First off, I'd like to make the major note that this is NOT a 'victim' thread. I'm just looking for a good conversation on the topic. Nothing else.

If you've seen the Butterfly Effect, you know what I'm talking about. People in wheelchairs, or in physical conditions not like those of most people, tend to be treated entirelly different. As if they've all got the mental issues to go along with the physical disabilities.

I see it wherever I go. A lot of it is simply people trying to be nice. While this may still get on my nerves, it's ok because the intention is still there.

What isn't ok, is clearly deminishing and belittling comments by people. (Some black people, or other races see this in very sheltered families. Where someone might speak differently to a black person to avoid being racist, but instead sound all the more racist because of it). I went to the dentist yesterday, and a woman stopped me clearly in the hallway (I was on my way to the bathroom) and I wasn't faced towards a single door, wasn't wandering around aimlessly, and the woman asked me "Oh, are you lost sweaty? Would you like some help getting to where you're going? Who's here with you?"

I've seen this before, and it's quite disgusting. People that assume something big about you because your crippled.

I am constantly defended, which annoys me to no ends. People will literally push someone around for calling me a name. While this may be a nice thing to do, I really never asked for it. It's belittling, and it makes a situation which I could have controlled go in the direction I don't want it to go. I tend to handle those situations much differently, by being nice to the person in question, and proving myself to them. That is, if I need to interact with that person in a school atmousphere in order to learn. Otherwise, I couldn't care less, and ignore the person.

And, going back to the butterfly effect, people treat you COMPLETELLY different. People actually have entirelly different outlooks on someone who's crippled. As you'll see in that movie, the girl doesn't end up hooking up with Evan. You can see the pitty that the girl takes on evan constantly. You can see the difference in how nice people are. How they whisper to eachother about normal convorsations.

I've got a specific girl who seems to think she needs to 'pretend' she's my friend. She "introduces" me to her friends and asks me to sit with her at lunch. Calls me "cutie" like you would a child. She's 2 years younger than me, and takes a treats me all the more inferior. But at the same time, the only real things she says to me are these. She'll have no convorsation with me, won't really even talk to me. When I was in my push wheelchair for a week (My powered one died) she decided to push me around and introduce me to people I didn't know, nor did she! Oh, how enjoyable. She walked up to them first, and asks them to talk to me, then pushes me up next to talk with them. Finally, I decided I had enough, and decided to show her that I wasn't some quiet little retarded boy in a wheelchair. I started doing what I do best: Embarassing people.

I grouped together my good friends and we all came over and started talking with her. She was suddenly the one out of place, talking to a bunch of alternative lifestyle people. I then started to say all of the little things that I disliked about the things she did. I introduced her to my friends, and told her how I knew each one. How I've gotten drunk with x person, done other illegal things with z person, etc. (I'm clean now days, and I'm proud of it) She was astonished. Now we don't talk.

I worry about getting into relationships for this reason. She was an extremist of the type of people who take pitty, and 'help' crippled people. What if I happened to love someone who was the same way, just less noticable? What if the relationship I end up in is completelly fake in every way shape or form?

JediKirby

Didnt know you were in a wheelchair but anyways... I wouldnt believe you or them if either of you said you're in a serious relationship over pitty. Relationships dont get serious because of pitty, they get serious because 2 people feel very strongly about each other. Pitty might intially attract some people to you, that's understandable, but you couldnt even start to build a serious relationship on that alone. You'd know from the very start that it wouldn't work.

I think you're worrying too much. Hell, if you've got people wanting to start something with you, go for it. What have you got to lose? Nothing.

I catch myself doing the same thing.. it's hard not to, for me at least. You bring up a good point, it's something I've got to work on

Talking to vinny, thought I'd post this:

I and a female friend of mine were flirting around and I was tickling her and cuddling, so then she turned around and punched me when I wouldn't stop tickling her. We were flirting, obviously, and the bouncer comes over (this was at lunch at our highschool) and brings her to the office for 'hitting' me.

