in transition

I got a new job. That's all I'm going to write about that in this blog. I don't want to get in to any trouble. I start school on May 18th. The school is being funded and my caseworker is sending an application for a reduced fare metro card for me to fill out and mail to the MTA.

This is an interesting period of transition for me.  I used to kick and scream whenever anyone suggested that I should get some kind of help, like sign up for a reduced fare metro card or live in supportive housing or go on SSI or SSDI. I used to think they were jerks and that they didn't really know me.


I am slowly warming to the idea of applying for a reduced fare card. I mean, I AM entitled to one, and it WOULD save me a hell of a lot of money on transportation in the city. I don't think I would ever live in supportive housing though. No, thank you. I know there are different levels of supportive housing and all that, but I would not want to live ANYWHERE that there was a curfew or where I had a case worker or anything like that. I am too highly functioning for such things.

I should explain some things for people who may read this blog who don't know my story or who I don't see in my day to day life and aren't privy to what I am talking about or are probably saying "Huh?" right about now. It would be cathartic for me to type it out, I think.


Ahem.

I have Cerebral Palsy:

Cerebral palsy is condition, sometimes thought of as a group of disorders that can involve brain and nervous system functions such as movement, learning, hearing, seeing, and thinking.
There are several different types of cerebral palsy, including spastic, dyskinetic, ataxic, hypotonic, and mixed.


Symptoms of cerebral palsy can be very different between people with this group of disorders. Symptoms may:

• Be very mild or very severe
• Only involve one side of the body or both sides
• Be more pronounced in either the arms or legs, or involve both the arms and legs

For those of you who know me personally, this information is not new to you, but for those of you who don't, I have a mild form of CP, it involves the left side of my body, and my leg is slightly more affected than my arm. The right side of my body is completely unaffected in the limbs.

My CP causes me to walk with a slight limp, and there are a few learning disorders that I deal with because of my CP, the definitions of which I will copy and paste from www.thearrowsmithschool.org

10. Kinesthetic Perception 

This is the capacity for perception of where both sides of the body are in space. The following are features of a problem in this capacity.
The person has limited awareness of where one or both sides of his body are in space. He has a tendency to bump into objects, doorways, etc. with the affected side of the body.

When driving a car the person is less aware of one side of the car than the other. This can result in scratching the car more frequently on one side, taking corners too wide and driving too close to either the right or left side of the road.

The person is less aware of where his hands and fingers are when cutting with a knife or using tools and as a result may injure himself more often than other people.

If the problem is severe the person may hurt himself on the impaired side and be less aware of where the pain is coming from.

If the problem occurs in the writing hand there is uneven pressure and the person wanders on and off the line when writing.

In more severe cases there is an inability to recognize objects through a sense of touch. A person can not distinguish between his keys or lighter when feeling in his pocket.

There may be some degree of awkwardness of body movement.

There is also less articulated mouth movement which results in some speech slurring.

14. Object Recognition 

This is the capacity for recognizing and remembering the details of visual objects. A weakness in this capacity is indicated by the following characteristics.

A person with this problem takes longer to visually recognize and locate objects that he is looking for. There is difficulty finding items when shopping. The person walks by an item several times before he recognizes it. The person also has trouble locating something in a refrigerator.

A manager of a drugstore with this problem had great difficulty learning to recognize his products and remember their locations in the store.

The person has trouble remembering visual cues such as landmarks to help in the process of remembering the location of places.

The person has trouble recognizing and remembering faces and will miss details in facial expressions both of which cause social and interpersonal problems.

The person has trouble remembering the visual details of pictures.

15. Spatial Reasoning 

Spatial reasoning is the capacity to imagine a series of moves through space inside your head before executing them. The following are examples of weak functioning of this capacity.

The person has difficulty visualizing a pathway of movements inside his head. This would result in some difficulty in finding his way through space because the person cannot work out a map inside his head of how to get from one place to another. As a result the person frequently gets lost or takes much longer to get from one place to another. In some cases the person becomes phobic and avoids going anyplace new because of a fear of getting lost. This difficulty applies even to small spaces like tracing out pathways on circuit boards.

