About two months ago I took up ballet as a hobby. Now, as a 22 year old who’s never danced a step in her life outside of PE “dance” lessons, this might seem like a bold move. But what really surprises even myself is that I’ve chosen one of the hardest modes of dance to learn, and I have dyspraxia.
I was diagnosed with dyspraxia at the end of my second year of university after years of struggling and not really realising anything was wrong. I’d always been rubbish at PE, I found it impossible to organise myself for school, and the poor quality of my handwriting lead to me being told that examiners wouldn’t bother to read my exam papers. I was also clumsy and a little bit rubbish at making friends. However, nobody picked up on this, and I didn’t even hear about dyspraxia until a boy joined my school who also had it.
Oddly, it wasn’t finding out about dyspraxia initially that made me think I had it. I was fairly intelligent, extremely good at English and Geography, and so I just assumed I was fine, and that it was just bad luck that I couldn’t catch a ball and had the drawing skills of a 5 year old. I didn’t even think about how I’d been slow to reach my milestones, or how I couldn’t ride a bike or swim until I was 7 or 8. I just assumed I struggled because I did.
It was when I took my GCSEs and had my exams transcribed (a teaching assistant wrote out any words which couldn’t be read) that I started to twig that maybe it wasn’t just hard luck that I couldn’t write legibly. But I still didn’t ask to be tested for dyspraxia as I think I thought that I might be making it up. By the time I got to university I knew this wasn’t the case, but it still took me until second year to get tested (and there’s a classic dyspraxia symptom right there, disorganisation!).
So what is dyspraxia? At a base level, it’s a disorder of co-ordination and fine motor control. It’s sometimes referred to as “developmental co-ordination disorder”, and this makes sense as it’s something you’re born with. Dyspraxics learn to walk later than other children, and may have problems with their speech. However, dyspraxia is usually not picked up until a child is at school, as being a little late at crawling or walking isn’t seen as all that unusual.
It is unfortunate that most symptoms of dyspraxia are particularly evident in a school environment. At school you don’t have anybody to help you tie your laces, you have to learn to write, you have PE. And there’s also hidden traits as well. Dyspraxics, alongside dyslexics, do not have a good working memory. This is the memory which allows you to do mental arithmetic or write down a phone number as someone is saying it to you. In fact, for most dyspraxics, just being told something is a guarantee that it won’t be remembered, although most of us develop coping mechanisms (I put everything into my outlook calendar at work, and write things down if I’m being given a list of tasks). Dyspraxics also find it hard to organise their thoughts, as well as their lives. I could never, ever remember homework, or which books I needed to take in, my brain just didn’t understand how to do this. I did, and still do, live in a pretty much constant mess. Neatness means very little to me! An unfortunate side effect of not remembering books is that I used to carry all my school books in a rucksack to and from school. When a teacher told me I would hurt my back doing this, I started taking textbooks out. However, this meant they were usually in my locker or under my bed when I needed them in a lesson.
PE was a constant nightmare for me. I was always last picked for teams, and everybody used to complain if they had to play with me. I never had any idea where a ball was at any given time, and even if I could see the ball I just didn’t have the hand-eye co-ordination to catch it. Fortunately, several years after everyone else, I’m now actually quite good at catching. Dyspraxia is a little like an iceberg, as you get older the traits are less visible, you learn coping mechanisms or you just get better at things. However, even though it’s less visible on the outside, it’s still very evident within. When you have to try many times harder than everyone else to do “normal” things it gets very tiring. I have to put so much more effort into organising myself than the average person, and even then it’s rare for me to leave the house without forgetting something. Even walking down a street is a minefield at times; just how do you know which way to walk round someone who’s walking straight towards you? Mind you, my friend used to pull me out the way of lamp posts.
I lived with all of the above for 20 years before I got the magical email which let me know that, actually I wasn’t a freak, and I wasn’t just a bit useless at everything. I was dyspraxic, I had a specific learning difficulty. And actually, it explains everything. Why I’m rubbish at sport, why I don’t remember things, why I’ve always been seen as that little bit “different” to my peers (more about that later). It even explained why I learnt to read at such an early age and have a good writing ability, as well as why I seem to be able to retain ridiculously obscure facts when I can’t remember phone numbers. Dyspraxia is something of a blessing as well as a curse, and what I lack in sporting skills and non-verbal communication, I more than make up for with my verbal communication skills. That’s all a specific learning difficulty is really; a discrepancy in ability level between different skills.
