up onto the service road, never mind the highway.

All of these detours have profoundly changed me. I struggle to find things to laugh about, and I smile even less. Tapping into my inner brat in order to write funny blog articles is particularly challenging. However, I have not given up hope. Although I occasionally lapse in judgment, I try hard not to compare myself to others and mark my success against my own progress.

As for today, the precious one has COVID–19 this week, but I dodged that bullet. However, I got some other respiratory virus at the same time. You might think those are uncanny odds, but this is me we’re talking about. I get sick just looking outside at the changing weather.

As I come out of this recent illness, I’m thinking hard about how I want to move forward. I need more progress in my life. I need more successes. And I need to acknowledge that I am not managing my depression very well this time around. I don’t know if writing all of this changes anything, but it seems to me that I need to get back up onto the highway sooner rather than later before the next detour presents itself. If putting my life into perspective in a short article can accomplish anything, I hope it accomplishes this.

~Dˢ

Ten Ways to Be Happy with Post-COVID Syndrome (Even If You're Miserable)

2022-10-15T19:14:00.001-06:00

Let’s celebrate my one year anniversary since getting COVID–19! 🎉

I know people who felt that COVID was a pernicious plot by politicians to put down the populace. I know others who believed that nobody would ever get the virus if they were vaccinated, and anybody not getting vaccinated was trying to kill them. Because of this polarization, I have a hard time talking to people about my experience with Long COVID, or Post-COVID Syndrome as I prefer to call it.

Although I have found sympathetic ears out there, they aren’t the norm. The anti-vaccine folks look down on me for masking up and getting vaccinated, or they shun me for admitting that COVID–19 was far worse than a mild cold. If I acknowledge the dangers of COVID–19 in anyway, I’m a compliant sheep to them. On the other side, the pro-vaccine cheer team pretentiously lecture me on the importance of being vaccinated when I tell them I got COVID. I suppose their reasoning is that I couldn’t have got COVID if I had been vaccinated—even though I was fully vaccinated. Since WHO considers 50% to be high efficacy¹, we know that means around 50% of the test subjects got COVID despite the vaccine. At any rate, I’ve dealt with far more compassionate pitbulls out there. It’s as if the pandemic stripped my neighbors and associates of all their long-trained humanity. Life has become Twitter.

Unfortunately, I got the virus a year ago despite living like a cross between a hermit crab and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Twenty-two months of avoiding every germ on the planet, and COVID slipped in through the backdoor with the family member of a roommate. It knocked me down hard, and months later I found myself sicker than usual with lots of questions. Why can’t I stay healthy? What happened to my vision? Why is it so hard to think? Why is it excruciatingly painful to give blood now? Why do my wounds take so long to heal? Why do I bruise easily? Why am I so tired all the time? Where did all my stamina go?

Why have I suddenly become so boring‽

Post-COVID Syndrome isn’t just a matter of taking a while to get over COVID. It’s a cornucopia of side effects and symptoms that linger afterwards for months or, in my case, over a year. I have to admit that I’m having a very difficult time adjusting. Last August, I passed out asleep on my bed after blogging. Blogging! I used to bang out a blog in under an hour. Now it takes me four of them. This is due to post exertion malaise, a common side effect of Post-COVID Syndrome, and one that is common to most viral fatigue syndromes.

If all of this sounds discouraging, it is. So I’ve decided to look at the upsides of this delightful virus instead of whinging about it. Since my blog is about overcoming disabilities with attitude and humor, I’m sure this will be easy:

Who needs outdoor exercise when you can get a workout walking to the fridge? Buckets of sweat, a racing heart…it’s almost like running a marathon.
The increase in crippling depression has been a great opportunity to stress test my [coping strategies][fightingdepression]. Just what I needed.
Think of all the TV I get to watch while stuck on the couch. I can’t remember any of it due to the brain fog, but that just means I get to watch it again for the first time!
Speaking of brain fog, I now find myself pining for dealing with just ADHD. At least with ADHD, I got a lot of things done. None of them were on my ToDo list, but I sure was productive comparatively.
Another upside to brain fog is that sometimes I forget that I am depressed. Isn’t that convenient‽ It’s true I also forget to pay my bills, forget which day of the week it is, repeat myself in conversations, and sometimes I forget which day of the week it is, but let’s not focus on the negatives.
I have a keen appreciation of my own mortality now. Before I would cluelessly blunder through life, eternally youthful in mind, but now I am old before my time. I’m positive that sagacity is around the corner.
Thanks to Post-COVID Syndrome, my eyeglasses prescription no longer works. I’ve been limping by in the dark, so to speak, but others with my same condition have had entertaining repeat visits to the optometrist as their vision changes every few months. That’s so awesome. I love optometrists!
I banged my shin at Thanksgiving a month after getting COVID. Here we are a year later, and it still hasn’t completely healed. It’s perfect for Halloween!
I went out to dinner with a friend the other night and came home with a cold. That’s faster than any bout of sickness I ever had before COVID. It’s as if Long COVID has weaponized my immunity system to fail. So exciting!
And the best upside to Post-COVID Syndrome is that when I cancel any one of my dozens of doctor appointments because post exertion malaise or illness has me down for the count, nobody shames me. Thanks, COVID!

As you can see, I can easily come up with reasons to be extremely grateful for this new condition. It’s just non-stop fun over here. So don’t feel sorry for me or worry needlessly. I’m A-OK! I may be sick in bed again, but my brain is feverishly working on even more upsides to Post-COVID Syndrome to share with you next time. Or maybe I just have a fever. With brain fog, I can never remember fully. But that’s no reason to get down, right⸮

~Dˢ

Some 50% facts you should be aware of. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/vaccine-efficacy-effectiveness-and-protection

Five Ways To Stop Shiny Object Syndrome

2022-09-24T19:59:00.002-06:00

Long before “Shiny Object Syndrome” was coined as a term, an insignificant blogger from Utah referred to a similar condition and called it Multi-Irons Syndrome. Are they the same thing?

Shiny Object Syndrome — The Fancy Term for Something You’ve Been Doing All Your Life

There is often a difference between what an expression means when it is coined and how people end up using it. People often don’t see eye to eye on these things. One group will insist on the academic or dictionary usage of a term or word, while the popular usage tromples all over them. Irregardless, we don’t have a lot of control over language. (Yes, yes, I couldn’t resist.) Language evolves. Take a stand on one meaning, and you’ll soon find yourself in the camp of people who hate the use of the singular “they”, shaking your aging fist at the sky, shouting, “But that’s not what the word means!” We lost that particular battle years ago when people got tired of typing “he or she” and “him or her” as gender neutral expressions in business letters.

Shiny Object Syndrome is another one of those terms. People don’t exactly agree on what it means, and they don’t all use the same expression, though it is clear which one is winning that particular battle. The original meaning of “Shiny Object Syndrome” has more to do with project creep than distractions, but that’s not how it is used. Just look at that wonderful cartoon. It was labeled ShinyProjectSyndrom_e1556842006339.jpg on the oldest link I found, like that helps. Syndrome isn’t even spelled correctly.

I have no idea who drew it originally, but they captured the manic zeal of the syndrome perfectly. I have referred to the same issue since 2008 as “Multi-Irons Syndrome”. My term has more in common with the less popular “Shiny Project Syndrome”, but “Shiny Object Syndrome” has the clout and its own Wikipedia entry.

Shiny Object Syndrome as a Way of Life

Recently, I embraced Shiny Object Syndrome as a coping strategy to deal with the crushing depression I was suffering from during the pandemic, and then after coming down with COVID–19. Laying in bed and staring at the ceiling for entertainment gets boring in a hurry. Letting myself get excited about new projects was the only thing at times that lifted my spirits.

I don’t regret the coping strategy, because it was so helpful initially. I’ve written about having too many irons in the fire before, but I ended up with a bit too many projects this time. To manage things, I’m journaling my process as I take this massive new pile of nascent projects and prune them before I fail to achieve my birthday goals. I call it my Bookwork project.

Adults with ADHD are particularly susceptible to Shiny Object Syndrome. Every task worth the effort involves a bit of drudgery before great things can be accomplished. Unfortunately, our Teflon coated brains are averse to the boredom that drudgery welcomes in with open arms. Our minds switch tasks to something more appealing so quickly, we often are not aware of the change. Then we end up with something like my Bookwork project where I wanted to write fifteen books simultaneously. FIFTEEN! As soon as I realized what I had committed myself to, I had a good laugh.

Simple Steps to Prevent Shiny Object Syndrome from Taking Over Your Life

If you’ve got ADHD, it isn’t likely that you’ll be able to kick this habit. An aversion to boredom is built into the diagnosis. However, you can manage it. Here’s how I halt the parade of ideas and finish the floats I began with:

Keep the most important goals in the forefront of your mind. Plaster them on the wall if you have to.
Periodically reassess your project goals to cut out the cruft.
Don’t be afraid to shelf “cool” ideas if they are getting in the way of what you’re supposed to accomplish.
Work on your projects in short steps to avoid deep boredom.
Build in rewards for staying focused.

