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This is a short story that I wrote in a creative meditation session at the start of the new year. It illustrates the challenges I now recog...

Thursday 4 September 2014

Learning to write with my Left Hand


I was officially diagnosed with Dyspraxia and ADD a year ago.

In that year, I have learned a lot about technology, I've learned a lot about my work, but mostly I've learned a lot about myself, and I've gone back to make sense of my life as a whole.
 
And whilst I still "haven't got it all figured out just yet," to quote Alanis Morisettte*, with every day I'm getting "closer to fine"**.
 
In the past year, I've got myself assessed and officially diagnosed. I've applied for and been granted funding and new technology, and every day I'm learning new ways, new strategies, and meeting new people to help me succeed. Part of the learning is sessions with Dyslexia Assessment & Consultancy, a company that specialises in diagnosing and training people with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia, and each time it adds a new piece to the puzzle.
 
In a way, I feel as though I have discovered I am lefthanded after years of writing with my right hand. It feels as though I am now learning to write with my left hand, hence this blog.
 
I injured my right hand recently, and the fact that I actually had voice to text software available, meant that it was an opportunity to familiarise myself with it because it was already in place.
 
So this blog is here to share my insights and my learning and to share my story and to tell people about what's out there. Ever since I was diagnosed, and I started telling people, it's amazing how often people have said "my sister/my uncle/my cousin is Dyslexic/Dyspraxic, is ADD." One friend has even been an amanuensis, and it's opened up doors that were not there before.
 
And whilst I'm still learning to come to terms with it, every day it makes a little more sense. Because really I'm just learning to write with my left hand.
 
Below is the post I wrote about 18 months ago, when I decided to tell people, including my boss. I'm reposting it here because I feel that this is a separate forum, and each of us is a pioneer in our environment. I feel that the other blog(s) that I write, have got their own audience and meaning and that this needs its own space, and room to breathe.
 
Lynn
Dyspraxic Pioneer
  

*Alanis Morisette - "Hand in My Pocket", Alanis Morisette and Glen Ballard, Maverick (1995)
**Indigo Girls - "Closer to Fine", Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, Epic Records (1989)