So I confront the bouncer, and he says "Oh, you don't have to be ashamed brandon. I saw her hitting you, you don't need to pretend like it didn't happen. We'll take care of it for you little buddy, you just tell me if that happens to you again, and I'll protect you."

I think my major beef is that some people simply are lacking in social skills all-together. I mean, can you be THAT blind? He deals with teens all year long, for 10 years, and he doesn't know what flirting is yet? Oh wait, crippled people DON'T flirt.

JediKiirby

the fact that you have bouncers at your school is scary...

You seem to be a pretty good judge of character so far, and seeing as you have to put up with the pity crap all the time, I don't see how you could end up in a relationship with someone when they weren't genuinely interested. All you can do really is just keep calling people on it. People do treat those with disabilities differently, because most people don't have first hand experience of being around disabled people regularly.
I met a guy in a club a while ago who was in a wheelchair, and we exchanged a few emails during the following week. It was the first time for me that I'd spoken regularly with someone with a severe disability, and I admit that I tried to word what I said to him in the emails pretty carefully (I have no idea what I said to him in the club, I was pretty drunk!!), but it wasn't because I was being patronising or looking down on him (I do remember that he was older than me and pretty damn smart), just that I was scared of offending him. I wish I'd just ignored it, and chatted the way I would to anyone else, but it took me a while to adjust. Remember we're all just human, and people (on the whole, I hope!) don't mean it, they just need to realise you're (on a massassi scale!!) normal.

Perhaps that's true maeve, but it's still belittling.

I honestly can't see a single thing someone could 'accidently' say to me to offend me, or anyone else who's crippled. I talk to a LOT of people like me. I also know a lot of retards too. Neither really mind 'crippled' or 'retard' as words, as long as they're not used angrilly. I mean, if someone's intending to hurt you, and intending to offend you, it hurts. It hurts ALMOST as bad, when they try to NOT hurt you. Both is special attention because of the way you look, and both hurts.

JediKirby

I try to avoid treating people differently, yet i don't avoid eye-contact etc because i know that sometimes they even feel like nobody looks at them. I can totally understand your position jEDIkIRBY, must suck to get pity all the time.

At least here at massassi you're treated like the rest

I wish my school had bouncers

i wish i got pity, everyone just ignore me

The bouncers are just hall-monitors, really. But they're really kickass and are able to tear kids off of eachother with a single finger!

And yeah, I love massassi for being a bunch of asses. Makes me feel right at home ^.^

JediKirby

/me knocks over jEDIkIRBY's wheelchair.

THERE! HOW'S ABOUT WE NOT BE NICE TO YOU!!:P

Nah, in all seriousness. Kirb, I can see where your coming from. It would get annoying after a while. Just a question though, if you don't mind me asking. What put you in a wheelchair? PM me if you don't want to publicly disclaim the info.

I can kind of relate to some of your experiences. I've been freakishly tall my entire life. For as long as I can remember, I've been close to half a foot taller than 95% of the kids around me. Plus, I tend to be VERY introverted and antisocial. Obviously, most people were too intimidated to physically pick on me (which was always quite funny, considering I'm really pretty weak), so they turned to verbal abuse. I've had every expletive in the English language thrown at me, been constantly harrased about my lack of social interaction, hell, some people have even thought I was retarded. I also tend to be more conservative, so I catch a lot of flack because I don't drink, smoke, etc. But hey, you've gotta learn how to deal with *******s sooner or later.

Welll. Jedi. your my buddy. and i wouldnt care if you were nothing more then a giant pile of ham i would still respect you. i have never been one to judge someone on looks without getting to know them first. im sorry if you feel belittled sometimes but people will always feel bad about something. if i were you i would take advantage of it. throw ham at people. see what they would do about it. or throw ham anyway. im going to find some ham.

Oh, no. I never really feel belittled, their taunting just reminds me that I'm better than everyone else . But seriously, it's never really affected me much. Plus, I've found the perfect way to retaliate. I just walk right up next to them, and stare down at them for a while, then walk away. For some reason, people find it disturbing.

