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

One hard mother fucking confession...do read please

Hard, hard week where it has all gone tits up again. My biggest problem remains not having someone close to talk about these things to. I know I am a bore with it but you can not imagine how damn hard it is.

When I go in to my Psychologist in that kind of mood he will give me what is called a crisis session. We got talking about dream scapes. I often spoke of the kind woman who comforts me in my dreams. They are not lust loaded dreams..she is kind and holds me, comforts me. John says that I have never been loved and cared for in the fullest sense of the word....after all, I did not get like this by some accident of birth. This desolate person was made this way during the childhood process. This is not cheap guess work..it has taken John all his skill to get me to really open up and he has used imaging to access the parts of my head that lock down about that past.

I told John, early on, that ever since I can remember, I have felt odd...like I do not quite belong. I was treated in a disgusting way at School and no one was listening. My School reports are a document of education abuse. Hearing a drunk man shouting the place down is what John calls terror....pure terror because a child can not compute what is going on...why do you think I despise drunks...mouthy men who have had a few.Things being broken and smashed induces terror but a terror that grows with you into your adult years.

John does not use Psycho babble or jargon as he calls it..he is a tough northerner...he explains my schema's to me so that I understand them.

I told him of this really painful thing that happened to me when I was going to School once...I was 11. I used to go and meet my friend, Paul Berry, and we would walk to School together. It was when his Mum opened the door that I burst out crying. I told John that I have never forgotten this and how much terror I felt. I told him this because I was trying to articulate the terror I go through when I meet people....go places...do ordinary things.

I cried because I was scared of my History Teacher...I was scared of showing him my home work. I was scared because I was dyslexic....he gets angry when I say no one had heard of it then..he says no Tim, no one gave a shit about your situation...he says, you were in two inner London schools with a process that had been known for years and years...after all, he says, how did they know Churchill was dyslexic..he concludes that everyone was too busy doing other stuff to notice or care to notice that I had a problem.

For fuck sake it is as clear as day in my school reports....Tim can not understand...Tims spelling lets him down...Tims prose makes no sense.....Oh and I must remember we were all on a time limit...16 and out of School....off to work you go...yes John is right....no one gave a shit and all I have ever known is that School was terror for me...which is why I skipped many days of my last two years....I left with 2 CSE grade 2 and 3s...total educational failure....

John does this thing when I say something massive....he stops me...holds me in the moment. He says that this one thing is one of the most important things I have ever told him and it has taken a year to get there. I told him that this one moment lives with me most weeks....like the awful hand writing lessons at Heber Road my awful Primary School.........

John said...why did you cry to your friends Mum and not at home..?...John has come to a conclusion that I was scared...but scared beyond what an 11 year old boy should be. I told him that in my video diary, before my 1st swim recently, I said to the camera that I was sure that I was going to die in there...but was not sure that what would kill me....I knew I would not drown. I still have this video. John said that this extreme of feeling that I am going to be killed or am going die has been in me since School...since being a kid. I know that and I now have someone who has finally dragged it out of me....Dr Bernini said similar things to me 10 years ago.

John thinks I am scared of people.....but not in any rational way....I fear death by them. I have often said how pathetic and sad I think drinkers are....men drinkers...all in the pub like repressed cunts who will go home and batter some poor soul......I hate groups of men and always have done....that oh so fucking macho little angry Englander who gets shit faced.....I fucking hate with all my energy groups of men...all lads together.

I have never been one of them and I am a better man for it.....right wing cunts who need viagra to get a cock up yet they judge me......me with dyslexia....me with bdd....let me tell you something....I never did this to me....me and john know who that is....and in my life that is all that matters....so if I am fucking angry I have every fucking right to be....me who was sent to a two bit all boys Comp....

T Roberts London Feb 2011

The fear of the everyday ordinary

I am going to a gig tomorrow and even though I have been to 100s and even though it is tomorrow night I feel fear; it is not a very rational fear but it is a fear all the same. This is why I have been seeing a Psychologist for just over a year now; I am armed with some tools to deal with this fear but the fact that exists still fucks me off. It should be something to look forward to. OK yes I am going on my own but this is normal. I do everything on my own, so it is not that. I can not even put it into words what this feeling is.

Recently I have been swimming twice and in the words of my therapist this is remarkable; please believe me, it really is. If you had told me a year ago I would be able to go swimming, on my own, in a public baths, I would have called you insane.

I know nothing will happen tomorrow and like I said, I am not quite sure what it is I fear. Once I really understand this, I will have cracked a life time of being afraid....how alien but nice that will be.

