No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on April 20, 2016

I am dyslexic, which for long time readers isn’t news.

I didn’t know that I was dyslexic until I was a freshman in college. I managed to hide my issues rather well without knowing that I was doing so.

I do know that I had no idea until the fourth grade that there was a difference between left and right. I had heard the concept but it had no meaning to me. Left became that if I dropped both arms to the side of my desk, my watch would click as it hit the metal on the side of my desk. North, South, East and West were another set of issues.

I still have a hard time with quickly figuring out my left and right. I have worked around it and if I really focus I can sort it out. And I have been given all the ‘well if you look at your hands then your left hand forms an L’ unless you happen to be looking at the palms of your hands. You write right handed so you should be able to remember which hand you write with right? Nope. Not always. ‘You should know this by now’ is not helpful at all and I get very frustrated when I can’t summon that knowledge with the ease of most folks.

I flip letters around all the time. I figured out how to read and I am very fast at reading but my brain has a way of reading that is different than most of people. Apparently, from what they could figure out, I see letters as a set that stands for something rather than individual letters that compose a word. The order is not as important to me. Birthday is a good example as my family can tell you how many happy brithday cards they got from me. Spell check is a godsend to me. I retain what I read for a very long time. Being such a good reader probably kept teachers from realizing what was going on with me. I was just a poor speller who needed to apply herself.

Trying to learn a foreign language is close to impossible. I took German for two years in high school and two years in college and could barely spell correctly. I had to give up French after a year because I was that bad at it.

And names, I am horrible at names. Remember people’s names is hard enough. Pronouncing them without hearing someone else say the name is a no go. I have accidently called people by the wrong name because I can’t see the letters in the name. I associate it with a person. And we aren’t talking complex names either. Last names are a total crap shoot. I only recently learned how to pronounce one of my favorite author’s last name because I heard them say it. Now when I look at the name, I can finally see the combination of letters that would make the sounds that are the name. Until I heard it, my brain could not sort out the letters to make sense to me. I just associated it with a book series that I love.

So if I have met you and can’t recall your name, please forgive me. My brain just doesn’t work that way. Or if I mispronounce your name, which I hate doing, I do apologize but it is just how my brain is wired.

I am grateful for when I can tell my left from my right.

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