So, why did I take up ballet? Well, it’s simple really. I finally feel like I wanted a challenge. When you find quite a lot of things very difficult, it is sometimes a step too far to push yourself beyond just doing what everyone else does. But I challenged myself when I was an outdoor instructor, and now I work in an office I felt I needed something else to get my teeth into. I’d always liked the idea of doing ballet (although I wanted to do gymnastics when I was little!) and the thought of being graceful intrigued me.
What I didn’t realise when I took it up is just how useful ballet would be. It means I spend an hour a week thinking about my entire body, how I hold myself and what each part is doing. It enforces a consciousness I don’t really have naturally, and it helps my spatial awareness as well as my co-ordination. It means I have to know my left and rights, something I find ridiculously difficult. And, as well as all this, I get to dance. And who doesn’t like to dance? I have to try a lot harder than everyone else, but I’m usually not the only person who doesn’t get an exercise right first time. By the end of last term I could do all the exercises, even the echappes (changing feet from fifth position to second on demi-pointe) I found so hard to keep up with at the start. It’s so rewarding to work hard and get results from my body. The final real benefit to ballet is that it gives me an hour in which I think of nothing but where my feet are and I whether I’m standing up straight. All my worries and anxieties just don’t exist when I’m executing a grande plie. I’m more concerned with getting back up again!
So that’s the physical and academic side of dyspraxia, but what of the social side? The most profound effect of my specific learning difficulty (SpLD) is that it’s caused me to have serious issues with “fitting in” and making friends. Somehow I’ve always been marked out as a bit weird, and I’ve perhaps not naturally had the friend-making skills of others my age, in fact I always wanted to hang out with adults when I was a child and it’s perhaps telling that a lot of my friends even now are older than me.
As you might imagine, this made school absolute hell. Primary school was pretty much OK, I wasn’t massively popular but people let me get on with my slight oddness (playing imaginary games in the playground at the age of 10 anyone?). I had some friends, and I didn’t really have any enemies, so this was all fine. It was when I got to secondary school that everything kicked off, and I’m never quite sure what I did. In year 7 I made a fair bit of effort to fit in, and I even thought I’d made friends. And then the bullying started, and it didn’t stop until I left school in year 13. My lack of social skills, as well as my clumsiness and all the other effects of my undiagnosed SpLD meant I was a bit of an easy target. I didn’t know how to deal with bullies, how to reply to cruel words. Usually I would just try to ignore them, or walk away. Worst was when I burst in to tears.
By the age of 13 I was not in a happy place. I used to dread going to school, and would mope around the school library hiding from pretty much everybody. It seemed at this time as I walked through the school grounds that absolutely everybody had some sort of comment to make towards me. I lost all my so-called friends as they were embarrassed for me. I withdrew into myself, I would tell people to go away if they tried to speak to me in the library when I was reading. Fortunately for me a particular friend of mine realised I could do with a friend and didn’t let this put her off. I became very worried to go places by myself, I was obsessed with nuclear war and the end of the world. I was so very unhappy and anxious and the comments and the laughing just didn’t stop.
Even into sixth form children in the lower years would say things to me. By this point I had given up on trying to fit in and had made myself almost as weird as possible just to give people something to laugh at (one such instance made my sister cry with embarrassment). I constantly got into trouble in sixth form for wearing my “hippy clothes” and I loathed school so much I started skipping lessons. I later found out it’s very common for undiagnosed dyspraxics to become disenfranchised with school, and whilst it’s all my own fault I only got mediocre A levels, I do feel that not having had any support contributed towards this.
When I left school and went to university the bullying nightmare finally stopped. At least in reality. However, I still carry around each and every thing that was said to me whilst I was at school. I assume that people in the street must be thinking how weird I am, I don’t think I am attractive. I don’t think people want to know me, and I think this is why I don’t seem to be able to make lasting friendships. I find it hard to make the first move to contact people because, hey, why would they want to hear from me? And it’s still making me miserable.
I fear I am baring too much of my soul here, so I’ll stop. But dyspraxia has shaped my life in so many ways, some of them extremely good, but it’s also caused me a lot of grief. I wouldn’t swap who I am though, for despite the feelings I’ve described above, I’m extremely proud to be myself, and really I always have been. I don’t pretend to be anybody else because I only really know how to be me. I just wish I believed that people would accept it!
