motor/coordination skills

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.  

Yeah; if there's a gaggle of cheeky schoolkids on a street corner, I always brace myself - my apparently Monty Python-esque walking gait is always irresistible to them. People have often said that they can spot me from miles away by the way I wobble (though I can wobble very quickly - I'd probably end up with my nose in the pavement if I went any slower!)

I 've been described as badly coordinated for many years. In 1962/1963 my first school in Bangkok was so concerned that they suggested ,to my parents, that I be tested for what is now called cerebral palsy. The result  was negative , and other possibilities weren't explored . That didn't stop comments about my poor coordination though. Like you I was no good at gymnastics and sport.

An interesting article from 2007.   www.sciencedaily.com/.../071019085951.htm

I 've been described as badly coordinated for many years. In 1962/1963 my first school in Bangkok was so concerned that they suggested ,to my parents, that I be tested for what is now called cerebral palsy. The result  was negative , and other possibilities weren't explored . That didn't stop comments about my poor coordination though. Like you I was no good at gymnastics and sport.

An interesting article from 2007.   www.sciencedaily.com/.../071019085951.htm