Living with Dyslexia

Sandie Walker Hepburn - POWDER GREY interiors & lifestyle 

As some of you are aware but perhaps for those that are not, I am dyslexic.

What’s prompted me to write this note are for those that don’t know.
On a small number of occasions, either when I’ve been out and about or in my own workplace, I’ve encountered the odd snigger, puzzled look or even sympathetic smile at the way I have done certain things in a way which to me is normal but for others may appear not to be.
To calculate some maths on a receipt at work I often use a calculator even if the sum is as easy as 2+2 or take my time when reading a simple sentence that perhaps a young child would find easy.

Dyslexia comes in many forms. Personally I wasn’t diagnosed until in my early thirties when studying. One of my tutors, who had worked with dyslexic pupils before, suggested I should get myself checked as I was demonstrating a number of dyslexic traits.

Once I was diagnosed it came as some relief but also annoyance that all these years I had been struggling there was a reason behind it as not one teacher once said ‘c’mon Sandie you know this, this is easy stuff’. From that I was constantly getting my eyes tested with them thinking it was my eyesight or left feeling I was the thick one in the class with me devising ways to hide what I couldn’t do or found hard.

If only I knew back then what I know now I would have done things a lot differently.

Dyslexic people are not different, they don’t require pity nor in a lot of situations help. Acting as though they do can actually makes them or I have felt very self conscious and embarrassed.

Two teachers I must thank in the years when little was known about dyslexia, some 40yrs + ago, was a language teacher who helped me by using a dartboard for number recognition and my driving instructor who gave me flash cards as opposed to reading the Highway Code book. The visual and practical learning helped me enormously, which even the driving test chap couldn’t believe that I had learnt so much knowledge on the Code from only the previous night.

I own many books with the excitement of looking forward to reading them when knowing in reality I won’t get past the first page without forgetting what I’ve just read and having to re read the page three or four times before it registers and yet when I studied in later life I was told how amazing my detail was to a subject whether it was drawing, designing or written work, and was given a distinction in the majority of my subjects that I took, with one even saying I’d be ideal to write a book, which made me smile.

With all this in mind, and knowing I’m not alone, (my son has also been diagnosed as dyslexic) at the end of the day we are all the same and can struggle at something that perhaps another doesn’t. We need to keep an open mind and perhaps think outside the box, as it were, rather than judge a book by its cover, as we are all unique in our own way.

Final thought
Whether you’re a child studying or an adult at work and finding it hard to cope, perhaps take a  look at your choice of subjects or chosen career then ask yourself ‘are you enjoying it?’. The possibility if you’re not is that you may have chosen the wrong topic or career. Try and find that something you enjoy, and I mean really enjoy. Once you do you will find its at least half the battle and every thing else will fall into place. Emotionally you’ll be happier and more confident as you won’t feel its work or studying, but rather something you love. You will want to learn more and get excited about going to work (if that makes sense). Just be you....