Published on 12, July, 2020
I find this so hilariously annoying and wonder if anyone else suffers this:
I have trouble putting small food into my mouth with my hands. I've taken up eating dry fruit and nuts lately and I miss my mouth a lot.
Would this be a trait at all? I'm clumsy as hell anyway.
Even though I spend almost every meal time alone, I still resist buying myself a bib, but I really ought to. I can't wear a clean T-shirt for more than five minutes before I've got something all down the front of it. My other favourite is losing control of my spoon/fork hand such that I plop something into a puddle of sauce, so that I get a nice 360 degree splatter. When I was a kid, my Mum once gave me the epithet "Dolphin Lips" because I just can't drink out of a cup properly somehow, and apparently it's something do with how I shape my lips - but I'm nearly 50 now, and I still can't for the life of me work out what it is.
For me, there's definitely a huge component of having bad proprioception (the sense that tells you where your body parts are without looking). I lose track of where bits of me are sometimes when I've not used them for a while, and I can't for the life of me copy another person's motions properly. School gym teachers and my Boys Brigade drill Sergeant didn't know what to do with me - in my head, I felt I was doing exactly what had been demonstrated; but no, I never was, and they could never get through to me what I was doing wrong. I still tie my shoe laces in my own special way; I end up with the same knot in the end, but I had to work it out by trial and error, because I just couldn't be shown how ("but you're showing me with your hands, and I'm going to have to use my hands - how's that ever going to work?")
It's only very recently that I first saw video footage of me in my natural habitat, and it truly shocked me. I can see very clearly that my movements and postures are not at all what I think they are inside my head. I've always had a bit of a problem using mirrors, too; my brain just doesn't quite "get" them. For example, a weird kind of confusion sets in about whether my real hand or the reflection of my hand is the one connected to my body when I try to shave (rather like the rubber hand illusion, but without the fancy setting up). It doesn't scare me, in fact it sometimes makes me giggle out loud; but suffice to say, I'm usually bearded!
Oh, and I'm missing half the skin off the top of one of my toes. About twice a week, when I stub my toe on the leg of the bed that's been in exactly the same place for two years with enough room to drive a bus around it, I promise myself that I'll just put some padding on the damned thing. My executive functioning then files this idea away somewhere for recall the next time I stub my toe.
[Edited in: Thanks Breadpud for inspiring to write this down. Following some rummaging in my bedding drawer, phase one of building my very own padded cell is now complete. A little unexpected success for the day!]
Yes! Someone else that loses control of their spoon or fork. I get so fed up with it. It physically hurts my hand trying to peel potatoes or trying to mash something up with a fork, and I don't know how it happens but the fork goes flying in the air a lot.
People have laughed at me for years saying I have weird posture and I have no control over my limbs or what I'm doing.
Interested in what you said about videos. I really noticed a few things slightly adrift about myself from doing video self-observations of myself teaching; a statutory employment condition. Actually, none of those observations were entirely revelatory; they just confirmed what I had long known in my own mind. Also, I could frequently be seen slightly entranced whilst students were heavily engaged in productive activity. But that really is part-and-parcel of being a 'reflective practitioner'. I was actually deep in thought about my next move;and there are times in which students should be encouraged to pick up the ball and do all the running with it; which is precisely how they were always acting at the time. You really should stand back from them at that point, and there is no reason why you can't zone out a bit at that point.
Video self-observation is a constructive thing. But it is right that your work supervisors do not get to observe videos; unless, of course, you really want them to.
Could this have some role in diagnosis, I wonder? Certainly, there would be a need for the subject to discuss what was happening on the video with the diagnostician. And as regards authenticity, it is worth noting that when one is heavily engaged in carefully carrying out a certain procedure, that one often let's one's mask slip. The obvious entrancement (on many occasions) clearly indicated to me that my mind was not at all on convincing the camera.
Trogluddite said:About twice a week, when I stub my toe on the leg of the bed that's been in exactly the same place for two years with enough room to drive a bus around it, I promise myself that I'll just put some padding on the damned thing.
Me too, me too (once upon a time)!
My solution was to buy a metal framed bed with a head board and footboard so I can see from great distance and be reminded of exactly where all four feet are at all times. It’s not totally me-proof, but it’s definitely reduced the frequency of collisions from daily down to about monthly or less. Being metal, it’s comprised of smooth, round bars rather than sharp, leg-scraping edges, which helps keep the skin on my thighs instead of shredded onto my carpet:
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/leirvik-bed-frame-white-luroey-s19277296/
What I hate is when family oh-so kindly invite you to stay and their guest room is furnished with sharp corners that leap out and attack you at every turn. I spent a couple of nights at my parents’ over Christmas and I swear the bed corners were forged by Hades himself, and obscured by a big, puffy duvet to entice you into Hell. I left with my legs covered in swollen lumps where I repeatedly walloped myself—too hard and deep for bruising to appear initially; must have been February before they looked vaguely normal again. And don’t even get me started on the razor-edged, solid wooden futon-style bed that my brother offers to guests. I think, secretly, he knows it creates a torture chamber of a guest room and does it to make sure people don’t come back too often.