Dyspraxia... I hate how.it impacts me and makes me feel.

[Elderflower14]

I just ended up sprawled across the coffee table.
My Mum lives with me, just as I was going to bed she asked me to turn the radiator down so I did. As I got up I totally lost my balance and I ended up on the table narrowly avoiding a vase of roses and scaring Mum.
I'm finding it harder as I'm getting older now. I rarely use the stairs when travelling with a suitcase. I worry about who. I will take with me if I fall.
Ds2 is profoundly deaf and dyspraxic so he gets double the balance problems. I was late being diagnosed and I could see ds struggling so I got him diagnosed early.
I went on Jeremy Vines medical hour with Paddy O Connell and Dr Sarah Jarvis a few years ago to discuss dyspraxia.
Work are very good if I think can't do something I can always ask for help. (I think I tick their disability box)..

My 18 year old Grandson has this.. part of his Aspergers.. he falls going up the stairs daily. Can't tie shoe laces.. can't throw or catch a ball.. can't ride a bike.
Will trip over fresh air. Wishing you all the best.

I suspect Dd1 has it. I don’t even know where to begin with diagnosis!

I have this (part of autism) but it's nowhere near as bad as other peoples. Mine is all centred around co-ordination in terms of general movement and spatial awareness. My fine motor skills are ok but I'm always covered in bruises as I can't correctly judge distances from objects. I'll walk too close to a table edge or door frame for example. I can't drive or dance either.

I have the spatial awreness kind and so do both DC we are in the lowest 1% of ability with things like catching a ball (I can't) catching anything one-handed (impossible, - even a soft cuddly toy or a towel.) I can't drive though I'm hoping DC will manage to learn how to drive automatic cars. It sucks. But over the years I've just come to accept that there is not a one-size fits all normality. There are other parts of life I excel at instead.

I have balance issues like this due to a different disorder and walk with a stick with a claw base. It is frustrating. I am guessing that with dyspraxia comes a multitude of frustrating symptoms.

Here too OP. I am so clumsy and I am always full of bruises for walking into things , or falling over my own feet at times it seems. I can see something, know it's there, plan to avoid it and I'll still walk into it.

I have many of the other typical traits like lack of sense of direction, I get around that my always using maps if I am driving, or if I am walking I will mentally mark spots, like I'm a shopping mall, I will make note of what shop is near the door I need to exit from to find my car, and in a very big multistory I will take a photo of my car parking spot number and floor level. I have lost my car so many times so small things like this help me along the way.

If I attempt a gym class, I like pilates and yoga etc, then I always go to the very back and make sure someone is in front of me. As the instructor is facing us so is opposite, and in the mirror it is opposite, so I battle to follow. Yes I am that one always going to the wrong side. If I am behind someone else, I can follow them instead. I always hope no one is following me 😄

I suppose we just have to adapt and do what we need to to get by. I also have very sturdy mugs as I don't know why but i tend to drop things more so in the mornings. So coffee mugs are those chunky kind, as quite a lot of the time I misgauge putting it down on the side.

I always have arnica on hand as I find bruises all the time and half the time I have no idea from which stumble, fall, slip, bumping into things it happened from.

Thinking I have this and awaiting an ADHD autism assessment.
I can't do sports or ball games anyway.
No sense of direction,bump into this daily.
What else are the other symptoms

I have this though it affects me a bit differently. My balance is ok and I wouldn’t say I’m especially clumsy. I struggle to do multiple actions with my hands and feet at once, and struggle with spacial awareness and judging distances. This makes driving really difficult. I’ve been having lessons on and off for 8 years and still don’t have my license, though I’m hoping to finally get one for automatic cars. I’m having lessons in an automatic now and while it’s still very challenging I’m not finding it as impossible as driving a manual. I can’t play sports. It takes me twice as long as everyone else to get dressed and put on make up etc, I’m terrible at cleaning the house and it takes me ages. I also can’t hold a pen properly. I can write but it takes me a long time and makes my hand ache. I type very slowly on a computer as well. Probably my main difficulty is no sense of direction. I can get lost in a town I lived in for years and have to use google maps to go everywhere, even places I’ve been many times.

