Dyspraxia

[braveheart]

A colleague at work has Dyspraxia, and knowing about her has led me to enquire into many of my stray symptoms, which along with the PTSD and depression, cause me significant distress.
It is very possible that I do indeed have dyspraxia in a mild form. I've pasted from the UK dyspraxia foundation site, below, and annotated with motes and *s what I very much relate to.

...a combination of problems, including:

Gross motor co-ordination skills (large movements):
Poor balance. Difficulty in riding a bicycle, going up and down hills * {I can never ride a bike to this day}
Poor posture and fatigue. Difficulty in standing for a long time as a result of weak muscle tone. Floppy, unstable round the joints. Some people with dyspraxia may have flat feet * {all expect the flat feet}
Poor integration of the two sides of the body. Difficulty with some sports involving jumping and cycling *{totally}
Poor hand-eye co-ordination. Difficulty with team sports especially those which involve catching a ball and batting. Difficulties with driving a car ***
Lack of rhythm when dancing, doing aerobics *
Clumsy gait and movement. Difficulty changing direction, stopping and starting actions *
Exaggerated 'accessory movements' such as flapping arms when running *
Tendency to fall, trip, bump into things and people *

Fine motor co-ordination skills (small movements):
Lack of manual dexterity. Poor at two-handed tasks, causing problems with using cutlery, cleaning, cooking, ironing, craft work, playing musical instruments
Poor manipulative skills. Difficulty with typing, handwriting and drawing. May have a poor pen grip, press too hard when writing and have difficulty when writing along a line
Inadequate grasp. Difficulty using tools and domestic implements, locks and keys *
Difficulty with dressing and grooming activities, such as putting on makeup, shaving, doing hair, fastening clothes and tying shoelaces

Poorly established hand dominance:
May use either hand for different tasks at different times

Speech and language:
May talk continuously and repeat themselves. Some people with dyspraxia have difficulty with organising the content and sequence of their language * {at times}
May have unclear speech and be unable to pronounce some words * {def. when I was a child}
Speech may have uncontrolled pitch, volume and rate

Eye movements:
Tracking. Difficulty in following a moving object smoothly with eyes without moving head excessively. Tendency to lose the place while reading *
Poor relocating. Cannot look quickly and effectively from one object to another (for example, looking from a TV to a magazine) *

Perception (interpretation of the different senses):
Poor visual perception
Over-sensitive to light * {totally}
Difficulty in distinguishing sounds from background noise. Tendency to be over-sensitive to noise *{100%}
Over- or under-sensitive to touch. Can result in dislike of being touched and/or aversion to over-loose or tight clothing - tactile defensiveness * {yes. yes. yes}
Over- or under-sensitive to smell and taste, temperature and pain * {over on all of these}
Lack of awareness of body position in space and spatial relationships. * {yes. absolutely}
Can result in bumping into and tripping over things and people, dropping and spilling things
Little sense of time, speed, distance or weight. Leading to difficulties driving, cooking *
Inadequate sense of direction. Difficulty distinguishing right from left means map reading skills are poor * {I am always getting right and left mixed up..}

Learning, thought and memory:
Difficulty in planning and organising thought
Poor memory, especially short-term memory. May forget and lose things * {my long term memory is great.however}
Unfocused and erratic. Can be messy and cluttered {was told I was messy as a child}
Poor sequencing causes problems with maths, reading and spelling and writing reports at work
Accuracy problems. Difficulty with copying sounds, writing, movements, proofreading {maths, ugh}
Difficulty in following instructions, especially more than one at a time *
Difficulty with concentration. May be easily distracted
May do only one thing at a time properly, though may try to do many things at once **
Slow to finish a task. May daydream and wander about aimlessly *

Emotion and behaviour:
Difficulty in listening to people, especially in large groups. Can be tactless, interrupt frequently. Problems with team work
Difficulty in picking up non-verbal signals or in judging tone or pitch of voice in themselves and or others. Tendency to take things literally. May listen but not understand *****
Slow to adapt to new or unpredictable situations. Sometimes avoids them altogether *****
Impulsive. Tendency to be easily frustrated, wanting immediate gratification **
Tendency to be erratic ? have 'good and bad days' *
Tendency to opt out of things that are too difficult **

Emotions as a result of difficulties experienced:
Tend to get stressed, depressed and anxious easily *******
May have difficulty sleeping **
Prone to low self-esteem, emotional outbursts, phobias, fears, obsessions, compulsions and addictive behaviour***

www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/services/ad_symptoms.php

I've discussed and explored and worked with many of these symptoms with my therapist.. Until now I never had a name for it, and it's been there all along, right from when I was small.
Yep, another thing I can be annoyed about that noone picked up on and gave me support with.
But.
I can tell my GP.
But I want to be sure she take's this seriously. It is NOT me somatising or imagining. Its real. There's not a lot anyone can do, I guess. But acceptance can be very powerful.

 

[Cat Dancer]

This is interesting. I wonder what is the cause of this?

But acceptance can be very powerful.

This is very true. Acceptance is powerful.

 

[braveheart]

My colleague said that it was lack of oxygen at birth that caused her's.

I am inclined to believe that is a factor in my symptoms too, as I stopped 'breathing' in the birth canal, and had to be delivered by forceps.

I would, from my own experience, believe that being born prematurely [at 30 weeks.] at very low birthweight [2 lbs 13oz] and spending extended time in the hospital, at first in an incubator and then in a heated cot, and with no maternal contact, are also major factors.

I read online that dyspraxia is linked in some way on the autistic spectrum. Of which I do have some traits. [schizoid type] but I do have some good connections with people, so am not actually autistic.