How can I be less clumsy? Is anyone else like this?

[Planesmistakenforstars]

I am ridiculously clumsy, and always have been. I regularly walk into things, drop things, break things. I trip over thin air and can even fall over from a sitting position when putting shoes on. I take a plastic water bottle to bed, because I’ve knocked over a glass of water from my bedside table so many times that the carpet is getting ruined. DP knows, intellectually, that I don’t do it on purpose, but can’t quite square that with how many times accidents happen.

This week has me at the end of my tether. On Tuesday I dropped a bag of flour on the floor. I’d just finished clearing it up when I knocked a pan of sauce off the hob, and it went everywhere. I was almost in tears with frustration. Yesterday I broke a glass that is important to DP. I was focusing really hard on not dropping it and not smashing it against the bottom cupboard shelf (something I often do.) So I clipped it against the shelf above instead and broke it. Is anyone else like this? Are there any ways that I can teach myself better spatial awareness or ways to just be more careful?

Hi - I'm similar and totally get it. However my clumsiness is caused by a medical condition (my eardrums)

Please make your first stop the GP, especially if this has onset quickly, or you are also experiencing any hearing loss. There are also other conditions (dyspraxia I think?) That can cause this.

Doing things slower can help, but if it doesnt, and if you can, work with people you live with to work round the problem. If the house is messy I can fall over and injure myself - not great! I also have my own special plastic wine glass😂 and try and keep delicate items out of my reach. Keeping surfaces spacious and clear and cupboards well organised will help too.

But please get checked by the GP just in case!

You sound like me. Have you ever been assessed for dyspraxia? I'm sure I'm dyspraxic and have never managed to reduce my clumsiness :(

I second advice from GP- you could have an underlying condition- however there are some practical things that may make a big difference.

First of all, use more positive language- that's really powerful! Don't talk about being clumsy, talk about wanting to be more aware of your environment, being more careful.

Don't 'try not to break/spill things', 'hold things carefully' instead.

There are all sorts of things that make accidents more likely, being busy and rushing, having a lot on your mind, thinking of several things at once, or even just believing you are clumsy.

Try and slow down and pay more attention to what you are doing, be more in the moment and less in the next moment thinking about the next task.

DH has decided he is clumsy and that things will break when he empties the dishwasher. So he is no longer careful and breaks the bowls all the time because of how he handles them. If you bang China together it will break! (I'm not saying that's you, at all! But don't give in to feeling clumsy!).

Going back to the positive language thing, we tend to do/believe what we talk about a lot. I sprayed perfume in my eye once having just told myself not to spray perfume in my eye. It's like I was listening to myself and heard 'spray perfume in eye'. It's never happened before or since. The brain doesn't process the 'not'. It's better to say 'hold on tight' rather than 'don't fall'.

I've always been clumsy. I put it down to ADD.

I have to do shelf stacking at work. We are a very small shop and things are tightly packed, and it starts to look like a game of Moustrap; I put the deodorant on the shelf, catch the next item with my hand, it falls over and knocks a big bottle of hairspray over which, in turn hits the body spray and then my elbow catches the bleach...

It takes me about five times as long to put out a delivery than most others. Which, I guess, is why I'm usually on the till, out of harm's way!

I'm so clumsy too! I Was hopeless at any sports at school and a step class instructor said to me she had never met anyone with less co ordination than I had! ( I didn't go back to that class!)
I'm probably have dyspraxia and things just tend to happen to me or fall apart or break without any effort on my part at all. I sometimes think that things are out to get me. If anything breaks or is chipped it's nearly always me that does it and I try so hard not to.
I have got a little bit better over the years and I've slowed down a bit too but I am still the one hitting my head or dropping the marge on the floor or whatever. Some people can just do these things so well without any problems at all !
My mum used to call me ' butter fingers' as a child! She didn't mean it in a horrible way but I was always dropping things!
I haven't been diagnosed by a professional but being aware and just doing things at a slower pace has helped me a lot.
Other people judging me makes it worse. I was a cleaner / pot washer for a while and I smashed more things than I dried up.
I didn't last long at that job!
It is frustrating too though.

Thank you everyone for the advice. Apple31419– the eardrum issue rang true a bit. I’ve had a couple of bouts of labyrinthitis, and although I was like this as a child too, perhaps that could have exacerbated things. I also didn’t realise it could be related to ADD. I’ve worked peripherally with CAMHS and had a couple of “Oh wow, that sounds like me as a child” moments when reading casefiles of kids being tested for it. And the positive thinking advice is really helpful. I do think I’m more likely to break things when I’m so desperately trying not to.

Picklemewalnuts – the domino sequence of shelf stacking is EXACTLY what happens. It would be comedic if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Have you had your eyesight checked recently? It could be that you are just not seeing things as where they really are.

Interestingly co-ordination isn't a problem. I was really good at sport at school. I'm good at racquet sports. I juggle, and can practice with nunchuks wihtout killing myself. It's the spatial awareness I really struggle with. It's like being a 2d charatcter trying to deal with a 3d world.

I m dyspraxic so there's little I can do to help with my spacial awareness but what does help is stopping yourself when you have been clumsy so it doesn't then cause you to do something else straight after when you re angry or annoyed.
So if you ve dropped something, take a breath for a second before thinking about dealing with it and it's less likely you ll do further harm.
Putting things like flour and cereal in tubs is so much easier, good pairs of shoes like trainers as well.

I am exactly the same! I am constantly trying to explain to my DP that the house needs to be tidy and not like an obstacle course because it takes me so much more effort to traverse it without a mishap than him, and that he can’t leave drinks on the floor or kitchen knives balanced on top of things (!) because I will probably knock them as much as I try not to.
I also try to design things around our house so stuff is less likely to go wrong - I know this is easier said than done but e.g. not overfilling cupboards, trying to store most stuff at my eye level and not above (I’m 5’3), keeping key walkways around the house clear, and doing things slowly like a pp said. I cut my finger quite badly last week when changing the blade on my safety razor because I was rushing, for example. Another example, in our old house we had the bathroom bin below the medicine cabinet and I gave myself quite a bad concussion banging my head on it so in this house I’ve tried to make sure there’s nothing underneath something I could bang my head on.
I do think that the people around you being understanding is really important. Once I accidentally knocked a drink over a Christmas present I had just received and ruined it and I was so upset but my dad was really kind about it and bought me a new one

What you’ve said about 2d/3d does make me think it’s worth having your vision checked to see if your depth of vision is ok. But I haven’t got anything wrong with my eyes and I struggle to judge space too. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t drive - I don’t think it’s safe for me because a) I can’t judge speed properly and b) I would probably clip the side of the car on everything!

Ooh @Planesmistakenforstars sounds like it is something then

Good luck if you get it checked out!

I'm dyspraxic and so is my ds. We're like laurel and hardy in the kitchen. We just try to laugh about it tbh. I think a diagnosis would help