Dyspraxia, what it is like

As of writing this I am 27 years old, and yet I feel as though I am less developed than someone ten years my younger.

I am still at University, I have never had a job, I have never been in a relationship. Indeed, I do not fully understand them.

As a child I was never formally diagnosed with any kind of condition, doctors just thought I was hyperactive. I was barred from consuming E numbers, along with most sugar products and was placed on a course of Ritalin to try and tire me out so much that I would no longer be so hyperactive. They were quite wrong.

Later in life, after I had finished High School, started and then dropped out of Sixth Form, taken some time out and then got back into College at age 18 that I formally sought a diagnosis for something more concrete as by this point I knew I was different and there must be a logical reason behind it.

This diagnosis, for Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, ADHD and Autism should have been that answer, "here you go, an answer" but it was not. This was merely the end of the introduction and the start of the first chapter.

Disclaimer

Owing to the fact I seem to have a multitude of interesting qualities about me this may get messy, at times impossible to follow, I may even contradict myself, but I see this only as a further explanation of how my mind works, it is not clean, it is messy, it is only getting messier.

What it is like, part one: Dyspraxia & Dyslexia

The UK Dyspraxia Foundation explains Dyspraxia as:

Dyspraxia, a form of developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a common disorder affecting fine and/or gross motor coordination in children and adults. It may also affect speech. Children may present with difficulties with self-care, writing, typing, riding a bike and play as well as other educational and recreational activities. In adulthood many of these difficulties will continue, as well as learning new skills at home, in education and work, such as driving a car and DIY.

As an individual I mostly agree with this explanation as it has presented itself to me, I still have trouble with self-care, I still cannot write legibly, I do not use QWERTY on any of my computers because the awkward location of the E makes it hard and uncomfortable to use, I could not write my own name before finishing first school and I was 13 before I could ride a bike without stabilisers, and it is no surprise, but I have also never been able to play sports.

Going on it took me almost a year and nearly 50 hours of lessons to pass my driving test when the average is less than half that, as stated above I dropped out of Sixth Form, this was because at the time I received no support and rapidly fell behind my peers, it is a side note but at that time I also had not yet achieved my GCSE in English (This took me three attempts, once at 16, once at 18 and finally again aged 21).

Additionally, they go on to explain:

There may be a range of co-occurring difficulties which can also have serious negative impacts on daily life. These include social and emotional difficulties as well as problems with time management, planning and personal organisation, and these may also affect an adult’s education or employment experiences. Many people with DCD also experience difficulties with memory, perception and processing. While DCD is often regarded as an umbrella term to cover motor coordination difficulties, dyspraxia refers to those people who have additional problems planning, organising and carrying out movements in the right order in everyday situations. Dyspraxia can also affect articulation and speech, perception and thought.

Again, I can only agree that it definitely affects my own time management, so badly in fact that even now I still turn up to everything at least half an hour early, even if I am merely 100 yards away in University accommodation and I know the trip will take me just 3 minutes. I still arrive half an hour early for fear of being late.

Every room I have ever used for living, be it at home or at University is an organised mess, ironically this affects me far less at University that it does at home because there is no one else to randomly and without reason move things around.

The one thing no one seems to agree on regarding the condition is how much it affects speech articulation or indeed if it does at all, I can without a doubt state that it most certainly does. Whilst the words I use and my range of vocabulary may seem fully articulated in reality I struggle to articulate many of these words, sometimes having to take a pause to "reset" or simply taking a few attempts to get a word out.

When I am not struggling to get words out of my mouth I am instead often accused of mumbling or requested to speak up because my speech is not clear, it is not crisp at all and many words often flow into the next uncontrollably or end up in totally the wrong order as if I have started speaking Latin and word order no longer has context.

Whilst my diagnosis includes, and I do feel as though I suffer from, Dyslexia it is to a considerably lower level than Dyspraxia and honestly may even overlap.

Either way the NHS define Dyslexia as:

Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling. It is a specific learning difficulty, which means it causes problems with certain abilities used for learning, such as reading and writing.

If the question is only, do I have poor writing abilities then the answer is most assuredly yes, but for me, it is impossible to quantify how much of this is caused by Dyslexia and how much might be affected by Dyspraxia instead for it affects motor control.