Whatever you want to call it, people with ADHD collect new projects without even trying. I don’t think this is a bad thing. Our minds are unfettered and freely creative. Good things can come from that chaotic maelstrom of thoughts. The trick is to regulate it so that we aren’t always creating and accumulating ideas, but taking time to bring some of them to life.

Experiment with Your Coping Strategies for Better Results

2022-09-19T02:09:00.006-06:00

Earlier this year, I admitted to myself that my current coping strategies weren’t fighting off my depression as effectively as they were before. Had they simply stopped working, or had something fundamental changed inside of me? The answer was complicated.

Obviously, my coping strategies weren’t working since I spent more than half of the days each week struggling to keep my spirits up, but for the longest time, I was too sick to do anything about it. I just limped along waiting to get better. The problem with that plan was that I wasn’t getting better. My depression was fueled by chronic illness. Waiting to get better to act was like waiting to see a doctor about a broken leg after it heals.

My coping strategies for depression were based on basic cognitive behavior therapy principles: Identify the trigger. Implement a solution. Experience relief. They were also based on the belief that I could regulate my moods. They worked great for years until I came upon a new vector into depression.

The pandemic, and then experiencing COVID–19 personally, showed me that my coping strategies didn’t compensate for long term discouragement. It’s hard to feel positive and upbeat when you’re sick everyday. It’s hard to go out for a walk when you have a respiratory virus during a snowstorm. It’s hard to change the scenery when you are quarantined.

A curious thing happened to me, however. Although there were more than a few days where it could be said that I wallowed in misery, and although I muttered and complained about my lot in life more than I am comfortable to admit, I didn’t stop being me. My need to solve my mental health issues didn’t park itself in the shed and gather dust, leaves, and cobwebs throughout the Winter. After some time, I realized that I needed to change my approach. I chatted with others more, I began new projects while quarantined, I started exercising daily in very minute amounts, and I stopped feeling guilty about being sick.

I kept trying to move forward with as much vigor as I could summon. As the expression goes, I threw whatever I could at the wall over and over again to see what would stick. I found quite a few projects that stuck. In fact, I ended up with a fairly bad case of Multi-Irons Syndrome, as I like to call it. Although I now have to go through the tedious process of pruning all these conflicting projects (I don’t have time to do them all), I am so very glad that I am recovering to the point that I can start pruning. I’m even grateful.

We all deal with depression in our own way. Some seek therapy, some seek meds, and some seek both. I won’t tell you which method is the best one for you. Only you can determine that. One size does not fit all.. As for me, I began to almost desperately reach out to any project or idea that caught my fancy. Making plans and projects is an act of hope. I am relieved that even at my bleakest, I was still counting on getting through the hardships to bring new ideas to life. Now I’ve been to a Post COVID clinic and have a healthcare ToDo list that exhausts me to just think about, but I am hopeful again, which is a nice change.

But where does that leave you? If you are struggling to manage your depression due to the pandemic or, like me, if you are dealing with Post-COVID (Long COVID), you may find yourself suddenly turned into a glass-half-empty type of person, especially if that glass was formerly filled with health and stamina. Chronic fatigue can sap you of cheer just as much as it does energy.

My advice is to not give up. Turn to your coping strategies and start adapting them to your new circumstances. Get wild. Keep trying. In my case, I forgot which aspect of depression my coping strategies were addressing. When I decided to fight back, even if each and every new coping strategy ended in failure, the act of trying was an act of hope. You need to exercise hope like a weak muscle—carefully at first, but then with greater and greater gusto. You are your own best advocate, so keep advocating with yourself for yourself. Find reasons to keep looking forward despite all the setbacks.

When your coping strategies fail you, it is important to rethink them. Eventually, you will find a remedy that is perfect for your situation. The alternative to is fossilize and mope, perpetuating your pain. Let’s all keep pushing forward instead.

~Dˢ

When Does Research Become a Fixation?

2022-01-27T23:00:00.001-07:00

I pull back the curtain a bit today, revealing a deep, dark secret about myself—a secret so dank, surely I’ll lose the last three readers I have.

I’ve been reading far too many Japanese light novels lately.

It started as a form of research, but now I actually like the darn things. I can’t get enough of them. They’re my personal Pandora’s Box. I opened the beautiful, ornately engraved box, saw the plentiful wonders inside, and now I can’t shut the lid. Is this an ADHD obsession, or a newfound joy? I can’t tell, which is why I’m troubled. Have you seen my Goodreads timeline? I read almost all escapist manga and light novels these days. I know I’ve been struggling with depression lately, but it’s embarrassing! I’m sitting here wearing a Fair Isle style, wool sweater, a designer, long-sleeved, henley shirt, and Izod tech pants, not a 1-ply t-shirt featuring Sailor Moon with chip crumbs all over my belly. How will my polished author image survive this lapse in pretentiousness?

In 2019, I had noticed that many of my favorite anime that season had origins as light novels in Japan. The more I looked into them, the more I realized that most anime was based on successful light novels. I’m not sure when they crowded out manga as the number one source. Even many successful manga are light novel spin-offs these days.

The best way to describe a light novel is as if pulp fiction and anime had a baby. Most stories are told in the first person. Most are written in a rush, with rapid output outweighing literary craft as the number one priority. The emphasis is on story and entertainment, not languid, literary explorations of contemporary themes. That’s where light novels are similar to pulp fiction, but where they differ is that the stories share more in common with comics with overpowered characters, romance being secondary to adventure, and so many portals open to fantasy worlds, it’s surprising Japan has any population left. In fact, many read like visual scripts to anime—as if the authors already have the licensing goals in mind. At worst, they can be fannish, derivative tales where they don’t milk tropes as much as they stick a spicket in and drain them by the bucketful.

Light Novels are not all bad. Otherwise, I wouldn’t spend so much time enjoying them. I’ve found my favorites. The intricate settings of Ascendance of a Bookworm are inspiring, as is the characterization and complicated plot. So much detail and research went into that series that I’m a little bit in awe of it. Unnamed Memory is gorgeously written. Earlier volumes are more sumptuous than later volumes, but over all I find the strong world and character building very engaging. The story reads like a fairytale whodunnit. The marathon-named Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside is a LitRPG, traditional high fantasy story that slowly reveals deep explorations on the meaning of free will while it subverts the proverbial hero role. Like Unnamed Memory, the story bucks the Light Novel trend and features romance in a warm and healthy way. Also, the Rascal Does Not Dream of… series is notable for its rapid-fire and funny dialog. Imagine a Young Adult X-files crossed with Moonlighting situated in Japan. The story is funny, but the author makes me care about the characters. The last volume was a bit cruel with my heartstrings.

Reading for research is one thing, but light novels have replaced vegging out in front of the boob tube. That’s an improvement, right⸮ They’ve replaced gaming, too. The downside is now that I read for fun, I’m no longer studying the craft, the pacing, the compromises, or the output of the authors involved.

I blame j-novel.club (JNC). I paid for a subscription to read everything I could get my hands on. I wanted to understand the phenomenon better. JNC serializes the stories as they are serialized in Japan—weekly—so one can find themselves quite busy keeping on top of several series all week long. I just paid for one month, but here I am two years later. I’m just glad that JNC doesn’t serialize daily as some of the stories are released in Japan.

I’m not complaining. Light novels and Kindle Vella gave me the kick in the butt I needed to write more. Serializing daily? Do you realize how much work that is? Even if the output is a tropey lark with no originality, I am still impressed with the dedication and output. On top of my Tourette’s and other issues, the pandemic, along with family drama, snuffed out my writing flame. I felt like a podling from Dark Crystal, drained and lifeless as I moved from day to day. Now I’m anxiously engaged in a good cause in my own way instead of letting depression win.

If only I could cut back on reading and do more writing. (Serialized daily! I’m exhausted just thinking about it.)

~Dˢ

Doomsday in December?

2021-11-30T23:00:00.001-07:00

I’m run down and sick, so I’m posting something positive every day this week until I lift my spirits.

There is a reason I’m depressed. It’s more than having major and persistent depression disorder. I’ve had a surprisingly cruddy year. I have to admit that I’m frustrated because my coping strategies are failing me. This is the sort of year that could only happen to a protagonist in a dark comedy. I’ve already written before how I was severely sick for seven months before the pandemic began. This feels like slow death sometimes. I’m so isolated from others, I’m forgetting how to be human.

