Dyslexia: Waffles & Spaghetti
Let me paint the picture of a waffle and spaghetti.
Someone without dyslexia, there brain is gonna look like a waffle. It has compartments, it’s totally organised and a 1, 2, 3 process will make total sense to them yet someone with dyslexia, their brain may look like a plate of spaghetti. The outside world looks very messy, everything is touching, they start with step 1, jump to step 3, add in step 4 and reverse back to 2, the answer may not be as efficient but it is the same. It makes sense in my brain.
Dyslexia has made a lot of things hard for me like spelling, talking (I used to totally go blank), reading issues, so a lot of subjects at school were extremely hard for me. I’ve always been very frustrated at the fact that I have dyslexia. I’ve always thought it meant I was slower than everybody else, I couldn’t solve the same problems, I couldn’t keep up with everyone, I got really mad at myself.
At one point I just stopped. I stopped beating myself up over this learning disability that I have and started seeing all the benefits. I’m always problem solving and coming up with new creative ways to solve things I feel it has helped me tremendously with being such a creative person. The whole idea behind my blogs is to say something that’s already been said but in a completely different way with a twist on it and I feel that is exactly what I do all day, everyday with having dyslexia so I have so much practice. I’ve had to work with this disability for most of my life, and it’s never going to go away but being so committed to working with something has made me a super hard worker.
There was a lot of people who always said that because of my dyslexia I’d never get good grades, I’d never do well in life but I used that negativity as fuel and have actually bettered my life. I have people telling me it’s not possible for me to have dyslexia because I do so well with my work… don’t put limits on yourself.
Along with the dyslexia and maybe even because of the dyslexia I have some serious social anxiety. When I’m stressed or tired or nervous it amplifies all of the effects of dyslexia. One of the most frustrating things about me in social situations is my word recalls. When you’re talking to somebody and you just can’t come up with the right words, you know the words but you just can’t find them. That to me stresses me out so much when it comes to interview’s because I know how I want to answer the questions but I just freeze and don’t always have the right words. I don’t always know the right questions to ask or have the right replies and I feel like there is this war going on in my head of me trying to get it together but then I can’t so I get frustrated and when I get frustrated I just want to go into a corner and I want to leave like I don’t want to be there anymore, I don’t talk to anybody.
As you can see social situations stress me out which most people wouldn’t automatically guess based on my natural state which is to be very friendly and outgoing because my happy place is hanging out with friends.
The biggest reason I wanted to write this post is to be an advocate for the fact that even if you have something in your life that has an impact to your day to day activity, don’t let yourself or other people put limitations on what you can and cannot do. If you can learn to work with it then maybe you can turn a weakness into a strength. Stop fighting yourself and start learning to embrace who you are.