As for reading, owing to my Dyspraxia I am also highly sensitive to light (as with all of my senses) so reading black text on white is a physically painful endeavour for me, the page is too bright, for this reason I have only read 3 physical books in my entire life, all of which were for my many English GCSE attempts. Outside this I only read text that can be displayed as white, or grey, on black, this is not to say I am not a learned individual, I am an Audible subscriber and have well over 500 hours logged to date, I enjoy modern solutions to problems so simple.

What it is like, part two: ADHD

Of the three, this one is by far the worst for me do deal with because it is entirely invisible and for some reason the consensus seems to be that you grow out of it. Let me tell you that you do not, this does not go away, it sticks with you, draining you, it sucks.

Historically it has also been compared to simple laziness, sure, that would seem right. But not for the reasons you may think. I am lazy, not because I do not do anything at all but because I often do not do what I am supposed to be doing or what I am instructed to do, instead my mind decides it wants to focus on something else and absolutely nothing will tear it away.

Put simply if my mind does not want to do something then it will simply not do it, and there is little anyone can do to stop or otherwise interrupt it. Brain-tangents are real, very real, I can be in the middle of a sentence and suddenly my brain decides that nope, you will not be doing that any more, and I have no control.

Sure, at times this can happen to everyone, your brain just goes off on a tangent about something you might have been discussing or thinking about a few hours ago and this is entirely fine, indeed it is normal. For me however it is not so infrequent, it happens in random intervals and random frequencies, I require the leverage of other people to bring me back on topic all the time.

Because of this all my abilities interests and talents are extremely blunt, I know only as much about a topic as my brain let me before it decided that I should instead do something else. I do not really have a hobby, my brain will not let me, I have to do everything in small short stints, I am unable to sit and do the same task for several hours, instead I must flip-flop between three or four tasks whenever my brain decides I must.

I would love to have a hobby, instead I have several dozen low level interests, a few of which are only now, with the 2020 Pandemic Lockdown presenting me more freedom than I might normally have, starting to bloom into something more. And you will not be surprised to note that they are all related to my current studies, something which I can leverage the support of others to get me back on track.

The only exception to this you might say is my thirst for knowledge, one of the great aspects of a mind that is always shooting off on a tangent is that you know a lot of information about a lot of things, not always linked, in this way I am not unlike a walking encyclopedia.

I have mentioned before that I have trouble with self-care, this is because I cannot reliably be expected to carry out normal tasks, I do not remember to do them, my brain will not let me. I have to shave whilst I shower because I know if I do not then whenever it is on my mind I will not be in a situation to do it, I do not allow myself to have a pet because I can barely remember to feed myself, how can I be expected to remember to feed an animal?

Furthermore, I cannot shop, when I say that what I mean is I cannot "browse" the shop. I will have a need to buy a pair of socks or something like that, and I will literally go to the shop and buy just a pair of socks, totally forgetting to even consider that maybe I could to with some more T-Shirts or a pair of trousers because at that time I did not need them.

For this reason my shopping trips tend to be frequent and always small, a sandwich, a shirt, a toothbrush. I cannot do "a weekly shop", my brain will not let me wander, it is all about getting to the next objective. I need a shirt, buy it and leave as fast as possible so that you can get to the next task, whatever the hell that is.

For a multitude of reasons the idea of reminders also does not work for me, I do not make notes half because I know when I find if later I will no longer have the necessary context to understand it and also because I know my mind may not let me find it later, I may not notice it. I require another person who can re-explain the context each time I require it.

Sleeping is a nightmare, because my mind is so sporadic with manners it does not know when it needs to turn off or shut down for a while, so I have to force it into submission, staying up so late that my body is so tired it has to sleep rather than my mind being tired, for it is never tired. I go to bed at 3 or 4 am, I cannot sleep because I cannot switch off, so I regularly wake in the night and the cycle begins again, I wake up tired, I go to bed tired, I go to class tired, I live tired.

I do not think I have had a good night sleep ever.

What it is like, part three: Autism

Of the three this is the hardest for me to quantify and qualify because I do not know my place on the spectrum.

Mentally, part of it is the lack of interest in fitting in, I have always been an outsider and therefore do not understand that urge.

Growing up I was slower to develop, I still am, but directly this caused me to be bullied at school, a lot. This in turn forced me into isolation, which I have never really recovered from, I live alone in this world, only interacting with another person when required to do so.

