A BULLY CALLED DYSPRAXIA

Recently, people have been talking about dyspraxia, the disability I live with. Newspapers like The Guardian have run features on it, celebrities like Daniel Radcliffe have talked about their experiences with the condition. There’s even a dyspraxic character in Doctor Who!
But did you know dyspraxic children are five times more likely than neurotypical people to develop mental health problems by the age of 16? That’s quite an alarming statistic, but I do think it makes sense. Because, to me at least, dyspraxia is like a bully that has followed me around my entire life.



Kid Jonny, doomed to a life of not remembering where he put his keys
So What Actually is Dyspraxia?
Dyspraxia is a neurological condition which affects a person both mentally and physically. Dyspraxic people have lower than average coordination and fine motor skills. This means things like driving, tying shoelaces (I still can’t really tie mine), and even walking in a straight line can be incredibly difficult for a dyspraxic person.
As for mental difficulties, dyspraxic people often have poor short term memory and can struggle to follow simple sets of instructions. Thought processes can be a bit different from the norm. The way it was described to me when I was a child was that thoughts like to take the scenic route around my brain. It can take me a bit longer to understand things but I’ll get there in the end.

What’s This Got to do With Mental Health?
Do you remember trying to fit in with the other kids at high school? I know everyone experiences things like this to a certain degree, but can you imagine being ridiculously, comically bad at every single lesson or activity you ever had to participate in? Here are a few of the things that marked me out as different whilst at school.

• Being unable to dress myself properly – not being able to do up my own tie, button my shirt or tie my shoes well, sometimes putting items of clothing on backwards and not realising
• Writing in a nearly illegible, child-like scrawl due to struggling to hold a pen properly
• Dropping or breaking things regularly due to poor motor skills
• Forgetting people’s names or faces because of poor short term memory
• Walking into walls or desks due to a lack of coordination

I could list plenty more examples, but the above gives a general idea. To put it simply, I was (and still am, to a degree) a clumsy, forgetful, overall inept young man. And being pretty bad at everything naturally leads to a loss of confidence. That’s what I mean about dyspraxia being a bully. It’s like someone standing over your shoulder making sure you can’t do anything you’d like to. It’s hard, especially as a kid, to practice at any given thing for days and days and still not be anywhere near as good as your classmates were on their first go.

The Adult World
When I left school, I found that work was just as hard as school. I got fired from one office temp job because my boss thought I was being lazy when I hadn’t been able to fold letters and put them into envelopes quickly enough.
I got in trouble at other jobs too when I would forget how to perform simple tasks or mess something up with my terrible motor skills. I became very anxious, convinced I was unemployable, good for nothing.

(Un)Coordinated Efforts
I’m 25 years old now. I’ve tried really hard to improve myself, to get around all the obstacles dyspraxia puts in my way. I’ve held down a job as a medical typist for more than a year (even if I did spill my boss’s cup of coffee over a stack of important documents). This year, I achieved a longstanding dream of mine to play for an 11 a side football team!

But dyspraxia is still here and it’s still looking over my shoulder and saying you can’t do that. I have a huge aversion to doing things I’ve struggled with in the past. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m absolutely terrified of say, changing the oil on my car, or cooking anything other than pasta. Because, rightly or wrongly, I know I’ll get it wrong. I’ll do things in the wrong order or miss out a step or mess it up some other way.

Directions are another problem. I’m constantly getting lost and I find it very distressing when I do. I’ve found that even if I drive to the same place four or fives weeks on the run, I still can’t remember the way there without having to ask for directions or use Google Maps.
These things all add up to create a total lack of confidence and a pervading sense of dread around performing day to day activities. So is it any wonder dyspraxics suffer from mental health issues in such huge numbers?
I haven’t written this for sympathy or to moan about dyspraxia, but instead to give an idea about what a dyspraxic person goes through every day and why it’s a good idea to be patient with a dyspraxic if they’re struggling with something that seems simple to you. The best way to help is to offer to go through a task with them and be kind if they make a mistake or get something wrong.
So the bully is still looking over my shoulder, at home, at work, when I’m out with my friends. But it doesn’t control me. If there’s something I really, really want to do with my life, I’ll at least try to do it, disability or not. There’s some things I’ll just never be good at. I wouldn’t make a very good tightrope walker or juggler.  But I’ll do my best, enjoy what I can do and I’ll never, ever let a bully stop me from living my life.