Wednesday 28 November 2012

The Bigger Picture

As I mentioned in my first blog, you really need to see the bigger picture as to what dyslexia/dyspraxia is and the other things that make up the condition apart from reading/spelling/ clumsiness.

Memory

My memory is weird I can remember things in years gone by in great depth visually and quote conversations which have happened years ago. I'll often say to my friends things like do you remember in year 8 when such a thing happened and they'll be like no Rosie we don't. But my short term memory is awful, forever forgetting where I've put my phone, often end up asking my mum where I've put things as I have not got a clue. Useless at remembering things like birthdays and times, and takes me a while to remember names although very good with faces. Lists, lists and lists are my best friend and thankfully my boyfriend has an equally rubbish memory so we try and remember things for each other.

Time management

My boyfriend says I'm the worst procrastinater ever we always end up leaving to go out a lot later than planned. Remind you of a certain member of The Saturdays? haha. The amount of times my mum will end up rushing down the motorway when I've got a train to catch as I'm running behingd shedule too.

Sensory Overload

A lot of people with dyspraxia and dyslexia may find that they are sensitive to light noise or various textures. I can't stand the texture of silk next to my skin. It often can make being in noisey environments quite overwhelming such as bars and clubs. I find it quite hard when in a big social group who are having conversations to  focus on one conversation it's like their all wizzing around and add backing music and you've lost me.

Spacial Awareness

I must spend half my time when shopping or in crowds of people appologising for bumping into people as sometimes I'm clueless to where my body is, my legs are often covered in bruises too as tables and objects seem to like to walk into me. I also wait for the road to be completely clear as sometimes I can't judge the distance between myself and cars. God help me when I learn to drive (you will be advised nearer the time to keep of the road.)

Even though these things can be annoying at times, they bring a lot of humour especially in my relationship, there never is a dull moment.

Monday 26 November 2012

Society

Two blogs in one night aren't you lucky people, but my second blog is on self image, self confidence and self esteem.

I see so many people especially young people saying if I was as skinny as x celebrity I would be beautiful, if only I could have y's flat stomach I would be gorgeous. Or all my friends are the beautiful ones who have lots of boy friends and lots of friends and I'm  the fat, ugly loner. And you know what I've been there far to many times myself. Right from a young age at primary school I was bullied about my shape even though I was never over weight at the time I was just very very tall.
I was never seen as pretty was merely the fat friend.
When I was 16 I was diagnosed with polysistic overy syndrome some of you may have older sisters, aunties or your mum may have it, or you may indeed have it yourself. It's quite common a lot of women have it in different forms, Victoria Beckham for one person has it.
It made me without going into a lot of detail, gain a lot of weight, suffer from really bad acne both on my face and my body and have hair where girls really should never have hair, it made me in all honesty feel so masculine.
I was obsessed with wanting to be as tiny as the celebrities and never imagined that a boy would look at me twice. It lead to years of me not eating properly and being ashamed of myself and my body shape. I eventually lost the weight I'd gained but it was never in the healthiest of ways shall we say. It also lead to me feeling depressed and worthless.

Eventually as time moved on I started to take medication and my symptoms improved. Although my self esteem and confidence is far from great now it's made me eveluate how messed up society is. You often go into shops and they only have teeny tiny sizes, and I've noticed some shops go down to a tiny size 4. We should all be able to feel comfortable in our own skin, no matter what size we are. In my personal opinion, I don’t think any size is wrong. If being ‘curvy’ wasn’t aloud or acceptable, there wouldn’t be clothing sizes out there ranging between a 14-22+! Same applies for girls out there who are sizes 0-10.
 Girls in general are judged way too much whether it be wearing the right make up having the right bag, having the longest legs or the most perfect skin.

Just because a girl isn't a size 8 doesn't make her beautiful or gorgeous, she may have the most lovely face or the most dazzling eyes. We all have different body shapes, some may be athletic, some curvy and some inbetween or a mixture, but it is so easy to get carried away into being what society expects. It's saddning how many girls and women have had problems with eating and it isnt just the girls who are teeny tiny who may have food issues it can affect any woman or male of any age or body shape.
So you yes you who are reading this blog you are beautiful, you may not look like a member of The Saturdays but you're just as gorgeous as they are, really. Find what clothes suit your body shape and embrace it, one day someone will love you just the way you are. Stay strong.

