New term

For a good while now for reasons connected to my  general health and multiple disabilities,I have been out of the workplace which if you knew me you’d see makes a lot of sense as in a good many respects if you were to try to help me to a job, then actually you’d end up doing the lions share which be hardly economic and with being unwell, I’d be taking a lot of time off too.
The downside of this there isn’t really any organized ‘day care’ to help me use this time, challenge me not just in the intellectual sense but also from the point of just being prepared to give new things a go as well as working on making the most of my limited abilities.
This year I am to work on this and part of it is to deal with two things that are a essential part of of everyday life I do struggle with which at the period most of most people got to grips with, I didn’t in part because in that era there wasn’t much recognition of different ways of learning and also, and connected more with this blog, the problem is my attitude toward challenges.
I have a lot of problems in understanding  basic math, the sort of math you’d expect the average twelve or thirteen year old to do, from long multiplication and division onward problems around  reading for comprehension and expressing myself clearly in text that also spell over into verbal expression that can spell over into me being oppositional.
I am to study anew these subjects using more contemporary study guides and workbooks, the sort children today use at a similar level of development to that I’m left at, making notes and doing unit tests that will be marked.
It began yesterday with a fairly gentle easing in doing a couple of sections in English looking at what is Text, its different forms (fiction, non-fiction), ways of expression feeling and atmosphere and so on using ideas that I don’t recall being formal taught back in the day.
Anyway, I was supposed to had gotten started at half past Nine but by Ten to Ten I was still sat there defiantly looking at the study guide because it looked hard.
That’s the problem in me. You see, over the decades and especially during childhood because of the genuine difficulties from my disabilities, if I didn’t feel like giving something a go even if it maybe something I may need to get to grips with, then I was allowed to either not do it or put next to no effort into trying rather than having to but being given credit for what I did do (and get right).

By Ten to Ten the trusted Adult (who is is allowed to discipline me)  that was  supervising the days work, came over and told me off for refusing to get started as after all, if I had a genuine problem with it, he would help.
He put me over the chair pulling my black gymslip up which was followed a big tug as he pulled my gym knickers right down and proceeded to give me twelve strokes of the leather paddle which really hurt my bottom. For good measure afterward he made me sit with my knickers down to add to the sense of brought on shame which also meant  my bottom hurt even more on the chair.
He proceed to explain this attitude of mine where I say I have a disability that makes doing things hard and then deciding not to even bother with anything requiring perseverance, taking a defiant  attitude toward even trying wasn’t helping me manage it and as an adult middle it was time this was put a stop to.
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying
This is why he explained is why from now on every single time I do something like that, I will be paddled for it on the bare, no if’s buts or maybes.
After that, I did actually start, feeling very tearful as my bottom throbbed and I got through two units in the study guide and the corresponding sections with tests in the work book getting 85%.
He like most grown ups do understand how my disabilities cause genuine difficulties and gives me credit for that.My attitude gave me no credit because I refused to start and as painful as yesterdays lesson he taught me was he was right.
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying
My results were quite acceptable and although other units may be harder it doesn’t mean that either I will fail nor it justified taking the attitude it looked too hard for me because I will be judged on what I do right and helped with what I don’t.
Like every other person from now on I am expected to try and give things my best shot
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying – EVER