clumsiness and/or poor hand eye coordination?

[phoenixmagicgirl]

Am I the only one who is very clumsy? I’m constantly dropping things and tripping over my own two feet!! Is having bad hand eye coordination related to ADD?

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[Fabulous]

Oh, you are so not alone, pheonix! This is part of ADHD. You should see the bruises I am sporting today.

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[Patte Rosebank]

It sure is!

The trouble seems to be that the ADHD mind is often somewhere else (usually on what we’re about to do), instead of being fully aware of what we’re doing at that *exact moment*.

So, we’ll trip over the rug that’s always been there in the kitchen, because our brain is so totally focussed on what we’re rushing to do, that it’s not even *aware* of the rug, as we race through the room.

Or, we’ll put our keys down somewhere, and not be able to remember where that “somewhere” was, because our brain wasn’t actually conscious of our putting them down at the time.  We can’t *remember*, because we didn’t *experience* it in the first place!

As for trying to play sports, there are a lot of professional athletes with ADHD, because the combination of hyperfocus and adrenaline makes them really excel at their chosen sport.

There are also a lot of ADHD people who are terrible at sports, due to a combination of not being in the moment, and being unable to filter all of the information coming at us so quickly.  This makes us miss important details…like that baseball that’s  streaking towards us, about to plop at our feet and lose the game for our team.

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[trashman]

I too can be clumsy. And have a lot of pain from the past to prove it!

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[MarieAngell]

I have always been a somewhat clumsy but I have a good eye-hand coordination in focused situations. I suspect that the focused eye-hand coordination was greatly enhanced by training and certain life experiences. In situations where my focus is divided I do have failures,  like grabbing for something and missing during conversation.

Are there certain identifiable situations that bother you?

I drop things like crazy, especially my keys and the phone, so I’ve been working on being more mindful when I grab them which has helped considerably. I’ve also been strengthening my legs and practicing balance and that’s helped some with stumbling over stuff. Still, if I’m not paying attention, all hope is lost.

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[phoenixmagicgirl]

@MarieAngell I’m always dropping my phone! I played recreational sports for years but wasn’t very good. I recently got into martial arts in which you need lots of hand eye coordination and depth perception (I have very little, I was born that way, being premature)..I can and have done well thus far. At home, I’m forever tripping up the stairs. At work, I’m constantly tripping over chairs, hitting tables etc. ( I work in a restaurant).

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[mudpie48]

Hello magicgirl: I used to do a lot of surfing in my younger days and became quite good at it. I literally went to the beach 5-6 times a week. Now I am way older retired and taking a med for ADHD (diagnosed at age 62 but I knew all along). Now I drop just about anything including phones, bang into tables and just about anything at hip level and I bang my toes so much at home which I refer to as my own little mine field that I now try to wear some kind of slipper or shoe around the house when I can remember to. I like the whole comments that Larynxa makes. Now that I have found this place I am spending a good deal of time trying to understand and figure out strategies to better deal with this little blessing we refer to as ADHD. You are not alone.

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[kc5jck]

Last week I fixed an amazing baked potato for my wife who is recovering from broken ribs.  It looked like those shown on menus with sour cream, cheese, bacon, chives . . . it looked absolutely perfect.

As the bowl it was in was becoming hot, I had to hold the thing by the very top edges.  As I went by the stairs carrying it to her, my elbow hit the banister sending the production into a half flip face plant onto the tile floor with the bowl shattering and sending shards of the broken dish across the room.

I had a similar cataclysm with a pizza years ago.

I suppose at one time of another, such happens to everyone.  Since for me it is about once every fifteen or twenty years, I don’t think it’s ADHD related, even if it did happen because I WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION.

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[shutterbug55]

Third try:

Clumsy? Me? HA!

I aspire to be clumsy. If I were a superhero, my name would be “Captain Klutz”. I would have a field of destruction around me that incapacitates my enemies.

In real life, I make inspector Clouseau look as agile as a cat burglar. I have multiple scars and half healed cuts and bruises all over. I have broken bones, twisted knees, sprained ankles, and even stabbed myself once. All by accident.

One of my favorite parts of the Red Green show is that black and white skit they do, and Rick and a few others try to get something done. Everything goes wrong, of course, because a detail is ignored and things go from bad to worse.  If you ever need some ideas for that skit, give me a call. My life is full of those events.

With ADD we focus on the wrong things, or we don’t focus at all. We miss the details that would save us from these accidents. I have corelle dishes, and plastic cups, because I was breaking “grown-up” dishware too fast. There isn’t a day, that passes that I don’t knock over something or drop something.

Yet another reason I think ADD is a curse.

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[dithl]

It gets worse when you’re in a rush :). Also — trying to do too many things at once turns into too many things in your hand – which means you drop some. I wonder, too, if it’s an out-of-sync kind of thing…seems some days are worse, even if I try to slow down and really focus on not fumbling.

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[darkwynde]

Heh…clumsy…yeah, that pretty much describes me 🙂

The funny thing is, if I’m not thinking about it, I seem to have “mad ninja skills”–for instance, a couple of years ago, I was working at Detroit Metro Airport as a baggage handler.  One day, I was riding in a pushback tug while a coworker was driving.  This particular tug steers from the back like a boat or a forklift, and you stand up on it rather than sitting down.

He was driving it at about 20 miles an hour (32 KPH, give or take).  Well, long story short, he made a quick left turn as he stopped to park the thing, and, as Isaac Newton predicted, I went flying off  in the direction we had been going.  My feet hit the ground, and somehow, I spun around twice and spun while dropping my hips, and stayed on my feet, much to the amazement of the guy who was driving, another coworker sitting on a nearby baggage cart, and of course, myself.  I didn’t have time to think, I just reacted.

A few days later, the guy who was sitting down watching and I were walking to the time clock to punch out, talking and joking.  I dropped the coffee mug I was carrying, and my left hand just shot out and snatched it out of the air.  Again, all without thinking about it.

However, any time I TRY to catch something I drop, or to stay on my feet in a bad situation, disaster is inevitable.  Wish I could just shut down the conscious part of my mind and run on subconscious processing LOL

 

DW

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[shutterbug55]

I know what you mean, Dark!

I don’t have the ninja grace, but my reflexes are good enough to have made Bruce Lee look like he was moving in slow motion. I think it came from people torturing me with the “Think Fast” routines.

I was in school, and someone shouted “Think fast”. I skipped that thinking step and simply stepped aside. The open milk container hit our Dean, Mr. Simon square in the chest. I knew I was sunk when he grabbed my arm and shouted “What is this?”

Always being the helpful person I am, my ADD brain came up with the perfect answer: “It looks like chocolate milk, Mr. Simon”. And my day was just beginning to get worse.

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[darkwynde]

Oh, there was nothing graceful about it, shutterbug–it looked like what it was: desperation LOL  I asked the guy who was sitting on the baggage cart if I at least looked cool doing it, and he didn’t chuckle, he didn’t laugh, he straight up f**king GUFFAWED and said, “Heeell naw!  It looked like you was tryin’ not ta break yer damn fool neck!”  LOL

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[friendlymathematician]

I played a lot of video games and did quite a bit of martial arts while growing up, so I can be clumsy at times, but not as bad as you might think. I have a decent instinct when it comes to keeping my balance.

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