Cwol101 said:
Thank you for that – never really been sure what dyspraxia was all about. Found your explanation very clear and informative. Hopefully you’ll find that time fades out the negatives and allows you to enjoy being yourself.
eclecticoddsnsods said:
Oh gosh, please don’t stop writing about this, you see both my children have been diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia, one also with audio processing the other with word finding issues. I ended up having them privately assessed as I just had a gut feeling, but I had never heard of dyspraxia before.
This paragraph:
As you might imagine, this made school absolute hell. Primary school was pretty much OK, I wasn’t massively popular but people let me get on with my slight oddness (playing imaginary games in the playground at the age of 10 anyone?). I had some friends, and I didn’t really have any enemies, so this was all fine. It was when I got to secondary school that everything kicked off, and I’m never quite sure what I did. In year 7 I made a fair bit of effort to fit in, and I even thought I’d made friends. And then the bullying started, and it didn’t stop until I left school in year 13. My lack of social skills, as well as my clumsiness and all the other effects of my undiagnosed SpLD meant I was a bit of an easy target. I didn’t know how to deal with bullies, how to reply to cruel words. Usually I would just try to ignore them, or walk away. Worst was when I burst in to tears.
really touched me, my eldest has just started secondary school and it has become hell, he also has tics and it’s gone completely overboard, he is being bullied, he comes home just wanting to be on his own, hating life, thinking he is cursed, not wanting to be here anymore. Its been a horrific and scary time for me as a parent seeing him go through this and I know we aren’t at the end of it by any stretch….
but reading your experiences, and I might get him to read it too, it really gives me hope to see how other experience the same thing and that you are a lovely, caring, empathic person, right here, right now, intellectually and bravely opening yourself up to people like me who in turn your words help x
eclecticoddsnsods said:
Reblogged this on Eclectic odds n sods and commented:
I just found this blog, and reading about this lovely girl who explains how life is for her so clearly with dyspraxia, really helps me to understand my children, to know other’s have the same experiences….
Emma said:
This describes my life until I was diagnosed at 21. I’m 24 now.
And I think you’re incredibly brave.
ramblingfrench said:
Wow this could have been written by me! Thank you so much for sharing your story…
I promise you, it gets a lot easier to make friends and to embrace the dyspraxia as you get older. You learn to laugh at all of your clumsiness and verbal errors, and people love you for it.
I think back to my teenage years, that sound so very similar to your own, and as horrible as it was, I’m glad I lived it, because it makes me even more grateful for the life and the friends that I have now.
Keep writing 🙂
Ben Wearn said:
I may have a group in the UK that I am setting up soon, Currently, I am working in the Cambridge area.
plainjanestyleliverpool said:
Your story is scarily reminiscent of my own childhood and life. I’ve only become aware of dyspraxia as my son has been referred by his School for it. When I look back I suffered all the same symptoms. Thank you so much for this blog post.
millymops13 said:
My daughter was diagnosed with dyspraxia when she went to college and she struggled all through school. We just didn’t know how to help her. The same as you, I draw so many parallels with my own life, I just thought that’s how life was. I so wish I had could have had some help and support, it would have made such a difference. This blog was so helpful and moving to read.
Sarah Hawkins said:
I started dancing at age 2 1/2- 3 and then was diagnosed as dyspraxic when I was 11 but kept on dancing because I enjoyed it, even if I wasn’t perfect, it’s the participation which counts Xx
Tamsin said:
My 6yo daughter displays a great deal of dyspraxia symptoms, and we are in the process of getting her an evaluation. Thank you for your honesty and openness!
Claire Teasdale said:
Thanks so much for sharing that lovely blog reading the majority of it felt like I was looking in the mirror nobody knows how much of a struggle living with dyspraxia is until they have to face it themselves I got my diagnosis early on in life(school age) still I don’t think It makes it any easier to cope with it’s just something I’ve had to learn to accept, it’s interesting how you said you find making friends difficult I do too but I’ve never thought about it being down to having dyspraxia, just thought it was cos of my lack of confidence and no one liked me but I guess dyspraxia does play a big part in it, for the first time in my life I don’t feel so alone with my dyspraxia so thank you it’s good to know there’s others the same as me who are facing the same thing and we can all support each other and be stronger together 🙂
Jennifer Hancock said:
Thank you for this – I am going to share with my son – he is 8 and dyspraxic and has wanted to learn ballet, but because of his learning disability – it seems like too much of a challenge right now. Especially since ballet is largely taught visually and he really needs to have someone help him place his body in the right position. Good to know that with work and persistence, you can learn it!
