My Project

“My Interpretation of Dyslexia” an EDGE project:

Introduction: I’ve started this journal of thoughts to help others understand what it’s like to live a day-to-day life with dyslexia. My goal is to interpret my thoughts well enough for a normal mind to understand my dyslexic mind. Writing this journal alone, took me great deal of time and energy. Reading and writing takes much more effort for me than a normal person. That’s a well known fact about dyslexia. But I hope with this journal I can expand my thoughts and help others gain a perspective of what it’s really like to be dyslexic.

Throughout my life, I’ve had to learn how to deal with dyslexia. I didn’t know I was dyslexic until I’d finished my senior year of college. It was always a thought in the back of my mind, but once I found peace with the realization, it all started to make sense why I struggled so much in school. School and learning in general is hard. But dyslexia has made school a bigger challenge for me. I’ve always had to spend more then the required time to study, or complete assignments. It’s harder for me to make sense of what is being taught. It’s harder for my mind to grasp topics and it takes longer for them to make sense to me.

I’ve always found myself having to put much more time and effort into my studies. Much more than any of my classmates and peers. My dyslexia has taught me to be diligent and to work hard for what I want. I can honestly say that dyslexia being one of my weaknesses has become one of my greatest strengths.

In the beginning: Lets look back 17 years ago. I’m a five year old student, sitting with other kindergarteners. That day we were learning the letters of the alphabet. I remember this day well. I distinctly remember my teacher teaching us the difference between a lower case “b”, and a lower case “d”. In my young mind, I had experienced being upset, and feeling stress about being in school. But I don’t remember a time before this day where I didn’t feel extremely confused. I could feel the terrible sick feeling, described as butterflies in your stomach, as my teacher pointed out the “b” and “d” were very different, yet when I look at my worksheet, I couldn’t detect any difference at all. They looked the same. Exactly the same. Things got worse as I was introduced to a lower case “p” and a lower case “q”. I sat frozen, starting at my worksheet, paper in hand. Not knowing where I was suppose to start. Desperately I started looking up and around at my classmates. I felt my stomach fall to the ground as I realized everyone was busy at work copying down their letters. I looked back at my worksheet again. And all I could make out was a bunch of “shapes” so similar. They wouldn’t keep still. Once I thought my eyes could focus on the figure, it seemed to start dancing and moving with the other forms around it. It was like playing a game of “where’s Waldo” except everything was moving at once and there was no colors to help me. Just black and white lines. Looking back now it was like trying to find the difference between the small fibers of a rug. That day I sat in my desk and finished my worksheet with my teachers help while all my friends got to go outside and play. I remember going home that day and telling my mom I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. I told her: “I couldn’t see the figure on my paper very well. They kept moving around. My eyes aren’t fast enough to catch them and tell them apart”.

Time went by and I just assumed reading and writing was this way for everybody. I just wasn’t as fast as everyone else. I went through all of elementary school coming up with my own way of coping with how I saw letters and numbers.

GIVE ENOUGH TIME…

I’ve learned to give myself plenty of time. I’ve excepted the thought that school work is going to take me longer than normal. I survived college by spending all the free time I had in the library trying to focus on my schoolwork and studying. The amount of time it the reader to read the first page of this journal, it would take me double or triple the time. When reading, I have to start over all the time. Sometimes I have to take a minute to really focus on the word that’s written and figure out what it is means. When I read to myself, my mind wonders and I have to restart the paragraph or sentence. The words will sometimes start “dancing” and I have to concentrate hard and strain my eyes to read them while they move. Other times my mind will go blank, and certain words all of a sudden become foreign to me. I have to take time to remember the word and sometimes I have to say it outloud to myself. Pronouncing words outloud to myself helps my mind remember what the meaning is. It’s like my mind just wasn’t meant for reading. I have to work harder at it and give myself time to work at it. When given an assignment or project to do, a dyslexic isn’t just trying to accomplish that. At the same time, they are trying to battle their way to first understanding how to read the instructions.

