Very stressed...

[Confusedgirl]

I am a 28 year old woman who is a doctor.. well almost. I graduated from school with my doctor degree. I still have to wait to hear back for my board scores of one last part of my boards. If I passed, I will have my license. There are three parts to my boards. It took me three times to pass the first and second part. This last part was a practical exam where a proctor watches your clinical skills. Each time I take it, I almost pass. This last time was my fifth time. Still waiting to hear the results. I have felt like giving up so many times and quitting so many times but my parents kept telling me I'm smart enough to be a doctor. I have never been diagnosed with dyspraxia but I think I do have the condition. I know I am smart but it doesn't seem that way. For example, I notice that I do get lost easily and my short term memory has gotten worse. When I'm talking to someone sometimes I lose my train of thought or say the wrong work such as day instead of month. I also have noticed that I work slower compared to my coworkers. I am helping out at a doctor's office until I get my license and am getting paid a little more than a technician. I work part time. The main doctor (my boss) told me today that I'm doing a good job but he wants me to see more patients. He supervises me and sees the patients at the end of each exam once I report to him. He told me I need to be more efficient. I have improved since the beginning of work a few months ago but he thinks I need to improve more. He said he needs to hear it from the staff. I feel like I'm going as fast as I can. If I go too fast, I have a tendency to make careless mistakes. I was always a straight A student until college when I got mostly C's. I was near the bottom of my class in college. Patients like me and say I do a thorough job. I'm not a surgeon. I know my motor skills my whole life haven't been great. I can't peel vegetables and fruits well. I was always bad at sports. Do I have dyspraxia? My parents say that I do not but I feel like I do. I just feel like a failure right now because it took me longer than most of my peers to pass my boards and my boss is complaining I'm not efficient as he'd like me to be. I'm very sad. Also my parents have health conditions which I've been thinking about a lot lately. The guy I was dating lost his job and since then has stopped talking to me saying he doesn't want a relationship. I feel so alone right now. Most of my friends from college moved back home so I don't have many friends here. I feel so alone and not confident. Does anyone have advice for me and does anyone think I have dyspraxia? I am being treated for anxiety and depression but I still feel like I make careless mistakes at work if I rush.

[Andrea]

Hey

Sorry you are feeling so rubbish. It sounds like you have picked a hard enough career without having to deal with everything else. It does souund like you have a lot of dyspraxic traits. I would say get an assessment done. Ive only just had mine done and already feel better about myself.
My parents were the same when I told them the results of the assessment. I know mum doesnt believe it.did you tell your parents all the difficulties? Mine only think of the physical side which I am not thatbad at now. I also think they have spent so long just having me as me that a label has thrown them a bit. Noone wants their child to have problems.
So, my suggestion is to get the assessment and then you will know for sure.
I hope things get easier!

[Confusedgirl]

Thank you. Maybe I will get an evaluation. Does this condition affect intelligence? Can you have bad short term memory with dyspraxia? Also can you lose your train of thought or say the wrong word? What part of the brain is involved? Sorry for all the questions. I just have not found too much info online. My field of specialty isn't the whole body.

[Jim]

No absolutely not, dyspraxia does not affect intelligence.

Some very illustrious people indeed are considered to be Dyspraxic.

[Andrea]

When I had my assessment I asked what it meant for me. She said that although I have some physical challenges, my main things are memory and processing speed. I am constantly forgetting what I wanted to say (even half way through the sentence), where I was going, what I wanted to do etc. Dyspraxia doesnt affect intelligence but it does affect the time it takes to get the intelligence out in a coherent sentence.
As for losing concentration, I do that all the time.
No idea about the brain function I am afraid. I just know the brain is there and its working. lol

[AlleyCat]