I don't care, I'd be happy to tell you, actually.

I was born with diastrophic displacia, displacia meaning dwarfism. Diastrophic being a form of dwarfism that causes bulky joints and impropperly set joints.

A note about dwarfism VS midgetism: Midgets are proportionate, while dwarves are out of proportion, their arms and legs are shorter, while their torso and head are normal sized for their age. Both are applicable terms for 'short people' these days. Another common, and quite annoying term is 'little people.'

Because of the bulky joins, my hips are set further appart, my fingers lack some joints, and have little movement if any in the joints that are there (I still manage 70-90 WPM ^_^). My knees have 2 knee caps (Not really noticable) and my feet are curved in (Clubbed feat) as well.

I forgot my scoliocis in my back, a once dramatic curve is now just a slight curve due to fusing most of my back. Thus, I can't turn my neck very far (About a 30 degree angle of view VS all of your 40-45 degree angle views) and I can't bend my back at all, or it'll snap like a twig, and probably leave me paralysed for life. But of corse, the rods are ultra-tough, and line both sides of my back. Not a likelly event.

I also have several completelly unrelated disfunctions or disabilities, if you will. For one, I was born with a cleff palate, which simply means I had a hole in the roof of my mouth. This is easily fixable at birth with a piece of desintagratable plastic over the hole. The gums would grow over the hole, and after that, the plate would desintagrate, and then the gums would fully grow in where the plate had been.

A couple other things not related to my dwarfism is califlour ear, where I've got extra cartilidge in my ears, as well, I tend to be quite sarcastic and a bit of an *** at times.

The reason for all of this, is that there were a number of key chromozones that were identical that should not have been with my parents sex cells. Basically, we all will have gone through the exact same sets of these key chromozones once in our lifetime (Considering we all lived to the same age). My parent's sex cells just HAPPENED to have gone through the same, if not very similar key chromozone sets at the same time.

If you've got anymore questions, feel free to ask, but I'd prefer we stayed on topic. Maybe e-mail me, or ask in the chat.

JediKirby

I also might be important to communicate how you feel about this sort of thing to the people who are doing the stuff you don't like. They aren't going to stop unless you these people how you feel about this stuff.

Hey there little guy! Wouldja like a cookie?

Lol, in all seriousness, I have when people do that to me, but in an age factor, I can hold my own in an intellegent convorsation, but some people think I automatically can't because of my age.. it's sickening...

I can't really relate, the only thing I have like that is when people go, "are you sure you can eat this?" and "is everything alright with everthing" and "I don't think you can eat this" My god I've been diabetic for 9 years I know what I'm doing!!

anyway, I don't have to deal with anyone patronizing and that has to get annoying. But I wouldn't worry about the relationship thing. A relationship requires repsect, not pity, and I'm pretty sure you would be able to distinguish the two before long

My relatives kick ***. Everytime we get together we hold political arguments. They're conservative to the umpteenth power, I'm slightly liberal. We rip each other apart

But yeah, it's ****ty. Reminds me of the first grade--this kid came to my school who had only 6 fingers (two on each hand weren't there for reasons I can't remember). So I'm the only one that treats him like a normal human being, everyone else is cautious of him. Then my enemies at the time (yes, we were VERY vicious 1st graders) make friends with him in an attempt to pull him away from me--and succeed. They make him hate me because I don't 'cater to his needs' enough. Needless to say I was very, very sad. He was a great friend too. *sigh*

People do the most horrible things--kids especially.

I was in cruches for 2 years. Wheelchair for 4 months. Hospital Bed for 3 months. Confined to the house for months on end.

All that happened in a span of time. I was never "normal" between any of those times. It all started when I was 8. I had operations attempting to fix *some thing I won't even attempt to spell, one of those wacked medical terms* - A bowed left leg. The tibia was curved out like a bow. It did not effect me in anyway. I lead a normal life. But.. It is kinda akward. So we decided to get it straighted... it was going to be a simple procedure and end. Well things went wrong. I went though tons of ****.