REMOVE DISTRACTIONS…

I’ve also learned to remove myself from distractions. Distractions may seem like a problem for individuals with ADHD or maybe even OCD, but it can be a problem for a dyslexic as well. Sometimes an assignment, or the page a dyslexic is reading, or paper their writing, seems so overwhelming, that literally any other option going on seems much easier to concentrate on. Distractions don’t require a lot of brain energy or concentration. Typically getting rid of distractions means to sit in a quit room with no people, no phone, no music, etc, and just focus on what needs to be done. I help myself focus by doing the opposite. Having people around is better. It makes me feel like I’m being watched and in a way being judged. I use the fear to fuel myself. Having dyslexia can be shameful. And I don’t want to know what others will think of me knowing I’m at a disadvantage. That fear alone can help my mind concentrate hard on reading and writing. I also need music. Music gives my mind only two things to switch back and forth: Listening; and focusing on reading. Without music, I’m more distracted. Imagine sitting in a campus library. You’ve got your textbook open and you’re reading about the Hydration of Alkenes and Alkynes via the Acid-Catalyst for organic chemistry. This is a public library. So students are constantly walking by, stopping to say hello, having conversations, and also studying as hard as you are for your upcoming tests and exams. This can become so distracting as any conversation carries over to your ears, every type from the keyboard of a laptop, every giggle and hello from friends around you, every footstep and pairs of feet that walk by. If you think about it, there’s a lot of noise that goes on in a public library. Others would learn to tune this out. But for a dyslexic, tuning out the world is hard when the school activity take so much energy. The world just seems like an easier option. This is where I insert music. Any music. It doesn’t matter. Lyric or nonlyrical. I just need the noise in my ears blocking the world. Because it’s easier to tune out the steady music then it is to block out the unsteady buzz of the fellow peers around me.

BREAK ASSIGNMENTS AND TASKS DOWN…

If an assignment ever seems too overwhelming and large, I need to only find a good way of breaking it down into smaller bits so I can accomplish what needs to be done. For example: when I was in Junior High, math assignments were given in class daily. The assignment included multiple groups of problems to try. I only needed to finish each problem and turn in the assignment. With any math assignments or homework I would pace myself by focusing on one problem at a time. I wouldn’t think about all the problems I had left or count how many more I had until I was done. I would only focus on the one problem until I felt I had solved the problem, then I would let myself move on. Just having this mind set really did help me with a lot of my school work growing up. When I write a paper, I start with an outline with what I want, and then only focus on one bullet point at a time so I’m not over whelmed by the amount of writing I need to accomplish. When I had to memorize words or definitions, I would only focus on one word at a time. The technique either seem tedious and slow or it may just seem like the normal technique any student would use. The trick a dyslexic would use here is to trick his/her own mind into thinking the taste is so much smaller than it seems. Then eventually the whole entire assignment is finished.

TAKE BREAKS…

Breaks are heaven sent. Anytime my mind is feeling overwhelmed or I have a headache from reading, I let myself take a break. Breaks include: walking around the room, watching a youtube video, checking social media, editing a photo on my phone, eating a snack, etc. Just giving my mind a break, or giving myself something else to work on seems to reset my mind. I feel like I’m ready again to tackle the task I’m working on. My favorite thing to do on a break is get up from my chair and take a walk around the library and chat with friends I see. The key to taking breaks is to make them frequent but make them short. I will give myself 5-10 minutes time for a breaks. I’m able to focus more with frequent breaks. It gives my brain a fresh start. It’s like a breath of fresh air every time I let my brain venture into new ground.

STUDY AT NIGHT…

This tactic is a new found love that I have discovered. I stumbled upon it while working a summer job that required me to work the graveyard shift. It doesn’t seem like it would work well and honestly I thought for years it wouldn’t be worth trying. But 90% of the hours I’ve spent working on this EDGE project was in the last and early hours of night instead of day. I believe this works because during this time the rest of the world is so quiet. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only thing alive at night. It gives my mind a different perspective. I believe tricking my mind into thinking its all alone, gives it less worries to consume it with. Its like the rest of the world is still and paused. Which it kind of is. And then it’s like you have all that time to yourself to accomplish what you need to get done. Or study what you’d like to study. The only downside to choosing to study at night is not having a friend alongside you in case you’d like to ask how to spell a certain word. Or ask if they can help you see the difference between the word “then” and “than”.