Me, myself and I

Hello there,
I often get younger very lovely too may I add people coming to me for advice over various topics which they may be struggling with. I recently got told maybe I should write about a blog about it. So here we are, hopefully my experiences can help others going through the same thing and at the same time boost your self esteem, because it really can help when you know someone else is going or has gone through the same things as you. My blog will predominantly focus on my dyspraxia/dyslexia but will also feature other experiences I have been through. Hopefully by reading this you will understand why I tweet/ support the charity Dyslexia Action a lot and why rasing awareness is so so important to me. If I can help one person by writing this than it's been a good thing.

As a child I was very clumsy, was often bumping into things or other people (not much change) my handwriting looked like the Egyptians hyroglipics and I dreaded P.E lessons as my hand eye co-ordination was dreadful. I often scared my mum because I used to fall head first down the stairs oopsie. I also really struggled with spelling. I was 4 when I was diagnosed with dyspraxia, which is quite young, but back then dyspraxia was very unheard of, it still is now to be honest. The amount of people who just stare blankly when you mention the word. My parents had to fight and fight for me to get help, my mum was even accused of being an overprotective mum when she went into get me some help. I was always being pulled up for the state of my presentaion, constantly told to re do things and was made to feel like I was lazy and wasn't bothered. In P.e lessons I was always the last one picked, the one who people didn't want on their team, the one who they knew wouldn't be able to hit the ball to score a rounder. It lead to me being bullied quite badly as well as being un-coordinated and clumsy I was very tall. So I stuck out like a sore thumb, when it was sports day I used to run arms flapping like some demented chicken. Looking back it must have been quite an amusing sight to see. In turn it made me very shy and very lacking in self esteem and confidence.

As I got older it was evident that there were other things that there could possibly be, my memory was awful, organisation all over the place, time keeping not great and was really struggling with the writing side of things. When I was at secondary school and then sixthform I didn't know anybody who had any needs, I was the only person who had extra time for exams and nobody else seemed to struggle, at the time I really thought am I the only person who has these problems? I will never forget when we had to do the general studies exam and everybody else got up and left and I was sat there still writing, with everybody else looking at me as to think why has she got extra time and we haven't? It was very embarrasing.


 When I was at university I had a really bad experience, I got made to drop qualified teacher status because the lectures werent understanding towards my neeeds. I got told I was an adult now and that I had to make up my own coping startiegys. This lead to me developing very low self esteem and confidence. Even though I had told them about my dyspraxia/dyslexia. I was also got asked if I had these conditions why was I doing well in the uni assignments. This made me feel stupid, like how could someone with a specific difficulty do well at university, it also was a very ignorant thing to say.  But also it made me more determined to help spread awareness and that nobody should go through the same esperience which I did and this is why I like helping others and spreading awarenesss on twitter.
The experience at uni also lead to me feeling scared of being open to people about my difficulties, I thought nobody would understand and that if I told people they would either not want to get to know me or it would effect my chances of getting a job. I think in the adult word of work people expect you to have overcome all the difficutlies you may have had growing up. For the majority of people this can be true in some ways with intervention their reading and writing may have improved considerably. But no matter what coping stratiegies someone may have you will always have good days and bad days where everything goes to pot and employers need to realise this.
Part of the reason for this although you hear about especially dyslexia in the media thanks to celebrities like Mollie King to name one of many who talks about her experiences, you never hear it talked about in a day to day setting, you never hear people say oh I'm having a dyslexic day today my spelling is all over the place, or my memory is awful today I can't remember anything and I kee forgetting things. Thats why it's so so important that celebrities like mollie talk out so that people don't realise that they are on their own. I long for the day when I could go into work and be open about having a typically bad day, same with explaining the positives of the conditions such as creativity. I also think it's really important to think outside the box to what these conditions are, as so many people assume that dyslexia is just about reading and spelling and dyspraxia is about being clumsy, yes they are but theres also a much bigger picture and the other sides to dyslexia such as memory, organisation and time keeping to name a few should be talked about just as much as the others.
Thanks for reading my first blog, if you feel in the same position as I have remember you are not on your own there are so many others going through what you are, I know it's hard when people donn't understand but the more we campaign for awareness the more understanding people will be. Stay strong, and no matter what life throws at you, you are an amazing person who can bring so much to the world, don't let anything defeat you.

Things take time

Hi everyone I hope you're well? I first began to write this blog back before the first lockdown and have recently got around to re-editi...