Hello from Pembrokeshire

[Landskerlad]

Where to start (hate having to talk about myself)

I'm 23, born and bred in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales - Love Photography, Motorbikes and exploring long forgotten places (love Urbex!).

I worked for the local authority for 4 or 5 years as a Passenger Assistant, taking children to and from the local School for Learning Difficulties, before making a career change in June this year and becoming a Support Worker for Vulnerable Adults - I find the job immensly enjoyable, but difficult.

I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia early in my childhood, had speech problems (was using improvised sign language) until I was roughly 8 years old, had one to one support throughout all of Primary school, and was taken out of mainstream in Secondary school. Throughout all of Secondary school I was mainly in the ALN department, and also failed pretty much every GCSE I took.

I don't remember much from the age of 16 and below, and when I try to remember it's like a thousand mile per hour wind picking everything up inside my head and spinning it all around ... I've never been able to successfully reach in and grab anything.

What I do know however, is that until the age of 17, I point blank refused to accept there was anything wrong with me - I refused a lot of external help that was offered to myself, in the belief that I could do it on my own. Turns out, I couldn't do it on my own.

I struggle big time with memory loss, especially short term memory - I write things down to remind myself of stuff and I then lose what I've written down (or it's right in front of me but I can't see it), I also struggle with speech - Around people I know, I'm not too bad, but people I don't know, or groups, and words come out backwards, I completely fail to pronounce words, and at times I just can't get the sentence in my head out as speech.

I also suffer with anxiety, get stressed and frustrated very easily, and have sleeping problems - I often wake up thinking I've swalled headphones, and can actually see the cord hanging out my mouth ... 5 minutes later I'm okay again and nothing is there ... I suffer from a lot, but won't bore you all with it!

Anyways, on to my work life ...

I started off okay in my current job, I was honest from the start with my employer about what I have, and they took me on knowing this ... Fast forward 6 months and I'm now struggling big time. I seem to get more bad days than good, and things I know how to do I forget a lot of the time - My Co-workers don't have much confidence in my abilities at work, even though I give my best 99% of the time ... If people around me knew half of what I was battling with day in and out then they'd be in for a shock!

My main reason for wanting to become a Support Worker was because I DO, to a degree, understand how difficult it is living with a Disability - I have a better understanding than the majority of my Co-workers thanks to my own experiences ... BUT, I am also battling day in and out with what I have, and this is what many people don't see - What they see, is a bloke who is lazy or doesn't care ... They couldn't be further from the truth!

Thanks to that though, most days It feels like the walls are closing in, and that I can't do my job properly (that I am always in the wrong) ... I've been told to let it go etc... Aint that easy though!

Anyway, sorry for such a long post!

[Tom fod]

Hi and welcome

Apologies for not responding sooner

I think it sometimes depends on who is trying to help and how and to be fair to those kind enough to want to help and to ask me what is needed before pitching in, it is not always easy to put your finger on what it is you need in terms of help, before the additional challenge of expressing what is needed in words. I usually tend to prefer to be given the chance to work things out for myself but we're all different in terms of our learning styles.

I find I care too much so when things go wrong it's often a bigger catastrophe for me and I'm not always good at letting go as I'm a perfectionist in a less than perfect world.

Have there been significant management or organisational changes where you work? I learned about my dyspraxia through ending up in a situation where organisational change was causing me stress and I was no longer clear where I fitted in and where my responsibilities began and ended and I was trying to take on far too much Of course it was me that was wrong, rather than the organisation, but I digress. In some ways it was a lightbulb moment in others I was worried what any label would mean in terms of how people would see me. (back to caring too much).

Anyway I hope you find our site helpful and thanks to responding to Dr_Who's post.