some_stars | (no subject)

and here is the thing I started to post before Icon Trouble:

You know, I'm starting to wonder if I might have some kind of mild-but-actual disorder involving dysfunctional proprioception. I just invented yet another way to damage some peripheral part of my body by completely failing to coordinate my movements of said body in time and space--meaning, I put a book back on a shelf, then stubbed my finger against the top of that shelf as I was pulling my hand back. SOMEHOW I DID THIS. I have suffered many other similarly stupid injuries to my hands, hips, head, ears--apparently I forget they're there?--feet, forearms and lower legs in general, and shoulders. But this might be the stupidest.

Googling variations on "proprioceptive disorder," etc., mostly just points to this. Some of it sounds familiar--the stuff that made my mom wonder for years if I was autistic (the answer to which is actually probably "technically almost, a little bit, in some ways, ish" rather than "no," but the latter is more accurate for 95% of my post-puberty life). But most of that disorder seems focused on external senses and stimuli, not the semi-frequent inability to keep track of where your edges are and how fast you're moving them. Also, arguing against the "actual neurological thingy" hypothesis is that I have no motor control issues when I'm focusing carefully and consciously on any kind of learned hand or body movement--I've picked up things like karate and yoga and knitting really fast, actually. I have excellent proprioception when I'm thinking about it. It's movements I'm not thinking about that turn me into a malfunctioning robot. Oh, and I also drop stuff, like all the time. And then half the time I have trouble picking it back up again.

Possibly this is all my own special symptom of my own special disease. Or maybe I do have the sensory whatever and this is why my ADHD never seems to be really treated no matter what I throw at it, who knows. Said ADHD, or something mimicking it pretty well, continues to worsen--status update!--to the point where I am having severe trouble reading more than three sentences of that Wikipedia article at a time, and I actually only skimmed them, and then I had to run away and start this post and click back to that tab occasionally to skim some more. Meanwhile, other things about life/me are, on balance, neither better nor worse. Which means everything is still awful.

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Dyspraxia, maybe?

Seconded. It often comes as a free gift with other forms of brain wackiness.

I have excellent proprioception when I'm thinking about it. It's movements I'm not thinking about that turn me into a malfunctioning robot.

That wouldn't rule out some form of dyspraxia, I think. I have been known to do a quite elegant bit of climbing and then trip over my own feet walking across the mats.

Not that there's anything you can do about it if it is dyspraxia. But it may be helpful to know that it's a Thing.

yeah, I think I'm filing it under the general heading of having come within a few inches of being diagnosed with a spectrum disorder, then myteriously growing out of about 80% of those symptoms, and also my brain is broken. But man, I already don't know how to have feelings or pay attention! Not knowing how to MOVE my own LIMBS is really just not fair.

Huh. Little bit, maybe? The main thing is that it's not all the time--and sometimes I'm really good at this stuff, as noted above--so it probably isn't any diagnosable condition. But that "whole body movement" section describes me really well when I'm not consciously focusing on my movements, and my short-term memory is terrible and has only gotten worse with time. I also had delayed speech but in the normal, non-pathological way where I didn't even start the learning-to-talk process until I was just past two years old, but then I whooshed through it and caught up really fast.

Also the conscious-focus exception didn't kick in until sometime around middle school; age 0-12 I was much more of a mess of symptoms regarding this and everything else. Either SSRIs or puberty patched up some key areas of my brain, apparently. But clearly not enough of them. (I wouldn't have minded getting rid of the weird touch issues where texture in my mouth (including the texture of a toothbrush wtf) freaks me out and I'm constantly running my fingernails over my fingertips and lips just to feel the mysteriously-compelling sensation. YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE NOW, BODY. You've been doing it for twenty years. It's not going to change. You can STOP.