by likeasheep » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:32 am
Hi,
I'm Eleanore and I'm 18 and last year, I was given a full assessment at my college to assess my requirements for exams. I'd originally only gone for it because I've got hypothyroidism and I thought that this was the reason for my slow processing speed and my inability to write quickly. But, now that I've had the assessment, I got the results back so that I could take them to an audition I had at Canterbury Christ Church University and so they went through my results with me. It turned out that I was both dyspraxic and dyslexic, and now, I'm just starting to get help for it all and have, after being angry at myself for quite some time, started to come to terms with it.
I always knock everything over and it's so bad that I'm not even allowed to use a glass or a china mug at home - I have to use plastics (just glasses made out of plastic) and I have a metal mug that's got rubber around the handle so that if it drops or knocks over, I don't feel bad for smashing something. I have problems with my spacial awareness and I find it hard to know exactly where and what I'm doing, but that probably doesn't make sense... I can't be touched unless it's on my own terms and I'll shy away from even a pat on the arm unless I've definitely been expecting it or if I've initiated the contact. I walk into people and I walk into things and I trip up stairs and I trip down stairs which always used to be a problem for me when I was at school because to get to our library, you had to go down one staircase, and then straight up another and I'd always fall over. But... despite all this, I never realised what was wrong with me, and I just thought I was really clumsy. Now I know better and I've had it all explained to me by my support officer, Pam. She's really sweet about everything and has explained it all perfectly. I didn't even know what dyspraxia was.
I lose concentration easily and I find it hard to focus if I'm being distracted with anything at all. But I'm not stupid. Before I had support, I was doing timed essays in class at an A Level standard and only getting about 6/30 because I'd get so distracted or that I couldn't focus and because my writing speed was so slow, but now that I've been getting support, I've had two mock exams and come out with a B in one and an A in the other. I'm not an idiot, and it makes me angry that people think that. But now, people are really seeing it, and the other day when my lecturer was talking about the highest marks for some essays she'd had in, she said that the highest one she'd got was 30/35 and a girl who sits next to me told me that it would be me who got it... and it was. I'm feeling a lot better now that I know what's wrong with me, and now that I'm getting all the help I need.
I still get a little upset, though. My dad doesn't understand. He shouts at me for doing what he calls "extreme movements" that are sometimes the only way that I know how to move; like the other day, I dropped something and I had to move quickly to pick it up before the dogs got it, and he just shouted and shouted and told me to stop moving "like a mental". And my mum, even though I know she does it in a jokey way, goes around telling people that I'm "special needs". At my audition in Canterbury, she told everyone that I was and... I don't want it a secret, but I don't want to go around telling complete strangers. I tried telling her this, and she couldn't see where I was coming from. Does this make sense...?
I joined this forum, hoping to find other teenagers like me who've had the same sorts of problems and I wonder how many other people had so much difficulty with academic work despite being absolutely capable of doing it if intelligence was the only thing that mattered? How many other people have dyspraxia and something else like I do?
Thank you so much for reading this, if you have.
Eleanore x
Last edited by
likeasheep on Mon Feb 21, 2011 2:18 am, edited 2 times in total.