as small as a world and as large as alone

11:47am December 9, 2013

I’m starting to have some kind of a motor problem.  I think it’s been building for years, it might be part of my movement disorder in some way.  It’s definitely not physical weakness or a mechanical problem with the joints or muscles.  It’s more like a motor planning problem of the sort my movement disorder causes.

The above (first image, the set of four photos) is sort of a simulation of what happens, that I did on purpose, but the real thing looks pretty similar.  Basically, I’ll be on my iPad, which is where I notice it the most.  I’ll put my finger into a pointing position because I only want to be touching one part of the screen.  

Then weird things will start happening with the screen.  I won’t understand why at first, just things will stop working, windows will disappear, etc.  And it turns out that my hand has unwrapped itself from a pointing position and is now just in the third or fourth position up there, and the other fingers are hitting the screen.

It takes an extreme amount of concentration to keep my hand in that pointing position.  The moment I forget what I’m doing, even for a few seconds, my hand unwraps itself and is now not  pointing anymore.  It’s very frustrating, and it’s only getting worse.

There’s a lot of things like that, that are hard to explain to anyone who doesn’t experience it.  

What I’ll end up doing instead, because it’s easier for some reason, is pointing with one finger and slightly curling the other three so they’re lifted up a bit (like in the second image, larger single photo).  But even that is prone to problems.

And it seems to be very specific to pointing while pressing buttons or using a touch screen or something like that.  Simply pointing while doing nothing else is much easier.  The problem is that I have to think a little in order to point, and I also have to think in order to move my hand, and they just don’t combine very well. 

Even when I try to point without typing, though, there’s this feeling like I’m straining to do it.  Not exactly physically, more in that area where physical and mental meet. Like it’s just not a natural position for my hand to go into, and it doesn’t like it.

It’s funny, typing is a much more complex set of gestures and yet it’s usually pretty easy for me to touch type, but pointing is quite hard.  It’s the sort of movement that I sometimes fear that if I had to do it for something really important, it just wouldn’t work.

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