Essay on my Disabilities

So, I have five diagnoses. Schizoaffective Disorder, Tourette's Syndrome, Dysgraphia, OCD and ADHD.

On a typical day, my Schizoaffective will generate weird and bizarre thoughts. Just, distortions of reality. Which, my OCD will obsessively think over, and if bad enough, I'll be compelled to act on it, such as checking to see in the parking lot I left,if I hit anyone---which I didn't, but that's a common fear I have, is accidentally hitting someone. The memory loss associated with Schizoaffective sometimes makes me lose track of short term moments of time, and I have to work to recall it to memory, and if I can't, I get disturbed. It also will cause me to have bouts of very harsh depression, and suicidal ideation. Also, the medicine I take causes severe night disturbances, such as wet dreams, painful dreams, and night terrors.

The Tourettes has been in remission for many years, save for about a two year period in 2014-2015, when I had a severe blinking tic, that would not go away, and I couldn't keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds. This tic actually led to a minor car accident.

My Dysgraphia causes me to reverse the order of things, and also have sloppy handwriting. So, when I'm in a professional setting, I might write a ticket wrong, and it will be illegible. So, that's why when I'm composing sentences, my adjectives go out of order, or sometimes I get negatives backward during mental math. As with the diagnosis, my compositional skills are perfect, and my grasp of concepts is very rich, but the physical disability makes it hard to balance, and makes it hard to do fine motor function.

My ADHD on top of my Dysgraphia, causes poor motor functioning, and makes me restless, so that I never sit still and have to wander. I can't sit for long, without having to go somewhere, and be moving. My mind needs my vestibular system to be active, to be happy. It calms my nerves, and makes me think clearer, but also, the restlessness of my body wants to be on the move. And I also lose focus, and get details wrong, which there will be sometimes errors of names, places, or spelling errors in my writing, which even after decades of looking over the same manuscript, still appear.