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My family continued

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How do I explain the quirky nature of my family? In a nutshell, they are late starters, very intelligent but with that comes over-thinking and anxiety and a very strong work ethic. They most certainly believe in life-long learning. Also, very strong and independent women and I greatly respect these women but then it would need a strong man to take them on!

The trinity of women include my grandmother, my mother and my aunt; very close ties and with lots of degrees. I like this strong female presence in my life. Blow me away, isn’t there another trinity of female toddlers in the next generation. My four year old sister Miss M as we call her is already bossy and the sense of disapproval from three sets of toddler eyes is scary. Im learning to say ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ as they stand anticipating it and I don’t want to disappoint them. Take yesterday, I was talking with my grandmother about going to a cafe for a snack; this was on my iPad communication app. Miss M came bustling over as if it was story time and insisted on typing ‘that’s a good idea, Con’. I should be pleased that she accepts me for who I am and I hope it stays that way. I have great self-awareness that I must not do anything to embarrass or scare them. I will need friends in my family.

How am I doing? I’m doing ok in my learning thanks! My speech programme has been revised and it’s very focused on saying functional words and I mostly enjoy it. Today was hard as it was such a warm day and it would have been good to be outside. I did well though and have a lot of technology that is really helping me. I am so looking forward to a chilled glass of wine and dinner. Before anyone complains, I am 19 and it’s legal at 18 in the UK. It’s not as if I get a lot as my grandmother is a bit controlling; grandad likes a wine. I think there was an aunt in my grandmother’s family who was an alcoholic so my grandmother is cautious. I beat her at Spot It the other night and as I had won, I declared my winnings to be  ‘more wine’. I actually said it and got a small glass. It’s now in my speech programme and I’m motivated to say that clearly. Any way, I’ve had a busy day and it’s time to relax and listen to music. I suggest that my song of the day is ‘Break Stuff’ by Limp Bizkit and those of a nervous disposition shouldn’t listen to it! The language is a bit choice but some days it’s my theme song. Other days I prefer something more mellow. I’m off to think about dinner and coax my grandmother to uncork the wine and explain that ‘no I won’t become an alcoholic’.Thanks for listening and enjoy your evening.

P.S. Happy Birthday for tomorrow Adam! I hope you have a good day.

Explaining my family

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I think I’m in danger of getting myself in hot water after saying my family members are quirky. Let me explain what I meant so that it’s clear. Not all my family follow the standard route and that’s a good role model for me.

Take my great grandad George who died before I was born. He was quite damaged emotionally because he saw his mother and two sisters killed by a direct hit on the house by a bomb. He was deaf and had bouts of depression too. He met my great grandmother Winefrede soon after. She was not German but apparently the priest that baptised her was and spelt her name the germanic way. She had a physical disability due to childhood tuberculosis and spent her childhood strapped down and had little schooling. She was very bubbly and positive about life. What a mixture to have in a marriage! He apparently adored her and they built a good life together. He developed a very successful business which put my grandmother and great uncle through private school. When I listen to stories about my great grandparents, what comes through is great intelligence and success plus a strong focus on the family being everything. Sadly I didn’t meet them but I have had echoes of Great Grandad George in my life. He adored my mother and retired to look after her so my grandmother could work. When I was small I was aware of this man with a hat watching over my mother and there is a fey element in my family. I was about 6 years old I think and I told my mother later. She showed me a photo and yes it was Great Grandad George and there are no pictures of him wearing a hat. No I’m not schizophrenic, I have enough problems already. I will say more about family members next time.

I’m doing ok but still have problems with thinking I’m a good person and my grandmother and I shared our definitions of this today; hers is reasonable and forgiving whereas mine is harsh and damaging to myself. Just because a sociopath once told me that I couldn’t speak because I was bad and would never talk, I have built up a construct that supports the view that I’m bad. I know that I haven’t got any evidence of this but it’s become a core belief. So I’ve emailed people to open a debate about their perspective. I need to change my personal construct of myself as this is linked to identity. The one thing that comes through about Grandad George is that he had a strong concept of who he was and his values in life; he didn’t suffer fools gladly and had stronger beliefs on life. I have enjoyed this and looking back at how my family has overcome barriers provides inspiration for me. Until next time..

Making progress

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Every day I feel that I’m doing better. I am following my own guidance for a change. Really am feeling a bit better but I don’t always want to focus on the negative in my life so let me tell you about how I’m peeling away the layers of the onion to reveal the essential me.