Here’s my calendar since May. I think it’s a bit much:

May: I began running to lose weight and get in shape, but tore my right meniscus in my knee. I know its a torn meniscus, but insurance demands I do physical therapy first. Thus ends my newfound hobby, as well as my summer of longboarding before it began.
June: Babying my torn meniscus, I bent over to get something out of the fridge and ripped my quadratic lomborum on my right side. How did such a thing happen? When did I become so frangible? I have to cancel my knee PT.
July: My back is improving, but still sore. No exercise can be done, though I manage to walk long miles. It’s very painful, especially on the knee, but I’m determined to lose weight and get in shape. Then I catch a summer virus and go down for three weeks.
August: I feel like I’m getting back on top of my life, though my LD daughter began an extremely volatile stage this month. We haven’t seen temper outbursts like this in a few years, so it was surprising. It took up enormous amounts of time to deal with. Halfway through the month, She and I got rear ended on a highway onramp in the rain. One driver ahead of me braked, causing a pileup. The guy in front of me avoided that guy, and I avoided him, but the guy behind me wasn’t as skillful. Now I need a chiropractor, I can’t do my PT, and my car is wrecked. But we are alive and thankful that things weren’t worse.
September: Mostly filled with chiropractic visits until 2/3rds through when I have surgery to correct my torn meniscus. By the end of the month, I had one day where I began to feel functional again. I spent the day helping parents register their car, but not mine. I’d do it on Monday, except…
October: I got COVID–19 despite dual vaccinations. It was probably Delta. I have never been so sick in my life. It lasted for weeks, eating up the entire month.
November: Finally, I’m feeling normal again! I register my car. I get the insurance fiasco and repairs going. I put out fires here and there that had begun to smolder in my life. Then my daughter got RSV. I spent eight days tending to her needs. She hadn’t been as sick as that in twenty years. Then she shared it with me. I tested positive for RSV and COVID a week an a half ago. I hear I’ll test positive for COVID for up to three months. My symptoms were all RSV, but I was already run down from COVID. It was brutal. I’m still sick. Fortunately, I got the car in for repair. The bill came to over $5000, but insurance paid for it. One bright moment. I got my car back today, and I feel strangely giddy about my worldly possession. I have freedom again.
December: That’s tomorrow. Nothing short of disaster and ruin can follow up this chain of events. December shall usher in a personal Ragnarök, resulting in smoke, carnage, and a crater where my hopes and dreams once resided. Oh, is that negative? Gosh, shucks. I wonder why my outlook is so dark?

What’s most frustrating is that for most days, there is no brightness or joy in my life—just sickness, pain, and suffering. No friends to socialize with. I’m quarantining. No health to explore the world around me. I’m too sick to be active, and going outside will result in me getting more sickness. Just me stuck at home, sick and miserable with a compromised immunity system. In the past, I would hold tight and wait for Spring when the warmer weather would begin my days of living and health. It’s a dull way to live, though.

I recognize that this entry is filled with self-pity. Nobody set me up for a fall. There are no angry gods making sure my life is perfectly disastrous. Yet still, I had such high writing goals for the year. I needed to reach forward and lift myself up. I have little patience for life’s nastier distractions.

This is why I’m posting something positive every day. This journal entry doesn’t quite count. It’s sad, bitter therapy, but I feel better getting it out. No, I’m referring to my attempts at gratitude. Here is today’s:

I’m grateful for ebooks. I can go out shopping at 4am, dressed in swaddling clothes, and never leave my bed. 📖

I have not given up hope, but I may not make my writing goals. I wanted to have my new fiction work up on Kindle Vella by Saturday. That may happen. I wanted my ADHD visual ToDos book up on Kindle Unlimited by my birthday. That may happen. I owe a friend quite a few articles for his website. I think I can bang them out by the end of year, but it might be a bit much to expect them done by my birthday as well. I also wanted to reach certain goals in my Japanese studies. Those may happen. I’m not dead yet, and wallowing only makes depression stronger, which makes productivity harder. It is dour enough that I am sickly. My mental outlook doesn’t have to reflect that. I’ve been lazy in my coping strategies. It is time to recommit to being in control.

With that said, I’m being grateful and posting a blog today. I even took a selfie and tried to make myself look human. These are three proactive tasks that are hard to do when my outlook is bleak, but I feel that I’ve accomplished something, even if this blog is overly maudlin, lacking in humor, and heavy on ruthful observations. I’m getting it out of my system. I’m going to put this year behind me. I’m going to succeed.

~Dˢ

Feeling Down, So It’s Time To Be Grateful

2021-11-29T09:10:00.004-07:00

Sometimes life gets me down. So what am I going to do about it?

I’ve been way too sick to blog lately or post here. I mostly lay in bed and cough. It’s a party! But I did get some book writing in. One more chapter, and I’ll be ready to post it on Kindle Vella. Now I just need to design a fetching avatar for the book.

I started feeling better yesterday…marginally. I had energy enough to remotely log into my four computers and setup SSH key pairs, moved some doge into a dedicated hot wallet, listed items on eBay, updated my dynamic DNS account to make sure my web and ebook servers were working, downgraded Calibre and DeDRM to fix the Mac glitch with Kindle 1.31.0 where the DRM keys weren’t passed to the new install, then upgraded them so I can make DRM-free backups of my purchases again, ignored the crypto-markets because they were depressing, worked on the impossible family jigsaw puzzle that will be the death of me before sickness ever takes me out, read a lot of books, and laid down inbetween each task to recouperate.

What’s funny is that what I want to do is vastly different from that list I just shared with you, but I simply can’t exercise or do PT yet. I can’t write as long as I can tinker. I run out of stamina. Same problem with studying Japanese. Or blogging. I wonder why tinkering on my computers is easy, but working on them is hard?

I believe the reason is that I forget to take breaks when I work, but tinkering is intellectual pudding, effortless for me to do, and I take frequent breaks in between tasks. You’d think I’d set a timer and work in small blocks when working. You know? The Pomodoro method? Ten minute increments? I’ve been so exhausted from these oxygen-depleting coughing attacks that come up from the bottom of my toes, I’ve forgotten most of my coping strategies.

So I’m typing all this here to remind myself.

I haven’t gone into details on what I’ve been dealing with this year, but let’s just say that I ate my Thanksgiving dinner quarantined in my bedroom, so this current bout of illness has me a bit down. I just want to get back in shape, socialize with people more, and ride my longboard for hours like I did last year several times a week. But it’s December, we’re in a pandemic, Omicron is around the corner, and even though my knee PT has been delayed due to my car accident and COVID–19 (and now RSV), I couldn’t go longboarding in this weather anyway. If I owned a gun, I would put pictures of viruses on a post in my backyard and shoot at them all day until I felt better.

It’s possible that I’m in a dark place. Now that I’ve vented, I believe I will post something positive every day this week until I lift my spirits.

Here we go. Positive thought No.1: I’m glad I’m not dead.

Nope. Not positive enough. It sounds more like a lyric from the Smith’s than an empowering statement of gratitude. I’m sure I can do better.

Ahem.

I’m grateful for a bright mind and geeky things to keep it entertained.

There! That was better, don’t you think? What are you grateful for?

~Dˢ

Good Grief! Where Have I Been All This Time‽

2021-10-26T18:19:00.001-06:00

My life was briefly put on hold, thanks to a certain virus, but now I’m back, more cheeky & cynical than ever!

So much for new beginnings.

A week after my knee surgery, just as I was able to feel more human than sore, I became sick. Then sicker. Then sicker still. A quick visit to the InstaCare on a quiet Sunday evening ushered me into my new life of exhaustion and fatigue.

I’ve had five or six COVID–19 tests since the pandemic began. They were almost beginning to feel routine. That Sunday night was no different. I showed up to pick up my pre-registered self-test, then opted to be seen instead because I felt lousy. I didn’t think I had COVID–19 because I was vaccinated, but I had something. I thought it was strep throat.

I waited outside. They called me in when they were wearing their biohazard suit. I had my vitals recorded. They decided to test for Strep as well as COVID–19. I waited some more.

I’ve been there before. Multiple times doctors would tell me, “Oh, 85% I’m sure you’ve got COVID”, and I’d test negative. Every time. They just didn’t understand how sick I get. Respiratory illness is my raison d’être . A virus only has to pass by the front of my home on the other side of the street, and I’ll be bedridden for a week. I’d made progress in recent years. I’d enjoyed traveling, longboarding, and shrugging off colds after a day, but the pandemic made me unhealthier. I couldn’t get out. Couldn’t exercise. It was as if the pandemic lay on my Major Depression Disorder like an anvil, then pushed my Persistent Depression Disorder down the stairs. It helped my sleep phase disorder knock me around the clock like a hockey puck. I was back to be being sick more often than healthy again.

