Introduction to diary entries.

2013 wasn't a bad year. I didn't achieve everything I wanted but then I didn't except to.Yet I wonder what I will achieve this year 2014. Career wise wasn't too bad could have been better : could have been worse.
Sunday 13th December 2013. I replied to Tim's message on the Disabled dating site. We both seemed to have a lot in common with our disabilities and health problems. I told him at that point I wasn't  ready for a relationship but as time went on we wanted to meet up, even though he lives Kettering Northamptonshire and I live Wolverhampton. Tim has traveled over to Wolverhampton by train a fair few times last year. Since we have grown more and more like one another. He added me as a friend on Facebook 16th January 2013.
I achieved a realtionship that I wasn't excepting to get, which I saw as a friendship at the first but the thing was I was getting to like Tim more and more.
Just because I went on a Disabled dating site doesn't mean I was looking for love. There was many who I spoke to before I spoke to Tim who didn't expect more of me than just friendship. Tim was the only who accepted me as I am but in at time our feelings were getting stronger for one another. 
It was Friday 19th July 2013. When we should have been dating on Tim's birthday, it was hot sunny day but sadly we had to cancel the date cause Tim had to go to the job centre. I brought myself a summer dress that I never had on my back. Not only I hope on Tim's birthday this year that the weather is nice but I hope there will be nothing to spoil our date.
 It had seemed so long ago since we had a hot summer I can't remember when. I excepted us to have an early long cold winter late 2013 to early 2014. Instead with we have had a stormy winter in Britain with wind and rain. Summer 2012 was a complete wash out with the rain with floods and that.
As for my career, I am not working for 1 Voice Advocacy service Wolverhampton, Studying for my English level 1 at Old Hall street college, doing a bit of learning disability and mental awareness training for Wolverhampton University. I wonder what I will achieve this year, which be will be written in my diary entries.

Tight government.

Society and living conditions.

Should people with live unhealthy lifestyle should be treated from the NHS?

People who end up drunk a lot make it very hard for the people who are seriously ill through no fault of their own because this can cause longer waiting time in A&E.

There again no one knows the reasons behind people drinking so much but then some people may drink because they don’t want to work.

I believe the government has been far too greedy with money and spent too much.

Although we as human beings are responsible for our health at the time the unhealthy protects like cigarettes, drink and drugs are still out there.

 The government makes money on so therefore no matter high the price there will be still people who buy these protects.

A lot of unhealthy food seems to be cheaper than the healthy food.

Most people today have very busy life styles so they don’t seem to have the time to cook homemade and have fresh food like they used.

We can’t judge people but then we can’t be sure of the ones who are playing system.

It’s to know who are the ones who are trying to eat healthy and one who are not.

Without been raciest the government is spending far too much money letting too many foreigners into Britain. Not that all British people got anything against foreign people but our country is so small with so little money we haven’t got room for and we can’t afford. The way it is going there will be no homes and jobs for the British people but many British people would be happy to so many foreigners here but not a lot. I am not saying that the fact we have so many foreigners is the reason why Britain is in debt but part of the reason is that there are too many people in such a small country with very little money. Foreign people aren’t to blame but the British government is for letting too many in, which causes nothing left for the British people who were both here.

The government goes on about and promises a chance for people with disabilities and health problems to work but then there’s no work for people without these problems so what chance is there for us ourselves?

Royal Wolverhampton Mencap.

When I started Royal Wolverhampton Mencap in 2007, we had quite a lot of work projects goingoing that supported people with disabilities to get on with their lives such as.

·       Circle of friends for people with disabilities to socialise.

·       The drama group, Wolverhampton Art centre, which was a create arts project.

·       Heaton which was a support for people who need support with shopping, cooking, house work and etc.

·       I helped Mencap set up a project called Mates to Dates, which was a friendship and dating project.

·       I also helped Mencap set a Disabled Writer’s group.

Roghty up to early 2013 the government sadly was cutting the funding bit by bit, even the staffs’ wages were cut. I lost my work with the Group Advocacy ‘Our Shout’ I was working for. We spoke up for the rights of learning disability and raising learning disability awareness by doing drama plays and talks.