So for all this time when I was "Crippled" per-say.. I enjoyed the fact that total strangers would go out of their way to help me out. I enjoyed support in situations no matter what. I had people defending me, knowing I was wrong. (I went around pinching people in school once, and even the kid who I was doing it with defending me, getting in trouble him self but letting me off)

I can easily understand how after time, you'd get sick of this treatment. You just want to be treated normal. My period of peopel being nice only lasted so long, so I enjoyed it to the full.

After time though, I did get sick of the question "What happened to you?" or people helping me and being nice.

You ARE different. People will treat you different wether you like it or not.

I take the risk of being an ******* now, and I completely ignore any specail treatment to people who are not fully functional. I know the self satisfaction that comes from overcoming your own, yet simple, obsticles. I hate that fake niceness your talking about. I pisses me off. I don't trust anyone. I don't. People are too willing to change their behavior to conform to people, to try to be nice. I'd much rather have people be dinks to me then be nice and say Hi, and when they walk out of my hearing range say to theirr freind "What a loser" or something like that. That's not the case.. People usually like me. But just an example.

People are the way there are. Nothing you can do about it pal

You my friend, hit the nail on the head. No one really understands that I'd rather someone call me the best name they can think up, rather than be nice and talk about it later. Actually, I've heard some good ones.

I had this kid who absolutelly hated me behind my back, but was the nicest and swell kid otherwise. I could tell the moment he acted around me, nad KNEW he hated me. So, one day, I was at this party, and he was astonished that I was there. I was just a tad ripped at the time, so I "Challenged him" to a fight. It ended up being us arguing, and I told him to 'Call me the worst name you can think of.' I can't actually remember what it was (We were both ripped by then, so it couldn't have been anything actually witty) in any case, now he's one of my close friends. We always make fun of eachother, and it's a great relationship. People who aren't worried about their self image actually have a better time when someone's teasing them, than when they're being nice. I find it annoying when someone trying to help me is being all nice, rather than laughing at me messing up.

I wrote a check out last week for a 4.50 dollar ham wrap (rediculous) and I was messing up on the check (I'm new to writing checks, always used a debit card, before) and she was laughing at me (A sweet girl) making it all the less embarassing. Then this woman walking by said, no joke "How can you be so mean like that! He doesn't know any better" and helped me with my check. I was pretty steamed at the woman and said "You know lady, my inability to stand doesn't effect my knowledge of writing checks. I obviously don't know what the hell I'm doing, and it's comical. If you'd please mind your own business, that'd be great. Thank you for your help, but I should be just fine with this nice girl helping me instead."

Actually, to think, this happened JUST after the lady out in the hallway at the dentists office.

JediKirby

geez kirb sounds like u've had it pretty nasty like with all of that unwanted "caring" from those pplz... it's sorta like that with me except im lacking in 2 full kneecaps so my knees give a lot... people tend to think im a bit... how should i put it.... retarded because of that... they help me way too much i mean i can do things by myself that most people wouldn't let me... i mean hell the teachers at my school suspended my GF for hitting me

and yes i realize i use too many "..." don't blame me... blame the folks who raised me

You're not a diablo 2 gamer at all, are you bud?

Thank god I'm in college. No more ****ing drama.

kirby, if you don't tell people you don't want to be treated differently, then they will continue to treat you with kid gloves(and ganging up on them with all your friends is not the way to tell them to stop). Expecting them to just know that you get pissed when they are extra nice to you is illogical.

I remember my Mom telling me to be nice to crippled people when I was little, but then one day I realized that treating them differently and being extra nice would be very embarrassing. So I tried to treat them like any other person. But then I realized something very weird- I couldn't! It's very odd, but unless you know some one in a wheel chair for a long time, it's impossible to treat them perfectly normally. But I still try.