When the test came back positive for SARS-CoV–2, I was irritated. “C’mon!” I thought. “I followed all the rules. I wore that stupid mask. I got my shots!” Yeah, but Delta didn’t care. From what I’ve read, it had a different protein spike than the one American vaccines targeted.

Delta’s path to me was logjammed with vaccines, all of which it vaulted over grimly and with grace. Apparently, my brother’s mother-in-law went to a party, came home and gave Delta to her husband. Then they waited to get better because they couldn’t possibly have COVID–19. They were vaccinated! Everyone says get vaccinated or you’ll endanger your grandparents, as if the vaccine is a magical potion that wards off evil, but the grandparents ended up sharing the virus with their eleven-year-old grandson, who then shared it with his daddy, who then shared it with me. All of us except my nephew were vaccinated—twice.

Can I be dramatic for a moment (as if I wasn’t already over the top). I’d never been sicker in my life. It was like pneumonia and the flu had a baby in my lungs then beat me down with its diapers. I’ve been bronchial all my life, but I’d never experienced anything like this. Even watching TV or reading a book took too much energy. I was miserable. Getting air into my lungs was exhausting at times. COVID–19 weaponized my comorbid conditions, then waged war on my health. With the time recovering from surgery followed with COVID–19, I’ve lost five weeks of my life. Fun times.

Now that I’m on the mend, I’ve begun taking back my life, putting out fires, getting things back on track…and sleeping at all the wrong times of the day when I collapse, battery depleted. Things couldn’t be worse if radioactive meteors began to rain down upon me every time I ventured out to check the mail.

Don’t worry, though. My spirits are up even considering all I’ve been through. Being melodramatic is all part of my therapy. Next time I’ll tell you about my comical trip to the ER for the monoclonal antibody treatment. Being in danger of a heart attack was never so hilarious. Just make sure you have “Yakety Sax” playing in the background while you read along.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the first sunset that I beheld in ages, venturing outside on my own for the first time since this whole ordeal began.

Date:   October 26, 2021 at 6:19:01 PM MDT
Weather:    46°F Mostly Cloudy
Location:   Sandy, Utah, United States

What Gets You Down?

2021-09-20T15:00:00.005-06:00

Sometimes external forces can induce depression. They can induce panic. They can control how you see the world if you let them.

I’ve got surgery coming up this week, so I’m getting my blogging in early. I want to work on my current novel when I start to come out of the anesthesia. We’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, I’m watching the crypto market implode…again.

I decided to get into crypto last Spring—two days before China cracked down on Bitcoin miners and the Chinese banks that did business with them. I had only invested $10. It was play money, to be honest, but what a lesson that was for me! China’s crackdown caused the market to crash. That $10 became negative in just two days.

I laughed. There I was. Mr. Moneybags. The Crypto Guru. All because I was so entertained just twenty-four hours earlier when my $10 had gained 50¢ in value.

The main character of my book made and lost a fortune in crypto, so I wanted to understand that world better before writing about it. He lost his business. He lost his girl. He lost his charm, optimism, and self-respect. He was destroyed in a week. It wasn’t my goal to lose my $10 bucks. I don’t need to write that authoritatively! However, I did feel that some background knowledge would make me write a more realistic character.

They say that the cryptocurrency market is volatile. Saying that is like saying the sun is somewhat warm. Since Spring I have seen the crypto market crash three times. It’s doing so again right now. It will probably be up again sometime after my surgery, but for the moment it is leaving a trail of blood all the way to the floor. The common internet advice is to “buy the dip”, which means buy during the crash. I’m not in a position to do that. I’m better off focusing on paying off my medical bills. Besides, sometimes dips have dips, too.

Though minuscule, watching my investment shrivel last Spring wasn’t a happy feeling, but I was insulated from the depression and panic many people experienced when their investments went South because I hadn’t invested very much, but also because I had already prepared to potentially lose it all.

Which made me wonder how people actually lost money on the stock market. As long as the market goes back up, I haven’t lost anything. I’d have to sell at a loss to lose my investment. As part of my book research, I talked to family members who had lost money in the stock market crash in 2008. With my newfound knowledge, it seemed the only way they could lose anything is if they sold low—which is exactly what they did. They sold for fear that getting something was better than getting nothing.

Panic & depression cause us to make very emotional decisions. Our worldview is skewed darkly as we envision nothing by doom. For me, my investment in crypto wasn’t meant to make me rich, so I wasn’t emotionally impacted by the dips. However, I mused that there were many other external forces that caused me to panic and be depressed aplenty.

This time I don’t have a succinctly numbered list of advice for you. I’m still formulating ideas. One thing I can say is that the trick to not becoming depressed by external forces is to separate your mind from the events that are impacting you. Personally speaking, I have to decide that those external forces don’t impact me at all. Just as the ups and downs of the crypto market don’t affect my self-worth, I need to ensure that the ups and downs in my life don’t affect my self-worth either.

My entire book on fighting suicide was based on the idea that there is always a dawn. Improving our perspective through discipline is a very appealing thought process to me. I am grateful for the second crypto crash this month for reminding me of this lost lesson…….

~Dˢ

Date: September 20, 2021 at 2:53:10 PM MDT
Weather: 61°F Sunny
Location: Sandy, Utah, United States

Finding the Beauty in Chaos

2021-09-19T12:30:00.003-06:00

A new beginning that looks an awful lot like the old one.

When I set out to explore fractal art, I face a confusing array of controls & parameters. It has taken me years to develop the eye to select the best cropping, the most flattering palette, and the most interesting settings, then present them in a pleasing manner. Without this discipline, the fractal is an utter mess with no focus. By making a few poorly chosen decisions, the same mathematical location and the same color palette can appear completely different—and far less appealing.

Of course, anybody with the time and desire to learn the software can produce pleasing images. It isn’t as if I received a PhD in advance fractal art, traveling to distant lands to study with the Mandelbrot masters before writing my doctoral thesis on the societal implications of sliders versus number fields and how they subvert the patriarchy.

However, as I was exploring a particular fractal set the other day,—tweaking the parameters to get something beautiful to leap out of the screen—I had an interesting thought that caused me to stop and ponder:

I wish my life was as easy to organize as these fractals are.

There is too much chaos to detail here, but suffice it to say that my life is more like the bottom image with its cacophony of line and color, overwhelmed with indiscernible patterns. It feels like absolute and total chaos, and I’m not pleased about it one single pixel.

I sat there wondering what my slider controls were. What could I tweak to bring my life back into focus? Was it as simple as choosing a new palette, in other words, changing the scenery? How could I pacify the waves of chaos that seemed to be carrying me far from my goals? Oh, I self-pontificated grandly, assigning various aspects of my life as metaphorical tools in my fractal art program. After a few minutes of that, though, I realized it was all a bit silly. There is no “frequency” dial in my life to reduce the amount of chaos.

But if there could be such a dial, what would it look like? How would I use it? Would I want to?

Since the pandemic, my family life has become complicated. I don’t write as much as I’d like. I don’t draw or play instruments anymore. It seems that I am entirely preoccupied dealing with my disabilities as well as those of my daughter. I must admit that I am thoroughly depressed, my ADHD is not being managed well, and my Tourette’s is running my life. Although I am not lying down, playing the victim, I am so busy surviving that I am giving no consideration to thriving.

Instead of being knocked around by life, I want to choose the direction. Recording my thoughts on social media has long lost its charm. I want to thrive. It’s not enough to tread water. We only tire ourselves out that way. Instead, we need a clear direction to head in.

Since I’m still living out in the fractal weeds, so to speak, that clear direction that I want in my life is obscured by chaos. I’ve decided to record my thoughts as I work through the process. ocial media has lost much of its appeal for me, yet blogging has also lost its appeal. I began to worry too much about each article being quotable, SEO-optimized, and shared. So I’ve begun a new journal instead, then post the pages here. I’ll try to get back to my roots to when I began blogging, offering more personal observations.

I will discuss my process more, working through my ADHD, depression, Tourette’s, and family life as obstacles. It’ll be more like my old Writing in a Fishbowl series, but I will try to be less colloquial and more beautiful in the way that I write. Finding beauty in chaos starts with me. I need to highlight the good in my life and emphasize my progress.

I hope you won’t mind coming along for the ride. There are some beautiful sights to behold. They may have even been right in front of my face, but I missed them because I was focused on the chaos instead.

~Dˢ

Date: September 19, 2021 at 12:30:54 PM MDT
Weather: 76°F Sunny
Location: Sandy, Utah, United States

Patience for Those Who Grieve

2021-07-03T17:42:00.003-06:00

❝My son fricken tried to commit suicide, so I had to drive all the way over there to deal with it.

