My Journey With Dyslexia

And How I Felt Being Told To Use A Laptop at school

I was diagnosed with mild dyslexia in primary school.

I would never speak on behalf of neuro-diverse students and/or people.

Firstly, because one person never represents a diverse community.

And secondly, I don’t believe it impacts my life to a significant degree today.

And perhaps it didn’t even back then.

Or maybe it did.

I don’t know.

For me,

I am not sure explaining away my own personal academic ‘failures’,

Or rewriting my story to be a triumph against great odds,

Would be constructive or, for me, accurate.

What I do want to do in this newsletter is to provide an insight into how I felt about that diagnosis at the time.

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I think it is interesting to reflect on the fact that in over 100 newsletter editions, many webinars and countless tutoring and coaching hours I very rarely have brought up the fact that I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I personally don’t feel like the label represents me anymore. It is part of my ‘story’ but it is not a defining part. Whilst I would love to show this side of neuro-diversity, I am also very conscious of the fact that neuro-diversity manifests in a large variety of ways and I don’t want to tell anyone how to feel about their diagnosis.

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During Primary School

When I first found out I was ‘dyslexic’ at a young age all it meant to me was I was different.

And at least in my experience,

You do not want to be ‘different’ growing up.

It gave me some explanation as to why I struggled in English more than I did in Maths.

And it explained why I hated reading.

But it also became something that at the time I believed limited me.

“As I am dyslexic, I will always be bad at English … I will always find reading difficult.”

Again, I want to be careful hear to state very clearly I am not representing or trying to represent anyone else’s experiences.

Getting a diagnosis can be a tremendously beneficial and a cathartic experience for many people.

It allows you to better understand yourself.

And I think it probably did this for me as well.

However, there is another side.

And for me that other side was as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At least until it wasn’t …

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During Secondary School

My identity changed at secondary school.

I have written about this switch before but in short,

By attending a very different type of school at secondary to primary I was instantly told I was ‘top set material’ which changed how I viewed myself completely.

Therefore, the last thing I wanted to do was tell people I was dyslexic.

I loved this new ‘intelligent’ identity and I embraced it fully.

Whilst I still found English more difficult than other subjects,

And I still hated reading,

My dyslexia felt like a largely irrelevant footnote to the story.

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Therefore, when I got told I HAD to use a laptop in my Year 10 exams I was livid.

I don’t HAVE to do anything, what do you mean?

I was just starting to make some new friends and find my group and I was not going to be singled out as needing special compensation.

It felt like this would invalidate any academic achievements I would make.

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I wish I could say that with the increased wisdom of age I would tell that younger version of myself how wrong I was.

But that is not really the case.

Some people absolutely should use a laptop to level the playing field due to the neuro-typical system we live in,

And some people, like me by that age, do not need to.

People can make the decisions that are right for them and I don’t begrudge anyone taking whatever compensations they can.

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This was a difficult newsletter to write,

Not because it was particularly emotive,

More because I don’t want to offend anyone.

But this is how I felt and if others can relate to it then that means a lot.

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I hope you all have a great week ahead and a Merry Christmas,

Best wishes,

Joel