Am I dyspraxic?

[essentials12]

My doctor suggested that I might be dyspraxic and asked that I write down how I feel so that he can pass my notes to a psychologist. Reading up on the condition, I think he might be right (to a minor degree), but I was wondering what anyone else out there thought. I will include what I wrote for him below -

I think that most of my problems stem from the way that I think; I'm sure that my brain does not organise and systematise information in the same way it does in others. I don't think that it's a problem with my intelligence, as I got good grades at school and a 2.1 degree from a decent university. I just simply cannot organise my thoughts or behaviour, as hard as I try. This makes holding down a job extremely difficult as I cannot seem to recall any information offhand and my work really suffers from my complete inability to file in any logical system. I find that my thought processes are often quite slow also; although I know that I am capable of most work given to me, I can't seem to grasp what people are saying as they're saying it, so it takes me a long time to process any new information. My almost non-existent memory also makes everyday life quite embarrassing, and I have found myself shying away from social situations as I am ashamed that people think I'm stupid.

It is mainly because of these things that my anxiety comes about. When I can't process information, or I can't recall something, or my lack of organisation gets the better of me, it sends me into a panic. My vision gets blurry, my speech becomes even more chaotic than usual and when people talk to me, I cannot understand a word they're saying as hard as I listen. This of course makes work from this point onwards completely impossible, and if anyone gives me anything more than a little complicated to do, I am liable to have a panic attack. I have had about 4 of these in the last few weeks at work and it's got to the point now where I'm so petrified of it happening again, that I think I will have to give up this job. When I have a panic attack, it feels like the walls are closing in around me, I start to hyperventilate and cry, and it feels like I might have a heart attack because my heart is beating so fast. It is completely petrifying and I need to find a way of making them stop because it is beginning to really hinder my quality of life.

I am taking 20mg Citalopram currently and I have had CBT, but these don't seem to have got to the bottom of my problems. I am certainly less anxious than I was, but they haven't stopped the panic attacks and they haven't helped me with the problems in the first paragraph. I feel like there must be something I can do, or someone I can speak to about both the anxiety and the other problems that I've mentioned. The way I'm feeling has really affected the way I feel about life, and has made me so depressed in the past that I've had suicidal thoughts. Since I was about 13 years old, I have always dealt with some form of depression/anxiety, and I'm starting to think that maybe my disordered way of thinking may have something to do with this. I used to self harm quite a lot and have had sporadic bouts of debilitating depression, which also crop up now when things start to seem insurmountable.


I would love to get to the bottom of this as I'm so exhausted trying to explain my behaviour away, and with feeling overwhelmingly incompetent at day-to-day life. I hope someone out there can shed some light on the way that I'm feeling; if you have any advice, it is most welcome.

Thank you.