A few months ago, I pulled up to the one remaining branch in my area that US Bank allowed to be open during the pandemic and tentatively approached the entrance. I had banking to do, but they had bizarrely limited hours and, of course, they were closed. So I entered the ATM area and began my bank transfers with hundreds of dollars tight to my chest, hoping nobody would come in and rob me blind while I was feeding the money into the ATM.

As I was doing my banking in the comfort of their ATM fishbowl, a woman entered behind me. I made some polite comment about how I was almost done, and that magically opened up a flood of information from her that I never would’ve expected. Strangers usually don’t open up to each other, especially about the subject that she was dealing with. The quote above is the choicest one that she shared with me. I remember thinking at the time how callous and insensitive she was. I prayed that her son would find the support that he needed during his struggle with surviving suicide.

Recently, a family in my neighborhood suddenly dealt with the death of a son. His family went on vacation without him and came home to find a surprise. It was a traumatic event since the children were there, I believe, when they found his body, and the whole family is struggling with anger, shame, and survivor’s guilt. As usual, many family members will not talk about it. Suicide is the death act that shall not be discussed. It is taboo. Meanwhile, other family members openly discuss it on Facebook, angering or hurting those who want to keep the matter private. It seems older generations are more reluctant to acknowledge suicide than the younger generations who wish to discuss it openly.

At first, I presumed that my banking friend fell in with the older generation, but she discussed her son’s suicide attempt openly, though with contempt. I couldn’t tell if she was callous because she was a heartless mother, or if she was in shock and angry. I don’t read minds.

When I was dealing with that stranger, I was trying to stay polite in the onslaught of her anger. Her unsympathetic comments seemed inappropriate and unwarranted. I was just somebody she was venting at. Personally, I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now I wonder how alone she must have felt to open up and vent her feelings to an absolute stranger. Having struggled with suicidal ideation off and on in my life, I would like to think that my family will not be griping to strangers about me if I should ever stray. However, having dealt with people who survived a loved one’s suicide, I realize that grief transforms rational people into raw nerves. I do try not to judge.

My advice is two-fold since there are two issues being dealt with here.

If you encounter somebody who is grieving over the suicidal death of a loved one, you need to be compassionate even if you disapprove of their method of grief. Grief is very personal, so be patient and allow them to grieve initially however they need to. They will run through a spectrum of emotions, and it is not your place to police those emotions, especially within the raw hours following the bad news. Try to resist the urge to correct their thinking while they are doing nothing but feeling. In the days to follow, there will come a moment when the rage or grief will abate, and then they can receive your suggestions for better, more constructive methods of dealing with their pain and depression.
If you are the one grieving over the suicidal death of a loved one, you might not want to open up to a stranger at the ATM. It is imperative that you find people you feel safe talking to. You shouldn’t bottle your feelings up, or bury them deep inside in order to “be strong”. Being strong is being in touch with your feelings which will give you the strength to help those who are struggling with theirs. Avoid negative friends or family members who feel compelled to force their viewpoints on you. Lastly, don’t decide for others when they have grieved long enough.

I’m not sure what I can do to help the family in my neighborhood. I’m not extremely close with them. They have not turned to me for comfort. It’s not my place to shoehorn my way into their life, but I am sure I can find some way to serve them without intruding. Mostly, I am glad that I did not lose my patience with that outwardly hard-hearted mother. It is possible that I saw the reason why the young lad tried to end his life. Perhaps she isn’t a very good person. However, if she dumped her frustrations and darkness on me instead of family members, then I’ll consider that my good deed for the grieving family.

⁂

I wrote a book a few years back that has advice on how to deal with suicide. You might find it helpful.

Depression: Five Throw-Away Journal Ideas You Write in Secret

2021-05-07T22:47:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the best kind of journal is the one that you shred, light on fire, then cast its ashes to the wind.

Last January, I woke up severely depressed one morning. At first, I didn’t realize what was happening. I just knew that I had no will to move, no will to eat, no will to do anything. I felt interred with heavy, suffocating sadness.

Mmm, that sounds rather dramatic, doesn’t it?

The moment I realized I was depressed, I grabbed my iPhone and began dictating a blog entry to Siri as a coping strategy. However, it was all in the same vein as that emo sentence above—nice and juicy with just the right amount of adverbial angst and self-indulgence. We should all be grateful that I deleted every single word of it.

Normally, I avoid blogging or posting on social media while under the influence of Major Depressive Disorder. Despite my efforts to sound upbeat, depression affects my narrative voice and mental outlook. Fortunately, hindsight gained from experience keeps me from embarrassing myself online. I tend to write only when I have a handle on my emotions. Otherwise, my writing would become a morbid dance that leans towards the theatrical, like graves dancing in the rain.

That morning, however, I wasn’t worried about the need to self-edit. I had an urge to express my fathomless despair. I wouldn’t dream of sharing that private, turgid moment of maudlin, morning, mopey malaise with others.

Okeh, okeh…I’ll stop with the purple prose!.

The abandoned journal entry did serve a therapeutic purpose, however. It was so over the top, I laughed, which lifted my spirits immensely. As I deleted the colorful journal entry, I realized that sometimes my first blog drafts are just as cheesy. I wonder why I never noticed the similarity to throw-away journals¹ before.

The temporary, throw-away journal is a fantastic coping strategy for when you need to purge your feelings but don’t necessarily want to share them with anybody. One of the worst things you can do for yourself when you’re depressed is to bottle up your emotions. Those dark and toxic feelings tend to bounce around in our head, building up momentum and importance. When I am emotionally agitated, keeping ideas to myself is the quickest way towards blowing things out of proportion.

Although I’ve talked before about the importance of support networks, sometimes I don’t want to share these dark feelings with anybody. They’re too personal and often a wee bit self-indulgent. Long ago, I decided that burdening a family member or friend with that potent prose was a bad idea. Instead, I express myself into a journal I have no intention of keeping. I can be as turgidly maudlin as I want. Sometimes, the temporary journal helps me vent the worst of my feelings so that I don’t overburden my support network when I reach out to them afterwards.

Here are five temporary journal ideas for when you need to vent or work through your feelings before talking to somebody:.

Write a letter to yourself, then crumple and throw it away after you’re done: By purging negative emotions in a creative and constructive way, we can prevent things from becoming more complicated in real life. This strategy has the presidential endorsement of Abraham Lincoln. Fireplace not required.
Tap a letter to yourself, then delete it: We can be commuting, surrounded by people, and still vent into a notefile without anyone being the wiser. I would probably advice against using this technique where your boss or coworkers could look over your shoulder. You may also not want them to know about your mental health issues.
Dictate to your phone, then delete it: It can be very helpful to just speak your feelings sometimes. You gain the benefit of feeling like you’re talking to somebody while also expressing yourself via voice if typing isn’t your thing.
Record a voice memo, then delete it: If transcription errors make your note unintelligible, you could use a voice recorder or your phone to record instead. Get all of your feelings out, then delete them. It’s very therapeutic.
Make a fake phone call: When I’m extremely agitated, and there’s no one to talk to in my support network, I’ll go for a walk and pretend that I’m on the phone. With earpiece in ear, you can walk down the street while talking out loud praying, dictating a note, recording a voice memo, or just talking to yourself and no one will think anything of it. Be careful of who is nearby because voices carry.

Although my depression did not magically go away that morning, I was able to lighten the depth of it, which allowed me to get out of bed, eat, get myself dressed, and move on with my day. I didn’t take to social media and embarrass myself with a self-pitying plea for sympathy or post that purple pile on my blog. I love journal writing, and I have a dozen or so volumes tucked away in boxes, but I don’t want every moment to be preserved for posterity. Sometimes, I just need to vent—maybe even wallow—until I’m ready to let it go. Those moments are private. That’s why I like to delete them. Hopefully, you’ll find these suggestions helpful when you have a bad day of your own.

The Throw Away Journal: Point #5 in Six Journal Ideas to Deal with Depression and elaborated on in my book, Saying NO to Suicide ↩

Depression – Breaking Out of the Cocoon and Thinking You've Failed

2021-04-29T23:22:00.006-06:00

Sometimes we can be so fixated upon the finish line that we miss how far we’ve already come.

Ah, if I hear another commercial on the radio with a smooth-talking announcer earnestly pretending their company cares about me during these “unprecedented times”, I may puke. I’ve moved way beyond that acid reflux-ish moment where my stomach’s contents race to my mouth to voice their opinion. I may not be able to hold them back next time. Between you and me, I’m a little worried about it. I’m still making payments on my car.

So I’m not going to talk to you as if you just woke up next to Rip Van Winkle and need me to explain what COVID–19 is. I’m just going to write from my heart about how this pandemic has affected me, and maybe you’ll be able to relate:

I feel like my life has been sealed in a cocoon.