Any battle.net game or counter-strike (In my opinion) breed them.


As to the topic, I say you give them a peice of your mind. Like what everyone else said.

All I can say, is that I don't know how you feel, because I've never had an experiance like it. BTW, what did that woman say about the check thing after you told her off?

Heh I apologize for all the errors in my previous post..I look like a 4th grader in it. Not going to bother to fix em, you can understand what I mean.

- K.Horn - No more drama? Darn Straight! SO much more maturity here on campus.
.. Also.. Kinda hard to tell everyone. You can tell the people you see everyday, in all the ackwardness it would be to say something like that to them. And then I'm sure they would be so confused as how to act to you, they might just completely ignore your presence.
The biggest thing would be the random people .. like the check lady. You can't tell them. It will happen. .. So there's not much you can do about it.

Well, now that I you've told the length of the disability, I can see the other side as well. A lot of people can (and will from the sounds of it) assume that you are a bit off in the head as well. (In all honestly, if I first met you before Massassi I would have thought the same way, no offense of course) I think its something that your just going to have to deal with man, as unfortunate as it is. But, then again, one should never judge a book by its cover....

someone once thought i was retarded. but maybe thats for obvious reasons.


My friend mom once thought i was really slow cause i couldnt cut my pizza during dinner.


that pissed me off accuatly. maybe ill give her a piece of my mind. where the hell did i put my axe.

i went to school with bran....=\...kirby...last year...and i make fun of him all the time...obviously never seriously....but....it's funny...how he can joke about it himself...about himself...but after all he doesn't know any better

Right next to your dog and peanut butter.

<3

That's a sick, hilarious picture in my mind right now, Wolfy.

lol well i was... up until a month ago when i finally realized i was wasting my life away in front of all of that repetative game play

Man, if I saw you writing a 4.50 check out for a ham sandwich, I'd slap ya upside the head. I HAAATE people who write checks, especially for such small amounts. Carry some damn cash on you!!!

Anyways, just cause I'm bored (And I don't think I've ever explained my condition to the massassians, so, here's a chance), here is my problem:

Although much less severe a problem then Kirbs, I have what is called "Klippel Trenaunay Syndrome". It's a rare syndrome (Even rarer than yours, believe it or not, kirb.), with about 1000 diagnosed cases in the world at the moment. It is so rare, that very few doctors know what it even is, and instead incorrectly diagnose it or leave their patients clueless for years.

The syndrome generally affects a quarter of the body, usually a leg. Basically, the person is born with a severely enlarged venous and lymph system. (It is usually weighted towards one or the other, but its always some of each. For me, it is lymph) This causes poor circulation, and oftentimes pain. The systems can intertwine with bone or muscle, with bone affected people in more pain. Those with problems in their bones actually have noticibly smaller appendages, even with the enlarged systems. Those with involvement in the muscle have less pain, but wear out easily. In my case, the muscle in my leg is approximately 75% the strength of my other leg, and it only affects my muscle.

My leg is swollen from the lymph system being in my muscle. I have been fortunate, however, to have little pain, something quite uncharacteristic to most KTS people. However, as you may or may not know, the lymph system carries waste and diseases from your body, where it is disposed of when you use the bathroom. Since mine is swollen in my leg, circulation is poor, leaving diseases to sit in the leg. This caused many infections to occur. I still remember to this day my first infection in my leg.

It was 1st grade, around January. I woke up at 3:12am (did I mention I remembered this infection really well?), screaming in pain. Now, it is true I was only 7 or so, so any pain is bad, but trust me, this was pain. It was odd feeling such pain, since when I was born, I had surgery to attempt to remove large portions of the lymph system in my leg. That surgery was mostly successful, over 2 years of repeated visits. My leg was reduced over 75% in size, to a near normal size. (It is still noticible, for sure. But man, when I see those baby pictures, it makes me cringe) Anyway, those surgeries had left large scars down my leg, and I had little feeling left. To give you an idea of how little feeling I have left: I stabbed myself with a swiss army knife on accident, and I didn't know until about 5 minutes later when the blood had trickled down my leg onto the floor, and I planted my other foot in the small pool of blood.

