People who do not believe you

[dyspraxicgirl]

Among my friends and acquaintances, only some of them believe me. Usually, the ones I have met as an adult or the ones who are well informed.

My best friend is both gifted and bipolar, when I first told her that I wanted to seek a diagnosis for dyspraxia, she told me I was ridiculous.

"But I am clumsy too !" and "You are intelligent, you are not dyspraxic at all." (Replace "are intelligent" by "do well at school").

Another one who has depression and a genetic disease does not believe me either because I am not depressed and she thinks I only lack of self esteem.

"It's just your personality." "Many people are clumsy." "Speak to a psychologist, you are probably [insert psychological disorder here] like me."


The fact is that you need to have obvious difficulties and fail at everything in order to have a disorder, and most people confuse "clumsy" and "dyspraxia" because they cannot imagine what you are getting through and how hard it has been for you since childhood to improve your skills.

I have new flatmates this year and they all came to ask me whether I had some sort of autistic disorder or dyspraxia because they had worked with kids who had these disorders and thought it was pretty obivous in me. The people I met at the university told me that they were surprised when I had the diagnosis because I was the best student in our class, and then discussed about how many intelligent people have a disorder and how it was inspiring to see some of us succeed.

However, I still have trouble with my family and close friends (apart from one of them who is exceptionnaly intelligent though she does not have a high IQ).

My parents accept it sometimes but feel guilty because they had been told that something was wrong with me (coordination problems, graphic problems, laterality problems, spatial problems, immaturity, pathologically absent-minded, lack of social skills have been written on my record...) yet they insisted that I was fine and that they were just trying to fulfill a classroom.
My dyslexic/ADHD cousin and her mother cannot accept it because I "never acted like my cousin". Great ! Really !

And as for my best friend, as I said, she does not believe me and when I try to explain to her what it means or that my parents had been told about that when I was a child she says : "well, I'm clumsy too and no one said I had a disorder, however I was IQ tested at 9." or "I have a friend who is dyslexic and they diagnose these things early, if not you don't have it."

You know, these people who believe that because they have broken their toe on the cupboard they know everything about clumsiness and how bad you have it.
Except that our clumsiness is pathological and that we have other symptoms.

I really hate those people, especially when they will not take the time to listen to you or get informed. It occured to me that some of them were just jealous or could not accept that someone else would have a handicap or could be intelligent.

[agsiul]

The fact is that you need to have obvious difficulties and fail at everything in order to have a disorder, and most people confuse "clumsy" and "dyspraxia" because they cannot imagine what you are getting through and how hard it has been for you since childhood to improve your skills.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Or the other one is that when you talk about this they say "but why did you get assessed. You are doing fine". All I want to do is scream "how in God's name would you know!It's not like I'm going to go on and on about how hard I'm finding it to do things"

I have new flatmates this year and they all came to ask me whether I had some sort of autistic disorder or dyspraxia because they had worked with kids who had these disorders and thought it was pretty obivous in me. The people I met at the university told me that they were surprised when I had the diagnosis because I was the best student in our class, and then discussed about how many intelligent people have a disorder and how it was inspiring to see some of us succeed.

However, I still have trouble with my family and close friends.

I know exactly what you mean. You're family are going to be the ones that make out that you are doing it to get attention. I was told once that I was a hypocondriac because I said that I was getting migraines and that I had to get medication for Raynauds because i was suffering with the cold!

You know, these people who believe that because they have broken their toe on the cupboard they know everything about clumsiness and how bad you have it.

Don't mind those people. I know exactly what you mean. I wouldn't bother my arse telling anyone about it that wasn't going to be sympatheic because it just makes you feel bad. There is no point trying to convince them because you'll feel like an idiot. Talk to someone who is sympathetic and do your own thing and if you turn up and hour and a half late for an appoitment then say well I couldn't help it!

I really hate those people, especially when they will not take the time to listen to you or get informed. It occured to me that some of them were just jealous or could not accept that someone else would have a handicap or could be intelligent.

I think it could be that they want to feel superiour to you. These are the types of people I've come across anyway.

[Iame]

I aint told many people what my pysch said to me about it being a possibility but I do know what you mean. I have Adult ADHD and only found out more recently and I have people look at me funny if I have to say that to them. It makes me hate saying it even more because I feel like I am going red and cant look at them and feel stupid like a child, so I know I wont be saying anything about anything else in a hurry if I can help it. I couldn't even tell my GP that the psych said that perhaps he can refer me to a nueropsychologist about my 'clumsiness' either so I know it must be so hard to have to some of your friends and family to say the things they do to you about yours.

Maybe it's because they dont understand, or dont want to. Either way it's not nice, I hope some of them will change the way they think sometime soon, but for some people they never will change sadly