I didn’t realize I was dyslexic until college. You know I went back to school for my graduate work and studying special education. That’s when I realize that when I was reading dyslexively, but that’s me, you know. I went through a whole experience of my childhood, never knowing what that was.
I think that back then they were not talking about dyslexia and I had no idea what was going on. I just thought that I didn’t figure out the trick. It was a thing that all the kids in my classroom figured out and there were a few that I could see were struggling as well. But I didn’t know what it was, I just figured that we didn’t figure out the trick yet. You know, we were going to get it.
So as a result, it affected my grades, it affected my attitude about you know, there’s something that I’m struggling with, and I’m not complete.
And so, as a result of not being able to read aloud or things like that when we had read-around. What I would do is, I would go home and call the book to memory. So when I would come back in to school, I was not reading, I was actually reciting because to this day, if I get to read aloud, I’m going to stumble because the words do this, they get back and forth, and it’s quite frustrating.
Not reading as fast I would like, but figuring out it, you kind of compensate. That’s what I did. Now have the filters and all kinds of things to aid that. But if you look at a lot of creative people and a lot of them have, are dyslexic. I look at it as something that allows me to create or for example, able to recite my books. I can actually recite a book because I’ve been able to develop that ability to hold large information, pieces of information in my head, and then recite.
I don’t know if I would have been able to do that or found it valuable to do it, if not for the dyslexia.