T A Roberts (2011 London)

Dyslexia and the barriers

All the things that I thought made me thick come down to dyslexia; unchecked dyslexia from the age of 7. My therapist has nailed my main issue and it is this issue that gave me the schema of defectiveness, which is the most active schema that I have.

I have always considered me to be a bit thick...I could never spell correctly. My school reports tell me that I could not understand thing correctly...that my writing was untidy...that I had no understanding of maths.  I was put into a handwriting class at 7. I was put into a maths class for extra learning at 13/14. I grasped and embraced the spoken word in Drama though...I excelled in this subject with Pinter and Chekhov..it is what made me join pro Theatre at 16 and to escape the misery I felt at school.

My therapist has said that all the traits I display, even now, are ones of a person who has dyslexia. Writing my letters the wrong way round, the way I hold my pen. My ability to use both hands for many things...playing pool with left, playing a guitar (if I could play one)...tennis with both; I hold a pen in an awkward way with my right hand.....I still don’t get on with maths at all. I find instructions hard to follow....most things I have over come myself but I feel robbed and cheated of most of my life and what I could have been. I am alphabet blind and this frustrating at times.

My opinions of myself have always been that I am thick, too small/skinny and ugly. I know believe that my BDD was born from this trauma....the trauma of feeling humiliated at School. This is a place where I should have been taken care of but my therapist said that most of the things said in my school report are quite typical of the lack of understanding there was toward this problem. My school reports as good as write me off.........

I am hoping that I will be able to now explain to anyone in the future that this is what I suffer with and that it will help inspire a little more understanding in the future.

T Roberts (London 2011)

Always on the outside

Imagine this, because not many can; I am 16 years old and have left school, which I hated apart from Drama, and end up 6 weeks later working in West End Theatre...I am from South East London and the boys and girls are tough and uncompromising. Suddenly I am confronted by gay men and women everywhere...I found my home. They were my sympathetic..gentle as well as crude...manly enough but feminine. I had never known an outwardly gay person, not coming out of Peckham/East Dulwich. At school the word poof, homo or gay was used to torment the lesser boys like me.

I knew I was not gay but I knew I liked being around people who were somehow on the outside of life. I befriended black people for the same reasons, but never dare say that my lot was as bad as there's on the left out front. I suppose its why I became a human rights activist.

The bullying that I received at school had left deep marks but I was not aware of  it. I have only become aware of that because of the schema therapy that I am currently going through. During imaging sessions I am taken back to very difficult times in my childhood and teens. The idea is to go back there and extinguish the belief system that I am defective. I mean, I still describe me as being thick. Not knowing I have a form of dyslexia has trapped me for years. The awful bullying I had over my size will still hit me if anyone ever says anything about my size/weight now. Its like all the blood is taken from me...it is awful but people feel they have the right to say things.

These are the facts though....I am 46 and I never go above 12 stone, which for a 5ft 8 fella is perfect according to medics....so if Britain is getting fatter, I am not. I eat well.....I do not eat shit.

I am starting to learn that being an outsider is ok....my psychotherapist challenged me over a few things, like when I said that I am happy to go through life without friends...I have survived up to now. He said that it was very fulfilling to have friends and said we are not made to do life alone. I said that the idea of being in a relationship does not bother me anymore....yes I miss sex and I miss the company and doing things with someone....but I have been on my own for 6 years and I will survive without. He challenged that as well. I said I am still afraid to go through the process of it all. I have come a long way though in the past year of therapy.

I also told him that I have no time for heterosexual men....ultra macho pricks who judge all....well I have just judged some of them. I have been asked on numerous occasions if I am Gay; like people have the right to ask me this. It has never upset me and I take it as a compliment. I like only feminine people and I am a bit like that myself....I have been told so many times....so if I am different and on the 'outside of life' then so be it. Those who follow sheep end up on the dinner table.

Tim.......London Jan 2011

Dyslexia and alphabet blindness..my struggle and secret

It has only been through the process of my bdd cbt that I found out that I had been suffering a form of dyslexia all my life. One of the key factors of bdd therapy is to find out what it is in your childhood that triggered it off. When I was 7 I was put in a special class because I was unable to join my writing up and I still can not do it today. I was also teased for writing my letters the wrong way..for example my S starts at the bottom. Later, when I was about 12, I was stuck in a special class for my Maths.

Reading has never been a big issue but that is because I pushed myself to read; it was decided, early on in my life, that I was not worthy of reading certain books, and even now I fear certain novels. When I do pick them up and read them I wonder what all the fuss was about. I will still come across words I do not understand but now I can look them up on line...I may not be able to pronounce them. My spelling has always been awful. Thank the humanist spirit for spell check! Grammar goes over my head...I still do not get it and gave up trying to ages ago. Tell me what a verb is 100 times and I will forget in a minute.

