Sometimes when I make a mistake while I'm counting change for customers at work I jokingly say, "Oh dyslexia!" Occasionally they laugh, but usually they just impatiently wait for me to count their change correctly, take their coffee, and leave. I don't think any of them have realized that I actually have dyslexia. In an incredibly exciting and somewhat unfortunate turn of events, I was also diagnosed with ADD which in combination with my dyslexia makes my brain a hyperactive jumble of various letters and words.
There are a lot of misconceptions and general lack of knowledge about dyslexia. The definition of dyslexia according to Dictonary.com is, "a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence." There is such an incredibly wide range of how dyslexia can affect your brain. I do not pretend to understand the struggle that every dyslexic person has been through. Usually when I tell someone that I'm dyslexic they ask me to describe what it's like; a task that is similar to describing the taste of water or the color blue. So instead here are some general observations I have made about my dyslexia.
1. p q d b. These letters are interchangeable to a dyslexic mind. Chaos often ensues.
6. Pressure is your worst enemy. Recently at the café where I work a woman fell and hit her head. My boss told me to call 911. I asked for her address. Then I asked it again. Then I got flustered and hung up on 911. When they called back I still couldn't remember the sequence of numbers that is her address and my boss had to snatch the phone from me to explain where we were. That is dyslexia in a nutshell.
4. It's often pretty funny. The common dyslexic joke, "I have sex daily" is just the beginning of the ridiculous sentences and phrases dyslexia minds can blunder into.
5. Stuck words. There are certain words that no matter how many times you read it or write it you can never remember how it's spelled. Growing up my worst stuck word was "because" until I came up with a song of how to spell it. Funny enough, (funny or painful, not sure) right now my stuck word is Odyssey.
7. It isn't curable. I find my dyslexia hits me in waves, I am able to get it under control but as I get older and the material I learn in school becomes more complex, my dyslexia sort of relapses. It's something that I am constantly working with and that is constantly on my mind.
2. It's frustrating. I didn't learn to read until I was in 3rd grade. The previous years of my life had been spent in tearful frustration as I attempted to learn such a basic human skill that seemed so easy for my classmates. I had to learn to embrace point #3.
3. Have patience. As everything in life, dyslexia has pros and it has cons. The cons are pretty obvious from the above list but the pros are hidden a little deeper. My dyslexia has given me patience (even if it's only the smallest bit) and a work ethic that I couldn't have gotten any other way. I understand it takes me longer to do my reading assignments and to edit my papers and hard work alone can't shorten those times. Because I'm not in charge of the universe, I accept that I need patience and hard work to complete tasks in my life and I have my dyslexia to thank for that.
P.S. If you're reading this I hope you already noticed my fun dyslexia joke of making the numbers out of order.
