Dyslexia Abd Me- A Different Way of Mind
I remember the first book I ever read, it was a free one from Mcdonald’s which is strange because I don’t remember ever going there as a child. The book its self, like most people’s first books was not all that exiting. Mickey and Mini mouse went on a picnic I think they lost a blanket at some point but that was about the extent of the drama. I carried that book around with me every day for weeks trying and trying to read it until suddenly It began to make sense. I was 6 years old.
Kind and well-meaning people often say to me “you really don’t seem dyslexic” which I think is meant to be complimentary. It’s also a fair assumption as I read constantly and fluently, get fairly good grades and outwardly don’t seem to struggle academically. This combination of factors often leads people to the conclusion that my dyslexia is very mild, more of a pinch of disorganisation and liberal school policy than any real diagnosis. What they don’t see is the complex web of coping mechanism I (and many other dyslexic people) use to interact everyday in a world that can be very hostile to my brain. Ie a list of 6 or 7 phone reminders each day to go to my lectures, do my reading or any other social event I have each day. Constant access to a calendar to place deadlines, a range of software on my laptop which allows me to dictate, mind map and have things read back to me, highlighters to colour code work, separate work sheets printed on yellow paper so I am able to read them. On top of this I have a weekly hour meeting with a dyslexia tutor where I make a week planner of what work I am doing every day and when all of my deadlines are. These things are not helpful to me but essential to me and without them I would be completely unable to function academically.
School was incredibly difficult for me verbally I have always been ahead of my age however it simply wouldn’t go onto paper. Imagine making a great point in a discussion and looking down to your notes and it looking like someone had downed a bottle of vodka and attempted to write the point down. It’s a bit like that. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying, I was trying incredibly hard and failing constantly. From the age of 7 until 12 I saw a tutor once a week and was lucky to have an incredibly supporting and encouraging family who were constantly supporting me but academically I was failing and so I felt like a failure. Its interesting, and makes me very sad to look back on now because I was trying so hard in school and yet rarely saw progress. What I always tell my friends whenever I attempt to explain to them how my processing is effected is that something which takes them a month to learn takes me three. For something to go into my long term memory I must fight tooth and nail for it to be internalised.
I would like to talk about what effect this has on you as a kid because its big. It blows apart any self-esteem you may have, makes you incredibly anxious and fearful of being tested because you know you simply can’t do it. I used to fake illness constantly in primary school so I wouldn’t have to go in because I dreaded the frustrated looks from my teachers from my lack of progress on simple maths and spelling. It’s also probably important to say that dyslexia isn’t just reading and spelling it affects your organisational and concentration skills, ability to remember sequences (phone numbers, lists, dates, times) time management, numeracy skills, handwriting, note taking, ability to meet deadlines and revising. It took me ten years to learn my home phone number, I rarely know what day of the week it is and to this day know no times tables.
I failed pretty constantly (with the exceptions of English and drama) until my a levels where I started at a new collage which had an excellent learning support centre where I went once a week for very similar help to which I am receiving now. I was allowed to type my exams and actively encouraged to draw pictures and use colours to help me learn (I drew 60 separate portraits of sociologists for my exam). To give you an idea of how life changing proper learning support was when I did my GCSE’S I came out with D’s mostly C’s and two B’s at A Level I received two A* and an A. For the first time in my entire academic life hard work equalled success which simply is not the case for most dyslexic people. Those grades were really important for me because I had never felt proud of myself before academically, never felt that I had tried hard enough. I still struggle to be kind to myself when it comes to my work ethic and often feel like I’m being lazy and not doing enough work despite the fact I’m usually doing more than I need to. When I got those results it really felt like I had climbed the mountain and allowed me the space to reflect on what had come before. I now (though I am still incredibly proud of that achievement) do not see them as defining my academic career. What defines me academically is the skills dyslexia has naturally given me and the ones I have had to develop through living in an academic system designed in a way that often felt against me.
Dyslexia means I see things differently than other people because my brain makes connections in a different way that some people call ‘interconnected reasoning’ “These connections can be relationships of likeness — analogies for example — or causal relationships, or the ability to shift perspective and view an object or event from multiple perspectives, or the ability to see the “gist” or big-picture context surrounding an event or idea.” I have a shocking short term memory and it takes me months and even years to internalize information that for other people is automatic (ie names, student ID numbers) but an excellent long term memory I can remember exactly what people said six years ago and exactly where we were when they said it. As well as this I am creative, anyone who knows me who is reading this knows I work as a photographer and creating has always been how I process the world around me and a way to show the world what I see which may be a little different to other people. My concentration span, though better through a lot of training is generally still poor and I often daydream for forty minuets at a time before remembering what it is I’m meant to be doing.
All of these things I once thought made me weird, stupid and lazy I now see as strengths. Without my dyslexia I would never have had to work so hard, understand what it’s like to put your all into something and fail repeatedly. I would never be able to connect ideas the way I do, feel so comfortable talking aloud or asking for help. I’m sure I wouldn’t be as creative as I am or have so much empathy for those around me. Though I will probably never be able to remember road names nor phone numbers. I will be able to remember the shadow on your face when we first met, and be able to pull together images and colours in new ways and know how to get my head down and work like a demon until the jobs done. I wrote this because I am very dyslexic and finally very proud of it and I want people to know that there’s a lot more to it than spelling and telling your right and left. I wish when I was younger I had read something, anything which described dyslexia not as a disability but as an entirely different way of mind one you should be proud of having and able to enjoy the many many opportunities which it provides.