Yea primary education and even the secondary school was a nightmare the kindest teacher thought I was bright enough but didn’t know what was up with me. The less kind had some not very nice or complimentary names for me and when physical belting was allowed I would be beat often for being illiterate, laziest or stupid, even retarded in the worst scenarios. This nonsense did give me very poor confidence and show it self in the silliest of ways like I would never send Christmas cards so no one would see my hand writing. I left school early and with no qualifications the school was happy enough to let me go. My dad was self employed and decided I would work for him, I had other ideas. I did both for a while then thought it better to be away from the family form of control lol.

I was lucky enough (at the time) to be in a relationship with a university professor, they noticed the types of mistakes I was making while reading a mate’s kid their bedtime stories. They knew of dyslexia and noticed the pattern within the language problems (could you believe they were a linguist 7 or 8 languages lol) I didn’t know much about the condition, and flippantly say “but that the excuse that stupid people used for not being able to write” After some encouragement I went enrolled at college got accepted (as a mature student) and got my first test.

They test your IQ (raven’s progressive matrix) but don’t use a word based one. They then test reading writing and comprehension of word test and if there is a big disparity between the two i.e. high IQ coupled with low literacy performance then that is what decides the results of this specific learning disability. I would advise anyone or anyone to get their child tested and in the uk a diagnosis gets teaching support and different language teaching methods so it’s well worth it.

University education been dun with aid of computers without that then my handwritten pretty bad spell checking and I am allowed to get someone else to manually spell check my work to eradicate things like homophones etc. That type of support and a lot of determination saw me through.

I am also lucky to feel passionate about the topics I chose to study and my master’s dissertation, that a great driving force.

The advantages to thought and types of thinking give me an advantage in my job and skills. Where one functions within the brain lakes other functions almost become stronger ……in the end it has worked out perfectly for me.

celtic_flame

PS i learned how to write in word then spell check but it leaves some mistakes but it makes it easier for me and easier for you ladies to read