When map reading the person has to rotate the map to orient towards the direction he is going. He cannot rotate the map inside his head.

The person does not have a map of how space works inside his head. Several people with this problem report that they cannot imagine how streets connect with one another.

The person forgets spatially where he has left objects resulting in loss of the object or spending extra time trying to find objects.

The person's workspace tends to be messy and disorganized with material stacked in various piles within line of sight. This is because the person cannot imagine how to organize his space. If he puts something away in a filing cabinet or drawer he later has trouble imagining in his head where it is.

The person has more trouble navigating in crowded space because he cannot map a plan of how to get around obstacles ahead of time.

In driving a car the person has trouble planning his moves ahead of time and also has difficulty anticipating the future movements of other cars on the road.

A person with this problem is poor at imagining moves ahead in a game such as checkers or chess. They tend to react to the other person's moves as they happen rather than developing a series of planned moves.

In any sports activity requiring a spatial plan of movements (e.g., planning how you are going to ski from the top of the hill to the bottom, anticipating the movement of the tennis ball and planning where to place yourself on the court to hit it) the person is at a disadvantage.

There is difficulty imagining inside the head different ways to arrange furniture in a room. The person has to physically move the furniture in order to find the best arrangement.

There is difficulty in constructing geometric figures.

16. Mechanical Reasoning 

A person with a mechanical reasoning problem has difficulty in imagining how machines operate and in effectively handling and using tools.

These are the things that I deal with every day, and for the most part, I have been successful in putting in place coping mechanisms that I use so that these are barely recognizable to the people around me, unless they are really studying me. I am slick like that.

I also have an eye condition, and it is called Intermittent Exotropia:

What is Intermittent Exotropia?
Exotropia -- a common type of strabismus -- is the outward deviation of an eye (eye turns away from the nose). When the eye turns outward only some of the time, it is called intermittent exotropia. Most exotropia is intermittent. In many cases, the eye turn might only be visible during stressful situations or when the person is tired, ill or anxious.
Pros: Advantages of Intermittent Eye Turn
When the eye turn is only occasional, the visual system (including the brain) still has many opportunities to develop. That is, as long as the eyes are straight some of the time, the brain and two eyes will develop some normal functioning (binocular vision and depth perception). Consequently, good possibilities for the development of improved vision in the future will still be present.
Cons: Disadvantages of Intermittent Eye Turn
When the eye turn happens some of the time, but not all the time, the outside observer(s) might conclude that there is no serious problem and fail to seek help. Or they might think the person is simply daydreaming, lazy, or not paying attention. Even worse, without knowing that there is a physical problem, the observer might feel uneasy or mistrustful of the person with intermittent exotropia who gives poor eye contact and comes off as distracted or "shifty-eyed."
In regards to diagnosis, the intermittent exotropia can also be tough for the eye doctor to catch. For example, the parents might notice the child's occasional eye turn, bring the kid in for an exam, and then the eye doctor won't be able to find it or induce it. In that case, the eye turn is not showing up during the "command performance" of the eye exam because the child is making an extra effort to pay attention, be "on good behavior," please the adults, etc. This in not unlikely with the child who only has the eye turn when fatigued, ill, etc. Miscellaneous clue: children with intermittent exotropia often close their eye in bright sunlight.

 And there you have it, my dear readers. I'm all exposed and I feel naked. But, it feels good to really put it out there for everyone to see. I'm done trying to conceal it all the time. This is who I am. This is what I deal with. I know that I do not have to be at the effect of the disabilities that I have, rather I choose to take responsibility for them. 

All the times that I have conversations saying that I will never find anyone who will love me for me because I limp or because I have wandering eyes are going to end immediately. 

And all the conversations I have saying that people don't hire me because I limp or because I have wandering eyes are also going to stop immediately. 

Life is too short for me to be whining about this crap.

Now, who wants to go on a date?

xo.