This is a funny thing to write because I’ve never before been so productive in my life. No, the BIG goals like publishing my new books haven’t been accomplished yet, but I’m paying off debts, I successfully swam through oceans of paperwork and petitioned for guardianship of my disabled daughter, I’m the fittest I’ve ever been in my adult life, I’m dating again (which means I occasionally leave my home), people pay me to write for some reason, and I have raised four lovely daughters.

But life feels like it’s on hold. Some of that is the pandemic’s fault. After all, who gets happy in a lockdown? However, in this case the pandemic only added to an already crushing situation. I haven’t had such a bleak, hopeless Winter since my divorce nine years ago. What happened to my coping strategies? What happened to my fighting spirit?

Consider this. I’ve just had the healthiest Winter in forever. I cannot recall a year in decades where I didn’t spend weeks sick in bed during the Winter. However, this time I only experienced four colds at most, and each one was over within a day. Talk about unprecedented times! I’m never this healthy. The diagnosis of asthma, the meds to treat it, and the new coping strategies I employ to keep myself healthy have all turned my world around. This was thanks to my consistent, proactive efforts to solve my health issues despite being sick.

But do I focus on that in my head? Why would I? I haven’t published my new book yet. I haven’t lost ALL my weight yet. I’m not married. Loser! Wait, what?

I should be ecstatic. I should be happier than those models you see in bank advertisements who are so excited to be in debt, their smiles wrap fully around their heads. The reality is that my life isn’t so bad, even without a 360ª smile. I’m incredibly blessed. What’s to be depressed about‽

Yet each one of the complaints I fixated on sat upon my chest like an elephant of disappointment. I could barely move. While I lay there focusing on my burdensome list of failures, I wasn’t focusing on the good that I had accomplished, nor was I benefiting from the rewards. I was disavowing them instead because “I haven’t done enough”. I understand that depression doesn’t need a reason to lay waste to happiness, but my errors in thought weren’t helping.

How thankful I am that Spring came early for a spell. I got outside finally. I jumped on my longboard as often as I could and cruised around in the sun, talked with strangers, smiled a little, and felt good about myself. When Spring snubbed Summer and passed the baton on to Fall, however, my mood began to sink. That’s when I noticed what I was doing to myself. Was I really allowing the weather to determine my mood? Well, it’s more complicated than that. I have major depression disorder and persistent depression disorder. I don’t need an overcast day with chilly rain to get me depressed. However, I certainly was allowing weather to dictate my coping strategies.

I had let my guard down. During all those months locked away from others, I began to see my goals as the only way of measuring my progress—which can usually be quite efficient—but there is a serious downside if you link that progress to your self-worth. No progress = no self-esteem. In essence, if you fail to do something unrealistic in an impossible amount of time, you are ensuring your own ego’s self-destruction. Those warm Spring days were a distraction—an outlier—but once they faded I realized that I had allowed success to determine my self-esteem again.

As you start to come out of your pandemic cocoons, keep in mind your coping strategies and don’t ride yourself too hard. You may have lost valuable time in a lockdown stupor, but, as I remind myself, just because it seems dark, that doesn’t mean that tomorrow will be dark as well. The sun always rises. Well, unless it’s running around with Summer right now.

~Dˢ

Is Suicide Preventable? (Short Answer: YES)

2020-12-19T00:29:00.001-07:00

As I wind up my latest book project, I thought it might be a good time to share an interview of sorts I did a few months ago. I was asked to answer the question “Is suicide preventable?” in three sentences. Can such a question be answered in three sentences‽ Actually, it can be answered with one word: Yes. I elaborated on that word with three sentences that I hope are helpful to somebody.

Fortunately, the rest of the article was a bit longer, so there is plenty for you to read. Kate Haldeman tackled some of the typical stigmas of which depressives encounter. People mean well, but sometimes their advice does more harm than good. Ms. Haldeman addressed every negative word of “encouragement” you could imagine, from telling people to “get over it” to telling depressives to work harder at being happy. I liked her alternative questions. I hope that people who need to learn these tips find her article.

There is no perfect way to respond to everybody’s depression. Each response needs to be tailored to the individual. For example, I don’t mind the concept that we have to work hard to be happy, but words have nuances. Telling somebody they have to work hardER at being happy is a judgement on their efforts. You can commiserate that it is hard work being happy, or that we must work hard to be happy because depression robs us of our quality of life, but to command a depressive to work harder at being happy, even in jest, is to dismiss their struggle offhandedly. Would you tell somebody with a broken ankle to try harder to run? No, of course not. You would find a way to assist them. Mental health is no different.

I know a former bishop of mine who will ask me how I’m doing when we bump into each other around town, and when I tell him about my blog or book successes, he’ll either change the subject or tell me I need to stop letting my disability define me. I’m sure he means well, but since I don’t recall him ever taking time to find out how my disability affected me in the first place, his advice is useless to me. Ms. Haldeman’s article tackles this kind of misfire in her article, “7 Things People Don’t Understand About Depression”. I invite you to give it a read.

~Dˢ

Top Mental Health Blogs for 2020—the Bestest Year EVER!

2020-12-08T00:04:00.003-07:00

All was not terrible in 2020.

The press will try to convince you otherwise, but their job is to panic you into thinking the world is ending any minute…again…so that you click on their news links to help them make money. I'm sure your personal life is filled with happy events that spit in the eye of Cynicism 2020. In fact, I'm positive I can rattle off dozens of such events in my own personal life. For example, my ex and I successfully gained guardianship over our learning disabled daughter. Pretty good, huh? I filed pro se, and the hearing went without a hitch. Take that, ADHD! I sold another article to ADDitude Magazine. Huzzah! I successfully learned to do the 180º cross-step on my longboard while carving. Well, that was important to me even if it seems obscure. I've only been practicing for three years. Oh! There was that time I crossed the street without getting hit by a car. That was a big event in 2020. And those monoliths from space aliens planted in my Utahn backyard? That turned out to be a PR stunt. Huh, that wasn't so exciting after all, but the local BLM and news reporters sure made us laugh. Um… I lowered my blood pressure? I dropped down to a 36" waist—then climbed back up to 38" with pandemic pounds? My plants haven't died?

This is tough. Maybe 2020 really wasn't such an exciting year, after all.

On the upside, however, I won another blog award. Don't roll your eyes! This is great news for you because I can now point you to other blogs much better than mine. Merry Christmas! You're welcome!

British education site Twinkl reached out to me with the good news in September—right when I was in quarantine—or maybe I was just sick? I don't know. September was a long time ago. But I promised to share the news with my blog readers and here we are! It's only four months later, right⸮ This time there was only one other blogger I recognized (Hi, Natasha!), so I'm excited to look over the list as well.

If your Fall was filled with sickness, quarantines, family members with COVID-19, and false alarms like mine, you might enjoy having something new to read. Here is a list of fresh mental health blogs with unique points of view. You might find a new kindred spirit or a new valued resource. Hurry on over to Top Mental Health Blog 2020.

Play It Again, Seratonin

2020-09-24T09:00:00.013-06:00

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 arrangements, the Brownie wasn’t familiar with this “controversial” playlist. I listen with headphones on. She’s the youngest, so using the playlist as a positive example was a novel experience. I tried for years to get my older girls to understand how the playlist was actually helpful, but all they could see was that I was hurting—or more specifically, hurting myself.

What I, and the therapist, pointed out to the Brownie was that letting myself feel sad helped me deal with those emotions. What I was unable to explain to my girls all those years ago was that my feelings were a flood I feared would never stop, so I dammed them up. I didn’t dare let them spill over into my new, single parent life where so much was relying on me to be strong.

One day, I noticed that I felt better after listening to a particularly sad song, which reminded me that I have playlists for other emotions like anger and joy, so I created my monster list of songs so heavy with crushing sadness and betrayal that my daughters grew to loathe it when I hit play. Letting myself feel in touch with emotions I normally shied away from helped me wash them away. When the playlist was over, I was back in control.

In the early days, the playlist was quite brutal on my heart. Maybe there was a little bit of punishment mixed in with the sadness. Maybe a little bit of self-pity sprinkled in with the minor chords. My girls had cause for their heartfelt opposition.

However, over time, the playlist grew to become something wonderful. Yes, there were sad songs in there of love lost and paradise destroyed, but there were also songs with irony and wit. There were songs with clever lyrics that inspired, and synths and strings that lifted my sadness away. When I listen to the playlist, I give myself permission to feel things that I normally hide.

Letting yourself feel sad through music for a limited time can conversely lift your mood—even heal you—by which I mean, it can soothe your soul. Good music can boost serotonin levels in the brain, dramatically alleviating depression or anxiety. Dr. Alice Cash who uses music for therapy says her “Healing has to do with decreasing symptoms [of anxiety or depression], physically, physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually.”¹ One study took the premise that “Music interventions have been used to reduce anxiety and distress and improve physiological functioning in medical patients” and examined music’s healing effects on people with heart conditions.² There are other studies. They all focus on the healing power of music to make physiological changes in our brains. The concept isn’t so far out there, though perhaps it hasn’t been touted as an optimum coping strategy, perfect for mix tapes and playlists before.

