Any dyspraxics want to chat?

[bicyclesaredeathtraps]

Hi!
On a thread the other day it became apparent that there's quite a few dyspraxic women on here. I thought it would be nice to have somewhere to chat, about coping mechanisms for work, family, whatever, what we wish we'd known, diagnosis and so on - or anything you like! As-yet-undiagnosed people are of course welcome, as it's practically impossible to get diagnosed as an adult on the NHS 🙄
I'd appreciate it if this remained a space for adult dyspraxics though, rather than people wondering if their child might be - we can spend a lot of time explaining it so it's nice to have a break
I hope some of you join me!

Ugh door handles should be banned
Not sure how we'd open the doors without them though!
Had a sensory overload experience today which didn't help the self esteem - how's everyone else getting on?

By eating chocolate !

Massive deadline at work, in my role recently promoted I need to coordinate the work to get it done from other senior managers and their teams, but lots of emails flying around really stressing me out as I simply can't cope with the number of emails - so I scoffed a snickers at 10.30 to calm my nerves.

I guess due to dyspraxia my coping mechanism is breaking down complex tasks into small manageable ones and plain English and it was that skill that supported my and I got the internal job I went for

Eating chocolate is definitely a valid coping mechanism! You've made me want a Snickers now....
Good luck with the deadline

Love this thread - hope you don’t mind me joining in! I’m diagnosed ASD but no diagnosis For dyspraxia. Didn’t see the point as I’m in my 40s and would have to pay privately. However, I am classic textbook case and feel much better after realising that this is likely the reason for a lot of difficulties I have.
I relate to almost everything on this thread. I was never able to learn how to ride a bike, dance or ice/ roller skate, much to my parents dismay. I did manage to learn to drive with a bit of time, though I don’t parallel park ever and would rather park miles away and walk the rest of the way.
Door handles give me the rage, I’m always getting stuck on them and constantly walking into doors/ walls. Just a few days ago, I somehow managed to give myself a black eye from having a drink 🤷‍♀️ Glass of water somehow missed my mouth, I caught my elbow on the wall and then managed to smash the glass hard into my eye! Nobody would ever believe that - it’s so ridiculous.
I drop things all the time and lose things a lot. I am disorganised and struggle massively with executive function (though hard to say how much of that is my autism). My muscle strength is very poor and my core is almost non existent. I also get a lot of aches and pains.
I am more accepting of these things now and laugh at myself but my parents bullied me terribly when I was younger and mocked/ shouted at me for being different. I was often shouted at or hit for dropping and breaking things (I went through a lot of mugs)

Just come back from a weekend away and sometimes like this weekend I just realise how hard I find things.

For some reason I just couldn't tie my shoelaces on my trainers which is slightly embarrassing at the age of 45.

Took us ages to get out in the morning as I just can't get organised

Even plating my daughters hair was really hard work and I end up getting really stressed and bothered doing it

Due to Covid there were various rules where we were and even something simple like telling me to go left and I promptly go right is embarrassing 😢

I'm very lucky that I've always had a driveway and very, very rarely have to park anywhere that requires proper parallel parking. It's a skill that is horrendously atrophied and I'm the kind of person that finds it less faff to park a mile away somewhere easy and walk for 15 minutes. That's my idea of lazy

In a multi-storey, I'll go up near the top, partly for an easy space but also because I get flustered if there is a car behind me so I'll inevitably fluff it up.

I like driving on an open road. Not keen on stop-start urban driving where there is a lot to process. My driving record is clean but I am slightly cagey until I'm sure that I've worked out speed, and I faff with parking as I'm generous with space. I'm better driving a big car as I drive like I'm driving a big car anyway
It doesn't help that I'm short so can't look down around me anyway, and the columns of the car are all I can see in the blind spot, so my mirrors are set for that rather than parking.

@ Squishy Squirmy. You sound like me 20 years ago. I’ll be 50 next month and was over 30 when someone with a Dyspraxic child recognised all the symptoms in me. I was always clumsy, the attention span of a gnat on acid and can’t coordinate everyday things, hair plaiting, definitely would never even try to drive. Hubby let me drive a golf buggy in Tunisia once and I crashed that onto a roundabout . It only had 2 pedals. I have ZERO sense of direction and it’s still a standing joke in a new hotel or shopping that my hubby will stand back and watch and laugh as I turn the wrong way. If it makes you feel better at the disorganisation part, I used to be soo bad at anything like that but I’m now bordering on (although hubby reckons it’s way beyond bordering on) Ocd levels of organising. I have packing cubes for travelling plus a box full of travel stuff, everything has a logical place in the house mostly in labelled boxes, my kitchen is marvelled at by everyone as I designed it (on a PowerPoint lol) in a way that everything is where it is used, baking drawer in the island, etc. I spent years struggling with being so clumsy and ditsy and other things that I always thought were weird but when someone pointed me in right direction (ironic) I realised that there were so many things that are part and parcel of the spectrum. Over sensitive sense of smell, the spacial awareness of people near me ( someone sat next to me on the bus wearing Avon perfume and clearly worked in a chippy. I know that sounds so snobby but my senses went into full overdrive and I had to turn to the window with my hand discreetly covering my nose). But all in all I just owned it all. I worked as a project manager for years for some big financial companies. The majority of my stakeholders knew about my suspected dyspraxia and I think that ultimately it helped in my job as the organisation skills are absolutely key.
The one thing I am still unable to control though is the retching that happens when something is urgent or I have plans. If hubby starts rushing me for eg a train or something, I assume it’s some form of mild panic attack but I can control the actual NOT throwing up bit (mostly) but the actual retching is a nightmare, especially when I’m with someone that doesn’t know me.
Feels so nice to be able to “talk” about these things with people that understand. Thanks guys!!!

Has anyone discussed their dyspraxia with their colleagues or boss?

I've reached out to mine and a couple of the colleagues I work closely with to chat about it. I immediately regretted it once o sent the email but I'm having a call tomorrow so can't back out now.

The main thing that triggered this is we are expected back in the office, but won't have our set desks. Instead, we will be expected to book a desk based on availability on the days we come in. This started to really worry me. I don't want special treatment, but will obviously struggle getting used to a new desk/layout every time I go in, plus dragging all my stuff around.

So I just wanted to let them know that if I appear to be struggling, it's not because I don't want to come back to work, it's that I'm just getting used to this new way of working. Plus it might help make sense of some other weird habits of mine (I received a shitty email from someone recently along the lines of "I don't see why you would want to change a process that works!" But I wasn't asking to change it, I was just asking them to explain it to me again, because I was confused about who should do what)

I'm now sitting here so worried about this call and wish I had never said anything. On the other hand, it might just make people understand me better. Any advice!?