I also always, always find a way to [...]]]> I’m someone who really enjoys puttering around with home improvement.  I have a powerful drill and I enjoy using it to put holes in things.  I feel a sense of competence when I hang a shelf or a towel bar, or build something useful out of scrap materials.

I also always, always find a way to screw up my project at some point.

The fact is that having ADHD and dysclaculia is not a recipe for smooth sailing in this department.  ”Measure once, cut twice” is not something that works when you measure twice, get two measurements, so you measure again, and get a third measurement that’s completely different than the first two, so you measure again … and you wind up splitting the difference between the two measurements where there were the largest cluster of results, and it turns out to be wrong.

Last week I had an adventure where measuring didn’t even enter into it.

I was building a folding screen to hide the cat box.  To make a long story short, my house is rather odd, and the only decent place to put the litter box is right by the front door.  I feel it’s slightly tacky for the cat box to be the first thing guests see when they arrive.  So I got a few window shutters and made a screen.  But my ADD, as always, caused an amusing screw up.

A folding screen, of course, requires sets of hinges in between each panel.  By swinging the panels on their hinges, you can arrange the screen to fold folike an accordion.  You can make it longer or shorter, or even fold it around whatever you want it to.  Clever arrangement, don’t you think?

I was on the home stretch of this project last week.  I’d painted all the shutters pretty colors.  The only thing left was to attach them.  I had an hour before I was supposed to meet a friend, and I wanted to get as much work done as I could in that hour.  I happily made little marks through the holes of the hinges where I’d need to put in the screws.  I happily drilled little holes in the sides of my panels, and attaching hinges with finishing screws (have I mentioned that I enjoy playing with power tools?).   I happily attached the hinges onto two panels, and was quite proud of myself when the panels obediently folded as they should, and stood up when I unfolded them.  Yay!

Then I went about the second set of hinges.  As I finished up, I reflected that I’d gotten two thirds of the way through my project without screwing up.  Only one more set of hinges to go!  I told myself it was because the project didn’t involve a lot of measuring.

I set my folding screen on the ground, expecting my three panels to unfold and stand proud.  But no.  They weren’t unfolding at all! What could be wrong?  Were the hinges on too tight somehow?  I loosened the screws.  No result.  The shutters were still stuck fast.  I loosened the screws some more.  Then some more.  A little bit of movement, but still no unfolding.

After several minutes of this, I finally noticed that I was not working with a third panel. I only had two.  That’s right, I attached the second set of hinges on the other side of the two panels I had just hinged.  I had fastened my screen shut.

Before I met my friend, I had just enough time to remove the hinges and put my tools away.

The moral of the story is, when you have ADD, don’t rush yourself.  I had plenty of time to finish my screen.  I didn’t need to get it done in that hour before I met my friend (thank the gods!).  But I rushed myself, making it more likely that I’d overlook something important —  such as the number of panels that I was working with.

Partly, it’s because I’ve just been too depressed.  I feel like if I write about [...]]]> I haven’t been posting a lot lately.  Partly this is because of the amount of time I’ve had to spend reading job listings, filling out applications, tweaking resumes, and trying to write cover letters that aren’t don’t sound like total BS.

Partly, it’s because I’ve just been too depressed.  I feel like if I write about what my life has bee like lately, I’d just be whining, and I should be trying to be chipper and cheerful and all that crap.

But then I realized, this is a blog about adult learning disabilities.  Life with adult LD sucks sometimes.  And seldom does it suck more than in the area of employment.

So here goes.

Back in March, when my husband was offered his exciting start-up opportunity that involves a significant pay cut, my plan was simple: I’d go back to my previous job, which wasn’t that exciting, but was a decent place to work, and I’d put in a bunch of hours there while looking for something that paid better and was more in line with what I’d actually like to do with my life.

It seemed like a good plan, because every time I’d been into the store where I used to work, my former boss had said that he’d love to put me back on the schedule.  It sounded like a done deal.

So I applied there.

And then I waited.  And waited.

And then I called them about my application, and it turned out that there had been some changes in the management staff, but I landed an interview.  I was told that my previous employee evaluations looked good, and that they could probably use me, but I should call back in a week to follow up.

So I did.

And I was told that they hadn’t made their decision yet, and I should call back in a week.

So I did, and I was told that they hadn’t made their decision yet, and I should call back in a week …

And it went on like that for about six weeks, at which point they decided to go with someone else.