I think the worst part about having dyspraxia is that it wasn’t diagnosed until I was 17. I am grateful I was diagnosed at all as I was given extra time in my A level exams because of my writing issues, I likely would have failed them all if I hadn’t had this. But such a late diagnosis meant I grew up finding things much harder than most other children without knowing why. I didn’t understand why other children could do things I couldn’t and I assumed that I must be really stupid. This absolutely ruined my self esteem and confidence and made me feel inferior to everyone else. I now have severe social anxiety and have no friends outside of my family. I’m glad you got your DS diagnosed early. I feel that an earlier diagnosis would have improved my life immensely as I would have grew up understanding why I am the way I am and I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself.

I'm actually great at driving and can even park in tiny spaces. However I am falling over a lot more as I get older, very careful now going down stairs; always more likely to fall if I'm in a hurry. My worst thing is instructions. They make my brain explode - trying to buy a new loo seat (measuring the loo then comparing measurements to products online) is impossible. So we have no loo seat.
DS has it worse and has very poor fine motor skills. I hope he can find ways around it later in life.

The balance is the tough bit of it - so many other things can be accommodated (elasticated everything, tools to open bottles/unscrew stuff, lists and post-its for organisation, typing not writing etc).

One of the things DS struggles with is noticing when he's tired/over-worked something, and that's when he's most at risk of bumping into stuff and falling over. The only accommodation there is just to remind yourself all the time that you're tired, go very slow and careful - but obviously that's a lot easier said than done!

Thankyou for your responses.. It's been very interesting reading how it impacts other people as well. For those looking for advice The Dyspraxia Foundation are excellent!

My daughter was diagnosed at 6. it seems fairly mild in her case - she is definitely less accident prone than she used to be. I'm not sure I would want to let her anywhere near a car though when that time comes as she is way too easily distracted.

@TheBirdintheCave It’s funny you mention it’s part of Autism, because I would have never considered it to be the case. I just thought it was standalone.

@Strawberrycheesecake7 thank you for sharing. Your post resonates for us. As they’re lots of very simple things Dd seems to struggle with but as of yet I have no answers. But this is the kick I needed to get her some help because like you say without, it it really impacts self esteem.

Dd12 plays lots of sport, she has a natural ability for hockey and netball so I’m told. Plays four instruments. But conversely cannot brush her own hair, is slow to get dressed, she only just learned to tie her shoe laces in Y6 and it’s painful to watch her do it, you can see it’s a real problem for her. Buttons again pose problems. She’s clumsy and tends to have an unusual gait especially when running so I’m surprised she’s really taken to sport.

Does here anyone suffer with weak ankles? I don’t know if this another symptom, she seems to be always rolling them and then they tend to swell.

DS doesn't have any issues with ankles (or wrists) in particular - for him it's grip strength that causes the most issues.

From what I read at the beginning, hypermobility (DS's elbows do bend disturbingly far in the wrong direction) and low muscle tone (grip strength is the most noticable day to day for DS, but in general, he's not at all muscular tends to tire easily and slump/lean against things)

A couple of years ago I was on the till at work and struggling to do something. I explained to the customer that I had dyspraxia and what it was. He replied rudely that he thought I was in the wrong job. I replied calmly that I was in the correct job but it took me a bit longer to get things done.
The area manager came in not long after and when I told him what the man said he replied that I was very restrained in my reply!!
I approached my manager about wearing a badge. I now wear one above my name badge which says "Im not clumsy I'm dyspraxic"
There was another badge that said "I'm dyspraxic not drunk" my manager said no to that one!! 🤣 🤣 🤣

