Dyslexia, the less talked about neuro-divergence
Part 1 : Speaking as a personal authority on this topic and how misunderstood it really is.
Hello Substackers,
This is an article that is very personal and feels very exposing for me, but here goes! I want to write about this topic in parts, as it is so huge. It is also very close to my heart as I want to be supportive to others in writing this.
This is my first, instalment on this topic, it was hard to know where to start, so I have just started! I am waving to all the dyslexics out there 👋🏻
I would invite you to look at this word, below
What comes to mind? You don’t have to be PC, I won’t be offended. What honestly comes to your mind as to what it means or is? Or is it a confusing word that is unclear as to what it means/is?
A psychologist defined for it me, a little while ago. Oh I can’t ask you to do any research, you can’t read.
Times have not changed, in so many ways, it seems.
I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback. A 21st century psychologist, thought she was being helpful by sparing me facing words. I can read. I read very fast in fact. I am very good at skim reading. I personally struggle more with extracting meaning from words, at times, particularly hard going research papers and the like, and that is what can slow me down. I also find reading tiring but I also love it. I have a huge thirst for knowledge and prefer books to the screen. I am very poor at exams as I can’t recall all the stuff I have tried to learn to regurgitate it to pass. But it doesn’t mean I don’t have the knowledge as well. It is an odd one!
I went, as a professional, to a Neuro-Diverse group who are there to support each other. The support I received? Oh, dyslexia, well that is much better understood that what we have (ADHD, Autism etc). It is so much easier for you. Is it? How did they know? They didn’t ask me.
Even in that group, I was an outsider.
It was interesting to me that when I searched for an image to use on Unsplash, Dyslexia was the least, virtually nothing, represented neuro-divergence (how I hate that term!). The image above, is my own.
I have been told, oh no, you are not dyslexic, you have ADHD, recently. Well I may have, as I have never been assessed, but I was assessed in my 30s by an educational psychologist at Kings College in London. He was pretty sure of his ‘diagnosis’. I was so relieved to find out I was not, in fact, stupid, but really intelligent and just struggled with some things that are not my fault.
Even my father used to tell me what a disappointingly stupid girl I was. As for school, I won’t go there. I dropped out of school with one ‘O’ level in English (as my English teacher was the only one who took any interest). Yet I graduated nearly top of my class from Kings College, London in my post-grad Cognitive Therapy course. It was Kings, that noticed and sent me for diagnosis, for which, I am eternally grateful. I am not saying this in a boastful way but hope to reassure anyone out there, who maybe struggling, that anything is possible.
I was going to put a list of things you can tick off to be dyslexic, but there is so much argument over it, I am not going to bother.
The word dyslexia has been around for about 130 years. It has had a lot of unhelpful ‘labels’ attached to it. Originally thought to be the product of brain disease, the ‘diagnostic criteria’ has evolved and still is evolving. Use of words like disabled have also been used. Another common term used was as word blindness by ophthalmologists (in the early days of identifying Dyslexia) and it kept that label for a long time. It was not until the 1960s that psychology started to look at dyslexia more closely. But then, ideas of it being a middle class excuse for children not doing well caused huge damage to the way children were thought about. It has also been labelled a myth. The UK government refused, for years, to acknowledge it.
I went to school in the 70s/early80s and was just labelled as stupid and lazy. Something, that at 58 years old now, stays with me, even though I know it is not true. My self-esteem was not helped at all! It has been my secret. Well not so much once I hit publish! It has been my dark secret, because of the huge amount of judgement and misunderstanding that I always seem to come across in all settings. And I feel that fear right now.
I think of Dyslexia as bit of an enigma. It is my blessing and my curse.
My personal experience is that I live in an exhausting world. My brain does not work in a way that makes anything easy because of the things I do struggle with. I am hugely organised, a learnt skill as that was not always the case. But it takes a lot of work and concentration. Conversely, I lose things as well all the time. Keys, phone, rarely know where they are. I get so frustrated with myself. That appears to be the nature of my dyslexia, huge strengths alongside huge deficits or difficulties.
I cannot remember lists of instructions or numbers. I, long ago, gave up asking for directions if I was lost in a new place. Just cannot remember more than 2 things that were said. The age of passwords is a nightmare for me, even with apps, I don’t get it. I don’t see the pattern in numbers (dyscalculia) often goes alongside dyslexia. I have to write everything down. Writing things down helps me make sense of things. I have to concentrate a lot, on tasks, that those without dyslexia just take for granted. I don’t know my left from my right, even now, I just don’t know. If someone is in the car with me, I need them to point which direction to go. So WEIRD!
I NEVER use the word dyslexia as an excuse to get out doing anything. I just work a lot harder to do things and often they take me a lot longer than someone else. This is very misunderstood in my part-time corporate job. This can lead to burn out and overwhelm, that weirdly, I have only recently realised.
As with everything, there are blessings too. My dyslexia blessing is the way I think about the world and the humans within it. It can be my super-power in helping others due to bigger picture way I think about things. It is also down to my personality, empathy and all that kind of thing too. Personality or dyslexia? Who knows, I don’t actually care to be honest. It is probably a blend. But it does make me an outsider as I do not think like most people I come across.
People like Richard Branson have really advanced the cause of Dyslexia. In America, they love us, and employ us for our bigger picture thinking and problem solving abilities.
We are all effected uniquely in the ways our brains work, whether or not we have a ‘label’. I am all for embracing and understanding difference in each other. I find people genuinely fascinating. It makes me sad to see how afraid of difference we can be. Our difference, is what makes us human and makes great teams of humans, drawing on each others strengths. Curiosity about each other can be a magical thing as it opens our eyes to the human in the front of us.
The purpose of this article was just to raise some awareness and maybe a different way of thinking about the enigma that is Dyslexia. To encourage curiosity, not just about dyslexia but just the human in front of us, label or not.
I would love to hear from other dyslexics out there or those that know a dyslexic or anyone, in fact, who has anything to add to this starting place article.
Thank you for reading.
Wishing you a wonderful rest of your day.
Jane
Floreo (Latin for flourish) Self-esteem is not just about confidence, it is the foundation of your human experience. It is your right to feel comfortable with yourself and flourish.
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Ah, Dyslexia. It feels like the other neurodiverse spectrums - Autism and ADHD are having a moment in the spotlight. But dyslexia is still under diagnosed.
My experience of dyslexia is through my son and then some of my journey.
Now, the educational psychologists have put all the memory processing disorders under a spectrum ‘dyslexia’. So my son is dyslexic with issues with spelling, written expression and poor auditory working memory. But then he gets all the upsides such as the ability to think laterally, see patterns and innovative and creative thinking.
Am I lucky? I am dyslexic, but not in a way most people would know. I have problems with directions, left/right, up/down, push/pull and really poor spatial awareness. Google maps is my saviour every single day. I struggle to remember a sequence of directions. But my walking netball team know I will be a nightmare getting to grips with a new drill. My trait would have been labelled ‘directional dyslexia’ a number of years ago. I get nearly all of the upsides, such as the pattern recognition, thinking laterally and innovative/creative thinking.
You are very much not an outsider here on Substack. Your post is most welcomed and needed, thank you.