Which is fine, I guess, but did they really have to string me along for six weeks?  And actually, it’s not fine.  It’s a bit of an ego blow to get turned down for an incredibly boring, menial job that I worked for five years; a job that I can do in my sleep; a job for which the company would not even need to train me.  I had pretty good evaluations at that place — and if they won’t hire me, why the hell would anybody else want to?

A few weeks after that, one of my applications actually got a nibble, and I was asked in to interview.  It was a tough interview, what I later found out was a “behavioral interview“, that began with the interviewer pressuring me to disclose “things I didn’t like” about my previous management.  I was caught off-guard, and since I was totally unprepared for that kind of interview anyway, I totally bombed it.  I know I bombed it because I received an email form letter less than 24 hours later telling me they’d decided that “another applicant was a better match for their needs” — this after they’d told me the day before that they were still interviewing a lot of people, and wouldn’t be making a decision until mid-June.  They didn’t know who they liked, but they knew it wasn’t me.  Ouch.

And all of this is on top of my ongoing problems with employment — the fact that I was never able to land an entry-level professional job, because the skill sets for all of those jobs are in the exact areas in which I am learning disabled.  Administrative assistants have to be organized and able to prioritize.  They need to keep track of other people’s schedules and contact information.  They need to know where everything is, and often they’re called upon to do light book-keeping.  Try doing that when you have dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and ADD.

Lest you assume that my problems are simply psychological, that I’m psyching myself out, let me state that my problem is not that I haven’t tried doing this sort of work.  I have.  I have tried, and I have failed, and I have gotten fired.

What kills me is that when I describe this situation to friends, they often tell me, “Yeah … you really need to be at a high enough level so that someone else is doing that work for you!”

Great!  That helps so much!  But I can’t be at a high professional level, because I can’t get my frakking foot in the door.

So I have been stuck doing retail and customer service, and all kinds of informal teaching in the arts, and at a time like this that just isn’t good enough.  My work history is all over the place, and I’m competing for jobs with people who have been focused and successful.  I hate the kind of work I’ve been doing, but I don’t know how to dig myself out.  I’m smart, I’m competent, and I learn quickly; I’m a good problem solver, I’m analytical, and I write well; and I turn 35 this month, and I still don’t know how to work around my learning disabilities.

Like a lot of public sector jobs, this one requires applicants [...]]]> At the moment, I’m in the middle of an application process for a public sector job.  In spite of the fact that this is work I’ve done before, and work I’m eminently qualified to do, I might lose out on it for stupid bureaucratic reasons.

Like a lot of public sector jobs, this one requires applicants to take an exam; and like a lot of exams, this one had math on it.  I was extremely anxious beforehand — on the drive over, the music running through my head was the Confutatis from Mozart’s Requiem.  My hand shook the entire time I was taking the test. And after all that effort, I’m probably screwed anyway.

I promise my next post will involve something other than whining about my job search.

And I was sitting there, trying to figure out how to solve this problem.  Multiplication?  [...]]]> So I’m working on this art project, right, and I’m going to be applying these 1.5 inch decorative leaves to a certain space that’s 7 inches wide. I’m trying to figure out how many leaves I’ll need to cover the space.

And I was sitting there, trying to figure out how to solve this problem.  Multiplication?  Division?  I tried both, and both answers seemed perfectly cromulent.  Finally I got out my tape measure and tried to count the number of times 1.5 inches happens in 7 inches.

As I did this, it occurred to me that I had a 7 inch space, and basically I was dividing it into 1.5 increments.

Oh, language, my old friend… without you, I wouldn’t be able to do a third grade level word problems in under 15 minutes.

But there are a lot of non-math problems that tend to accompany dyscalculia. We have trouble conceptualizing time, reading maps, dancing, remembering sports plays, learning to read music, [...]]]> Over at the dyscalculia forum, we’re all pretty bad at math.  That goes without saying. If we could do math we wouldn’t have dyscalculia. QED.

But there are a lot of non-math problems that tend to accompany dyscalculia. We have trouble conceptualizing time, reading maps, dancing, remembering sports plays, learning to read music, and playing games. In these areas, it seems that everybody on the forum has their “exception”. Somebody may be able to understand sports pretty well (even football, which is hecka complicated!), somebody else may be a decent dancer, and somebody else can actually play cards.