Milena said:
Thank you so much for your post. I only found out about my dyspraxia at the end of my doctoral degree having struggled with it all my life. It was such a relief to know there was a name to all those weirdnesses that made my life miserable. I went through all the things you mentioned, high school being the worst time of my life. It is so comforting knowing others have been through the same thing. All I can say now, being 32 and having accomplished all my academic dreams, is that dyspraxia made me so hard working and determined that I succeeded in all the challenges and I never stopped aiming higher. I think if I had known about this when I was little I would not have tried so hard, I would have accepted I am not good enough. Instead I wanted to prove I am good enough even though I am very different. Thank you again for your honesty, it is highly encouraging and comforting.
Anna Caple said:
You will know by now that you’re far from alone with this. Consider joining a Facebook group ‘Developmental Coordination Disorder UK Support Group (Dyspraxia)’. Parents, teens and adults ask advice share highs and lows, it’s sort of a place where you can feel you belong. I admire your strength – keep it up!
Nyika said:
I am a member of this group! The admins didn’t think my blog was positive enough, but it’s a lovely place.
Zena Elliott Showell said:
I think they must have because it was a link from them that sent me to this blog! I have a 26 year old daughter with Dyspraxia and other problems, but I still learnt a lot from reading this, thank you. I know my daughter was bullied at school but she still went every day, and I am very proud of her for doing that. Thank you for sharing your experiences, and good luck with the ballet.
Mairead Dempsey said:
Nyika
I am an occupational therapist working with children with dyxpraxia and doiing research on benifits of ballet for children with dyspraxia. I would love to speak with you regarding your ballet experiences.
Mairead
Vicky said:
Hi
I saw this post. Hope you don’t mind me replying! I’m also an OT. I have dyspraxia and dyslexia, your research sound really interesting! I would love to find out more about it!
Vicky x
Nyika said:
Hi Mairead,
I would be very happy to speak with you. Please email nyikafest@gmail.com and I will get back to you.
Nyika
Jeanette said:
So fantastic. I’m dyspraxic along with most of my family. I definitely struggled with pretty much everything physical as a kid but as an adult I lean into my challenges and enjoy it. I think when you get a chance to do stuff on your own terms it’s a totally different experience and the challenge can make you feel great. Also I’ve benefited from a lot of the things I’ve managed to learn as they build and allow you to do more. I’m trying to get this across to my daughter who is also dyspraxic but I think you need a little life experience to see this really.
I think my dyspraxia feeds into my creativity and how I see the world so I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t be me without it.
Jeanette said:
I also want to add that my daughter tried gymnastics but it was a disaster because of the way they teach through mimicry rather than explaining where each part of the body needs to be explicitly and how you actually do the move.
Ditsya Red said:
Thank you. Diagnosed at 38, at university, with dyspraxia, dyslexia and irlen’s Syndrome. This reads like a warm and fuzzy version of me…..but I was very lucky to be better able to make friendships, maybe I was just surrounded by other slightly wierd people who recognised me! Please keep writing, keep sharing, you are baring our souls, sores and hopes too xxx
Cary said:
Thank you so much for posting this blog. I’m going to show it to my son ASAP. He is 12 and was diagnosed with dyspraxia (amongst other things) about 2 years ago. Reading your story is just like reading his. I hope he is able to keep growing with dyspraxia and through it and achieve and be happy just like you have done. Thank you for sharing.
eclecticoddsnsods said:
I know we havn’t spoken much but I found your post on dyspraxia so enlightening for myself and for my eldest. I hope that you will continue to write and open up about it, because your writing is beautiful.
I wanted to award you the sisterhood nomination, I hope you will accept, there is no time limits on completing a return nomination, details are here:
http://eclecticoddsnsods.com/2014/02/28/sisterhood-of-the-world-bloggers-award-fiesta-friday-5/
big hugs xx
Vicky said:
Wow! This could be my story almost word for word but I found running instead of ballet, I would not of been brave enough to go near a dance studio! I do not think of my self as graceful, at all!! Our experiences are so very similar!!