Due to the credit crunch, everyone knows how hard it is to look after ones’ self but when it comes to people with disabilities, health problems, the elderly and etc they are the people who need these services and charities because they need more support that other people. Without have any support their needs are not met.
Bearing in mind had employed people with disabilities to help people with disabilities. I myself were was though people who lost our work. Although we have moved on to jobs in the same field, which is ok, Mencap is a charity based all round the Uk but each project is cutting back bit by bit in each part of the UK but it's just a case of knowing how long it will till Mencap goes altogether which is going to be distressing to see. 
I don't enjoy raising these home truths but sadly this seems to be the real world but somehow let's believe it's not all black and white there's positive somehow somewhere but it's a case of how. 

Dycalculia.

What is Dyscalculia?

Dyscalculia is a learning disability that causes people to have problems with maths. These people have problems with numbers, I myself are one of those people. You can still have a normal IQ. I myself haven't been diagnosed but I will be honest I have always had big problems with numbers.
 Once I have got past counting to ten, then I get stuck so I try to work the maths out on paper or make sure I have many items to add onto my fingers. with - when it comes to borrowing write the numbers down to how many numbers I need then put through the numbers the sum asks me to -. * eg; 4+4=8 2*4=8. I can't seem to do maths in my head I have to work then out on paper, which mostly with me takes a long time. There are some maths I can't even work out with a calculator but some I can, which is strange, I can't round numbers up either and I can't only half so many numbers.

 It's hard to believe it has taken nearly thirty years of my life to even guess that I may Dyscalculia. In the last twenty odd years ago, this possible maths disability has affected my chances of getting a job so it's hard to know if I can get tested for Dyscalculia before i do get too, may be even if the funding is out there may be support for me to get a proper job.
Anyway going by my own experience it's a sad fact that we get these cuts coming in because people a lot younger than me with all kinds of disabilities could get better support than me.
Dyscalculia is only a problem with numbers but people can find it hard to tell the time, find it hard to tell from their left to their right, they can find orientation hard and following the rules of games. Pretty much all of those I have problems with but as years went on I strangely didn't do bad at telling the time but very slow at learning it.

These are problems people Dyscalculia but every person varies to how their problems lie.

1. Numbers lines can be hard to understand.
2.Borrowing numbers in - can hard to work out.
3.Finding it hard to work, some, most or even all maths can be for some with dyscalculia in their head.
4. Some people find it hard workout maths when they have to go past ten.
5.Difficulty using fingers counting recognizing how an answer can be to a sum like for eg; 6+4= 10. 
6. Difficulty in understanding value.
7. Some people will find it hard to to calculation certain kinds of maths but could be different ones for different people.
8. Anxiety is a sense of fear and dread, Dyscalculia is more than just a weakness of maths it's disability. Meaning the person with Dyscalculia a fear and dread maths but also it's causes them a lot of frustration  knowing they can't get easily because of lack of maths skills.
9. Dyscalculia is a sense of number blurriness, blindness and jargon of facing numbers.
10. Spatial difficulties not good at drawing, visualization, remembering arrangements of objects, understanding time, direction.
11.Short term memory difficulties the literature to relation between these and dyscalculia is very controversial. 
12. Poor coordination of movement ( Dyspraxia).
13. Reversal of of numbers this is normal development stage which all children go through and no cause to alarm it.
14. Difficulty remembering names - evidence to suggest that verbal memory has anything to do with Dyscalculia.
15. Good language skills but very poor maths skills.
16. Problems with very basic calculations as well as maths.
17. Problems with guessing and estimation numbers.
18. Inconsistent maths skills ( can do something one day but not the next.)
19. Most people find it hard to read analog clocks.
20. Some people find it hard to understand maps, many people may even get confused with right and left.
21.Most people find it hard to keep numbers in columns, then end up with the wrong answer in the sum.
22. Confusion with math concepts.
23. Most people can even have problems with words.
24. These problems can cause a lot of people Anxiety, stress to a point they burst into tears because they feel useless, helpless and fearing that they will never get anywhere career wise to a point they feel as if life isn't worth living.
25. Switching to addition while doing subtraction problem or vice versa.
26. Forgetting addition facts and multiplication.
28. Failure to remember math stept.
29.Changing sequence of numerals when copying them can be a problem for most people.



Famous people with Dyscalculia.

