JoB
socrates…
i am sorry you are having difficulty with my grammer… or more accurately, my punctuation.
i do too.
the problem is one i can’t easily surmount.
i have three choices.. write as i do, write only in word carefully editing and re-editing or not write at all.
As difficult as it may seem to believe with the general lucidity of my remarks.. i have cognitive impairment severe enough to disable me.
My brain is this swiss cheese with holes in the most inappropriate places… and that’s on a good day.
ok.. i don’t have actual holes. there are just some functions that don’t work at all.. some which work only with great effort.. and some that work only sporadically no matter how great the effort.
On a bad day (or portion of a day… or days )i don’t write at all.. there are times when i barely speak.
I have difficulty with word finding, spelling (thank god for spell check), differentiating detail, sentence completion (i literally can’t see what isn’t there), incomplete thoughts, focus and documentation.
oh.. and while i can understand complex calculations… i often have difficulty with simple math.
and don’t ask me to do any of those … what is different … or complete the picture puzzles. i can’t.
i can’t comprehend the image from a digital viewfinder.
And yes.. this is all unfortunately documented.
what you read as a carelessly tossed off posting actually takes me a significant amount of time to craft.
disabilities strike people in different ways.
When i first found out about mine i was devastated… as the bedrock of my personality and accomplishments was my ability to think quickly, clearly and to document every statement. i was sure any charm i had relied solely upon my wit.
I can still think quickly if i use mild stimulants, i can think clearly if i have all the information to make a decision… but i can no longer document statements without great effort… and i never really know if i have all the information to make a decision. That is part of the reason that i read a lot on all sides of an issue.
so.. you might say what started out as a weakness… not knowing if i had enough info to make a decision.. has turned into a strength:)
oh.. i can remember the essence of what was said or written.. but i have to work to quote… and i really have to work to document…
finding the info first and then building comments from it… not the other way around as i once did.
i think i can safely say in this company that this sucks. But for me.. it isn’t optional.
The good news is that i am still a thinking woman. I may have to work harder than i once did to think things through… and i may have more difficulty accurately communicating my thoughts… but i didn’t get stupid… i just got disabled.
So, i have to ask you to have patience with me and overlook what i really can’t change. If i focus my energy on my grammar and punctuation.. there will literally be none left for thought.
while some might think shutting me up would be a good thing :) … i would miss this opportunity to talk with others when i can.
I don’t generally choose to publicly disclose my disabilities… I don’t label myself the way others hear that word.. disabled. I just have challenges.. like everyone else. But sometimes it’s a good thing to share your difficulty with others.
I think it is too easy to become judgmental about other people when we really know very little about them.
I would say that we know more about what the people we converse with on this site really think than most know about their casual friends because we talk about things that casual friends probably wouldn’t talk about.
but reading my posts you can’t tell if this is one of my good or bad days (unless you count the length and missed typos).. you can’t tell if i sit here in my PJs well after the noon hour. You can’t tell that my bath has literally gone cold while i try to draft this post:)
You can’t tell that about me any more than i can tell if you are up and about on a good day or stuck at home in pain on a bad one…
this is why i feel it is so important to try to suspend judgements…
I’m doing the best i can here.. and i suspect you are too.