What can’t you do?

[Gordana]

I can’t memorise lines of text by heart, no matter how much time I spend on it. Normally remembering things works automatically for me if something is interesting or if I can associate it with something else, then I remember the whole picture or a situation. But if it isn’t interesting or logical and there is no context, impossible.

I’m extremely bad at filling out forms. Beyond the obvious parts like my name and date of birth it’s a nightmare because there is no logic to it and I never get what the form wants from me. I can usually think of at least three possible answers to each question, and can’t understand which one is the correct one and why… That extends to working out steps for any kind of bureaucratic (!) procedure, like getting a new ID when the old one expires.

I can’t roll my “r”s (it’s a thing in many languages, including my native one). Other than that, I can’t whistle, burp on purpose, or throw a ball properly. Luckily, those ones are not a big deal beyond primary school age!

[marcia]

😯 I can’t roll my Rs or whistle or burp on command either @gordana and may now be spending the rest of my day today asking other women I know. That can’t be an autistic women issue, can it? So dumbfounded I figure out emojis here.

Forms I have a trick for & only realized that a whole back when my kid was overwhelmed by one. I should go find one to fill out to remind myself how I do it so I can write down the trick. So yes, context makes a big difference for me too!

[Gordana]

There are surely many autistic women out there who can do all these things effortlessly! But dyspraxia is quite common with autism, and it doesn’t necessarily just involve how we use arms and legs, it could involve the tongue, throat etc. I don’t actually know how it is defined, but it makes sense to me that any part of our bodies can be clumsy.

The only tricks I have for filling out forms are (1) answering whatever and then constantly reminding myself that they are not worth fussing about, or (2) asking my partner or somebody else what they think should go in. I still can’t help getting annoyed by the stupid questions.

[marcia]

Never heard of dyspraxia before. Thank you! That makes so much sense.

[marcia]

Throwing a ball, like the forms, requires summoning another trick I learned as a youngster. Definitely not natural even after years playing baseball & softball.

That’s what I’ve always done to fake seeming normal over the years. I’ve asked people to teach me their tricks so it’s still frustrating I can’t roll my Rs or burp or whistle because I still remember who I’ve asked & patiently practiced with me and I still can’t do it.

[joanne]

I am terrible at math, so I often have to count on my fingers. When I worked in retail and had to figure out how much change to give back in my head, I couldn’t do it; the customer would get exasperated with me and tell me how much to give them. When I transferred from a special ed school to a regular school, I was tested and left back a grade because of my poor math skills. If I see or think of something where I have to figure out numbers, I tell myself “I don’t want to math” and move on to something else!

[Test]

Joanne, I have this, too. And I didn’t realize that I still count on my fingers until you wrote it. I’m just so used to it that it seems normal to me, but when I read that you do it I’m like, uh, this is not normal.

Do you know this is called dyscalculia? The first time I saw the word my mind was blown. Like, that there’s a word for not being able to do basic math.

Also, I don’t know if you have trouble with people telling you that you’re playing stupid, but of all the things I’m bad at, basic math is the thing where people are most likely to tell me that they think I’m faking it and they have no patience for my BS.

[marcia]

The earliest ADHD PET scan testing (at NIMH) asked participants, while in the PET machine, to do math on the chalkboard in their mind’s eye. What a surprise to the researchers when some participants explained they didn’t do math there, which was a basic premise of how the tests were designed.

[ruonanl]

right now, i should be writing christmas cards so they get mailed out this weekend and get to places on time .and i’ve been thinking about this since november 1.

i just don’t want to pick up the pen.

[marcia]

@ruonanl Is writing physically hard or just not fun?

Writing was tough for me on my hands & my head until I took a calligraphy class which I expected to be hard so I didn’t get pissed off at myself as much. Ever since I’ve realized the way I was taught in school & then shamed into doing for years didn’t work for me so I figured out what did. I still don’t do Xmas cards yet kinda like handwriting things in a “doesn’t look like the handwriting chart and that’s okay” way.

My kid, when diagnosed w hEDS was sent to an occupational therapist who began by asking about handwriting. We’d never heard of finger splints yet wish I’d had them when I was younger.

https://amzn.to/3Uooke5 because I can’t figure out how to link to the words “finger splints.”

