Undiagnosed: I Might Be Dyslexic

I wanted to try something new. Something me. I hope this helps someone as I wander this world and try to make sense of myself. Without further ado, I present the first of many posts about neurodiveristy.

I stand on the edge between two worlds: I am undiagnosed, and I don’t know if I want to be. I might be dyslexic, and you might think so too. I may not have someone telling me what I am, but I have never understood myself better.

I’ve never been neurotypical. I’m gifted. I’ve always felt like the dumbest gifted person in the room. The dumbest smart person in the room. I have struggled with… what’s the word for when you’re not enough? … like..president. It feels like president. Maybe presidents just have it. I’m going to need to Google this or ask kr… Imposter Syndrome. It came to me in a flash. I have struggled with Imposter Syndrome. I don’t feel worthy of the way people look at me. I don’t feel worth the title of gifted a lot of the time because when I look at the people around me they’re better.

That’s when I heard about dyslexia in a way that wasn’t “this is a thing somewhere” but was “this is a thing you might have.” Do periods go before or after quotes? Do I care that much? It’s probably before because it feels weird after. Krissy told me about it because we spend our lives writing together. At first, I said that I was writing an uneducated character and so it was fitting that I messed so much up.

And then an educated character did it, but I said he hated reading

And then another character did it, and she actually has a love of words built into her persona.

At some point, Krissy stopped believing it was just the character, and started noticing me.

No one in my life has noticed my brain the way she has. It might be because she’s What’s the opposite of Dyslexic again?…All..O…(consults google for “opposite of dyslexic” result is) Hyperlexic.

A lot of the things I do when it comes to writing are based on feeling. I make up words all the time, it’s something most people who are close to me notice. I might make them up, but they feel right — not just to me, to the people who hear them. Then there are these huge words that I could never define to you, but when my mind says Well. I need an example here. But how do I search all my documents for a long word I’ve used. Aghhhh. Trust me. I’ve done it. Really long words. The biggest words. Things like superlifous but cooler. How do you spell superlifious? Oh yeah! Super-flous (“fl-ow-sss) Like super flowers without the r but then there’s something more. Super fl-ow-ss is just how I used to say it wrong. It’s… super la fiss? Super..flooo-is. So it’s…superfloous, fluous? Yes! Maybe. We should use spell check. Things like superfluous yay I did it!

These micro methods of connecting the world are what make my brain up. It’s how I spend my day.

In fifth grade I picked an easy book to read aloud to the class, something that was below my reading level by like five years. It had the word chaos in it. It was about a lion. I was practicing reading it to my parents and I said “chow-s” which made everyone confused, and I felt laughed at even if that wasn’t their intent. I have never messed that word up again. I have a bank of things that I make sure I do right. I started to type “write” there but caught it. 

Einstein was dyslexic. Many gifted people in history were neurodiverse.

I did well in school, maybe because I was gifted. I struggled to go to school because I hated it and I never understood why. It might be because so many people looked at me and assumed I got everything, that being gifted or performing well often meant that I felt confident in school. School was hard. When I got to high school I dropped out of most advanced classes because stepping foot in those rooms gave me anxiety you can imagine. One time I cheated on an AP history exam.

Dyslexia impacts your ability to remember dates and names. Guess how well that went in history class… So I cheated. I covered my hand in facts, but they were hints and I couldn’t figure any of them out when I got to the test. I got a C- at best, from cheating. I might have done better if I hadn’t bothered to try to cheat because I confused myself with these dumb bits of words that were supposed to represent things.

I loved anything hands on (kinesthetic). And then there was math.

I was amazing at math until geometry. I started skipping class, faking sick extra, failing math, crying about math. Yet, I was somehow also giving advice out to students in my class about how to do the math I couldn’t understand myself. I helped them, which is great I guess. I’m glad I could regurgitate the teacher’s explanation since it meant almost nothing to me. But then, toying with the information with students helped me get the information more. I didn’t fail. Trig was horrible. Why do numbers make wavy lines? Why do some of them curl and spiral? What does E mean It means the sum of things but that took me way too long and too many bad quiz scores to grasp.

Calculus was weird. I took it in college — Calculus for Engineering majors. I was going to be an engineering major until calculus. If I skipped class I did better, but at some point I had too many holes in my understanding and everything fell apart. I somehow passed that class, barely, but I dropped out of my major and switched to business. Accounting, to be specific.

I was really good at accounting. I never studied so when things like laws and rules came up I sucked, but I got through it.

When we did suffixes and roots in Advanced Freshman English my world ended and I decided I was a complete idiot. Other people got it and I was here thinking if I memorize that geo means Earth I can pass at test but I couldn’t comprehend what I was remembering. That one I get, because I’ve toyed with it again and again.

The other stuff? It’s gone from my mind. Spanish was just as bad. I make up for struggles with coping techniques like cuchilla and cuchara sound similar and they go on the same side of the plate. Tenedor sounds like a trident so it’s a fork. I don’t know why I think it sounds like a trident, but it does. The fork goes on the left. That leaves the other two. Cuchilla has long letters (two l’s) so it must be the knife and it’s a knight so it’s masculine so it’s cuchillo not cuchilla, and therefore the cuchara is the spoon. The knife protects the spoon so it faces the fork from the right side of the plate, and then the spoon is guarded behind it. Congratulations I know Spanish and how to set a proper table with three eating utensils. The desert spoon goes on top because Queen Spoon hates her child and tossed it to the wolves (the fork/tenedor). 

A few nights ago, I wrote bear instead of bare and I didn’t notice it. Krissy told me the next morning. She helps me see the errors I am prone to, helps me become more aware of them. She helps my brain build up a new reservoir of things I make sure I don’t f*** up.It’s one of the reasons she is the perfect co-writer for me.

Sometimes it feels cruel: my weakness is words, and I’m gifted in storytelling and words. It’s exciting and challenging and I love it, even if I make up way too much of what I write. I make it work. I fight for it to work.

I’m going to write more about this, but for now, here’s a little bit of me, and I hope it resonates with something in you.