I'm Alice. I am was preliminarily diagnosed last year, but as i'm an adult I would have to pay £300 for an assessment which... I am not that bothered about doing (well not bothered enough to pay £300 to be told on a bit of paper!).
I ... now you'll think this is crazy, please remember I did this before I knew that I was dyspraxic... am a juggler. ha haha! Yeah I know. you would have thought I'd have realised something was up when it took me 3 months to learn the basic pattern (cascade) when other people learn in anything from an hour to a day ey?! Well... I learnt and it's stuck. I love it, even though it takes me a million times longer than others to learn things.
Since being diagnosed I have realised things that I thought were me being thick (or such like) are OK and i've changed my learning styles for it. Which has helped. Instead of going to workshops, getting incredibly frustrated that everyone else is 5 steps ahead of me and i'm stuck on the first thing the workshop leader said an hour ago... I just go up to people individually and ask them to show me something. I understand things take longer, my close friends know now so they are patient with me when I ask them to break things down into basics, then break them down further, then remind me what they just showed me 10 minutes ago, then show me how that arm move goes again, then explain what that ball is doing over there...about 20 times.
It's been such a revelation, also to realise things I thought were quirky things are normal for dyspraxics! Like holding my knife and fork weirdly, walking into things (multiple times), forgetting how to swim (you're meant to never forget?!), checking my keys, purse, phone, oyster card about 20 times before leaving the house yet somehow manage to forget my keys?, finding large groups of people awkward, clicking wrong buttons when registering with forums (who put the 'reset' button on the registration form? seriously, I clicked it about 3 times instead of the submit button!!) etc...
Anyway, enough of me rambling. it's incredibly nice to be here!
Thanks
Alice
