Apparently that was a couple of days ago, but I just heard about it. So, I'm going to blog about MY disability. I have ADD, and Discalculica (probably misspelling that) , and in case you haven't noticed, a problem with spelling. I always knew something was wrong with me. I mean I didn't learn how to tell time until I was 21. I couldn't hold the concept of the two hands in my head at the same time. Instead what I did was memorize a list of 30 minute shows from the TV guide and to find out exactly what the time (5 minute + or -) was to turn on the TV and see where the plot development was. I spend three years trying to figure out how to spell "the"., you know, hte eth, teh, the. When I would run into the right combination I would recognize it.
I could walk from one end of the house to the other and forget WHY I was there. Walk back, remember, walk again to the other end, and poof, forgotten again. I would do this 4 or 5 times before I finally kept it in my head long enough to get to the other end of the house to do what ever it was.
Numbers, dates, they mean almost nothing to me, and my credit rating reflects this. In fact, once again I have to call up Verizon and tell them I made another payment on my old account number [What's really shitty about it, this time is that I called them up before I made the payment and didn't think to ask if I had the new account number or the old one.]
No one at school ever noticed. Oh they made a lot of noise about me being lazy, I was reading above college level before I was eleven. Why couldn't I spell. . .? They were firm in their belief that that reading and spelling are handle by the same system in the brain. Which they are not. It really wouldn't made any difference anyway, since people in the 60's knew nothing about learning disabilities, and teaching really wasn't my school's focus . The schools in this valley were all about keeping the student on campus until noon, when they were assured of getting the state money for that day. I am not kidding. I'm asked other people about this and that's their impression too. Half my high school ditched every day. The office was back logged until August in telling the parents their child was absence from school on a particular day.
I didn't figure out what was wrong until I was 32, when the local paper had an article on learning disabilities. At last I saw myself. (before, I thought I was mentally ill and did my best to conceal by not interacting with others. I was very lonely). But I was diagnosed until I was 39 when I went back to college. I forget why I went to the disabled student office, was it a teacher recommendation or my need for a tutor? I actually forget. But anyway, I was tested. The Dr. councilor told me I had minimum brain damage. OOO EEWEE, like I didn't know that. . . let's reflect, shall we. . . Mom spend the last five months of my pregnancy in bed because she was hemorrhaging, I was born a month early, the placenta was half gone because it hemorrhaged, and I weighted a quarter oz short of three pounds. I was the smallest baby born at that hospital to survive at that time. They stuck me in a shoebox sized incubator for three months until I hit 6 pounds and then they let me go home. Brain damage!! NO!! Actually they told my parents I wouldn't live [baptist her, Dad ,"Fuck you! She isn't going to die!"] and when I did live, they told my parents I wouldn't be even capable of tieing my shoe laces.
I wasn't aware that minimum Brain damage is an old term for ADD until I went to CSUN and the disabled student office person gave me some literature on it. I actually resisted this for about a semester until I remembered when I went to the store five times in one day to buy toilet paper. Oh, each time I would come home with stuff, but not toilet paper which was the only thing I was going to the store to buy. Never did buy it that day. Then I accepted that it was ADD.
I'm getting really tired and I need to start doing my chores (one day off a week, remember?) so I'm going to post this. I will write some more about how ADD effects my life and my work, okay?