Equally, because of this isolation at an early age I never learnt to interact with a group, never learnt or experienced the benefits of community, and now I do not really gain anything from it.

So whilst I can say I do not have a draw to socialise, when I do, I also gain little from it. The cycle continues:

I am not drawn in therefore I do not gain → I do not gain therefore I am not drawn in.

I should also say that, because I have always been this way. Likewise, I do not have a sense of loss or feel a longing for contact or social interaction, it is something I have never had therefore I do not know how to or understand how to miss it.

What it means, and does not mean

What does all this mean? Well, it meant nothing, and everything, this is me, this is who I am, this is why I am why I am, this is what defines me, makes me, me, and yet I am so much more.

None of this makes me broken, none of this makes me stupid in fact I consider myself somewhat of an "ultralearner by experience" because of how my mind will draw itself into a topic and then stick with it for hours, days or even weeks, impossible to distract at times.

Whilst all of these conditions may be diagnosed in childhood and seem to be explained in childhood terms none of them exclusively affect childhood, they are life long, they do no go away, you to not grow out of them, you merely learn to adapt because you have to, you do not have the option, you have to fight it every day, forcing yourself to adapt or be left behind even more than you already are.

You have to convince yourself that you can do it, if only you have a moment of concentration long enough and clear enough you can do anything.

My head is beyond packed with ideas, I should know because it bounces between them constantly, right now in the middle of this sentence I just spent 15 minutes staring out of the window because I can hear the wind. Why? Ask my brain, it may know. And when I am able to think about an idea and focus on it, I am blasted by a rampage of other seemingly related thoughts, right now because I am writing I have the urge to listen to the next chapter of a book I bought recently, and I often end up thinking several steps ahead or several edges of abstraction away, unable to clear my mind of the thoughts, unable to switch off.

This uncontrollable urge to think several edges out of several steps ahead fills me with angst and anxiety, indeed I have also been diagnosed with both depression and anxiety, these are why I am so many years behind.

If I seek to complete a large task I cannot, I have to break it up into small chunks and do them each in moderation, going from one section to another when my brain has had enough with the current one, this post was not written in any semblance of order. In an exam or other form of assessment this really becomes an issue I have to fight against for often one question will lead into the next and thus render the second question unanswerable, here I become deadlocked, unable to do B because I have not done A and unable to do A because my brain prefers to do B.

Most of the time however, it is a simple need to complete the task at whatever cost to my mental psyche that forces me through. In an exam you often have a time limit and a finite number of questions you must answer or risk failing that exam, I have to force myself to write something, even if I know deep down that I will be lucky to score just one or two marks for it because only then may I progress onto the next question.

It is for this reason that I much prefer coursework based modules where the time limit is weeks rather than hours, you are able to take that break, go for a sandwich and come back later when your brain is ready to focus on what you want it to.

Somewhere up here, contained in this text is why people still think I am just lazy and do not get things done, I do. Just in the wrong order, because they do not understand or even want to understand why I failed so many times or even notice the crises of mind I have had to go through just to finish one exam paper, usually barely scraping a pass in the last few minutes despite the extra time I receive.

And all of this is just what goes on in my head. I did not have the concentration to finish this section in one blast. I am off to listen to that chapter.

How I cope

Part of coping for me is maintaining my sense of humour, despite everything I may have to fight on a daily basis. Maintaining that has allowed me to retain who I am. Without it, I do not know when or even if I would be able to accept any of what I have written here, as rubbish at it is I can still laugh about things.

As mentioned several times I get over my difficulties in reading from paper by either reading digitally or listening to text via audible instead, writing wise my handwriting has always sucked, so again I do all the writing I can digitally. And I still make several mistakes per sentence or even per word, I counted no less than 8 during this sentence alone.

I do not exactly know what causes it but for some reason I also have great troubles with regulating my body temperature, sometimes I overheat in winter, and sometimes I need a coat during a heatwave. I have been known to consume entire boxes of ice lollies or drink far too much hot tea to cope with this.

The end

I do not expect this will reach anyone nor change the opinion of any reader, but that is not the point, this was mostly written by myself and for myself to maybe one day look back at to see if anything has changed.

That is all, Gnome.