Friday 25 February 2011

Dyslexia the route to my defective outlook and self harm

I tried to explain a schema the other day but I am not a shrink so its hard for me to do so I will try and do a short summary here.

When I was about 8 I was put into a 'hand writing class' because my writing was terrible and I was unable to join up letters and I was writing letters upside down as it were...my S I start from the bottom (as an example). I still do.

In this class I was made to write giant letters on A3 paper..'make the S appear like a wave in the sea' the non teacher said.

I could not do this and became frustrated very easily...something was going on here...the way I held my pen (and still do) was not natural.

Instead of 'teaching me' the process was more of humiliation. I was showing the early signs of dyslexia, according to john my Psychologist. This issue with my spelling carried through to my secondary education and my School reports back this up....'Tim's prose is not easy to follow....Tim must practise spelling...his work is untidy etc etc....'...He also did not understand Maths.......

In short the 'defective Schema was planted in my system during that hand writing class at School. That defective Schema grew and grew until I then decided my body and the whole of me was defective...I have often called myself 'thick' stupid'...ugly..grotesque..a freak. In terms of my psychological assessment, which is carried out with a series of questions (about 600 of them) John tells me that the defective schema's highest score is 56...my score was 56.

I have several active Schema's and they are stubborn fuckers...they fight your treatment...they are your critic...the voice that says you are useless....the devastating effect of these feelings and emotions turn you to harm your own body....me I burnt my arms...pushed cigarettes into my flesh and abused my medication. This resulted in my being put into an acute ward 13 years ago. I was given 12 electric shocks etc...

One of my other very active schema's is emotional deprivation...the feeling of never having been loved. And then, almost my most dangerous one is 'detached protector'. This means that I can take my head away from a very serious or dangerous situation and care little for it....it protects me from the world.

That is the best I can do to explain my marriage between hating my body and dyslexia. Dyslexia has only come into my life as a known fact in the past year. It has given me the day light I needed to understand why it is I struggle with anger and so many easy everyday things.

I hope this little explanation helps....its important for me to shout about it. I am not ashamed. I am Tim and I have dyslexia and Body Dysmorphic Disorder....John has made me a different man after all these years of fighting what I did not know and so many Dr's getting it wrong. I never self harm anymore and have not done for 16 months.


Tim Roberts London February 2011




1 comment:

panda harris said...

nice one for posting that Tim keep it up keep posting it on FB - when i shared it - 8 ppl immediately shared it, most with comments mentioning similarities with yr issues......nice one...
(i am www.facebook.com/andrew.harrass on fb if u wanna hook up)