Dyspraxia and me
I hear a collective groan across the country when my friends see that I’ve started blogging again. Not because my blogging is terrible, but because when I tried to be consistent with posting regularly I utterly failed.
There was the travel blog that came in fits and spurts, the bake off blog which started and suddenly stopped and the mental health blog which invariably started with the line “I’m sorry I haven’t posted sooner, I promise I’ll do better in future.”
Well, firstly please let me assure you that this is a rare occurrence. Secondly, let’s unpack my failure to consistently blog a bit today, because it’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week and trust me, it’s relevant.
I found out I was neurosparkly at 21 when the option of an assessment came up at university. I had pent my entire academic career being told by teachers and tutors that I “didn’t listen,” or “talked too much,” until that one teacher at A-level said something different. “I know you better now and you don’t learn like other people.” — Mrs Evans-Mathias I think about you often!
Fast forward to my MA year assessment and I’m diagnosed with Dyspraxia which, I was reliably informed at the time, meant that my motor skills were impacted — I was clumsy, I thought. But I’m not just clumsy. Thanks to organisations like the Dyspraxia Foundation I now have a much clearer picture of how much dyspraxia affects my everyday life. Let’s list the categories, because I love a list.
Fine motor skills (FM) (how well small muscles function).
Gross motor skills (GM) (how well large muscles function).
Executive function (EF) (information processing).
As you can see, being ‘clumsy’ is such a small part of dyspraxia!
On a daily basis, from the beginning of my day just brushing my teeth (FM) to walking for the school run (GM, EF) to settling down to write (FM/EF) my brain is working over time not just to send the ‘simple’ signals to my muscles, to walk or to stand in good posture (GM) but to process functional activity and thought while also trying to filter sensory information (EF).
Let's look at my regular Monday morning. I do the school run and go to a cafe I feel comfortable in. Most people might walk into the crowded cafe and just think ‘it’s loud’ but for my brain, it’s like I’m a cat on a hot tin roof in the middle of a busy m market square. My thoughts skitter and dance as I try to make the decision of what to eat while focusing on reading and absorbing the information from a menu while translating my bodies cravings and depth of hunger through the acute awareness of every scrape and laugh and smell around me. Then I try to talk, to communicate, to form words coherently while recalling the information I have processed, whilst remembering to be polite and, because I don’t always understand body language or indirect language, tuning into what I perceive as a persons emotional state (a coping mechanism learned over time to trust my empathetic instincts) to tell me if they’ve understood.
I’m already tired when I try to set my mind to writing, I’m searching for the right crevice in my mind where the information on writing and my story lives. Imagine it as riding a bike for the first time in ages but doing that every day. I have to remember language, grammar, I need to recall context and history and the rules of engagement with the craft of storytelling. Where most (neurotypical) people learn skills to the point that they aren’t actively noting each element that makes up a process, I remember and dissect every single grain of a process but I also often forget a step and have to backtrack.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
I lose time, known as time blindness, regularly and I have to refer back to the same source material a dozen times before I can work out how it plugs into the story I’m writing – even thought I knew enough about said source material to remember to refer to it in the first place.
I’m a visual and oral learner but I have to take information which is presented in an ‘ordered’ way and reassemble it so that I can find the route that works for my brain without inducing stimulus overwhelm.
The fact that I follow the same routine, go to the same cafe and order the same food (even sit in the same seat where I can) is a result of habitual masking and a learned technique to reduce the mental strain so that I can be as productive and regulated as possible.
Let’s consider instead a kids party. An often chaotic atmosphere where I need to parent whilst also socialise. I’m multitasking, keeping tabs on how my child is feeling or responding to the party entertainment: is he happy, is he safe, is he dehydrated. Other parents, some who I know and some who I don’t, want to chat about life, kids, work, experiences and I need to listen, to actually hear and process their words so that I can respond appropriately and not come across as disinterested or manic. I’m absolutely overwhelmed by multiple stimuli occupying a single space. My self esteem is vulnerable because I am already at capacity and practicing grounding techniques is a thought that has escaped my mind, the constant inside voice is preempting every answer, clutching on to words and how they relate to me so that I can give an answer that shows empathy or interest or critical thinking. I’m planning out whole sentences or even conversations which change on the eddy of a new thought and send me off in another direction; plucking from the sea of options to find appropriate counter topics (I say something that haunts me for being socially inept, every day!) Physically, my eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of my fizzing head and my body is a claustrophobic vessel; a cage.
