{"id":3524,"date":"2025-05-05T21:58:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=3524"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:59:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:59:01","slug":"meerkat-prompts-dyspraxia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=3524","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat Prompts: Dyspraxia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve briefly touched upon this before<\/a>, but I thought it could be something explored in more detail. I have dyspraxia (not to be confused with dyslexia), a condition that affects motor skills (throw a ball at me, and the odds are I’ll fail to catch it), as well as organisation and concentration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyspraxia is thought to affect five percent of the human population, so for once, I am in a rather unique category, lucky me. It has no bearing on intelligence, but when I read as to how dyspraxia can affect self-esteem, I instantly understood how that felt. I have often felt that I have to work twice as hard to achieve half the result, and that is because I have to battle my own brain chemistry. Something is misfiring in my head, and it will never, ever stop misbehaving. There is no cure, and not really any treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that dyspraxia renders someone an invalid, because it doesn’t. With occupational therapy, it can be managed. I can at times be clumsy, but I try to focus on what I am doing. Whether or not it offers any help, I take pills designed to aid concentration. These are ‘off the shelf’ vitamin pills, found in supermarkets, so their effectiveness is possibly nothing more than a placebo effect, but I’ll take that as a win, if they work. Still, there are plenty of days where I find my mind wandering in daft directions. I might be thinking about something specific, trying to follow a thread about, let’s say, a character I’m developing for a book, and within a few minutes, the idea is gone, washed away on a current of completely unrelated notions (such as, do honeybees and bumblebees get along?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s also quite a chaotic journey from the book idea, to the bee question. It’s a rollercoaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of my scatty mind, I have certainly doubted myself. I have questioned my abilities. I have wondered if I am in fact stupid. At times, I have berated myself, even hated myself, though the more I come to understand what dyspraxia is, the more I realise I am not stupid. Uncoordinated, and at times unfocused, but stupid? No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have managed to forge stable careers, loving relationships, and overcome hurdles. I have published books. I have achieved more than I thought I could. Dyspraxia is a source of endless frustration, but it is not insurmountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Meerkat Prompts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve briefly touched upon this before, but I thought it could be something explored in more detail. I have dyspraxia (not to be confused with dyslexia), a condition that affects motor skills (throw a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-3524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random-prompts","tag-random-prompts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/MeerkatThinking.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3528,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524\/revisions\/3528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}