Dyspraxia - Tumblr Posts
I wish me saying I’m not sure if I can drive would be taken more seriously. Everyone dismisses me and says everyone feels nervous and you’ll get used to it but I don’t know if I will. I say that I mix up left and right and sometimes instinctively go right when someone says go left (not in a car, just in general, for example when my mom tells me to swivel my chair around) and I’m scared this will put me or others into physical danger and everyone dismisses me. I don’t understand all these rules. Maybe it will be okay. Maybe I’m wrong
”it’s okay if you weren’t successful in high school as long as you did your work!” I didn’t. I didn’t turn many things in. I tried at first but it never improved my grades, so I gave up. I wanted to impress my teachers so badly but I couldn’t give myself to work on my assignments, and when I did it never made a difference. No matter how much I liked the class it didn’t matter much. I did the worst in the class where I liked my teacher the most. Anyway. Just feeling sad for sorta being left behind despite showing ADHD, sensory, and dyspraxia symptoms from a young age
i don’t know if my ADHD and possible autism/dyspraxia actually do make me unable to take care of myself in some way, or it’s just my brain telling me that because of my family history of dependent personality disorder. Or I’m just lazy and pathologize everything too much
Any other dyspraxics obsessively chew on their straws, making it always clear which drink is yours?
The Nurodiversity Umbrella
it’s like a glitch where random objects I interact with just fucking jump
it’s crazy how I don’t even drop things anymore shit just launches out of my hand and flies into the air
; finding out you're neurodivergent is just an " oh " drawn out and progressively getting louder the more you learn about your neurotype.
"let people be wrong about you" is such good advice that i am unfortunately physically incapable of following. if i am incorrectly perceived by anyone i will simply start ripping things with my teeth
"Autism gait" this "ADHD posture" that.
But do you know what Dyspraxia is? And are you normal about it.
Dyspraxia Things I Haven't Seen Discussed Often Enough
n.b. i don't have orofacial dyspraxia or verbal dyspraxia, so this post certainly doesn't reflect those experiences, which are seldom discussed or understood. nor can i speak for all motor dyspraxics; as such, please read beyond this little post, as this is just a sample or generalisations based on my own experience
'dyspraxia is a disorder of coordination'; yes, and also so much more.
-your visualisation skills may or may not be good, but your spatialisation is comparatively weak. you may or may not be able to see the cube in your head, but rotating it? nope.
-the same room looks like two separate places depending on which way you're facing. you might know how to navigate in one orientation, since you've been there before, but flip it around, and it's a new, confusing place.
-getting lost in your own home town because of the whole spatial orientation thing? not fun. again, the same street is four different places in four different blueprints depending where you came from. one wrong turn, and you're on a whole new map entirely.
-'where am i in space'
-'what do you mean, my shoe's on the chair. i can't freaking feel my shoe on the chair. what do you mean—' *looks* 'ohhh'
-balance? who's she?
-dyspraxia doesn't always mean hypotonia, but they go together very, very often. whether due to low tone or just coordination stuff, we don't tend to have very useful muscles.
-you lean on desks, on tables. anything to help support your core
-hand-eye coordination means that your hands don't work unless you're looking
-your eyes also just. don't work. any object that moves fast immediately blurs, and any object that moves at any speed, however slow, too close to your face, is blurry. the ball stops being visible by the time it's close enough to catch. dyspraxia tends to go with weak muscles, and the little ciliary muscles in your eyes are not exempt from this. as such, not only do you not have the coordination to catch a ball, but you probably can't see it in time to catch it, either.
-muscle pain. so much muscle pain. since your muscles are working so hard to do the same things most people can do without thinking, they get tense. they have to overcompensate without getting any break, and as such, static loading happens fast. dyspraxia is having random shooting muscle pains and tenderness everywhere, and just being achey all the time.
-also. the muscle weakness, again, will not spare you a single minute. for those with vulvas, it takes ages to pee simply because your pelvic floor is not going to collaborate with your other bits down there, and all the other muscles down there are just a bit wimpy. ever feel like you've never quite got an empty bladder? yeah. again, your muscles aren't making it easy for you
-digestive issues, since muscle problems also don't spare your colon.
-if you can tie shoelaces and use cutlery, it probably took you a long time to learn how
-Doc Martens take you a tenth of an hour to do up
-you almost certainly have tried to overcompensate for your clumsiness, and almost certainly have tried to overcompensate for taking 10 minutes to get dressed, or for an incident where you felt ashamed of how you wielded a knife and fork. and these memories will never quite leave
-inevitably, a little bit of your dinner is going to escape to the table before it makes it all the way from your plate to your mouth
-someone has almost certainly made fun of you for these traits, and it wasn't comfortable
Please, please remember:
The term “neurodivergent” describes people whose brain differences affect how their brain works.
It is not only autism and ADHD.
It's many many many things!
Including personality disorders, foetal alcohol syndrome, Downs Syndrome, Tourette's, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, bipolar disorder, Irlen syndrome, and more then I can list here.
If it's your brain differences that is affecting how your brain works...it's a neurodivergence!
I have Schizoaffective Disorder, does that count as ND? I saw that Schizophrenia was on the list, and I WAS originally diagnosed with that when I had my mental breakdown.
For those who don't know about Schizoaffective Disorder, it is a mental disorder. There are three types: Bipolar (Manic) Type [mix of Schizophrenia and Mania], Depressive Type [mix of Schizophrenia and Depression], and Mixed Type [a combination of all three].
I have Bipolar Type, personally. If you want more information, I will put some links to various sites explaining the disorder.
Here is a list of famous people with Schizoaffective Disorder:
Brian Wilson
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Britney Spears
Vincent van Gogh
Louis Wain
Virginia Woolf
Allison Schmitt
John Nash
Jordan Burnham
Michael Angel
And there are more famous people with this disorder than this!
This is the story of a young woman who has struggled with Schizoaffective Disorder. It advocates the need to stay on your meds unless a psychiatrist says it is safe to do so.
Sorry for the really long re-blog, but I felt the need to teach people about this.
fuck it. shout out to "high functioning" neurodivergents
the ones who can mask easily, the ones who can get social cues, the ones who have managed to go most of their life not even knowing they were ND because they didn't present as the stereotypical ND person.
the ones who can pay attention in class, understand social etiquette, who understand societial expectations
the ones who don't feel neurodivergent enough bc they don't struggle in the same ways/areas a lot of NDs do, or they can't relate to other NDs' experiences because they always understood these things easily
the ones with high empathy, the ones who DO get the joke, the ones who are constantly told that they can't possibly be neurodivergent because they don't act like what you'd expect a neurodivergent person to act like.
you are neurodivergent enough. you are valid, and so are your experiences. not struggling as much as others do in some places doesn't mean you dont struggle at all. your condition and diagnosis is valid. your symptoms are valid. YOU ARE VALID. not checking all the supposed boxes doesn't mean you aren't neurodivergent. you are enough. you are valid. you are loved. you are valued. you matter. you belong in neurodivergent spaces, you deserve to use whatever resources are available to you, you are allowed to take up space in these communities. and i am so, so proud of you.
feel free to, and actually, i encourage you to reblog this with your experiences. we belong in this community as much as anyone else. please also tag this w/ any neurodivergent conditions i may have forgotten 💙
since this is getting lots of notes I'd like to add, even if you're undiagnosed or maybe self diagnosed, for whatever reason, (i.e. can't get access to a diagnosis, not being taken seriously, or just not wanting an official diagnosis, etc.) this still applies to you. actually especially to you folks. don't think for a second you're not valid just bc you don't have the paperwork or whatever to say it
