Sorry I'm late

[Marie]

Hi there,

I've already posted, but I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm Marie, I'm 47, from the West Mids, a mother of three grown-up daughters and a relatively young grandmother.

From a young age I have felt different to other people. It's only been since my grandson started nursery school and the teachers identified ASD that I started looking into neurodiverse conditions and how they could explain some of the struggles I have had throughout my life.

I was first in contact with Child and Family Services when I was 14, and over the years have been diagnosed with tic disorder, OCD and CFS. In my 20's I was treated for depression, but I've always maintained this was a mis-diagnosis as I don't think I've ever been depressed – I was just struggling to cope. I'm currently being assessed for autism which seems like a much better explanation. I'm looking at ways to get a formal Dyspraxia diagnosis alongside.

I have always been known as 'clumsy', 'scatter-brained', 'dippy', 'forgetful' and I even had a button badge with the words 'SORRY I'M LATE' because I was so often late. I'm also creative, considerate and a good problem-solver, so I just written my weaknesses off as some of my many quirks and have carried on as best as I could.

Learning about Dyspraxia has been such an eye-opener! Up until now I have only ever met one adult who, like me, doesn't know her left from right, clockwise from anticlockwise. I can literally walk into the toilets in a pub or cafe then when I'm done I have no idea which direction to turn to get back to my table. I mix up the hot and cold taps in my own bathroom because they're not colour-coded and the writing on the top is so small. Analogue clocks are a no-go, they're nice to look at but I struggle to use them to tell time.

One of the biggest issues I have is crossing the busy road at the end of my street; unlike other people I can't spot a gap in the traffic and just go for it as I can't judge speed and distance like other people do. The amount of times I've been with a group of people and they all cross the road leaving me on the other side.

I'm so glad this forum exists, I feel really validated reading other people's experiences

[Tom fod]

Hi again Marie

Thanks for posting an intro. I'm quite common for people to come to a realisation when a family member is identified as being Neurodivergent. I came to this Forum about 12 yrs ago after learning I was most dyspraxic in my mid thirties. Up till then I'd assumed I was visually impaired and inept/incapable.

It is regrettably far too common that people receive diagnoses for mental health conditions but the underlying ND conditions are missed. There is a growing recognition that dyspraxia and other ND conditions are too often missed in the female population. I've recently, in a FB Group group I Admin, learned of someone who was assessed for Autism but been diagnosed as having dyspraxia.

Life in a Neurotypical world can be a struggle and/or a nightmare and too often other peoples or our own unreasonable/unrealistic(?) expectations of ourselves can tear holes in our self confidence as we navigate a world while trying to mask our ND traits.

Not a fan of analogue timepieces either as I have to think/look extra hard to work out the time or visualise clockwise/anti clockwise when tightening or untightening things. I definitely have an uncanny ability to walk in completely the wrong direction. You could possibly get something blue or red to stick on your taps or the tiles behind them. It was only while thinking about this that I've come to realisation that convention is for the hot tap to be on the left.

There are a lot of the support groups on socal media and it can feel a bit like we're a forgotten backwater here. However, I still v much feel this Forum has a lot of advantages over socal media which can be very fractious amd polarised.This forum was created back in Jan 2006. I found and joined it in 2011.