My “exception” has always been navigation.  Many people on the forum are terrible with maps, directions, and public transit.  An unusually high number of them don’t even drive.  Me, I’ve always been fine with that stuff.  Maps are never a problem for me, and in fact I have a nearly eidetic memory for directions.  If I’ve been a place once, I can get there again.  Back in the days before google maps, when we had to write directions down, I could usually remember them once I was in the car without referring to what I’d written at all — the fact that I had written them and read them back to the direction-giver was enough to get me there.  This was a good thing, because after taking that trouble to write out the directions, I usually forgot them when I left the house.

The only downside is when I get it wrong the first time.

The first time I went to my current doctor, I had a rough idea of where I was going, and I decided to take a “short-cut”.   I figured I’d take a left turn several blocks earlier than google maps directed, avoid a high-traffic street, and just turn right to be on the street I needed a few blocks to the east of my destination.  Unfortunately, it was one of those odd San Francisco streets that does not abide by the grid pattern, and my left turn meant that I was on a street that didn’t intersect with the street I needed.  I was practically in the Bay before I realized that I was way north of where I wanted to be.

It wound up taking me 45 minutes to turn around and figure out where I actually needed to be.  After I got home and figured out my mistake, I vowed to follow the google directions next time.

That was two years ago.

Ever since that day, I have driven to my doctor’s office, promising myself I’d get it right this time, only to go on autopilot and realize too late that I’d gotten it wrong again.  Two years.

That is, until yesterday, when I finally got it right… which turned out to be a good thing, because my clever plan to keep myself from being late backfired horribly …

Awhile back I wrote about a painful muscle strain I’d developed in my shoulder and neck area.  Like many dyscalculics, I have a poor [...]]]> This has been sitting in my editing box for more than a month now.  Since it’s Dyscalculia Awareness Month, I figured it’s only appropriate that I dust it off and publish it.

Awhile back I wrote about a painful muscle strain I’d developed in my shoulder and neck area.  Like many dyscalculics, I have a poor sense of my body in space, and how not to move without hurting myself.  Most of the time I hurt myself in small ways, by running into things.  Other times I develop repetitive stress injuries because I’m not aware that I’m holding myself in an awkward, damaging position.

It started when I was sick, curled up on the couch in a position that didn’t feel awkward at the time.  I was sort of aware of pain and discomfort, but I kept working out, and then I did some work on my car, and then I woke up the next morning unable to sit up.  It seriously took me several minutes to figure out how to get out of bed without screaming.

Since then I’ve had some deep tissue massage, some stretching, some ultrasound massage, more stretching, a lot of advil, more stretching, sports gel, more stretching, hot and cold packs, and more stretching.  The injury seemed to stay about the same.  It would hurt like hell when I woke up, then I would massage the area with sports gel, and it would be much better.  Then I’d wake up the next morning once again in horrible pain.

What finally helped was a trick from the Alexander Technique that I’d learned several years ago — the “semi-supine” position.  The idea is to relax your muscles by lying on your back in a completely neutral position; that is, your feet are flat on the floor, your knees are bent, your head is supported, and your spine is allowed to fall into its natural shape.  By doing this for ten minutes I already felt better than I had in weeks.  This 46 second video demonstrates how to do it.

Alexander Tehcnique, Semi-Supine Position

Since My New Year’s resolution was to improve my proprioception with the precise goal of not doing this crap to myself anymore, I had already checked out some books from the library about the Alexander Technique.  One of them introduced me to the “prone position”, in which you lie on your stomach, your chest supported by a few books or a yoga brick, and your forehead on the floor.  In this position, your spine bears no weight at all; and according to the book, it was a good remedy for tightness in in the shoulder and neck area.  After doing that for ten minutes, following ten minutes in semi-supine, I felt almost normal.

So, at last, my shoulder and neck are feeling a lot better.

There are a lot of Alexander resources out there.  This video is pretty informative, though I get a bit of a “dear leader” vibe from it.  The book I found to be the most useful was called How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live. It’s free of a lot of the pseudoscience that plagues these sorts of books.  In fact, it goes a step farther, with the author explaining in basic evolutionary terms why humans have trouble with movement and injury while other animals don’t.  Basically, the issue is one of neuroplasticity.  Whereas other animals are born knowing how to walk, humans have freed up that brain space to enable us to learn.  The upside is that we’re really adaptable.  The downside need to be taught almost everything that we know and do, including movement.