Q-Less

When we were having the Ferengis checked out for Autistic-spectrum disorders, we as caretakers of Ferengis were also assessed, and both of us scored very high on both ADHD and Dyspraxia.  It was declared that, with our backgrounds, it would be hardly surprising to find that our Ferengis were ‘neurologically interestering’.

Sisko has a terrible problem with time-keeping. Oh, he’s ok about arriving at work on time.  You can train yourself to good habits, after all.  But after work, he’s all over the place, and it can make for a very frustrating time making arrangements.  We’ve missed a good few transports in our time because Sisko had his head in the clouds.

The way this manifests itself for me is having a tendency to walk into things and be forever bashing myself in the same places, on the same pieces of hardware.  I may have been able to set Ops up in a way which helps to avoid injury, but if I don’t tread carefully, there are places in Quark’s bar, the Promenade and the staff quarters that’ll have me covered in bruises on a regular basis.  I sometimes feel as though the laws of Physics are actually conspiring against me to ensure I never have a moment’s peace.

I don’t have enough experience with Odo and Quark to know whether they’ve inherited these same difficulties, (Quark shows signs of having less of the ‘Attention Deficit’ side of ADHD but a whole lot of the ‘Hyperactivity’) but I can already see in Jadzia problems with spatial awareness which lead to constant walking into things and she’s usually covered in scratches and bruises (actually, come to think of it, so is Odo, which is probably not a good sign.) But Bashir outshines them all – he seems to have inherited the worst of both mine and Sisko’s ADHD and Dyspraxia traits: as well as having a good few challenges of his own, he is regularly falling, tripping, running into things, scraping himself and tumbling over, as well as being completely obvlivious to the concept of time-keeping.

In the context of having to teach the Ferengis myself in the absence of educational facilities on the Station, these neurological differences are proving to be quite a challenge to me.  It wasn’t too bad when Bashir was young and on his own, because I was able to mold the curriculum to suit him, but now I have 4 students which completely different needs pulling in different directions, I am really beginning to tear my hair out.

I was thinking this morning that actually I should just acknowledge the fact that we’re going through a bad patch at the moment, and allow myself to have a bad patch.  But unfortunately the condition comes with a tendency towards perfectionism, and when I can’t attain perfection, I find myself quite depressed about everything.

It’s times like this I wish there were a semi-Divine person around the place, able to click his fingers and make it all right again.