Janine said:
I also have dyspraxia and am also an OT to boot (I know quite a few dyspraxic OT’s maybe it’s a calling) I was 40 when I was diagnosed but my experiences were very similar to those you’ve described. The library was my sanctuary at school, the people who made my life hell wouldn’t be seen dead there.
Thankfully my experiences and my training means that I’ve been able to spot that my daughter also has dyspraxia and been able to ensure that the school is aware of this. They say they would have spotted it and yes I believe they probably would as she sure is glorious in her chaos. I’m grateful that she is more accepting of herself and the situation than I ever was and I think that comes through knowledge and it allows her to celebrate her differences. Unfortunately these days there is a huge push not to get people formally assessed both at school and in the work setting. Even in the NHS I’m sad to say.
I was lucky in that my boss sent me to Occupational Health because I’d made a quip at my appraisal about being a ‘tad dyslexic’ as I couldn’t write legible or coherently most of the time. The secretarial staff refused to type my letters as they couldn’t make head nor tail of my dictation. I’m in awe of those who can dictate lol! I now know how fortunate I was to get assessed as Occupational health wont pay for it anymore, they say accommodating for difficulties doesn’t require diagnosis and whilst I see the logic to that I’m also concerned that eventually they will stop funding this unless there is a diagnosis and round and round we’ll go…. I think not getting people formally assessed will be doing people with SpLD a disservice. Personally speaking I know how much it meant to me to finally have a diagnosis, it was such a relief to realise that I wasn’t just crap at everything.
Thank you for putting this out there, I think by now you will have realised just how much you have connected with others. There may be many challenges being dyspraxic but it also comes with unique perspectives and talents . I remember someone saying to me that people with dyspraxia often think outside the box….and that’s usually because they never managed to find it in the first place. 🙂
Collette Post said:
Thank you for this.It’s just like me.Im 35 and still undiagnosed.I was told I have Aspergers but I’m not satisfied with the outcome.So I’ve found a specialist and hope they can assess me thoroughly as I’m having so many problems and needing the mental health team.I’m pretty sure it’s what I have and I’m fighting it
Vicky said:
I’m dyspraxic too and all of this post resonated with me. Every word. I find ballet beautifully soothing and absorbing (whether watching or taking part). I can’t do centre work, as I need to hold on to the barre, but the barre exercises on their own are sufficiently engrossing for all the reasons you describe – it’s much better than the standard physio I was given as a teenager.
Your school experiences fit with mine too, especially that line about younger children taunting you even when you were in sixth form – I’d almost forgotten that until you brought back the memory. That was one of the worst things, as I didn’t know how these kids even knew who I was. Why were they following me? Why were they talking at me? I also have the fear that people are secretly laughing at me, although it does seem to be getting easier with time.
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Andrew Stone said:
Well – I’m a dyspraxic dancer too. Actually dyspraxic’s generally have more natural talent as dancers than non-dyspraxics.
‘Normals’ – or maybe we should call them ‘Muggles’ have the greatest difficulty improvising or creating choreography. They can’t make the link between movement and music. This includes high level ballroom competitors and concert ballet dancers.
Most dyspraxic’s can’t figure out that their concept of what dance is and should be is generally at several levels higher than the person teaching them.
Dyspraxic can hear the music, and want to try to move to it, but are physically capable of doing so.
Most professional dancers can’t hear the music but are capable of executing the most complex sequences and instructions.
Once a dyspraxic has learned the control to execute a particular movment – they are free to make that movement in any way they like. Muggles can’t do that, they can’t seperate the movement from the sequence they have been taught.
Carol Drib said:
Enroll your children in Tai chi or kung fu immediately. They need to learn to be confident and the bullying will stop. Bullys attack those telegraphing victimhood. Also, martial arts develop the right left brain coordination lacking in dyspraxia. It can be eased by further brain pathway development.
SuperSloth said:
Thanks for this post. It chimes with my experience with Dyspraxia so far. I’m 36 now and I’m only just realising how dyspraxia has shaped my life. Thanks to stories like yours I’m pulling myself out of this long pit where i feel like I some kind of lazy incompetent whose only success has depended on luck or external factors.
I was diagnosed when I was 17 at 6th form college. This helped me academically but I didnt really apply what I knew about myself socially, or in any part of my life. During university I bumbled through, never having contacted student support and just bumbled my way through a degree I didnt enjoy and I just assumed I was just being lazy. I didnt do that well.
