The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan
The 'About' page on this blog has been sitting there forlornly for the past few months awaiting an update. Today I am finally getting around to writing it and I thought I'd share it as a proper post too.
In the 19th century the poorest members of society were sent to the workhouse, a place where they suffered terribly, often living in squalid conditions, forced to work menial jobs with minimal food. By the late 20th century one of these workhouses had become a hospital but the building had not yet finished unleashing suffering on the local population- for that was where I entered the world.
My entry to the world was about as awkward as the rest of my life. I got tangled in the umbilical chord and required a Ventouse machine, essentially a vacuum for foetuses, in order to be extracted. For several days my head was pointed and this complicated arrival in the world is the most likely reason I have dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia is a mild learning difficulty that used be known as 'clumsy child syndrome'. It means that the brain processes information differently from a neurotypical ('normal') brain and the biggest issue coming from that is a lack of co-ordination. People with dyspraxia can find everyday tasks like riding a bike and tying shoelaces challenging. Some psychologists will tell you that dyspraxia is only a childhood condition but there is no research to back this up and the dyspraxic community is unanimous on the way it affects people throughout their lives.
No-one spotted I had dyspraxia and so I lived a relatively normal childhood, just with a lot more falling over. As I grew I felt the difference between myself and my peers but I couldn't explain it. It wasn't until the age of twenty one that I happened to read about dyspraxia and was shocked to find an almost exact profile of myself. It's taken most of the subsequent six years to understand what that means.
When it came towards the end of my school career it was time to decide what my next move was. I considered various options and in the end elected to train as a primary school teacher. I was good with children so it seemed a good fit. I managed to get into university and my life continued in much the same vein as it had before, achieving above average grades academically but just about getting by with everything else. That is until the end of my fourth year when my most intense teaching placement yet made it clear that I wasn't cut out for it.
I underwent a quarter life crisis. I ended up with a degree that was useless without the teaching qualification to go along side it. I was good at studying but not much else and for the next few years my self-confidence and self-belief was unhealthily low. I found myself working as a teaching assistant with children with autism, something I had never planned to do but turned out to be surprisingly good at.
More recently, my confidence finally began to grow and I worked my way up to become a higher level teaching assistant, a mid-step between a teaching assistant and a teacher which is exactly what I need right now. I'm still dysfunctional, but I get by.
This blog exists mainly as a way to exercise my writing muscles and I find myself talking about a range of subjects and sharing all sorts of adventures. I rarely know what will appear from week to week but once I sit at a keyboard it all comes tumbling out...
In the 19th century the poorest members of society were sent to the workhouse, a place where they suffered terribly, often living in squalid conditions, forced to work menial jobs with minimal food. By the late 20th century one of these workhouses had become a hospital but the building had not yet finished unleashing suffering on the local population- for that was where I entered the world.
My entry to the world was about as awkward as the rest of my life. I got tangled in the umbilical chord and required a Ventouse machine, essentially a vacuum for foetuses, in order to be extracted. For several days my head was pointed and this complicated arrival in the world is the most likely reason I have dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia is a mild learning difficulty that used be known as 'clumsy child syndrome'. It means that the brain processes information differently from a neurotypical ('normal') brain and the biggest issue coming from that is a lack of co-ordination. People with dyspraxia can find everyday tasks like riding a bike and tying shoelaces challenging. Some psychologists will tell you that dyspraxia is only a childhood condition but there is no research to back this up and the dyspraxic community is unanimous on the way it affects people throughout their lives.
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| I love Peanuts and find it can illustrate nearly any subject... |
When it came towards the end of my school career it was time to decide what my next move was. I considered various options and in the end elected to train as a primary school teacher. I was good with children so it seemed a good fit. I managed to get into university and my life continued in much the same vein as it had before, achieving above average grades academically but just about getting by with everything else. That is until the end of my fourth year when my most intense teaching placement yet made it clear that I wasn't cut out for it.
I underwent a quarter life crisis. I ended up with a degree that was useless without the teaching qualification to go along side it. I was good at studying but not much else and for the next few years my self-confidence and self-belief was unhealthily low. I found myself working as a teaching assistant with children with autism, something I had never planned to do but turned out to be surprisingly good at.
More recently, my confidence finally began to grow and I worked my way up to become a higher level teaching assistant, a mid-step between a teaching assistant and a teacher which is exactly what I need right now. I'm still dysfunctional, but I get by.
This blog exists mainly as a way to exercise my writing muscles and I find myself talking about a range of subjects and sharing all sorts of adventures. I rarely know what will appear from week to week but once I sit at a keyboard it all comes tumbling out...
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