So blah blah I am in pain I have never even felt before, doctors insist on morphine, I refuse, my parents refuse for me (I still thank them for that, despite the pain I was in, I hate, and I mean HATE painkillers.), and I suffer. Blah blah, I have a 104-105 fever, I sit in the level below ICU for 2 weeks, and finally the temperature goes down. They had given me every antibiotic they had, and none had done anything. Blood tests revealed absolutely nothing, and docs were stumped. But I got better, somehow. I had reoccurances of those infections, but none had really struck me like that first one. I still deal with small ones to this day (Usually only last 2 days before I return to school, about once every 2-3 months).

Blah Blah here's the best part (or worst?). The surgery and enlarged lymph system caused small openings in my skin to form. This means that I seep almost constantly from my upper thigh, and I have to keep it bandaged. (Well I don't HAVE to, but I think most people would find it unpleasant if I bled lymph and blood mixture all over them.) This has led to some bad moments. I remember at school, my leg had opened up in an odd place, and I was bleeding onto the floor (it was mostly blood this time, it all varies). Anyways, it must have been a good while, a kid points and says, "Matt... your bleeding all over the floor!". I go "CRAP! Umm, teacher, can I ... ya know..."
That ended really nice, and kids kinda avoided me for the rest of the day. (Not that I really blame them)

But as for putting up with crap, I don't get picked on much, which is probably because I can mostly hide my problem (I only attempt to when it fits me, though. I don't wear pants in the middle of 90F weather, just to hide my leg. I find that stupid.) but I do get some idiots who ask what happened to my leg, then begin to assume some act of God caused it. I've heard stories about how my leg has been:
Struck my lightning
Tripped and fell
Fell on a carpenter's nail (yeah, I dunno why either)
Hit by a car
Attacked by a dog
Crushed
Electrocuted (then followed by the lightning)
Stabbed/Attacked
Beaten as a child (WTF?)

And as for pity, I can definately hear where you are coming from. But the way I see it, I'd much rather have people put up a little pity play than act like a ignorant ***. Their intentions are in the right place, society has simply brought them up as such.

I still laugh though when I hear parents tell their children "Don't stare, it's not polite.". As if I really give a damn if they find my leg shocking. Hell, most kids find my leg awesome looking... well, most boys at least.

Well I just scrolled up and realized that I had wayyyy overextended this post beyond what I wanted, and I didn't want to steal your HATE AGAINST IGNORANT HUMANITY crusade strength, so I'll stop here.

Well CM, you bring up the other side of the coin. Really, neither of us, or really anyone can blame people for making fun of, or whatnot of differences. It's just the society we live in.

Oh, and about the pain killers: I had a level 3 pain killer operation, in which the doctor suggested level 4, simply because of the area they were working on (I'm not sure, but it may have been when they fused my back). I absolutelly CANNOT stand painkillers, as I'd rather know the diagnostics of my body (That's what pain is, it's a little warning poppup telling you that your body has detected a bad sector :-P), and painkillers only numb it. What if, suddenly, something in my back went wrong? I wouldn't be able to feel it until after the meds wore out. That might be valuable time.

JediKirby

MMmmmm morphine. Reminds me of the good old days, back when I had a weird *** infection in MY leg. It was odd, and came after a major scar on my thigh. Just a 'meh' kinda thing.


By the way, I guess I *kinda* know how you guys feel. Now that I'm in highschool, minor differences and stuff aren't really talked about, but way back in public school... gawd.

I have a birthmark that takes up near half of my face (little more than half back when I was little) It's easily noticeable when I'm angry, so it looks like I have one side totally red, and the other normal. I used to be teased, or asked "omq wtf is taht". One time, it was hilarious... A bunch of highschool kids saw me.


Kid 1: "heh, what the **** is up with your face?"

