Profile Post: A Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey

I had a particularly difficult time finding another blog that resonated with the central topic of my blog. First of all, the topic I'm blogging about, mental health and its relationship with college students, is quite a specific niche. When looking for blogs on this topic, you will come across either professional blogs by psychologists who focus on the science of it (you'll find yourself knee-deep in medical jargon and statistical research), or you'll find amateur bloggers who post about their everyday experiences - stream of consciousness style.

I pivoted and shifted my focus to finding a blogger who I hoped to emanate in my own writing. I was looking for a blogger who was a good writer, first and foremost. I wanted to be able to read about mental illness and personally connect, but I also had zero interest in reading deeply personal and unedited diary entries. I hoped to find a writer who was self-deprecatingly funny and brutally honest about their personal experiences with mental illness, but also someone who actually had opinions about the bigger picture about impacts of mental illness has on society and science. After widening the net for my search, I came across long-time blogger Douglas Cootey.  His blog "A Splintered Mind" was everything I hoped to find and has been an pleasure to follow ever since.

Cootey began blogging about mental health in order to accomplish three key goals: to overcome personal stigma and shame around having a mental illness, to connect with others with similar struggles, and to train himself as a writer. Needless to say, in the ten years since Cootey began blogging on "A Splintered Mind", he has accomplished all of his goals and more. He has become a highly recognized figure in the online mental health community, recently celebrating over 400,000 unique visitors to his website. Some of the most recent awards his blog has won include: the Psych Central 2014 Best of the Web Blogs - Top Ten ADHD Blogs, the WCG 2013 Top 10 Social Health Makers - ADHD, and ShareCare Bio - Best Depression Blogs of 2013. He is also a contributing writer to ADDitude Magazine.

Cootey writes with a refreshing perspective on mental illness, with a strong sense of voice and humor that often makes you feel like he is speaking to you directly. This is critical for a writer who writes about their own struggle with behavioral disorders because people often perceive the mentally ill as incapable of coherent and clear thought - which is not true at all. He is also a strong advocate for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, a popular form of treatment for mental illness that focuses on self-reflection and self-awareness as a way to understand and overcome mental illness without the help of psychotropic medications. Because of this, many of his blog posts and articles are focused on raising awareness, both in the form of advice for those who might be searching for help, but also around the idea that mental illness is something you can work on by being aware of it. 

One example of this is a recent post he wrote in his "Hack Your Mind" blog series. This particular post was titled "4 Steps to Take Charge of Your Daydreaming", and he shares his personal experience with how his ADHD leads him to lose focus often and how much it frustrates him because it often feels out of his control. He shares them in such a straightforward and honest way that people with mental illness have come across their own fair share of self-help books might actually stop and read more. He goes on to break down the four steps that he personally uses to combat ADHD daydreaming and emphasizes the actual methods that he uses to combat it. Most importantly, his self-help advice doesn't sell itself as a magic cure-all. In fact, Cootey makes sure to let the reader know that if they mess up, it's not their fault, but they still deserve to give themselves a shot.

He also writes many "slice-of-life" posts - updates on the ongoings of his personal life. One post I particularly enjoyed was titled "News Alert? I Still Have ADHD & Depression". In this post he updates his readers about the ongoings of his quest to finish writing a book, but also to discuss the very real reality many people with behavioral disorders deal with - even though he is a lot better at handling it on a day to day basis, he still struggles with mental illness. But he emphasizes the point that the one thing they can count on is his determination to fight to be better.

At the end of the day, you really only need to see the comments of his readership to understand that he plays an important role in the mental health blogosphere. Cootey represents someone who is fully aware of his condition, is honest about the difficulties without complaining, and is truly a funny writer who comes across a genuine human, flaws and all.

To read more about him, please visit www.douglascootey.com or follow him on Twitter @SplinteredMind.