When I attempt my prose and poetry it is messed up by this........... dot dot dot...that will be because I do not understand where a coma should go...or a ; or a full stop.

I am lucky in that my CBT therapist was, in his past life, an educational psychologist. He stumbled on my problem by accident; after all I was there for chronic depression and bdd. He told me, about two months after meeting me that I was a very angry person....he asked me what made me angry so I gave my alphabet blindness example. I told him that if there is a certain CD or Film that I want to buy in HMV and it begins with say 'R', I will become very frustrated. I can count in, like A, B, C, D etc but once I get lost I start steaming off. I can say my alphabet, A to Z, but I can not form it in the middle...not even after E.

I was in Waterstones just yesterday; I was looking for 3 authors and it took me 35mins. I could feel myself getting frustrated and all the letters started to skew. The problem is if you go up and ask, 'where will I find Philip K Dick' you will get back...under D!..derrr..

He said to me that if I had sat in front of him, in his past role, he would diagnose me with dyslexia. I also told him about my ability to use my left hand to do things I should not be able to....play pool is one.

The refreshing thing for me is that he himself suffers exactly as I do...he is this quite brilliant Psychologist but has alphabet blindness and the other problems that I have. I am still worried about things...like application forms etc. Huge books put fear in me but I just read 700 pages in one week so I can do it. There were moments where I was frustrated but I got over them. So my bdd may have been born from this torment I received at School....teachers knew nothing of dyslexia in the 1970's. So the humiliation eat away at me.

I am as well read as anyone I know now....but it took me until the age of 45 to find out that block I had in my head.....and it makes me more proud that I picked up books, when young, and read them. Education in a class room is not what we all need....in some cases it can ruin your life and cost you so much. I kind of know that.

T Roberts London Dec 2010

Christmas is coming...close the world out..

I spent the last 5 Christmas's on my own, and considering my birthday falls the day before, on Christmas Eve, this will be 5 birthdays alone. I find this time of year difficult, like lots if people do, maybe doubly so because I get a year older....the images of Christmas are quite hard to cope with at times because it is not something I know...being around family and friends. Even when was working I tended to avoid all the pre Christmas stuff like Parties because of my bdd and my fear of being around people.

My therapy is at a crucial stage now...we are starting to really dig in the dirt of my childhood and teen years...I admit that I find the going very tough...we do imaging work so it can be very distressing.

I am trying very hard to get a job right now but no one will give me a chance...as soon as they know I have this appointment weekly the door is shut on me....that is part of life and having a mental health problem though; if someone accepted me as I was I am quite sure I would pass out there and then. The vast majority of people in any walk of life that you meet treat you very differently once they find out your history...and I do mean the vast majority of people.

I have banged on about it so many times in the past but it is perfectly acceptable in the UK to have a drug habit or a drink habit...that is part of society now and is accepted and quite cool...quite trendy...mention anything depression based and you are a fucking fruit cake. So to this end I do not mind living in my isolated bubble because I do not have to explain myself to anyone....

I have been hanging around twitter for a while now and the realisation that it is actually quite shit is starting to hit home...I have taken to reading again...I will go through phases where I read a book per week and then nothing for months....currently I am reading 1984...what a book!!!..I am nearly 46 and have never opened it before....this is a 'thought crime'!!...my reading has helped calm my mind, for sure, so I shall try and keep it up.

I need all my coping strategy in the next 6 weeks or so to survive this time of the year....I kind of lock myself in 3 or 4 days before Christmas and don't go out at all....it all becomes a bit too much. If I stick by my rules and routine I will be fine...

T A Roberts London Nov 2010.

In my own world

This will read odd to the outside world but my deep depression and social isolation made me invent a world inside my head...and within that world is a kind female who understands me and accepts me despite my affliction.

It is not a fantasy world, as such, but more a comfort; everyone will fantasize but this is stronger. I know it is born from my longing to be accepted or liked, loved etc. 

Social isolation is abnormal and so is not having any connection with any other people; I feel a pang of envy anytime I do see people together in groups....to have that security, from friendship, must be a nice feeling....to see couples doubles the pang.

My biggest fear, normally brought on during the depths of a bad depressive episode, is that I will die in my flat and no one will know or find out....I will be consumed by flies; this feeling keeps me alive when at my worst. The need to be ‘known’ or missed is an odd one but we all live to feel that.

My cut off from ‘people’ and relationships has been such a long one that I am rather numb to effects; sex was years ago, a memory I can recall now and then. I think there is a truth though when people say that sex is more important when you are not getting it.

I have missed out on many things because of this illness....it has cost me more than I could ever add up; It has cost me seeing places and doing so many things.