Kid 2 (girl): "He obviously got burned"

Kid 3 (girl): "Must've been a dog bite"

Kid 4 (guy): "what the hell, you're all wrong he must've fell out of a tree or something."

They argued among themselves while I walked away.

I'm glad that I know you through the forums here at massassi. I don't have to worry about treating you different since all I see is just a screen-name. I kinda know how you feel (albet for much different reasons) since I am "different" than most people (I don't want to say why) Every now and then I find myself thinking about helping out some disabled students at my school. I'm getting better at treating them like normal, but it's hard since I don't know any that well, and havn't been around disabled people most of my life. Maybe you can help us here at massassi to get over that need to constantly baby disabled people.

I don't really have any disabilities except *goes to watch TV* I have the *plays gamecube* attention span of a...*goes to eat lunch* wait, what was I talking about?


I'm a big fan of painkillers, but only in some cases. Like that time I cut of my thumb with a hatchett, I cut through nerves and such so I didn't feel anything really, I didn't notice until I looked down at the thumb, at which point I cried and screamed like a 3rd grader...which is good because I was in 2nd grade at the time

The painkillers were good because I didn't feel them stiching my thumb back on my hand but also bad because I kept accidently touching my thumb and the surgeon was getting pissed off at me. (Oh and yeah, the thumb is back on and stuff and it works and I can feel it and all that good stuff. it was really fun having a cast up to my shoulder just for a thumb, more room for people to sign it >.<)

I try and treat everyone equal. I don't treat anyone better then another person, and sometimes my mom yells at me for saying something bad about so and so with such handicap. Or calling so and so an ******* because he is black or something.

The only problems with me is screwed eyesight. And the only ostracision I get is from my lack of sociability, although that's generally because I don't like people.

I wish I was a fast-enough thinker to say stuff like that, Kirb.

I don't really have anything physically wrong with me, other than the fact that I can't do higher levels of math. Try as i might, I just can't compute complex equations and solve them.

I am predominately (and almost exclusively) a right-brained person, meaning that i'm much more creative than I am anaylitical. The reason this is is b/c the right side of my brain is more developed than the left side. It may be genetic-- most people in my family are also extremely creative, although i may have gotten a greater effect since i got the gene from both sides. When most people speak, they form their words on the left side of their brain. I form mine on the right, and specialists believe that it gives me much greater mastery over spoken and written language, and creativy as a whole. Another strange thing was my handedness--- when i was under 5 years old, I was right handed like most people are. When I was between 5 and 6, I was amidexterous (I could use either hand to write equally well). From age 6 until now, I have been left handed. My enhanced creativity also began to show up around that time.

This is actually beneficial for me, and is not really a hinderance at all. When most people look at something, they only perceive its physial appearance and shape, form, etc and they can only see it one way. When I look at something, my mind plays with it for awhile if i want it to. Its hard to explain, but i can play with objects i visualize in my mind. If I want to, I can distort the way i see them, change the way I see their colors, etc, and things constantly change incredibly fast. It's like a controllable hallucination, or a slideshow in my head, showing diffeent variations of the same object at blindingly fast speed. I make good use of it in my artwork. I can mess around with the way I see an object, and then turn the actual real-life object into what I see. ( I can also turn this off if I have to, so I don't walk around hallucinating all the time, inj case you were wondering. )

I actually enjoy having this skill, despite that fact that I seem to have involuntarily given up my capacity to understand and compute higher math in order to get it. When i look at math, I see a bunch of numbers and symbols, and they have no relationship to each other as far as I'm concerned. It means nothing to me, no matter how long I look at it. I know that they are supposed to relate to each other somehow, but Ijust can't bring myself to see how, or what i should even do next. It's like trying to read Chinese characters when you don't know how to read Chinese characters. No matter how often I learn the procedures for solving math, I can't hang onto it and place it into long-term memory. This means that when exams come around, I look atthe math, and its literally like I've never seen or learned it before.