Now I work in a middling position in an office, unhappy with the choices I’ve made in my life, wondering how the hell do people keep a job, a mortgage and a seemingly happy relationship with a significant other, whilst I have practically none of those things?
Thankfully, I had a friend who wondered whether I may have had developmental problems. I mentioned about my dyspraxia, and she did a bit of research for me. What a revelation! Things I thought were really inexplicably odd about me were not unheard of. Things I struggled with (like keeping up with people in a group conversation, basic maths and memory) were not a result of my being lazy, but things I’ve always struggled with since I was a child. I’m not choosing to have those problems, but it is difficult or tiring for me.
Now, I’m trying to focus on my strengths rather then my weaknesses. It’s tough though. Especially when the narrative throughout your life has been one of just trying to cope rather then embracing life. Encouragement is in short supply, yet I need it more then ever. Friends and family who see you as that under confident person who is constantly struggling to do things will struggle to help you, because I’m growing and changing as a person, and that puts a strain on a relationship with all that historical baggage.
But I’ve got lots of things going for me. I’ve got new friends who accept me for who I am. I’ve done a lot of cool stuff that I am proud of and I am working hard to attribute my success to myself and not lady luck. Ultimately, I am fighting a battle to establish who I am and what I want to do, against what other want me to be and what they think I should do.
And I’m gonna win that battle. Slowly, but I’ll get there.
radioguy93 said:
Reblogged this on The Man Cave and commented:
Nice to see a fellow autistic dancer
Nyika Suttie said:
Thanks, although I’m not actually autistic.
radioguy93 said:
my bad
hubbit said:
This is pretty much the story of my life, although I’m of an age where they didn’t have names for it that weren’t insulting. Thank you for writing it. At very least, we who recognize ourselves in it know we are not alone.
Muhhamad said:
what an inspiring story which shows that you after being hurt you should just stand up again. I was diagnosed with dyspraxia when I was about 8 years old. I couldn’t make friends when I was in year 3 but from year4 to year 6 I had built up alot of confidence and I could speak up for myself and was friends with practically everybody in my year group but i was still seen as different by some.This was because I couldn’t play football or any other sports. in year 7 I still had many friends and I built up a vast amount of knowledge on football and I could discuss football with my friends. I love reading the sports columns. im a football fanatic. I may not be very good at the sports but I still have the confidence to play with my friends. without football I dont think I would have any friends simply because of the fact that I would not be able to share any common interests with anybody else. people know that im different and say things to me like your so slow in the head but i’ve had that for years . you just have to have the courage to say I know im different but that doesent mean that your better that me. if anybody says something to me i’ll say something back but i’ve never ever had a fight with anybody. i someone calls me slow now i probably wouldnt say anything back to them simply because of th fact that theres always going to be people who like to think they better than you. People get angry, cry, shout, fight but i dont do anything because im mentally strong and everyone has highs and lows in their lifes but i know how to cope with the.
year 11 student
sophiaciting said:
Reblogged this on Concept Breaker and commented:
It’s like someone has entered my brain!
Hopeful One said:
Wow! I came across your blog by accident, but what a refreshing find. A very similar story to my own, though I wasn’t formally diagnosed until my 40’s when a large broadcaster who was employing me paid for me to attend a specialist.That was only at my suggestion, when my oldest son was diagnosed and I recognised the similarities. I have struggled through life, though 9 years in the army equipped me with a lot of personal tools that I have found very useful. I am still challenged in certain areas, but running my own business provided my challenge which made me find additional solutions. You have encouraged me as I have always classified myself in the “will never dance” category – though it won’t be ballet. Thank-you for your bravery in being so open and, in doing so, giving hope to others.
Roisin said:
I went through mostly the same thing as well. It’s hard but you do learn.
zenpower55 said:
Hello! Thanks for this awesome post! I am also a dyspraxic guy, I was able to walk when I was 20 months (1 year 8 month age). I went through similar things like you when I was younger, and now (2018) I am a the final year university student. But, the bullying reduced when I took Karate in my high school days. It was not because I beat the bully up, but because I found myself able to live my life while taking martial arts, and people can see that. Even though it was hard to learn high and spinning kicks, I was happy to see how I developed myself through martial arts. Due to some problems, I stopped my training and now I’m about to experience more styles of martial arts. Wish me luck!
Sorry if my English is bad.