[Test]

A physical therapist just told my son — seventeen years old — that his finger cramps from writing are from EDS. My first thought was, OMG I’m such a bad mom that I didn’t even know he had cramps. But he’s had cramps from writing for so long that he just thought everyone had them so he didn’t tell me.

[ruonanl]

@marcia this group is the where i first heard of EDS which I could see is partially true. But it feels a lot like just plain old autistic inertia. and sensory dysfunction.

I have to promise myself candy if i do an undesirable task in the past to get things done.

And I write slower to take notes in school, type slower than my peers on the computer.. just the processing speed is so slow that I need to lie down to reduce the sensory overload. It’s taken me also a year to try to absorb the existence of EDS into my brain and process how it impacts day to day functioning. Being slow feels like sin

[marcia]

You are not alone on this! I’m both the tortoise and the hare.

[Test]

Ru, last year I wrote Katja’s thank you notes in exchange for her calling to make my doctor’s appointments. I realized that we each have things we hate and things we don’t hate and if we can just match ourselves up everything is so much easier. I love handwriting. Katja and my trade was so successful I thought of setting up a site to match stuff like that. Where we trade for a task that is easier.

[Gordana]

Trading tasks is great! My partner helps me with paperwork (I can’t handle bureaucracy, filling out forms, that kind of stuff…), and I do his maths or read through long documents to find what’s relevant.

[dana]

I love this idea!

[emily]

Be consistent. Pace myself. I’m an all or nothing person and I’m trying to change that.

[marcia]

Love that. Pace yourself! Great aspiration. Way healthier than describing myself as full-assed or no-assed, never half-assed.

[susan]

I can’t remember acronyms, spell algorithm unaided, reverse out of diagonal spaces if the car next to messes up the diagonal-ness, turn on the correct stove element just looking at the little diagram thingy… I have to REALLY think about it and say it out loud, figure out which exit to take in a subway if it’s directional (northeast corner wtf – and when I have to picture north, south, east, west I always have to think of a map of Canada lol). Those are just the fun quirky ones (actually the directions aren’t fun. I’ve had full-on crying fits when I’m lost).

[Minami]

I can’t drive. I mean, I do drive a little, but I really shouldn’t.

I drove across the street to take my boyfriend to the store once, and he immediately told me he would be driving my car for us during his stay.

“You’re the most creatively bad driver I’ve ever experienced,” he said to me. “I don’t think there are many people with drivers licenses who are as bad as you at driving.”

I’ve never gotten in an accident, though! But that’s probably because I drive so infrequently.

I also can’t follow directions. I have huge problems figuring out right and left relative to anything that’s not myself. Maps confuse me. I got lost every day for a month on my way to the school building in college, and the train station I came out of was on the same street as the school.

[Cristina]

I drove for about four months at eighteen and quit after I dented the family car while parking. This was over 20 years ago and I don’t think the dashboard video would help as parking feels too counterintuitive to me.

No matter what, seeing the word “surname” or the equivalent on foreign forms always has me running to Google.

I also get disgusted with birthday greetings on group texts and can’t join in. If I like the birthday girl… (none of the guys in my life ever get group texts for birthdays from anyone) I will opt out and just send them an email with a birthday greeting and also an article I think they might enjoy.

[Tracey]

I can’t drive in the same way you can’t drive Minami. I have my drivers license, but rarely will anyone find me behind the heel because I know I am a danger to society lol I used to share this with people and they’d be like “no, no, tracey you’ve never been in an car accident,” but that’s because I avoid driving at all costs. The avoidance is almost phobia-like, but it’s a rational fear. I refuse to injure myself and others. I have recently learned this is possibly a manifestation of dyspraxia.

I also suck at navigating myself anywhere as a pedestrian. Even when I take the same route every day for months on end to work or where ever, I will take a wrong turn somehow. I used to tape maps to my walls in my bedroom as some sort of attempt to sink routes into my subconscious, but my friends made fun of it too much so I stopped lol Australia is not very pedestrian friendly as it’s a defendant friendly tort system -we don’t have the right of way, there’s a lack of sidewalks, and there’s round abouts everywhere which are basically a game of chicken during rush hour. It’s awful.