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[Daniel]

Coming to terms with the concept of having a disability can take a good while to get used to Ruth. If you've got severe dyspraxia (and the result you mentioned seems to indicate that) then you shouldn't feel the least bit undeserving of the help you've received.

I did a quick Google of the Freedom Pass to see what the eligibility requirements are from the point of view of disability. There are 3 which might be relevant to users here:

people who have a disability, or have suffered an injury, which has left them with a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to walk

people who have a learning disability, that is defined as, a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning

people who, if they applied for the grant for a licence to drive a motor vehicle under Part III of the Road Traffic Act 1988, would have there application refused pursuant to section 92 of the Act (physical fitness) otherwise than on the ground of persistent misuse of drugs or alcohol.

More info at: http://www.freedompass.org/disabledusers.htm (which incidentally displays very poorly in Firefox).

Whether these rules would be the same for getting travel passes in other areas I don't know, although I suspect they would be similar.

Ruth, I'm glad you've found the forum useful in helping you to express yourself. That's a good sign it's serving its purpose. I hope others have been finding the forum of similar use.

[Snjstar]

I know there is a free travel pass for west yorkshire buses

[parnassus]

To qualify for my Disabled Students' Allowance, I had to turn over my educational psychologist's and occupational therapist's reports and go for a two-hour interview with a very kind, understanding man who asked me lots of questions about how I felt about my disability and the strategies I use to cope. He listened attentively and then got me to try out different kinds of equipment. He said, "Tell me honestly if you think this is going to work for you. I don't want to give you things you don't need and withhold things you do need. That wouldn't be fair on you or on the other disabled students who come here needing help."

I was given a laptop, a printer, a PDA, some specialist software, a different kind of chair, and funding for up to two hours' non-medical support each week. I know that I genuinely need these things - I write at a speed of fourteen words per minute (most people write at twenty-two words per minute) and it causes me a great deal of pain. In an exam, that adds up. By the time we're through ten minutes of the paper the other students will have written eighty words more than me. At twenty minutes they'll have written at least one hundred and sixty more words. (My handwriting gets slower after a few minutes because my wrist starts to spasm.) And by this time I will be missing words and whole sentences out - I think so much faster than I can write - and my handwriting will be illegible. When I type and take extra time, I don't have any physical problems to bypass - I am on an equal footing with everyone else.

That's the point of DSA: to put us on an equal footing. I am sure most of us will have met, and been hurt/angered by, people who think they ought to be president of the British Psychological Society even though they're totally ignorant of all this. People who say that dyspraxia doesn't exist. People who call us scroungers. If they read some of the things that have been said on this thread, they would probably take it as substantial proof that their prejudices are true. Please don't accept help you know you don't need. It is not the government's responsibility to make us be honest - MPs are not paid to be nannies. We're honest about our difficulties in assessments, so why not be honest about our strengths? Omission of the truth is as bad as a full lie.

Regarding free travel passes, I am going to try and acquire them as I have been told that my dyspraxia is too severe for me to drive.

[Shadwell]

well as for myself, then I did feel issolated, and angry as I never knew why I had such problems, and felt really down because of it,

now I know, then I am looking of ways to change it, and accepted more or less from the word go!

it was so much better to know than not! as trying to explain to people what problems had, going for tests all the time, feeling like me, and my parent's were head bangers!! as we hit so many brick walls trying to get answers out of speciallists! the gp never told us the test results!

so actually it was a shock and a relief the day I found a medical report that said I was Dyspraxic in my medical records! even though I didn't find out for a couple of days until I picked up the photocopy!

but those extra couple of days I had a sense that I had stumbled across something good, and I knew from the moment I seen the header that it was worth getting a photocopy.

now I can say yes, that is the problem, and this is how I am feeling, it is up to other people then to check up on the condition!

so don't take it too hard, it is better knowing than not to know for 19 years! of a medical report