I am dyspraxic and I will get in your way please don't hate me

[cranberrypi]

AIBU to ask for tolerance for people like me who can't judge speed and distance and are very spatially unaware?

I am forever getting tutted at, called rude, whatever, for walking too close to someone, or not realising I'm in the way, or going through a door that someone else was just about to go through, or going ahead of someone to pick up something from a supermarket shelf that I didn't realise they were just about to pick up, or hundreds of other misdemeanours I have absolutely no control over.

I do very occasionally make accidental physical contact, not in a rough way, maybe accidently touch you with my shopping bag or something

But unless I lock myself away for ever and never come out, it is going to happen, and I get so fed up with being constantly moaned at, glared at, tutted at, called rude, etc. Please don't.

Do wear it. It helps 💕

Hah yes, exactly the same situation here for me.

People are always so quick to jump to anger and OTT reactions to things like this. Nobody has any patience to just stop for a moment and think. They immediately jump to the offensive and react like an asshole. They don’t even give the person a chance to apologise before they go off on one most of the time. People just aren’t very nice generally. All this, I don’t have time to be kind bollocks. You waste more time and energy being an asshole than you do by simply shrugging it off, accepting an apology and moving on with your day.

I think I’m being very very stupid but how does spatial awareness affect you seeing other people about to walk through a door. If someone is about to step through a door, why would you go through instead? Just wait. Or people reaching for something on a shelf? You can see them reaching so wait your turn.

I understand that you can’t judge how close to get, you may reach at the same time for a different bring and bump them, you may think there is enough space for two people through a door when there isn’t. I get that. But I don’t understand you simply not seeing other people doing things, so you just go head and do it.

Surely you have to learn to live with this? So, if you see someone walking towards a door ahead of you, then you wait rather than making a judgement that there is enough space because you know you get those judgments wrong.

I’m not trying to be an ass; I just really don’t understand the errors which involve you not paying attention to the world around you rather than making an error about how much space you have.

The people who are bad tempered and impatient are also carrying burdens that make them so.

I was once a massively tightly wound ball of rage and anxiety who scraped through each day on my last nerve. I imagine I tutted and huffed, but was try hard to to lash out verbally.

Much therapy later, I am now able to be relaxed about other people’s behaviour- both the aisle blocking and the tutting.

I highly recommend getting support on managing emotions- you can’t change the grumps, you can only change your experience of their grumpiness.

💐

because I cant see that they are heading for the door, and I can't see that they are reaching for the same product. You can only see these things if you have good 3D vision, and good 3D interpretation

I’m dyspraxic too and never knew this was a thing. I thought I was just awkward 😂

I usually just apologise and make a joke to ease any tension. Any lingering harrumphing on their part flips my bitch switch and I’ll tell them to “ oh fucking get over it”. I’m really nice until I’m not 😂

It’s the judgement that isn’t there. It’s difficult to judge who will get to the door first, how wide the door is etc.

The easiest thing is just give way and laugh it off when it happens. That said, I didn’t know it was a disability thing until this thread so maybe I’ve just never expected people to accommodate me (I have dyspraxia too but didn’t know this was part of it).

Very good questions as it shows just how much those without sight problems do not understand. In recent years apologising has become normal, tiring and can end up making a person retreat from going out. I’m forever apologising for a friend who is now often not aware, and when they are it’s because they have bumped into someone or something or tripped over something, it can make a day become quickly exhausting and the sudden increase in dogs everywhere made a simple walk or cafe trip become an obstacle course but without the obstacles being visible. Busy environments are hell.

I think it would be useful and interesting if the OP shared more about her condition. Could you say what you mean by "3D" vision for example and how you see the world around you?

People tut and moan because it is not pleasant being bumped into. They could also have their own issues and disabilities. You can't expect a total stranger to know you are dyspraxic, or even know what it is.

This is just one of those things where you have learn to control your own emotional reaction to other people.

Good advice @AGlinnerOfHope .

That sounds tough OP. Can I ask is dyspraxia like a spectrum? My son has it but nothing as difficult as you describe, I think he just met the threshold. He has poor motor planning so things like climbing a tree for example would be tricky as he would take a while to figure out the sequence. But he isn't clumsy at all and I don't think he has spatial issues. It's probably something we could do with some educating on. Wouldn't it be easier if everyone understood and you could just say 'sorry I have dyspraxia.'

I actually disagree with the majority on here. Why can’t we all just be a bit more patient and less ratty? Why do people need to wear lanyards, unless they actively want to?

So many reasons people could accidentally do this stuff and none of them merit tutting or reprimands.