DON’T DO MORE THAN NECESSARY…

It’s important for any person, one who suffers from dyslexia or not, to never overdue themselves. I purposely will only allow myself to never sign up for more than 16 credit hours for school. When I took organic chemistry I only allowed myself 12 credits. But the point I’m really trying to make is sometimes a dyslexic just needs to stop and not try again until tomorrow. There have been so many times where I’ve had a full day, and I’ve been studying all evening. Usually it’s when I’ve been trying my best to read just one word I can seem to figure out. The letters are just too similar and I can pick up clues as to what it could be by reading the rest of the words in the sentence. This usually is a good time for me to just ask a neighbor what the word says. But in the past I’ve delt with insecurities with dyslexia and I feel too stupid as a college student asking another college student, how to pronounce a word. So at the end of the day when I’ve tried my best, it’s just better to call it a day and try again and work hard tomorrow. Another point I’d like to make: sometimes all it takes is for me to just except that I am different. I don’t see things how the rest of the world sees things. There have been times where I’ve tried harder on faking instead of trying to cope or teach myself a different technique to dealing with dyslexia. I’ve had to except that some things are just out of my reach and it’s better to do what I can handle instead. There are a lot of quotes that say things like: “anything is possible” or “you can do anything if you set your mind to it”. These may be true for a lot of people. But I’ve come to realize that I have limitations that may prevent some things, but that doesn’t mean they prevent all things. I can still be successful and smart, but I don’t have to become a world famous doctor to do exactly that. I can be successful in my own eyes, instead of doing more than necessary.

EXPLORE OPTIONS TO USE YOUR OTHER STRENGTHS…

I’ve been coping with dyslexia my whole life. However, I did not know I had it until I was in college. It was a very vulnerable time and I felt very ashamed of my “disability”. I told absolutely know one. I kept it a big secret. I got really good at faking and avoiding situations that might bring up my dyslexia. I wanted so badly to be like everyone else instead of being myself. Over the years I developed my own learning techniques or “strengths” to cope with dyslexia. A lot of them I’ve already mentioned. Like music. But there’s one I found by mistake. I remember in Jr High, as a requirement we were suppose to register to learn a different language. I knew I already had such a hard time with English. How on earth was I suppose to get myself to study a different language if I couldn’t even spell and read my own language? So instead I thought I could make it easy on myself and learn American Sign Language. Turns out this was a blessing in disguise. I didn’t learn a lot of the language itself, but over the years the one thing that has stuck is the ASL alphabet. I have used my own hands and muscle memory to help me remember how to spell words. It’s become a habit of mine now. Every time I’m struggling to remember how to spell a word or the spelling I’ve come up with doesn’t make sense all I have to do, is try to spell it out on my hand. And if my hand has spelled the word before, the muscle memory kicks in and I’m able to spell the word using the muscle memory instead of using the memory in my mind. I know that seems weird. But my mind has failed me so many times when trying to remember how to spell a word, and my muscle memory doesn’t fail me. Sign language came in very “handy” when I was studying anatomy, not only did you have to memorize the part of the human body, you also needed to know how to spell the word when taking the test. There has never been a time in my life when I didn’t use my ASL alphabet so much to help me remember how to spell a word. And hard words at that.