I don’t often listen to the entire “Heartbroken” playlist anymore. I don’t need to. I’m in a healthier place than I was in the years first after the divorce when I would listen to the playlist on repeat. However, once the playlist was finished playing (or I was finished playing it), I was ready to face the world. If you experiment with your own depression playlist, make sure to set limits. Touching an emotion to be free of it is therapy. Drowning in an emotion is wallowing. There is a fine line there you need to watch out for. Assuming you’re careful, though, you may find a new coping strategy to help you up when your spirits are low.

⁂

If you are looking for ideas to help you overcome suicidal depression, you should read my book. I step you through various methods I’ve used over the years.

Reviewing TIME Mental Health: A New Understanding

2020-09-17T18:41:00.001-06:00

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 top of that bag, so disaster averted.

There were many good articles in the magazine, but also many that weren’t exactly good, nor compelling, which might explain my glacier-like reading pace. Truthfully, I found the first half of the magazine often conflated pointing out a problem as solving it, but only the second half of the magazine offered concrete solutions. Yet there were excellent articles sprinkled throughout the magazine that caught my interest. One in particular was an article about loneliness. I found it extremely insightful, but more on that in a bit.

The magazine was laid out well and featured powerful illustrations and photography, often stunning and evocative. A true feast on the eyes. Assuming, however, you aren’t just going to leave the magazine around for guests to notice, you might be interested in which articles I found good.

Two articles were dedicated to the celebrity suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade. The Bourdain piece was a kind and thoughtful retrospective of his career until the end, but didn’t delve into the mental health issues behind suicide, nor offer solutions, so I ultimately found it wanting. I suppose I shouldn’t fault the author for lacking a crystal ball to peer into Anthony Bourdain’s head.

"Hope from a Strange Source” was informative, helpful, and also honest about ketamine’s benefits & downsides. I dislike that folks take a ketamine “trip” at a doctor’s office. I find the language a bit hinky to be honest, especially if you’re hoping to gain mainstream acceptance. Never mind that the results don’t last, the process is expensive, and also potentially addictive. The derivative meds look far more promising. That article was followed by a brief but informative piece called “Drug-Free Treatments Backed by Science”. My favorite poison, cognitive behavioral therapy, made the list.

There was an interesting article on float therapy. I’ve never looked into this therapy before. I mean, why would I? Isn’t this the therapy Ellie uses to get to the dark side? I have enough nightmares in my own head without inviting them to cross over into my daytime, thank you very much. However, although the process seems Hollywood-kooky, the results looked promising—assuming you aren’t claustrophobic.

There was an article on psilocybin. The discussion was grounded in sensible science, which apparently included feelings of forgiveness, love, magic, fairies, and mystical placebos riding on happy unicorns adorned with rainbows. And there I was thinking that the ketamine trips were bad.

I found solace in ‪“The Power of Exercise”, an article about the science behind the positive effects that exercise, from aerobic to resistance training, has on depression. One study even found that one to two hours a week of exercise can boost endorphins & well-being, as well as improve sleep. They didn’t mention how beneficial such a low amount of exercise was on your waistline, however. Regardless, these finding match my own anecdotal observations, as well as others who have shared their anti-depression regimens with me. Exercise is good for the brain.

There were interesting findings on the benefits of sunlight in combating depression, something I have implemented for years. There were also studies about the benefits of eating more fish vs taking supplements for increased Omega3s in your diet. All of these studies are interesting, but may or may not be beneficial to you since we are all different. I recommend trying the more harmless ones suggested in the magazine to see if you experience benefits. For example, the most harmless downside to increasing fish in your diet might only be bad breath, whereas ingesting magic mushrooms might get you in a bit of trouble. I mean, I assume it might be troublesome. You might find dancing unicorns and feeling interconnected on a cosmic level with inanimate objects such as mailboxes and 5G towers to be exactly what you were looking for. I don’t judge.

There were two article that I found were worth the cost of the magazine. “How to Help a Friend or Loved One” gave excellent, practical advice on how to broach the topic of depression with loved ones who are suffering. People find themselves paralyzed by fear when needing to discuss depression or suicide with loved ones. We don’t want to offend. We don’t want to intrude. We don’t want to hurt or accidentally push somebody away. However, indecision is ultimately the same as doing nothing.

I did disagree with one part of the article. It states “To suggest that depression is a choice is to woefully misunderstand the disorder.” As a guy with both persistent and major depression disorders, I understand that depression is not my fault. I don’t wake up in the morning and declare, “I think I’ll be miserable today!” But, and this is key, we can decide to not stay miserable. Deciding to fight depression is crucial for overcoming it. You can read more about my thoughts on this subject here.

Lastly, the article on loneliness (“The Loneliness Epidemic”) was both informative and filled with suggestions to combat the condition. It may not be a surprise to learn that researchers have identified how loneliness in young adults can lead to depression, anxiety, and self-harm, but some of the other findings were eye-opening, especially the physiological aspects.

Someone who is lonely might have higher levels of inflammation in the body, metabolic abnormalities, high blood pressure and an abnormal stress response,” explains Kimberly Smith.

At first I thought, “Delightful. I’m doomed,” but then I became amused by the idea of lowering my high blood pressure by dating. Still, there are cause-and-effect correlations to be drawn from loneliness. For example, a study found people aged 19 to 32 who spent over two hours a day on social media were twice as likely to feel isolated and lonely than those who treated social media like a toxic dumpster fire. There is a lesson for me in there, I am sure of it.

Although I may kid, I found the suggestions in the article for combating loneliness very practical and reasonable. It was my favorite article in the magazine.

You may not agree with every take on mental health that the various writers have, but TIME Mental Health: A New Understanding is a good starting point if you’re struggling with a particular issue. I wish more articles were as good at offering solutions as they were in identifying a problem, but there were enough articles that were balanced to make the magazine worth your time. I’d recommend picking this magazine up at your local library and thumbing through it for the topics that interest you. You won’t likely find it for sale anymore at your local grocery or book store, but you can purchase an ebook or print copy from Amazon.

Dealing with Suicidal Tendencies? Posting on Social Media Is Not Therapy

2020-09-10T22:30:00.005-06:00

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 McNutt¹ 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 learn at all from his actions. Yet Ronnie hid his pain behind a social media post instead of seeking help. This is what I hope to encourage others to not do.

To those of you who hide your pain behind a social media mask, I have a message for you:

Posting upbeat, inspirational posts on social media is not the same thing as getting help.

Don’t treat your social media timeline as if it’s some magic ward against the demons that eat at you. You more than others know the importance of reaching out for help. Please don’t worry about keeping up appearances. If you feel overwhelmed by suicidal tendencies, reach out to those caring and wonderful people in your support network. Find people who listen. Find people who help.

It’s been two years and five months since I last had a suicidal thought. When a suicidal impulse springs to life in my mind, my first coping strategy is to tell somebody about it. I do the opposite of hiding it! Sometimes I tell my daughters. Sometimes I tell a religious leader. I always set up an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist. I immediately seek help. These coping strategies have helped me for over thirty years.

Set up good habits and practice them. Don’t disguise your pain with an illusion. Posting upbeat mental health content isn’t wrong, but it is your responsibility to yourself to ensure posting on social media is not all you do to keep yourself healthy.

If you will find it helpful, please read the articles I have written over the years regarding National Suicide Prevention Month. They are filled with personal anecdotes from my own struggles with depression and suicidal depression, but also tips and ideas to help you overcome your pain.

Please don’t keep it hidden.

Ronnie McNutt: Man who live-streamed suicide left tragic last post on Facebook ↩

I'm Not Dead Yet

2020-07-16T19:26:00.003-06:00

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 every ounce of my focus in order to graduate. Meanwhile, I decided to make the move to WordPress (in order to have comments again and to escape Google’s fickle ecosystem), but configuring WP templates was so needlessly complicated, my boredom resistant brain wandered off, leaving a half installed blog on my personal server with no new posts on my “old” blog. Plus, I was dealing with a major bout of depression which was defying my coping strategies. My answer to that was to leave social media entirely for over a month—not write more. When a friend offered to take me on vacation down to his parent’s home in Saint George, Utah, I leapt at the chance.

Then I rethought it, backed out, discussed with him how I could still do it, backed out again, then got him to delay HIS vacation by a day, and ultimately went. That is the kind of laser-focused, steely-eyed determination I am all about lately.

What I discovered on my time away from stressors was that:

I miss writing about ADHD & Depression.
I don’t schedule time for my blog book projects.
I am taking too much time preparing/researching for my middle-grade novel.

