I have always had issues with finding things and began to realise quite often it was down to remembering the colour, especially if the item had been recently replaced and the colour was not the same.
This morning I filled up my bucket to clean my paving at the rear of my house.
I put the bucket down next to me and began to scrub the floor with a yard brush.
Minutes later I turned to pick it up again so I could pour more water down and it had vanished, or had it?
The few minutes between scrubbing the floor and needing the bucket again my memory had reverted to an old red bucket meaning the beige one a replacement for the red bucket was now invisible to me, even though it was on the floor next to my feet.
I knew it was nearby and nobody had moved it, anxiety, stress and confusion began to rise as I looked around time and time again.
When I realised this was one of those colour issues, I stood and composed myself.
I thought extremely hard for quite some time and eventually forced myself to remember that the red bucket broke, and I now have a beige bucket, and like magic it appeared right next to me.
I have this issue with many objects and thankfully my wife is usually on hand to tell me the colour of what I am looking for making them magically appear each time.
This trait can cause real strong feelings of anxiety, stress and confusion and often has me searching for hours for things that are in plain sight, but I have forgotten or mixed up the colour.
Now when I replace things, I try to get the same colour.
I do get annoyed explaining this to people and they say, “we are all a little like that” as this is something quite different from misplacing things.
I have always believed that this is an Autistic trait or maybe a combination of my Tourette’s, ADHD, Autism and complex PTSD coming together and eventually I found that I may not have been too far from the answer.
After many tests medical professionals could not give me answers to my visual issues and this resulted in a conclusion of possible visual dyspraxia.
Not satisfied with a possible conclusion I kept researching and eventually I was passed a link to an article on Cerebral Visual Impairment and so began my journey of reading as much as I could find on the subject.
CVI has many possible causes including links to Autism, having multiple neurological conditions and could also be linked to the complex PTSD caused by long term childhood trauma.
Just like my sensory processing disorder one or all my conditions could be contributing.
CVI could also explain why growing up I liked to stare at the sun and powerful lights, something I fight the urge to do even today, also why I struggle to concentrate on stationary objects and often prefer to use my peripheral vision and experience random disturbances with eye focus that I initially put down to bouts of eye tics.
It is always difficult to know what causes some of my many issues because any of my neurological disorders and the co-morbid conditions that come along could have a hand in them.
https://neurologically-challenged.co.uk/