People who have dyspraxia and/or related conditions such as ADHD and dyslexia usually have problems with short term memory, otherwise known as working memory. I think of it as being like a computer that doesn't have enough RAM- the cognitive ability is there, but the processing speed isn't fast enough or the results might be unpredictable. There is often an overlap with the symptoms of ADHD and dyslexia, which explains why you can have problems with finding the word you want to say or why you might make errors when doing written tasks. It's difficult to say exactly what it is that goes 'wrong' in the brain to cause dyspraxia, as there are different theories about what causes it. One theory is that there has been an immaturity in the development of the neurons of the brain, another theory is that the brain did not go through the stage of synaptic 'pruning' properly at a young age (meaning there are too many pathways for information to be passed along), yet another theory attributes it to the cerebellum not developing properly (which is the idea behind the Dore programme) and the final theory I can think of is that something happened to affect the development of the right hemisphere of the brain (such as a difficult birth or premature birth). Having said all that however, I have read posts from parents on Dyspraxia USA's Facebook page saying that MRI scans of their dyspraxic children's brains revealed things like unusual brainwaves. Some of the parents have also said that genetic testing revealed that their children had chromosome disorders such as a duplication or deletion of one of the chromosomes. However, this does not mean that dyspraxia is always caused by a chromosome disorder as there are a number of possible causes.

If you come across people being sceptical that you could have dyspraxia because you are 'too intelligent' you need to remember that Stephen Hawking is extremely intelligent despite having very limited movement. It annoys me that some people forget that the cognitive parts of the brain might be working extremely well despite someone having problems in the areas of the brain which are responsible for motor control. Although someone with dyspraxia might struggle to become a surgeon, IMO a person with dyspraxia could still have a successful career as a diagnostician (ie as a General Practitioner or a consultant), so don't be put off becoming a doctor just because you have dyspraxia. We could do with more people in the medical profession who can empathise with people who have this condition!

[nickye]

Hi, yes I agree it would be great to have more doctors who know about dyspraxia! I've had quite a struggle for anyone to believe it's not just a case of depression and anxiety. The good thing is that now I have a diagnosis I feel better than I did and the depression and anxiety are much less now.
I got a diagnosis about a month ago (in my 40s) and went privately. Some of my scores (for English, reading, writing) can out really high and others (for practical things, and certain listening tasks/some short-term memory) came out way below average.
It's a hard thing, because it's very difficult to explain to people and for people to understand that you can do very well in some areas and not in others.
I think it would be worth going for an assessment, obviously it's a personal thing. The plus side is that I find people who have dyspraxia do have a lot of patience and understanding for other people (not that I'm biased!) When I worked in a pre-school they said I had a lot of patience with special needs children and yet I really struggled to do the kitchen duties and put up equipment!
It may be that you can specialise in a certain area where you don't need to do lots of multi-tasking and practical tasks. The lady who diagnosed me said there are simple exercises and brain-training type things which I can do, which I have started doing a bit of, and they do seem to help.
Good luck with everything, and hope it all goes well. This forum is really good, it has been a life-saver for me!

[Jim]

I think of it as being like a computer that doesn't have enough RAM- the cognitive ability is there, but the processing speed isn't fast enough or the results might be unpredictable.

I like that analogy. It reminds me of one I use when I have to tell people off for all speaking to me at once. If they're computer savvy I'll ask them if they remember what MS Windows software used to do when you overloaded the computer with tasks, it crashed to the blue screen "the dreaded blue death" well that's what my head is like when several people talk to me all at once. My operating system (the brain) can't process the information and crashes.

[screengreen]

Hi
I would definitely get an assessment, I am an OT and struggling in the NHS with not being efficient enough, I often find that I loose track of what I am going to say.... not so good when you are health professional but I have a small note pad and jot things down, I am up front with service users and explain that I am jotting things down to help me to remember as what they say is important, it helps me to be a little more efficient as do templates for assessments etc. Also it won't help if you are anxious as when you are anxious your higher brain tends to shut down making you less efficient that you could be. My understanding of the brain parts affected are that its all in the brain stem and cerebellum, and its to do with the conections which link up vestibular (head position) sense, proprioception (body position) sense, visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile stimuli, you may like to look up sensory processing disorder on the internet in terms of brain function, Also I can recommend anything by AJean Ayres. Hope this is not a rambling and makes some sense all the best Screen