@SpaceRaiders It definitely can be but autistic people are more likely to have comorbidities :)

Another who seems to bump into everything here! Usually my elbows but I have fallen off/up a lot of kerbs in my life!
I also have always had a terrible sense of direction (Google Maps was a godsend when I discovered it). Can't find my way out of a small building when escorted to an internal room, luckily people seem to find it endearing rather than something to be embarrassed by. Also my hand to eye coordination is astonishingly bad and my attempts at riding a bike in the road resulted in an accident (only involving myself, no other traffic fortunately) and I will never even consider learning to drive for my own and others' safety.
I am diagnosed autistic but my daughter is diagnosed with both Dyspraxia and Autism so I've researched both quite extensively.

I'm dyspraxic and I'm sort of struggling at the moment

Doesn't help I'm really tired and have a lot going on.

I've just moved house and it's not dyspraxic friendly is the only way I can describe it. Nothing has its home and the microwave, oven and air fryer are all really close together. Burnt my hands 3 times in the last week. And just being more clumsy

Also living on my own a lot do away a lot. And I'm scared I'm going to come a cropper down the stairs or slip on the shower or something

My alert levels seem so much higher but that makes me more tired and I spiral .

Sorry I don't really know what to suggest op, but glad I've found similar people

Have name changed for this thread

I had considered hyper mobility in her joints as something that could be the cause of her rolling them but equally she’s not particularly bendy otherwise. I don’t know you can have it in just one area. Off to the Gp it is then hopefully she will accept and refer Dd.

My DS has it, diagnosed together with autism aged 7. It mainly affects his fine motor skills - he has weak grip in his fingers. But also some aspects of organisation, losing things and not being able to search for them effectively etc. He finally worked out how to tie shoelaces aged about 18 but can't pull the bow tight or adjust laces, he has replacements of various types in all his shoes. He is leaning to drive automatic as manual was too much. Finds cooking tricky.

However he is decent at ball sports, plays for the local hockey club, doesn't fall or bump into things and has a SUPERB sense of direction.

DS had dyspraxia diagnosed alongside his dyslexia and then a year later gained an ASD diagnosis.

He's got some hypermobility and struggles with matching single-sided movements, so he'll scoot on one side only, or gallop one way round... try the other side and he ends up in a crumpled heap. Unfortunately combined with his autistic perfectionism it's a pretty cruel combination and makes practising skills too frustrating for him to engage with. He can catch to a reasonably competent degree- it's not the ridiculous flailing that I instinctively do. Obviously if there's a projectile flying at you, the most sensible thing to do is duck, not try and catch or whack it which is plainly asking for trouble. I learned to swim at 16, cycle at 19. Once it's in my muscle memory, it's ok but it takes a long time to learn. DS has got the hang of them far quicker than me, but it's taken years of things like swimming lessons, and DS2 tends to overtake him which is deeply frustrating. His cousins have experienced the same combination too.

PE was torturous at school. No one believed that I was genuinely that atrocious until about y10 when I still doggedly turned up with kit rather than skiving or making excuses and my effort grades finally lifted above an E. I realised when I taught PE cover that I really don't process watching team sports and can't even keep score between two teams. I just see a chaos zone of people charging around and that it should be something like 2-3 or 3-2 or something. When I changed classrooms or their layout, I'd always gain a collection of hip height bruises from bouncing off the desks. DS says he gets this too.

My best friend is diagnosed dyspraxic and it has a massive effect on her confidence.

It's work doing some balance and strength work. There are options like seated yoga that give more security than conventional practice and build up from a lower base. Keeping muscles stronger and practicing movements will reduce physical triggers for losing balance on top of the mental miscalculations.

The only times I've had heavy falls when running were when I picked up C25k post-injury and had a weak ankle. When I'd got the strength to run back, the balance, and ability to correct got back to my default and I stopped tripping over. Maintaining muscle mass and using a range of mobility is important as we get older.