I am doing well at helping myself to focus by understanding about my brain. I work with a cool guy to do EEG Neurofeedback and after nearly five years I have learned that if I disengage from things it causes theta a slow brain wave to increase and guess what happens – it’s like thinking through a fog. Part of me enjoys that sometimes as I am a teenager. Over a period though that’s not nice and it’s hard to shake off. I’ve got Dr. B to help me though – thanks Stephen. So I’m working on it and doing well.

Ok that’s all for today. I think having global dyspraxia is hard and tiring but I’ve decided that I’m going to do my best to defeat it ok. Tomorrow I will tell you about members of my family as many of us are a bit quirky as we seem to do things back to front. We are late developers and I think that gives me hope for the future. any comments please or follow me.. I may seem boring but I’m not as I may struggle with some parts of life – but hey I think I’m winning. What more can anyone say?

Update spring 2016

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Well I’ve not posted for a while. Life got hectic and a bit overwhelming. Lots of change and sometimes that takes over and I then just need to get my head down. Then you look up and  nearly a year has passed. Ive now got new speech and language therapists and my progress is much quicker. also I now use the Smart Palate system which will help me make quicker progress. My team has changed too and Alex has joined too. What have I learned about change? It passes and becomes history because you get used to it. No need to waste energy worrying about it. Really I feel happy with the changes now. I sometimes wonder about why I get so bothered about it. So what else is happening with me? I am still interested in my music and maybe too interested as its my main hobby.

I have this feeling lately that maybe I’m not good enough. Why is that? Some sociopath told me when I was younger that I had trouble speaking because I was bad – can you believe that? I’ve tried to rationalise it but am struggling with believing I’m a good person. I use Padesky materials to analyse it and there’s no evidence to support this at all. I guess tell a child often enough that they’re bad and they will believe it partly or in moments when they feel low that critical inner voice will have a dig. So how am I dealing with it?

  • I’m telling myself to believe what those I trust tell me. Life shouldn’t be complex so if everyone around you tells you there is nothing bad about you then simply believe them.
  • I’m trying to be kind to myself on the basis that if I’m not then no one else will be. Life is too short to beat yourself up.
  • I’m trying not to chase after negative thoughts. Did you ever see that cartoon about thoughts, emotions and fears as cars passing by on the road. This little man gets stressed running out into the road frantically chasing each one and wears himself out by doing this. Well that’s me at the moment. The little man is then shown sitting back at the edge of the road chilled and zen-like. The moral of the story is that we experience a wide range of emotions and thoughts and we should observe and acknowledge them and get on with living life and work on letting thoughts go.

I will let you know next time how I get on with this. at least I have a plan. Talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

Why I call this ‘essential onion’?

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The name came from my family because they liken me and my life to peeling away the layers to find the essential me. My education has been like a huge disaster. My early memory is of this pompous doctor telling my mother I had severe learning difficulties. See they equate speech difficulties with poor cognitive ability. I wanted to say to him that he was wrong but I didn’t have the speech. that diagnosis stuck with me for years at least through my early education. Needless to say the education was poorly done – actually I had no education at that time.

Thankfully my grandma has several degrees in education and has great tenacity. We had to sue them but unfortunately the ‘special’ school I got another poor example of education. That was possibly the worst time in my life and I was bullied. I was beaten up twice by some big thug. I think they saw I was different. Super gran was hated there but she stuck it and finally my mother gave notice to remove me. I kind of felt things had to get better and it did. My family put together a programme which is funded. I’m finally learning to talk but not in the U.K. My grandmother found specialist speech therapists in USA. It is a real hardship to go to Nevada for 3 weeks every year for speech therapy and integrated OT. I would move to Nevada tomorrow for the heat, then the lifestyle that goes with it. I’m learning to use a DJ Controller with one of the best DJs in Las Vegas. Also drumming although lack of motor planning hinders that. So that’s me the ‘essential onion’ – damaged by the education system but finding out who I am.

I hope to introduce you to my family over time but will not name them. Super gran works for a public body, let’s just call it “O’ and I know all you teachers out there love them. She is a good one though very bright and real skills to help me. Grandad was also a teacher and he is my teacher in the programme. I have a specialist team who work with me and grandma oversees the programme. So I’ve got to work hard which is not always easy – come on I am a teenager. Academically I am doing well and my writing has improved so much.

anyway that’s all for the first post.