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DYSPRAXIA STINKS

BY JASON LEVINE

My name is Jason Levine, and the thing is, I want the world to meet the real me. Before I could spell, no one that worked with me could see my potential. Having dyspraxia stinks…but at least it stinks a little less now. Greatness is being beyond the loss of ability, and finding the ability to have success. Being dyspraxic means loss of motor control, not cognitive control.

Love has given me a voice. Getting a voice has given me the ability to make real thoughts known.

10/29/2024 0 Comments

No Feeling Stands Alone

Having Alex degenerate these past few years caused Judy heartache that I cannot fathom. Yet one day after another, since I met her, she came into the office in good spirits. I am totally feeling the stress though, today. I guess feelings are complicated, and they are tied together in complex ways. Digging deeper, there are overlaps too, like anger and stress; happiness and love. Grief and love can also be tied together.

So with that in mind, that love makes things complicated because they can rapidly become powerfully intermixed. (I love that comment because it encapsulates this post’s idea perfectly.) I sense in Judy today a mixture of tension, fear, stress, anger, love, heartache and disappointment. That upset has me reeling.

To tell you the truth though, only one may certainly have me personally upset: heartache makes the whole thing tough to handle. The source of that has to leave her alone. I feel that it is personally an attack on her…and that pisses me off.

I know that my fellow nonspeakers intend to pursue this conversation this week. I feel though that the less said, the better. Feelings are weird though and maybe I’m wrong. Her thoughts get muddled to me though, so I’m not sure what is best.

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10/22/2024 0 Comments

Call for Change

After an awkward time, being frightened by the very thought of years trapped in this body, having to withstand the nightmare of school, I finally am, at first, getting to like who I am. I can’t feel totally at peace with myself, because dyspraxia sucks. Having no ability to speak with my mouth, or to take care of myself, stinks. Having to be reliant on others even to speak blows chunks. That is the worst part of this stupid disability. Calling the hardness of our lives difficult is beyond an understatement.

But at least now demonstrating that I’m intelligent allows people to realize that I am not who they believed me to be.

I thought I’d get used to people waiting to put us through tortuous, idiotic, almost-damaging, shaky science nonsense, but it’s not the kind of thing one gets used to. I take the position that we give the appearance of considerable disability, but if you observe us closely, through the lens of dyspraxia, you will see a consistency. Our ability to control the workings of our muscles is pathetic. Seeing as how our teachers, therapists, and beneficent speech paths all saw the motor problems, how come no one has made the leap to reconsider our cognitive abilities? Sorry, but it doesn’t allow centuries of work to have the truth thoroughly accepted. All it should take is a paper or two in the literature to crush today’s misconceptions.

Real-world returns are the corrections of societal mistakes. It’s awkward always to admit you are wrong. But it needs to happen right now.

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10/8/2024 1 Comment

October 8, 2024

Having been laughing my ass off sitting here staring at Judy in her birthday decor, I am once again struck by the fact that giving is more fun than receiving. Her face, when Rocco threw open the door just now to give her a present, made me laugh out loud. Definitely hilarious.

Can I say that love is my favorite emotion to feel. Basically, that is happiness, joy, gentle laughter, fun, good thoughts, loyalty, trust, caring all rolled into one. Hard to top that! I can really kind of feel it as soon as I walk into M2H, and the epicenter is Judy. It makes me so beyond happy to make her feel special today. I know that I am not alone until I get here each week because even up in Connecticut I feel it.

For people to really understand what I am talking about, you really must meet Judy. Being nonspeaking sucks, but she makes it suck less. I want to give her her totally insanely high due: Happy Birthday to my favorite person.

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10/1/2024 0 Comments

Friendship

Maybe this post will make little sense to you who speak with your mouths. It will totally make sense to the nonspeakers out there though. All my life, before spelling, there was a pain in my heart that had nothing to do with my inability to speak. Can you imagine your life without friends? I personally am as intensely grateful for my friends as I am for my ability to speak. I was beyond lonely before we came to M2H. I only get to come here and to see them once a week, but knowing I have friends and am loved by them has utterly changed my life.

Appearances can be deceiving, and I know that on the outside, we look autistic. But on the inside, we are intensely social people. Having friends gives me the love and fun I so desperately missed.

I am kind of teary inside writing this. Having lived in a friendless world, I remember only too well how it felt. The never-ending heartache was agonizing. Being that way for so long was horrible. Now I wake up each day in happiness. Getting sentimental for a moment, people really, it so seems, need other people.

Hastening to finish this, let me say that love is the most important thing on earth. My knowing that there are people who love and value me has made wishes come true.