So I made a list. What does a prolific Douglas Cootey look like? The concise list gives me eight thought provoking, evocative reasons to ponder my purpose in life while empowering me to do better. I am contemplating how to implement these sweeping changes into my life, and thinking, “Hey! This exercise would make a great blog post!” I’m finally feeling more like myself. Hello, Douglas. Long time no see.

Before charting my next move, I want to state something publicly: I do not regret taking time off from my writing to focus on life. Consider it my gap year. My blog has taken a beating in key search results terms, but I am still here. Sometimes life throws up unexpected detours. My family needed me; I was incredibly ill; and now I’m emerging from all that with greater insight. I am undergoing a chrysalis of sorts. Even the frustrating, overwhelming, often burdensome experiences have made me a better person. I look forward to showing you my personal growth here in these pages over the next few months.

~Dˢ

Give Yourself a Fighting Chance. Put Stable People in Your Support Network

2020-05-26T06:15:00.001-06:00

If you struggle with suicide, depression or anxiety, the types of people you have in your support network can make the difference between them being a lifeline or a weight.

It’s been over two years since I was last suicidal. I wasn’t making dark and deadly plans at the time. I simply thought I would be better off dead. It was the matter-of-factness of the “epiphany” that startled me the most. It seemed perfectly logical. Fortunately, I’ve heard this logic before and immediately engaged my coping strategies. I let family members know, I prayed deeply, and since I didn’t have a current counselor, I reached out to a bishop for a recommendation. Quite quickly, I put the suicidal ideation behind me. That’s the benefit of coping strategies.

It also helps that I was able to analyze my feelings and separate my awareness from the emotional maelstrom. I could outthink the destructive thoughts. This is very difficult for many people, though. They get caught up in the emotional maelstrom. When the illogical becomes logical, they need help from a support network, but not everybody is so fortunate.

During my recent anniversary , I couldn’t stop thinking about K-pop star, Goo Hara. The last time I wrote about Hara’s struggle with suicide was last year. I don’t stan for K-pop cuties (okeh. Not much), but discovering her band was one of the happy moments I shared with one of my daughters after the divorce. When I heard about Hara’s struggles last May, I was shocked. I wrote about it last September during National Suicide Prevention Month, but when I found out she took her life two months later, I was devastated. I haven’t listened to her band in years, but I was connected to her story. I wanted her to pull through.

Unfortunately for Hara, one of the supports she leaned on was her friend, Sulli, a fellow K-pop star who took her own life in October 2019. Hara followed Sulli’s example a month later. This incident shows the importance of having stable people in our support networks who don’t struggle with what we struggle with. Social contagion is real. The actions of others can unduly influence our own thinking.

As I wrote last time, building a support network is very difficult to do, but it is vitally important for your well being. Even if your depression or anxiety never plunges into being suicidal, start building that network right away. Finding stable people who can comfort you with wisdom and care is a trial & error process.

I commented on this process in my book:

“…many people don’t know what to do with the confession—even church leaders. Are we just being melodramatic, they wonder? Are we just looking for sympathy? Are we trying to manipulate their feelings so that we can get something from them? Why don’t we just suck it up and deal with it like everybody else? They have problems, too. And on and on and on. Their lack of empathy can be summed up with one glib and unspoken question: “What is wrong with you?”

The problem, of course, is that not every ear is sympathetic or capable of understanding the answer to that question. Of course, not every teacher, counselor, church leader, family member, etc. is insensitive or incapable of helping you—in fact, I suspect they are in the minority—but when we are hurting, we aren’t very good judges of who is best to trust. “Wait a minute!” you may shout. Common advice for those experiencing suicidal ideation is for them to seek help—to reach out and let others know what they are feeling. I agree. That is an important first step. The trouble with this step is that not everybody is equipped to deal with suicidal ideation. They can handle a slew of human conditions, but perhaps not suicide.

Sometimes, they might be emotionally unable to process your pain, or perhaps they simply don’t understand what you are trying to tell them. You wouldn’t ask an ear doctor for a medical opinion on your foot, would you? Why assume that untrained friends & family will be able to help you with suicidal ideation? This seems logical now, but when we reach out for help due to the influence of depression and suicidal ideation, we are already not thinking clearly. What saved me when I reached out to that church leader was that I had something already in place to fall back on—a support network that I had relied on for years. This is why you should mentally prepare for a suicide emergency as you would prepare for a fire or earthquake emergency. Go over your plan before hand. Line up people before hand.”¹

It seems logical to reach out to people who are also going through what you are. If anybody is going to be sympathetic, it’ll be another person dealing with anxiety, depression, or being suicidal, right? However, consider for a moment how much energy you put into feeling “normal” each day—how exhausted you are by the end of the day. Your support friend is likely as exhausted as you are. They may not have the emotional strength necessary to carry your burden along with theirs.

My recommendation is to keep like-minded friends as friends, but build a support network with sympathetic and caring people who aren’t struggling with your same mental health issues. Camaraderie is important. However, when you’re floundering, you need people to pull your boat ashore when waters are choppy, not put holes in the bottom.

⁂

If you’d like to read the rest of the chapter featured in this article, you can find the book online at most major ebook retailers, or suggest it as a purchase for your local online library.

Saying NO to Suicide by D.R. Cootey ↩

Four Tips to Build a Support Network While Sheltering in Place

2020-03-26T23:30:00.000-06:00

If you’re feeling down from too much social distancing, how do you build a support network when you’re sheltering in place‽

Support networks are the sort of things you’re supposed to have already put into place for that time when you need them. You’re also supposed to file your taxes on time, separate your recyclables, and brush your teeth twice a day. There are a lot of things we’re supposed to do, but for one reason or another, we sometimes don’t get around to doing. Support networks take effort to build. Because of that, it is easy to avoid putting yourself out there when things are going well.

Then your government tells you to stay inside or else, and suddenly that support network seems a lot more important than it did before. Fortunately, communicating with each other over distances isn’t limited to letters via post. Now we can private message, video chat, audio chat, and text over phones lines and the internet. If you deal with depression, you know that you can’t always tell when you’re going to have a bad day, but you don’t have to be a psychologist to know that social distancing and sheltering in place can feel like isolation. Having access to supportive people is key to managing your depression.

As I blogged about before, I’ve been social distancing for many months now. Fortunately, I already did the work to set up my support network, but I’m always looking to grow that network. The more people you can rely on, the better your chances are to reach somebody when you need help.

When I want to expand my network, I follow these steps:

Reach out to people with whom you already have a rapport. I wouldn’t recommend reaching out to people you think would be good to rely on. Reach out to people who already seek you out in social situations. These people have already proven that they care about you.
Send them a “test” message to see how they respond. Send a relatively short message sharing your current struggle. Don’t manipulate; don’t overshare; and don’t directly ask them if they’d like to be in your support network. If they respond with a supportive tone, you may have found a new resource of strength.
Give them a second chance. If their first response came up short of comforting or encouraging you, reach out to them again. They may have been busy, caught off guard, terrified, or happy to discuss anything with you EXCEPT mental health.
Move on to the next person. If the second response is the same or worse, don’t force the issue. Some people are friendly, but not your friend. You can continue socializing with them. Light social connections are important, too. You just won’t rely on them for help.

I was feeling down recently. Nearly seven months of social distancing is hard to bear. I have up weeks, and down days. When I decided to test the waters with a new friend, I opened up to them via text message. We’ve had excellent conversations over the last four years, but I had not shared my mental health struggles before. They replied with a kindly platitude. I decided to wait for a few days before trying again, and they haven’t responded since. Time to move on.

Never forget that the people you want in your support network are just people, not professionals. They have their own problems to deal with. We may think that we’re just looking for somebody to lean on when we wobble, but they may see it as us asking to be carried. They may quail from the subject. They might not know what to say, or be overly concerned about saying the wrong thing. They might be totally terrific, but far too busy. They may be stretched thin helping other people. You simply do not know, so don’t judge and condemn.

I’m disappointed that person couldn’t be counted on because I liked them a lot, but I’m not going to hate them for it. I’m not going to withdraw my friendship. Maybe they just want to keep things light, or maybe their plate is full. I’ll look elsewhere. If I ever find myself in a bleak, desperate place where I need to call someone at three in the morning, I know the people in my current network will be there for me.

It is important that the people in your support network are reliable and willing to help. With careful effort and patience, we can expand that network. Now that we’re all sheltering in place, we can put the time in to do it right.

⁂

If you are suicidal and lean on the wrong person, you can find yourself falling instead of being supported. Please remember that the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can help put you in touch with local people who want to listen to you. Dial 800–273-TALK (8255). If you’re worried about them tracing the call, dial *67 before dialing the hotline. You can also reach them with an online chat.