WRITING A PERFECT PAPER IN ONE DRAFT…

Everyone growing up was taught that the perfect paper cannot be written in one draft. I beg to differ. Multiple drafts were meant for minds that don’t make mistakes when spelling and don’t have to think hard about how to express their thoughts. When I write a paper, I already have to focus so hard on my spelling mistakes and my thoughts don’t flow smoothly and easily unless I make them do so. The amount of time I’d spend on a “first draft” is the same amount of time a normal mind will spend on about 5 drafts. I use Microsoft when writing papers. And I wouldn’t be able to survive without spell check. Writing a paper is such a tedious process for a dyslexic. I’d like to be able to just let my thoughts flow as I type, but it’s like my mind can’t keep up with my thoughts. It’s like there’s a giant block in the way and there’s no way around the block. All I can do it climb over it. Once I’m up and over the top, my thoughts are way ahead of me and I need to catch up with myself. Well what’s a block doing in the way? Well duh. The block is not knowing how to spell a word or getting distracted by all the red lines under the words I’m typing. Or it’s the insecure thought of thinking “that sentence doesn’t flow well” and instead of moving on and getting thoughts out, I’ll spend another half and hour trying to make it flow to where a normal mind will understand the meaning. I spend so much time just trying to make my expression of thoughts and words perfect, by the time I’m done, it can’t be changed. So many many many changes have already been done. Well what about this EDGE project? There is no way this was done in one draft. Actually there is a way. A dyslexic will rehearse over and over and over again in their mind exactly how and what needs to be said before writing it down. There’s so many blocks to climb over. A dyslexic mind does not just throw everything out as a mess first and then organize the chaos to make sense. What it but down has to make sense to them first and this requires a lot more brain work and energy than normally.

HOW MY BRAIN READS…

I remember when I learned how to read. I had finally gotten the alphabet down and felt confident enough I could remember and tell the difference between each letter. What helped me the most was pronouncing out loud to myself how each letter sounded. I learned words best by reading them out loud. Or by listening to my teacher or parents reading them out loud. Hearing the pronunciation was the only way I could differentiate between letters that looked the same to me. I’m sure this is how normal minds, by sounding out words in their head to figure out how to read the word. But my mind relies heavily on this. There are so many english words that have “silent” letters, and others that in no way possible are pronounced the way they are spelled. It drives my brain crazy. My mind sees letters and tries to read the word by sounding it out first. But it can be confusing because the letters mix up and will look like one letter when it is the other. For example, I’ll see the word “fail” and read it as “fall” or visa vera. It takes me a while to notice that the “l” is actually an “i”. Here’s another way I can explain it: a person who is colorblind will see the sky and might see a color that to them is blue, but in our eyes, it’s green. But they’ve grown up their whole lives being told that the sky is blue. So when they see a green sky, they’ve learned to call that color, blue because that’s what everyone else says it is. That’s how I’ve learned how to read words. I may see it as something else, but I’ve picked up on what the word really is and actually says by using context clues in the words around it, or basing off of what people have said. I may see it as something else, but I’ve learned to match it to what it actually says.

INSECURITIES…

I remember when I found out what dyslexia was. I was in elementary school. In my elementary school there was a program called “resourse” where kids who were struggling with school would go and get extra help. One day I was asked to be excused from my regular class and join the resourse program. I remember feeling very confused. I didn’t feel like I belonged there. And I was nervous to think of what my friends would think. I didn’t want people to think I was stupid. I didn’t want people to think I struggled with reading and spelling. The kids who went to the program were called “resourse kids” and it was known that they weren’t smart kids. This was when I was introduced to dyslexia. And ever since then dyslexia has been in the back of my mind and has never left. Like I’ve mentioned before, for years and years of my life I never excepted the fact that I had dyslexia. I just made myself believe reading was hard. It wasn’t until I was in college that I started to really except the idea for myself. I finally let myself believe that I had a disability or a limitation. When I finally excepted it for myself, it was like my life made sense. No wonder school was so hard for me. No wonder I never enjoyed reading. No wonder I had to keep sounding words out loud to understand their meaning. But I still kept a secret. And I kept it a secret for a long time. I still felt really insecure. And I was very ashamed of my dyslexia. I didn’t want people to see me as stupid. I didn’t want people to see me with a limitation. I believe it wasn’t until I myself started seeing dyslexia as not a big deal that I started opening up about it and admitting it to my friends. And surprisingly enough, it really didn’t matter. It didn’t change who I was. If anything it made me a tougher person. And if my friends didn’t see me differently, then I shouldn’t see myself differently. It gave me a different perspective. I loved being able to finally understand myself and accept myself.

Excepting my dyslexia, has made me want to reach out to others. I want those who suffer with dyslexia to realize that a dyslexic mind is not limited. And I want those who don’t understand dyslexia to have somewhat of an understanding of the real struggle it is.