Am I dyspraxic?

[Arc]

Hello everyone, nice to be here!

I'm a 20 year old college student and recently I started taking up driving classes and they've been doing sort of horribly, I did some research online about my difficulties and came across a post of a person with this disorder and their problems were exactly like mine which surprised me. And after researching this disorder I could really relate to some of the symptoms.

As a kid and t I was really clumsy and had trouble with a lot of things, all kids my age loved playing soccer but I hated it because I was very clumsy which kind of resulted in some social alienation because all the kids played soccer and I just kind of didn't want to because I didn't like it. I didn't learn how to tie shoelaces until very very late and to be honest still have some difficulties with it, I can do it just takes me a bit longer than most people. I was very clumsy, forgetful, have a tendency to break/lose things. I'm super messy, disorganized though I'm much better at this now.

I couldn't distinguish left from right until very late, and the way I found to cope with this was to basically to imagine a list with alphabet the opposite way around, L comes first that means that's my left and right is afterwards. To this day I still can't do it by instinct at all times.

I was and still am a super picky eater too, some flavors make me a bit sick and nauseous. I'm super creative, and I have a tendency to just daydream a lot but I could never put my creativity to work my drawing skills were beyond horrible. I failed art in middle school. I tried learning how to play the piano as a kid but I was horrible at it, and cannot for the life of me dance properly, but I still enjoy doing it very much.

My handwriting was awful, and my grip is a bit too hard, not hard as in break the paper hard, the way I found to improve it was to write with my hand slightly to the right so I could have some more control and overall make it look nicer. I write in italic basically.

Never really had any trouble typing on the computer for example, I have this tendency to make connections that most people don't really think about, I'm great at coming up with theories but I can't multi task, and I tend to get fully absorbed on one task for example to a scary extent, but I can't manage like 2-3 at the same time.

I just couldn't learn almost any sports, I remember my parents teaching me how to ski and I could not for the life of do it properly. My dad used to get super frustrated and yell at me like crazy. My parents were a bit harsh on me always calling me clumsy a lost case and referring to me as such and I kind of developed a really low self esteem, and some anxiety problems later on, didn't really help I was kind of bullied due to my clumsiness. I struggled trough depression and became very sensitive to what other people tought of me and was very hard on myself but over time I got better and managed to develop a more positive attitude towards thing.

I just kind of want to have some opinions if I have this disorder or not because in a way i'd make me feel better to know I'm not the only person out there with this or if maybe it's just because I legitimately don't pay attention to things enough. It would just be nice there's actually a justification to all these problems I've been having and it's not just because I don't really pay attention to anything like most people have told me throughout my life. It would just make me feel better because I know for someone who have had this disorder I have been trying my best in learning how to cope with it.

[Tom fod]

Hi Arc

Your experiences sound much like my own and probably those of many other people. Feel free to make yourself at home here.

You don't have to be formally assessed and in many cases getting/finding an expert to carry out an assessment can be a bit of a lottery. I think it's very much a personal thing as to whether you pursue it and there are plenty of accounts of peoples experiences here in these forums. Many of us do pursue it as recognition is quite important to us in some ways though equally we don't want to be defined by a label. Unfortunately awareness and help can be quite hard to find and it very much seems to be a case of developing our own coping strategies and working harder to try to achieve. It's hard work but we can do it as we're well used to working hard at things, because we have to.

All the best!

Tom