[Misc] DYSLEXIA - NEURODIVERSITY

Right Brain Ronnie said:

I thought he was referring about the trolls, but I can't see them now as I made the decision they should be put on ignore as they clearly didn't deserve any respect.

Click to expand...

Zeberdi said:

No one is deliberately trolling imo, any more than anyone was deliberately discriminating against you on NSC. Yes, there’s a lot of piss-taking and jokes but the number of threads that go down that path is quite a few - it’s not about dyslexia per se or directed at you personally it’s just NSC.

At least there’s no spun fish yet.

ps -I literally just got the Santa worshipping joke in post #5 that was posted over 24 hrs ago

Click to expand...

Chicken Run said:

One wonders if similar jokes made on a mental health thread would be given similar tolerances?

Click to expand...

Zeberdi said:

I think it is not comparable - people with Autism/Dyslexia or other forms of neurodivergence are not ill - and they are NOT mental health conditions in themselves - so no, I don’t expect someone to be making jokes about committing suicide or depression on the MH thread or making jokes about families or partners who are struggling to cope with autistic kids and thus suffering from related MH themselves but that is not what the joking is aimed at.

I am autistic as well as mildly dyslexic and have the number thing going on and I make self-deprecating jokes about my autism all the time.

Anyway, guess it just depends how sensitive you are - I would rather people made friendly jokes about my autism than bully me when I act out the symptoms.

One thing I have learned with everything that has effected my physical health and mental well being in the past 18 months, is not to take yourself too seriously and if an opportunity to laugh comes along, take it.

Click to expand...

armchairclubber said:

Well, even though some of the posts on this thread appear inappropriate, I hope at the same time you may have some chuckles, brother.

Im sure there's so much we can all learn on topics like this, and with contributions like raymondos, it's good to have more adults in the room.

Click to expand...

Zeberdi said:

Well apparently!

As I said above, until it was mentioned above by @Frutos, I never knew it was a thing/had a name - used to call it my ‘maths dyslexia’ and thought it was something that only I had a problem with. Still do, although my mental arithmetic is often much better than my ‘visual’ arithmetic.

I do remember sitting on my Mum’s kitchen stool every Saturday as a 7/8 year old having to recite my Times Tables over and over while all the other kids were out playing because I was seriously struggling with ‘sums’ at school.

- then when a bit older, coming home from Junior school and having to sit at the kitchen table each day for an hour while Mum cut up oranges into segments to try and teach me fractions because I had a complete mental block with them at school. I hated that big, bright, white table and the smell and sight of orange quarters laid out in front of me.

My parents didn’t know I was autistic (it wasn’t a thing in the 60/early 70s - kids were just labelled “disruptive” or “difficult” and sent to the school psychiatrist) - so not only did the extra maths lessons not work but I also developed a deep aversion to the colour orange - to the point I started having repetitive drowning nightmares every time Mum made up my bed with the orange sheets that we had as kids. I hated oranges for years - which was a bit of a problem when it came to handing them out at half time on match days

Click to expand...

Right Brain Ronnie said:

Sorry Zeb, but you appear to be covering for friends, you may be happy to joke about it, I went through that stage about 30 years ago, it gets tiresome and sad.

It is a disability and recognised to by equality 2010 acts https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/how-can-i-support-my-dyslexic-employees/legislation#:~:text=Therefore, as dyslexia is a,because they have a disability.

Click to expand...

Brovion said:

Woo hoo! I've got a disability! Do I get a Blue Badge?

Seriously though I 100% agree with @Zeberdi's POV. Also I took you at face value and answered your question honestly, and actually said way more than I've ever done on a public forum (and I didn't tell everything). However reading your other posts on this thread and others I feel that I've been conned a bit and you are in fact nothing more than a WUM.

Hope I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

ozzygull said:

I was told I was dyslexic by a teacher at school because my spelling was so bad. What I found strange, it was at the time BBC computers were put in to all schools and I found that I could spell words when typed on a keyboard but not write them down with a pen and paper. I think it is because my brain remembers the finger patterns for the words rather then I know how to spell them. I still break into a cold sweat if I have to fill out a written form.

If it a words I don't commonly type then I have to use spell check, but sometimes I am so bad it doesn't have a clue what I am trying to say,

Click to expand...

ozzygull said:

One other thing I can think of, I find difficult and I am not sure if it is due to being dyslexic. In my job as a network engineer I find it really difficult to remember IP addresses. (something I have to do a lot)

For example if some has sent me source and destination IPs for an issue they are having and I have to search for them in firewall logs. I will have to go back and forth to their email for almost every octet, I can not remember the full IP address. I only use one screen so I tend to write them down on a piece of paper. this can have it's own issues as I have to really careful to make sure I write them down correctly because even when I look at them I see the numbers swapped. I have just got used to being super careful and keep checking and double checking. I have note pads just full of IPs.

