I'm Saz.. I'm a 37y.o. dyspraxic lady & I love my dyspraxia!! (most of the time that is!!) My god I never had so much fun!! No, really it's left me a broken child, a broken woman, a broken everything, but it's also made me who & what I am.. which is different, most peeps say!! These days I'm a happy productive possitive product of all the brokeness of the "lost years" ~ theres much we can learn to do for ourselves & how! I've become quite fierce without the temper, I'm assertive, I'm able, I'm up for every challenge thrown at me. I'm alive!!!
I was diagnosed by accident as a teenager, sadly after I'd already "given up" after being written off as troublesome, stupid, lady, unhelpful etc, you all know the rest eh? But all it was, so clear & obvious to me know, was I just did not know how to apply myself... and to be patient with my self & others impatience of me.
Fast forward after 20years of drug/drink abuse & sleeping rough & all sorts of other stuff. I realised that the ritalin they tried on me that I liked but then they took away from me, that I then had to go & get for myself, which was street speed, had probably only helped me really for the first 6months or year of my addiction. So I got off it (20years!?), thanks for the help NHS ~ she says with some sarcasm.. thanks to ME & then I found that something marvellous had happened during those lost years.
It took a while, I was busy struggling to come to terms with myself still, it took me 5 years to get clean with no help, after all I wasn't an alchoholic or a herion user.. but when I did I found I'd learned so many coping techniques that actually I was doing fine, better in fact than a lot of people I know. And in my self-indulgant miseries over the years I'd buried myself in a lot of books.. and found I actually had quite a good brain.. So what does one do? One gets a proper job!!
Fast forward a few more years and here I am. I'm clean & sober & happy with who & what I am. I'm the manager of a payroll firm, which is funny coz I'm completely dyscalculia aswell. I'm a fantastic organiser & I enjoy the struggle, whats left of it. Everything became a game for me at one stage, long ago, a challange, and now I really like to get my teeth stuck into it. Whether its holding a plate without dropping it & smashing it when I'm washing up, or putting a key in a lock, or trying to say something simple like "I'll have a coffee, black, no sugar thanks" without accidently asking for a cup of teatowels with frogs, well ~ it gets me by.. *G*
The joy of embracing the "clown" dyspraxia has made me, too has done several things. I got a sense of humour, which is good because I was a bloody miserable child. I got a tougher skin(much). I found I got lots of friends who were mostly not quite patient enough, but embraced my self-depreciating humour, which was as relentless as the struggle we all here face.
Its a tough one dypraxia, I mean its not visible. Its what was once called (in my day as a child) "clumsy child syndrome" ~ that didn't help as most of our parents of that age would be ashamed, learn nothing of the problem & shrug us off as hopeless. Who were we to know about motor control, the car worked fine! My father, much as I love him still flatly refuses to try to understand it, despite my positive attitude. My mother well she tried to, but by the time I could tell her, she still hadn't heard it from an official so it still wasn't really valid was it?
It's so heart warming for me to see the tides turning & a lot of kids (not still though yet is it?) getting properly diagnosed a lot earlier & being helped properly. I didn't even know what dyspraxia was until I was 30. I sort of understood my problems because I had to cope with the damned things, analytical an an accountant I am. All those years being embarrassed for myself & frustrated at myself, but not a complete waste after all coz look at me now.. & best of all I found my confidence. Thats priceless, and no-one can take that from you once you find it. At 30 it all fell into place & I'm happy to report a rather late but fun childhood occuring in my 30's, doing everything I can that I missed out on. And I just don't care if I fall over, drop everything can't catch, my god but I make up for it by throwing!!
So about me now LOL ~ well you know the bad bits already. I'm also an artist & writer.. gosh who knew I'd find a talent for writing? I say HA! to the useless incompetent English teachers of my time! Ha! Oh yes! And what else? I'm a punk rocker, fat, nearly 40 & post a lot on a spiritual/metaphysical forum.. I do some reiki & some astrology & I do anything suggested LOL ~ I'm your local maven.. Always got an answer.. goodness knows I did my reasearch on everything before I tried to touch it in case I'd break it LOL
Cheers.
Saz
x
