I've always been clumsy. It was bad enough that a couple of years ago I asked my doctor if I needed a neurology consult. Nobody at any point has said ADHD to me. (Or autism, I've probably also got that going on.) God healthcare sucks

[–] flicker@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I take stimulant medication for my crippling ADHD and while it's in my system, I am suddenly aware of where I am, in relation to other things. I don't run into things, I don't trip on nothing.

When I'm at baseline, I have been known to tip over while standing.

This isn't an ad for medication. There are massive drawbacks to it. It's just a reiteration that this isn't our fault. It's not that we're "clumsy." It's not that we're stupid. In this case it isn't even that we're unobservant! It's that neurologically typical people often "feel" where they are in relation to everything around them without trying.

We are fundamentally missing a sense of spacial relation, completely without a frame of reference to everything around us. That isn't a flaw that we possess because of something we are doing "wrong," or because we don't try. And when I realized that, especially since I'm a woman (and grew up verbally brutalized over my unbecoming bruises), it made me angry.