I am very good at logical thinking and diagnosing technical faults though. I think also understanding my issues means I make less mistakes then most as I realise I have to really careful not to make any

Click to expand...

Bodian said:

I think it's to do with patterns. It's much easier to remember a word, because it's recognisable and jogs something in your mind. I wrote something the other day and stuck it through google translate to turn it into Welsh - and then wrote it out on a card for a friend. I had trouble - because the letter combinations in Welsh bear little relation to English. Whereas if you did the same thing in German, I would have just said the word in my mind then spelt it out on the card fairly easily.

I guess the same is true of IP addresses - it is purely a collection of random numbers, so very hard to stick in the mind for more than a few seconds.

Click to expand...

ozzygull said:

I was told I was dyslexic by a teacher at school because my spelling was so bad. What I found strange, it was at the time BBC computers were put in to all schools and I found that I could spell words when typed on a keyboard but not write them down with a pen and paper. I think it is because my brain remembers the finger patterns for the words rather then I know how to spell them. I still break into a cold sweat if I have to fill out a written form.

If it a words I don't commonly type then I have to use spell check, but sometimes I am so bad it doesn't have a clue what I am trying to say,

Click to expand...

Half Time Pies said:

Have you heard of Dysgraphia? https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/conditions/dysgraphia

I am the same as you, no issues on a computer but have always really struggled with writing. Filing in a form also gives me genuine anxiety and often requires a number of attempts, even writing a birthday card puts me in to a cold sweat!

My handwriting is almost illegible at times, I use capital letters and smaller letters jumbled up, struggle to keep my writing within the lines of paper, I hold my pen in a unusual way and after a while I get writing fatigue and my hand starts to hurt. I am undiagnosed but pretty sure that I must have Dysgraphia.

Click to expand...

Right Brain Ronnie said:

I haven't been tested but I certainly have dysgraphia as it is a by product of dyslexia.

I was mocked for my "kids hand writing" for years.

Quite a few years ago I had to fill out a form for a customer and he replied "is that really your hand writing", my customer focus head had to be screwed down firmly as I was close to using extreme sarcasm, enough probably to have lost his repeat business.

Are you a left hander?

Click to expand...

The Clamp said:

Been listening to Pierre Novelie’s audiobook
“Why can’t I just enjoy things”?

Describes his life with autism.

I find him very funny, a genuine wit. However, the behaviour he describes and him attributing everything to autism is rather tiring .

Sometimes behaviour is just behaviour. We all have annoying / strange traits. I’m not exactly saying “own them” but seems a bit odd having an explanation for every character trait.

Is it people wanting to be unique? To stand out from the crowd.

I simply don’t know. Autism certainly exists as a condition but it’s only been so widespread in the last generation or so.

I’m sure I’m ignorant on this but people are just people. We don’t have to give everything a name.

But if it helps someone live a happier life, who can grumble?!

Click to expand...

Half Time Pies said:

I have heard this argument a lot, that we shouldn’t be labelling people. The fact is though that neurodivergent people are labelled with or without a diagnosis but without the labels are far more damaging, as a kid these can be ‘wierd’ ‘annoying’ ‘lazy’ ‘the naughty child in the class’, ‘antisocial’..a problem child. The fact is that neurodivergent people are constantly being compared to neurotypical people and judged by the same standards, they are often told if they would just pull themselves together they wouldn’t be so dysfunctional. These labels stay with people throughout life and cause serious mental health issues, some children end up hiding away and refusing to go to school because it’s too much for them.

The fact is that these are medical diagnosis and should be treated in the same way as something physical. Just because you can’t see them in the way that you can other disabilities, it doesn’t mean that they are any less of a daily challenge for the people who have them.

Click to expand...

The Clamp said:

What is happening inside the brain with neurodivergency?

What is it that is being assessed and diagnosed?

Genuine question.

And to play devils advocate, is it maybe that we all have the same challenges with our billions of different ways of processing the world but that perhaps some are more resilient to criticism and judgement? Is that perhaps the difference between divergent and typical? Resilience? Probably not but always worth exploring and asking questions. Sometimes things aren’t as complicated as we humans make them.

I don’t have the answers, I’m just asking questions.

Click to expand...

Half Time Pies said:

You have been building up to this haven’t you!

If you want to know about it do some research, there is plenty out there! I’m am not going to get involved in a discussion with you when every mainstream medical, psychological, and educational organisation agreed a long time ago that these are real conditions. It would potentially derail a thread that is helpful for people who have these conditions and are able to benefit from sharing their experiences.

Click to expand...