A child hits my child, it’s totally innocent but I’m painfully aware of how other people perceive my parenting, I’m trying to control my emotions, the panic, the worry, so I can help my 4 year old regulate his emotions while my own are going haywire. My whole body goes into danger mode because my anxiety is screaming at me over the noise and complexities of conversation and social interaction. I’m desperate to do my best, not to project my own inner struggles on to my child so that he can enjoy himself.
Honestly, all children’s parties leave me in a broken down car with no petrol state. I have to sit quietly in a calm, uncluttered room, with low light but not in complete silence because the contrast is too much too soon. I can’t speak or communicate or plan for a time just so I can go downstairs and make dinner.
So, back to blogging. Why is it such a trial when I have so many ideas and enthusiasm? Because unless I schedule in time regularly, unless I’m rested enough to think coherently, unless I have time to plan and plan and plan and write and edit, it becomes the thing that feels too heavy to navigate against the backdrop of everyday life. Because, if I make it through those hurdles, when it’s (the blog) out in the world, I spend days obsessing over if people have read it, if people think it’s good, or awful or if they’re just being polite or if actually I’m not good enough of a writer at all. The whole process comes with an enormous emotional toll where my mental health soars on a high of productivity and then plummets into dissociative self-doubt.
But this one (blog) felt important. Dyspraxia means that I am not always capable of representing myself, my thoughts, my feelings, as clearly as I feel them or see them in my mind. There’s a disconnect between my brain and my body and it leaves me feeling like I don’t fit in ALOT. Despite also knowing that I’m good at connecting with people –and I enjoy it too. It means knowing that I’ve worked really hard on my writing, but maybe people will see one misspelled word and think I’m not good enough — I absolutely know the difference between there, their and they’re but I have to concentrate a lot harder to remember the appropriate spelling, it’s the same with course, coarse and corse or loose and lose. It’s not an intellectual deficiency but a processing disorder that makes everyday exhausting. The irony being then when someone says “so what is dyspraxia,” I can’t process the words, the memory of the academic information, quickly enough to concisely tell them. If you know me, you might think differently, but I’ve been masking my whole life and some days I’m better at it than others.
I could go into how Dyspraxia is also my ‘superpower’, but alot of people feel like championing the innate outside of the box thinking that comes with neurodiversity is how society justifies its ableist and neurotypical superior attitude. I don’t know if I feel this way exactly, I know that I feel often like I’m a fraud sitting under the disabilities act, but there’s not a more appropriate act to cover neurodiversity and to help ward against discrimination based on a lack of understanding of my neurological condition.
I also know that I’m proud of my thorough, almost obsessive, planning capabilities. It what makes me good at writing and event planning (my bread and butter). I’m a creature of habit but my adaptability is more than most people can comprehend. But I also know that conventions that are pegged as equalisers or from a place of equality are often created by neurotypical people who don’t consider equity as a base standard.
Hopefully this post has clarified the real life impact of dyspraxia, and helped dispel any lingering cynicism about the ‘neurodiverse popularity train’ that some people might have.
For me, knowing more about my condition has led me down rabbit holes like; how many neurodiverse people were called ‘mad’ throughout history, or called witches or stupid and how many times is this sort of thinking still in action today? Knowing that my anxiety is closely linked to processing the world has made me realise how resilient I actually am. I’m on a speeding train every single day, I’m adding more carriages and there’s no sign of stopping, or even resting.
Doing the best I can, is ENOUGH.
And yes, oversharing or lack of filter is also a trait.
See you on the other side of my blog posting wave!
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