So the down side to my invented company is that she is not real...she is very kind, too kind in fact, and no not in any sexual way....she is kind as a person and kind to me and this is not a feeling I have ever known. Each time I think of her the desolate reality kicks in that she doesn’t exist and that I am here alone...talking to walls, which I have done for about 8 years. 

Depression is a monster....I can accept BDD, but depression is a beast. It has been with me for so long that I doubt it will ever go fully....I just hope I have not missed too much.

TR Nov/2010

So what's BDD then?..

If, and it is very rare, I admit to my BDD face to face, the first question I get asked is, 'what's that then?'

After a brief explanation, the  person who asked will say something like, 'Oh everyone worries about their appearance, I do everyday'. Which then means one goes on the defensive, and has to go off 'into one', trying to validate it. Which is why I tend not to ever mention it.

The easiest way to explain BDD is to say it runs your life for you; it pretty much makes every decision for you during your every waking hour. Where you go, how long you go for, if you go at all....this will be preceded by 100s of times checking mirrors; and then when you do get out, one simple reflection of yourself that does not look quite right can send you into panic overdrive, and back home you will go.

My Psychologist thinks it is very similar to OCD, because the OCD is in mirror checking, but that it is more deep seated than a habit  you need to kick. The belief is that some sort of trauma set this off way back in your childhood. I can remember as far back as 9 or 10, being afraid of my naked self. When I got to 15 this became a terror.

Look, with or without BDD, I am not a pretty boy...that I can live with..I am 5ft 8 and very slim. Now at 46, my GP will say, wow, you are in good shape; my weight is fine, at the moment, and as a GP he will compare me to other 46 year olds...most who meet me think I am 38 tops, so it is not all bad. But that is all the simplistic stuff....the odd thing is I have not had a problem being bald, or a slaphead as I like to say. When it started to go I shaved it all off....nothing worse then a man who clings on. Its like a needy lover!!!

So you have to get past the obvious; not being a pretty boy etc, because the roots to BDD are way deeper than all that; the defect is imaginary but I believe in it more then I have ever believed in anything. So the CBT takes time to work. I am setting myself tasks and trying my best to see them through. I am trying to do stuff that I like to do...self compassion is an essential part of recovering from a mental illness; it is a weird concept, doing stuff for me, being nice to me, that I was recently taught in group therapy....its all a slow up hill road but I am doing my best and getting on with it...

London September 2010

Mental Health Discrimination

The DWP really do believe that an employer will give you a chance if you admit to having a mental health difficulty; what deluded planet do they live on? When you consider that society itself, everyday people, give you a very wide birth, why do the government think that someone will employ you?

Me, I am a multi skilled handyman...I was sacked recently and this is directly linked to my mental health problems. I do not fit in the box that the government want me to...I have worked all through my problems but not one of my employers has given me the chance to go and seek treatment; and what is my treatment? It is one session of CBT per week, which last one hour!! so I am hardly asking for much.

I have spoken to my mental health professionals recently and all agree that this country gives you no sympathy as soon as you come out of the mental health closet. Celebrities going to rehab are cool though!

I can not sue over my sacking, because I do not have the money to do so, and it is not something you can do on legal aid. I am not someone who is going to be a risk to anyone...I have body dysmorphia and depression, so the most radical thing I will ever do is take a nap and hide!!!!!

There is a really good example of double standards going on in the media at the moment; Ricky Hatton gets caught taking cocaine...checks into a rehab unit and is being treated for depression. Well if we all could afford the treatment in The Priory we would all go...if I go into a rehab unit I will be in a space with crack heads and people who wish to do you harm...I know, I have been there.

There is no point in my getting angry with the employers when 99.9% of people who know you have a problem will give you a very wide birth...this is is why, in my life, I have been left to fend for myself. I have no moral support at all...and when I say none, I mean none. As I stated before, it is even harder being a man in this situation..women tend to judge you even quicker. In fact the thing that shocks me most is the attitude of women when they find out you have an 'issue'.

There is little point in being bitter about it but it really does make me smile when you hear the 'wolly' brigade saying that there is a way back into work....I am lucky, in that I have only just lost my job, but it is about the 4th one I have lost due to the same problem. Those who have been out for years and years stand little or no chance at all.

For years and years I have had to hide and lie about my disorder; I lie about the marks on my arms...what kind of world makes me do that?..a world of people who judge and discriminate. And when I sit in a group of like minds, the stark reality is that I am not alone....this country gave up the ability to care years ago. I suppose this is why I do a blog...I am not going to fucking hide anymore or lie about what it is that has blighted me since I was 15....well that is 30 years and there is a story to tell there somewhere.

September 2010