YANBU op

Trouble is that those instant dead stops, collisions and turning on a 50p piece swerves hurt me. Because I'm disabled. You're feeling sad, I'm feeling every nerve screaming, my back going into spasm, trying not to cry from the pain and pissed off that once again, somebody has barged in front of me as though I didn't exist, like I'm nothing. You didn't mean to do it. But you've still hurt me.

All these things are completely normal to me. I do them constantly. I must say "Oops, pardon" and "So sorry" multiple times every day. So when they are done to me, it's just as normal.

As long as the person bumping me or reaching across me or whatever apologises or acknowledges me, I really don't give it a second thought.

Any rudeness is not in making contact but in ignoring the other person IMO.

Op, this is coming from a kind place. I am ND, as are multiple people in my family.

We cannot ask the impossible of people OP. There are a myriad of reasons why humans react the way they do, day in day out. We are programmed to recognise patterns of behaviour, and interpret them as the most probable.

If someone barges in front of you to whisk the last packet of cereal out from under your nose, we will class this person as "rude", full stop. If we are told we can acknowledge that there may be a small minority of people who do this without wishing to be rude, but the most likely cause is what we think of first.

If you barge into someone, even unintentionally, then you will have to apologise and move on with your day. You know the reason, but you can't expect others to put it ahead of the most obvious reason,ie not caring about others.

Life is difficult for so many people on so many different ways. Asking for everyone to be constantly aware of everyone else's difficulties is not realistic. Accept yourself as you are, but don't push it on others.

So should you be ratty or assume that you’re not the only one whose body let you down?

For anyone who was asking, dyspraxia isn’t a sight problem. It means your brain has trouble communicating with your body. It can affect you in lots of weird ways…I have an IQ over 140 but I can’t use a can opener. Coordination, motor skills, spatial awareness, speech and muscle tone are some of the problems people have. It is on the spectrum too so a lot of dyspraxics also have sensory sensitivities and social awkwardness.

It often goes hand in hand with dyslexia and dyscalculia.

Although most people would like to be able to say it's not a competition, I don't think I'm being entirely unreasonable in believing that feeling a bit sad about people being rather unhappy (at feeling they've either just been physically assaulted or were just so insignificant to the other person that they may as well not exist in the known universe) is somewhat outweighed by being in actual pain as a result of somebody else's actions that are absolutely indistinguishable from bog standard, common or garden aggression and carelessness at the point of physical harm.

I would be surprised if I couldn't get a diagnosis of dyspraxia. I try and avoid crowded areas where possible eg go to the supermarket at quiet times. I'm more likely to bump into people and things when I'm tired and may also not have the mental resources left to apologise either. Although mostly I just say sorry a lot.

Dyspraxics wouldn't have survived in stone age times and noone is owed a living. Social niceties are part of survival of the 'not fittest'

Dyslexia can be a sight issue or at least a visual processing issue so dyspraxia could potentially be

Some people with symptoms that look like dyspraxia actually have a visual processing disorder, there’s a lot of crossover, which is prob why somebody up thread referred to visual problems.

I’m not trying to be an ass; I just really don’t understand the errors which involve you not paying attention to the world around you

I'm afraid you are being an ass to say that the OP's mishaps involve 'not paying attention'. That isn't how dyspraxia works.

I have dyspraxia (although much more mildly than the OP, by the sound of it) and being told that I'm 'not paying attention' really grinds my gears.

I am paying attention. I am probably paying a lot more attention than you are, because I have to work a lot harder to get stuff done. Physical and spatial things that you would do automatically, barely thinking about them, are things that I have to pay a hell of a lot of attention to. For example, I drink about eight mugs of tea every day, but I still have to pay full, conscious attention to the stages of making each one to make sure I get them in the right order.

Re. the example the OP gave about going through a door, while I know that someone's headed in the general direction of a door, I sometimes misjudge a) how close they are to the door, b) how fast they're walking and c) how wide the door is. To me, it can look like I have loads of time to get through the door before they do, but sometimes it transpires that I actually haven't. So sometimes I'll either accidentally look like I'm being rude by not letting them through first, or I'll stop to let them through but I'll stop way too early and someone behind me will get annoyed and walk around me to go through the door themselves because, unlike me, they are aware that they have time to get through before the other person gets there.

FWIW, I don't expect random strangers to cut me any slack because I'm dyspraxic - firstly, they don't know that, and secondly, my fuck-ups are annoying to them whether I can help it or not. But if I explain to someone what having dyspraxia means, and they dismiss it by saying 'Sure, but that wasn't about spatial awareness, you just need to pay attention', they get a very sharp response from me.

There isn't actually anything the OP can do about that, though. You can't help your disability, she can't help hers. It's not a competition to see whose disability is worse and who has to be more patient/feel more guilty as a result.