The Rabbit Hole

Before we head further down the rabbit hole, I should probably let you, my dear readers, in on a secret. I'm dyslexic. I know what you're thinking. "She's a feminist and dyslexic?!?! They'll let anyone have a blog won't they?!?" And they will actually. I'm telling you all this because you will probably notice some grammatical errors, especially when it comes to >>> , and ; <<<. I have a BA in English and still have a hard time figuring out where those suckers go. This is not an excuse for not editing my work, I will be editing and having someone else look over it too (hi Sean!!). But my dyslexia gave me an idea. I have read many articles about dyslexia but very few written by dyslexics.

Dyslexia has impacted my entire life. There's a lot more to dyslexia than just seeing letters backwards. Although I sometimes see and write letters swtiched...I mean switched, I can easily catch that mistake and fix it. The plus side is I can write backwards with ease. Downside, this special ability did slow me actually learning how to read. My spelling however, is a story all its own. I've never been a good speller, but I have always had a robust vocabulary. I often have to "dumb down" my language when writing because I can't even get Google or spell check to recognize what I am trying to spell. Talk to text has helped but I do not want to rely on that because that will not help my spelling, it'll only make it worse in the long run. One of the hardest things about my spelling is some days I can't remember how to spell simple words. I become so frustrated with myself, I can literally be moved to tears. In school, I never wanted to admit that I was dyslexic for fear of being outed as a "SpEd." But I would be, and if I am being honest, still am, crushed when people make fun of my spelling. I'm not stupid. I'm just dyslexic. And there is a difference.

Dyslexia makes me see things differently than other people. Things that seem obvious to me, are not to other people which helps me to think outside of that box everyone is always carrying on about. However, the opposite is true as well. Sometimes I miss understand things that seemingly other people grasp easily. It's a give and a take. Albert Einstein was dyslexic and he changed the way we do math because he saw numbers differently. Couldn't do his hair for shit, but hey, priorities people. For me, I get hit the hardest in math. I make a simple mistake because my brain reverses numbers and 4,962 becomes 4,692. And unlike with swtiched and switched,both 4,962 and 4,692 are numbers. My brain has no way of recognize the mistake. And in more advanced math I can't remember what I have learned. In 10th grade I had geometry the last period of the day, and by the time I got home from school I couldn't remember how to do my homework, 45 MINUTES LATER! I eventually got a math tutor, but that did little to help. I'm also bad at mental mapping, which means it takes me awhile to learn how to drive somewhere, and if I learn how to drive there during the day there is no guarantee that I can remember how to get there at night. Sucks right?


One of the reasons why I am so intent on declaring I am not stupid is an incident that happened a long time ago. When I was 5 I went to “transitional” instead of first grade. I had started kindergarten early (I was 4) and they were afraid that I would be socially inept if I continued onto first grade with my class. During transitional I had the worst teacher I would ever encounter, Mrs. Cockrolle. Yes, you are reading that right and her name was fitting. All I can remember from that year is that woman screaming at the lass of 5 and 6 year olds. I was terrified to speak in class for fear of being singled out. She would berate children for not knowing answers to the questions she asked. Mrs. Cockrolle made me cry on too many occasions to count, my mom recalls this because I would still be crying when I got home from school. Due to my unwillingness to speak in class and my terrified nature Mrs. Cockrolle decided to tell my mother that I was "retarded," yes she used that word, and that I would be "lucky" to graduate high school. I was five years old. And for good measure, the TeacherFromHell also told my mother that she was a bad parent. Looking back, my guess is she said this because my mom was a single parent because my parents were already divorced by the time I was old enough to go to school. And just for the record, my mom was and is awesome at parenting. The overarching theme of this story is: fuck that lady. How dare she or anyone for that matter traumatize children because she hates the job that she chose only because she got the summers off. She terrorized us on a daily basis and then had the nerve to blame us, I doubt I was the only one, for our behavior. It took me years to learn not to shut down when people yelled at me, thanks for scarring me and countless other children, Psychopants.


My mom, you remember, the "bad parent", knew something was seriously wrong at school and fought for me. And my mom made sure that it was put in my file that for the rest of my school days I was not to have any teachers that yelled because it severely hindered my ability to learn. The following year I had Mrs. Freid. She was the one who realized that I was dyslexic and the summer in between first and second grade, she worked with me one on one to get my reading where it should be.  Mrs. Freid did all of this without charge. I cannot thank her enough for the tremendous impact she had on my life and my ability to learn.

So why am I typing all of this at you? Partly because if you're reading my blog I'm more comfortable with you knowing the truth and identifying myself as a dyslexic. And my other motive, as I have kind of stated before, is to give some voice to dyslexics. Dyslexics are real people (I swear I'm not a more intense version of SmarterChild on AIM) and there is a lot more to us and our learning disorder than the comical "lysdexia". It took me a long time to understand that being dyslexic doesn't mean that I am dumb. It just means that I learn differently from other people and that sometimes I have to work harder than others to achieve my goals. So here I am. In all of my SpEd-cialness. Dyslexic and proud. Hope you enjoy the grammatical journey.