Many of you may not know this about me, but if you’ve ever taken a look at my handwriting, or even worse, my spelling, it’s apparent that I’m a major player in team dyslexia. Dyslexia, in fact, is an odd creature and a polymorphic one at that. Just as each brain is unique to its owner, no two cases of dyslexia are exactly alike.
It is believed dyslexia is a learning disability or “difference” (P.C. junkie) that one is born with, and manifests during the primary years of education (K-12) when the foundations of cognitive reading, grammar and spelling are introduced.
The typical symptoms of dyslexia that educators are told to be aware of are:
- poor reading skills, despite having normal intelligence
- failure to recognize words
- poor spelling and writing skills
- difficulty finishing assignments and tests within time limits
- difficulty remembering the right names for things
- difficulty memorizing written lists and phone numbers
- difficulty with directions (telling right from left or up from down) or reading maps
As it goes, I didn’t quite fit the mold of the standard symptoms. In fact, my story is a little “different” indeed. According to my mother I was a precocious child and a bit of an oddity, which is probably why I remained sibling-free. I talked before I walked. My first words, “Hi sky!” emerged as I waved to the sky from my stroller. As you can imagine, this greatly disappointed my mother who was hoping to hear “ma ma” instead. By age two I had learned to do an uneven-bars flip and dismount from my crib if the desire to leave my room called to me. At age three I was reading independently of my parents. Yet I can also remember my Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Duncan shaking her head as my chunky Crayola crayon colorfully drew the majority of my vowels backwards… at least
i and
o were a little hard to mess up. Reading was never the issue. I remember reading Jane Eyre and Watership Down at age six, but by the third grade I was enrolled in AP Reading and remedial Spelling. Something was up!
You’d think this apparent teeter-tottering of skills would have stood out to someone in the educational system. But my symptoms of dyslexia, like everyone else’s were unique, and not exactly textbook. Instead they go a little something like this:
- above average reading skills
- recognizes words mainly as symbols
- poor spelling/grammar skills
- difficulty finishing tests within time limits, yet no problem finishing assignments
- difficulty memorizing written lists and phone numbers
- smarter than the average bear at remembering the right names for things
- fucking awesome at directions (telling right from left or up from down) or reading maps
- difficulty memorizing or processing information not associated with an image
- the ability to memorize anything at any length if it is sung with a tune
Until my freshman year of College I remained a dyslexic in waiting i.e. knowing something was wrong but at a lost as to what. Even more perplexing was how I could fix the problem. I would spend hours, and hours, and hours studying for a test, know the material inside-out, and end up with some bullshit grade like a C+. A quick thank you to Dr. Bhat is necessary at this moment for calling me out and sending me to the tutoring center.
In today’s world it’s much easier to be a closet dyslexic. I’ve come to know the functions of Spell Check and Grammar Check on an intimate level; closely interfaced late at night, alone in my bedroom, half clothed, and putting the finishing touches on making my paper as dyslexia-free as possible.
Unfortunately for us, society isn’t known for jumping to the cause of educating dyslexics, useless they are lucky enough to be born into a high socio-economic background and a stellar school system. Instead,most dyslexics are doomed to wander the earth with poor handwriting, messy note-taking skills, and the inability to remember things in proper sequence. The irony of dyslexia is that most dyslexics carry a High IQ. According to the WAIS-III (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) my IQ is high enough for me to join the ranks of the International High IQ Society. But I don’t really think I’d fit in there. I imagine the conversations to go something like this. “I won the Nobel Prize.” I won a Fields Medal.” "I have dyslexia… my brain is just compensating.”
In the end, I believe the high IQ of a dyslexic is nature’s way of evening us out so that we have a fighting chance against the poindexters and brainaics of the world. And true to nature, I’ve followed in the footsteps of most dyslexics, embracing my creative side and working in the arts. But I've also learned to embrace/keep an eye out for the quirky aspects of my dyslexia too. For example, I have to watch myself because, like clockwork, I always flip the second and third number in any sequence of three. Like so…
You see $1.89
I see $1.98
You see 917-123-4567
I see 971-132-4567
You see AIG Royal Alliance
I see AGI Royal Alliance
You see “Life and Death”
There’s a good chance that I will remember it as “Death and Life”
This has made for some interesting mix-ups. For instance, I’m always offering people the wrong amount of money when I pay for things. I wonder how many have kept the change… at least it’s only the change part that I switch. Before cell phones, dialing was a little difficult. It usually took a few shots to get the number completed correctly. Not to mention the numerous charges to unknown cities when dialing mistakes went unnoticed. One of my best relationships almost never happened because I wrote JS’s number down in my flip-flop style. Thank god he was listed in the phonebook. But all in all the dyslexia "difference" doesn't lean so far left from the rest of the thinking world. And, for me, it now seems more like a creature of habit than a disability.
So there it is… the unabridged truth about my learning hiccups that I’ve worked so hard to disguise. Instead, today, I’m going to say it loud and proud. I’m a visual-learning, poor-spelling, astute problem solving, grammatically deficient, highly creative and artistic dyslexic. That’s my flippin' story and I’m sticking to it!