Henry Winkle who played the Fonz in ' Happy Days', Cher a singer, Mary tyler Moore writer and actress, Benjamin Franklin newspaper printer, writer, musician, scientist yet he was very poor at maths.
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale story writer, Bill Gates computer creator but he has numbers coming out his ears, Thomas Edison light bulb invert er, he had problems with maths but he managed to overcome them, Luis Armand, Garcia child star, Sarah Barr able Tisha actress, Mick Hucknall who was in a pop group Simply Red, he once said ' I suffer from  Dyscalculia number blindness - I am made to feel stupid but art school opened the new world of creativity for me and I loved it, although Albert Einstein was good with his physics and his science certain part of his life he was very weak at maths but may have overcome it WWW.alberteinstensite.com. May you could find out about more famous people with Dyscalculia. 

  I myself, this is what I thought the same with my poetry and drawing even though I haven't had any luck as such with publishing. 

Causes of Dyscalculia.
Reserach says that Dyscalculia is caused by a result of a (brain injury). In my case it does make sense because I was born with a very mild brain damage on the left hand side of the brain, which has affected the left hand side of my body as if I have had the affects of a stroke all my life but it cause me to have mild Epilepsy instead. I also says which also makes sense in my case it can link with other disabilities like Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and (ADHD). 

Other disabilities that can be cause by a mild brain damage.
There are at least 30% of of people who suffer from epilepsy ( nearly) who have mild to moderate learning disability. The more severe the learning disability is the more likely the person is to have epilepsy.
Emotional and behavior problems.
( ADHD hyperactively) is an emotional feeling of sadness. moodiness anger, which could also be linked with Anxiety and depression. This can happen any time any place any where whether there's a reason to have those emotional feelings or not, this can make a person behave anyway as possible depending how sensitive they feel. People whose disabilities started of from certain brain injuries may likely to suffer from Clinical depression like people such as myself who was born from a mild brain damage.
A sense of anger could be for eg; Someone trying to achieve a skill but they just can't without the right support, they feel angry because they are having to ask for support and they hate feeling a buron to people. Yet people who can do can do most things for themselves don't understand what it's like for those who can do least things for themselves.

Unemployment

Unemployment awareness.

What a fine start of the new year this is. I am so sorry to bring such a subject: this a important big worry.  If the truth is known I don't know where to start. I was reading this morning about the amount of young people out of work who are feeling as if life is not worth living. To me like a lot if not all people this is a very big worry. Many young people are close to suicide because of the lack of employment. I am very upset to hear that 751,230 young feel as if life isn't worth living. One in three 32% have contemplated suicide, one in four 24% have self - harmed themselves, 40% of young people are suffering from being employed and more than 440,000 young people are facing long term unemployment.
Although I have never had proper work myself, which is what I want. As many of you may have read on this site I used to do some work for Royal Wolverhampton Mencap but back in 2007 - 2011. The group Advocacy work project Our Shout, the work I was doing cut back May 2011 put Mencap had supported and someone else with a learning to have our learning disability awareness training business in a year Mencap ran out funding to support us. From the May of 2011 to the December I couldn't find anything else to keep myself going, was heart breaking at the time I was going out of my mind. I do have quite a bit of understand what it's like to be without work and how it can make very depressed it did the same for me. If you would like to contact me on this subject. sarajgorman@gmail.com


 There again it's very hard to know the truth because there are many out there who don't want to work as well who make it hard for the ones who want to. You don't have to have disabilities and health problems to need support to find a job and that. Now the government has made cuts on the support people are needing. Even though support is hard to get, there's still good many people who don't do anything to try and get work but that's not everyone. Sadly because it very hard to tell the ones who want to work to the one who don't then more often than not the wrong people get judged. 

Yet it's hard to tell who are the ones who are playing the benefit system just because they don't want to work when they nothing with them at all. I need to be careful how say this because there's drinkers and there's drinkers, there smokers and there's smokers. The people who I mean are the very heavy drinkers and heavy drugs takers who make themselves so unwell so they don't have to work are making it very hard for the ones who really have reasons not to work but want to. 


The British government better not make cuts on counselling services otherwise Anxiety and depression will be rising even higher what it is now, it's serious enough as it is. I guess there are more people suffering from Anxiety and depression since the credit crunch started back 2009, which have hit people in the last five years who had never suffered from Mental health before. Depression is a feeling of sadness at any time whether you have a reason to feel that way or not but if you do have a reason, that reason can make you twice as upset than someone who doesn't suffer from depression.