AddaptAbilities: Life with Adult Learning Disabilities

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 ...

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed on this day in 1980.  I think it was 1980; everyone’s saying that it’s “21 years old and leaving me to do the math.  As a dyscalculic, this often leads to trouble.Anyway.  Anniversaries are occasions to stop and reflect on what you’ve accomplished and what remains to be done.  In terms of accomplishments, there are many.  Wheelchair accessibility is a big one here.  As Dr Ruth Webb describes in her autobiography, people in chairs were simply not expected to live independent lives.  Webb, who has cerebral palsy, was determined to live ...

Yeah, I dropped off the deep end and disappeared.  It happens when you get psychotic depression.  And then get put on the wrong antidepressant.  And then it takes your body two months to recover from being on the wrong antidepressant.  And then your doctor decides that SSRI’s are maybe not such a good idea in your case.While I’m experimenting with drugs (the prescription kind!) I’ll be blogging at The Lamictal Diaries.  Lamictal (lamotrigine) is one of those anti-convulsants that they use to treat bipolar disorder.  It’s reputed to be great for the depressive phases of bipolar, ...

Yeah. Turns out, it can happen. And it happened to me. It’s not as dramatic as a manic episode or a schizophrenic break. When psychosis happens with depressive disorders, as with anxiety or OCD, the subject (that would be me) is aware that what’s happening isn’t real. In my case, I had paranoid delusions about my microwave cabinet, and had to cover it in aluminum foil to keep it from eating all the photons. Aluminum foil. Seriously. Which brings me to the next interesting detail about my...

Teresa Lewis, a developmentally disabled adult facing execution Teresa Lewis, a woman with developmental disabilities and dependent personality disorder, is scheduled to die on September 23rd. Teresa Lewis was convicted of taking part in the murder of her husband and stepson in 2002. The other two people convicted in the case, the men who planned and carried out the murder, received life in prison. Their lawyers cut a deal with prosecutors, and they set Lewis up to take the fall. She is...

Well, in another installment of “I wish they’d told me that a long time ago”, it turns out that SSRI’s can contribute to hyponatremia, a potentially dangerous condition in which your body doesn’t have enough sodium to regulate the water in your cells. It is believed that SSRI’s might contribute to at least mild hyponatremia in up to 30% of patients taking these medications. Symptoms of hyponatremia are nausea and vomiting, headache, confusion, lethargy, fatigue, appetite loss, restlessness...

So much for my job.  It turned out that the company I went to work for hired me too soon, and the work they were expecting to come through failed to materialize, and my position will not exist in its current form once my boss get back into town. Yeah … about that last bit. This all came down Monday evening after I’d come home from work. I was already stressed because our landlords were having our home reappraised, and that meant I had to spend all weekend cleaning the yard (because I failed...

Former College Professor Charles Boas Putting on Makeup For New Job as a Circus Clown I can’t quite believe it. I just landed a real live grown-up office job. The first such job I’ve ever had in my life. I start tomorrow. The job involves customer training and support, so it builds on skills I already have from my many years of teaching and customer service. Intellectually, I know I can do the work. Emotionally, however, I’m panicking. I feel sure that somehow, I just won’t be able to hack...

The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 20 today! Thanks to the ADA, Americans with disabilities enjoy better access to buildings, transportation, telecommunication, employment, and education. It paved the way for IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which enabled me to graduate from college. There’s still a long way to go before we as a society achieve the four goals of the ADA – equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic...

I’ve been reading blogging by Scicurious (formerly of Neurotopia at Science Blogs, now at called either “Neurotic Psychology” or “Scicurious”, I’m not sure which. She’s a post-doc in neuroscience, and she has posted in the past about various psychoactive medications and how they work.    She writes about the two major classes of ADHD drugs, Amphetamine, and Methylphenidate, as well as SSRI’s.  If you’re on any of these meds you should check out her posts.

A fellow dysgraphic named Hannah recently commented on my post about dysgraphia and X-Acto knives. She’s a costume designer who struggles with drawing, but manages hand-stitching and cutting without too much difficulty. It got me thinking about how important it is to have the right tools when you’re trying to work around something like dysgraphia. For instance, I’ve known for years that I write much MUCH better with certain writing implements. I need to use a soft #2 pencil, made of wood and...

I don’t know why, but I love math jokes. I laughed at all the math jokes in Futurama, even though they were written by PhD math geeks and even my husband (who has been known to do math in his sleep. For real) didn’t get most of them. Maybe it’s that whole thing where humor makes a profoundly terrifying subject — like death, or war, or arithmetic — less frightening. All I know is, I LOL’d at this xkcd comic, even though long division was the single most horribly traumatic “learning” experience...

About six months ago I wrote here and at Well-Ordered about a very nasty shock I received at the dentist: a whopping SEVEN $#%^&@ING CAVITIES.  Twice as many cavities as I’d had in my adult life thus far.  All of them between my teeth. Getting those filled was no picnic, I assure you. The culprit, it turned out, was my Vyvanse.  ADHD drugs, like many anti-depressants, and many allergy meds, and many athsma medications, can dry out your mouth something serious. Without saliva, your mouth isn’t able to defend itself from teeth-eating bacteria.  Teeth-eating bacteria cause cavities

One of the lesser known Dyscalculia Happy Fun Features is that we often struggle with sports.  We can’t remember rules, or plays, or what side of the field we’re supposed to be on.  While it’s been years since my last gym class, THANK THE GODS, I recently encountered this again when watching a World Cup game. I’m from that generation of kids who grew up playing soccer (I was terrible, thank you). Thanks to us, and to succeeding generations, we are finally able to get the occasional World Cup...

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...