What is it like to be Dyslexic?

Extracted from Inside the Dyslexic Mind by Laughton King, published by Exisle Publishing, RRP: $34.99. Available from www.exislepublishing.com and wherever good books are sold.

What is it like to be Dyslexic? When people ask me this, I have to stop and think — because being dyslexic is normal for me, I’ve always been dyslexic, and I don’t know any other way. Really, I suppose, I don’t know what ‘normal’ is.

For years I thought I was ‘normal’ — although perhaps a little stupid, or maybe just ‘dumb’. I knew I was always a little behind the eight ball, I didn’t understand what the teacher was talking about, and couldn’t ‘pay attention’ to the classroom situation — but with enough effort, huge concentration, and a degree of canny strategizing I got through.

Being dyslexic is usually associated with having reading and writing difficulties, and that is certainly the case for me. Eventually, somewhere round about my tenth birthday I figured I had mastered the art of ‘reading’ and became an avid reader — for the next three days. Finally, I gave up exhausted, having read my first book five or six times — up to page six — and eventually realizing that although I could read and say each word, I had no idea what they meant or what the book was about. Now, as an adult I will happily dig your garden or mow your lawn in preference to reading a book.

The notion of a soft armchair and a ‘good book’ is one of sheer torture for me. Really, dyslexia is about language, and about not being able to do language well. Difficulty with ‘reading’ is only one part of being dyslexic — but let’s explore that for a moment.

As a dyslexic, I know that words are the things that come out of your mouth — and into your ears. The things in books, or in the newspaper, are not really words at all; they are just pictures of words, they are things to remind you of the words that you can say, hear and think. The really hard part is that they are made up of squiggles, black marks on white paper — and these things have no recognizable resemblance to anything real at all, and especially not to whatever it is that they are meant to be referring to.

What I mean is, whereas I understand that the Chinese symbol for ‘mountain’ actually looks like a mountain, in our language the squiggles called ‘letters’ bear no similarity to a high hill at all. This might not be a problem to you, but I’m dyslexic, and that means that I think in pictures, and with these ‘letter’ things, I don’t get the picture at all.

I don’t know what most people see when they open a book, but the first thing I see is flashes of lightning jumping all over the page. When my primary school teacher asked what I meant, I drew a line where the lightning went, and she said that it followed the gaps between the words down the page. I said, ‘Yes, this is the same as the snake in Snakes and Ladders, and my eyes always slide to the bottom.’

The same teacher asked me why I like to draw a line around my page, and I told her it is not a line, but a fence — like on a farm — to stop the words, and my eyes, from wandering off the page. (The border on the pages of this book is designed to be similarly helpful to dyslexic readers.) I was not allowed to draw my lines on school reading books, and that made reading too hard. The words wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to work them out, and they kept jumping from one place to another. The teacher put a blank card under the line I was reading, and that helped — but they wouldn’t let me do it at college.

Now as an adult with my laptop I can finally write (neatly what’s more) because the computer puts all the bits in the right place, the letters and the words in the right order. I know that these days I can get a computer to read out loud for me, but the interesting thing is, cartoon strips work really well for me, because all the pictures are there and I can see exactly what the message is. I can even ‘read’ the words in cartoon strips — and this is because they are all in square letters or capitals, which people like me find easier to  understand.

What about ‘writing’ for the dyslexic?

Yes, this is hard too. The first reason is because ‘writing’ always seems to involve words — but that is obvious. What is not obvious is that to write words you first have to choose words to write. What if you don’t have any words in your head? Yes, I have plenty of ideas, memories, fantasies and creations — but I see them, in pictures, and I cannot readily find words to represent them. In my head my internal video screen might show a pack of frenzied chihuahuas terrorizing the police in the city, and I write on my page ‘The little dogs . . .’ then give up in disgust and frustration.

The other main reason for writing being hard has got something to do with our tendency to carry what I call a ‘residual left-handed orientation’. ‘Normal’ people often don’t realize that most tools are designed for right-handers (most of our population), and they don’t really suit left-handers. But more than this, they certainly don’t realize that this is also the case with the letters of the alphabet, and with the direction we read and write in — which is all designed for right-handers. Apparently, the Phoenicians designed all this, with no consideration for the lefties in the population. I’m not saying that all ‘dyslexics’ are left-handed or that all left-handers are dyslexic, but most ‘dyslexics’ that I have met can quickly identify a left-hander in their immediate family tree. And that doesn’t include our elders who, as children, were changed from left to right by well intentioned educators!

Being a lefty isn’t so bad in itself these days, except that lefties naturally go from right to left across the page, and we naturally draw our circles in a clockwise direction — and this is in reverse from what our reading system demands. My point is that we spend all our educational life having to do our reading and writing in reverse gear. Great.

So what is it like to be dyslexic?

Well, we think in pictures, we chase words around the pages of books, and we have trouble finding any sensible connection between squiggles on paper and real things they are meant to refer to. And this all happens in perpetual reverse gear. You guessed it, for us, school is not cool, and for most of us this makes life tough.

So you think in pictures?

Yes, I think in pictures. You say ‘dog’, and I get a picture of a dog in my head. You probably do the same — and that doesn’t make you dyslexic. You say ‘fiction’ and you probably know what it means, but I just look at you strangely because I can’t get a picture of that word. I can’t draw a simple picture of what it means. I also can’t get a picture of ‘respect’, or ‘tidy’, or ‘behave’ or lots of other words that parents and teachers use, so I have only a very hazy idea of what these words might mean — but parents and teachers keep asking children to do these things. They probably don’t realize how hard this is for the children — who really do want to please them.

Unfortunately, the parents won’t or can’t understand, and they just think the child is being uncooperative. I’ll explain examples of this like ‘hurry up’, and ‘come here’ later in this book.

So dyslexia affects behaviour too?

Yes, it affects behaviour too. I often don’t understand instruction or what people want of me. They know what they mean, but the words make no sense to me. It’s even worse when they say ‘Don’t . . .’ then put a picture of me doing something in my head. They do this with ‘Don’t slam the door’, and ‘Don’t spill your drink’, ‘Don’t be late’ and lots of other hypnotic commands. When I comply with the pictures they give me, I get the blame, and I am told that I am bad and a troublemaker. I see that there is no picture for ‘Don’t’ — can you see this? Can you understand that they blame the child for not following their instruction, when the child is doing the best they can? Really it would be better if they told the child what they do want — not what they don’t want.

Most people think in words, but ‘dyslexics’ think in pictures. This is a bit like petrol (words) and diesel (pictures). I go to school and the nice teacher-lady puts petrol in my diesel tank, and I can’t make it work — I can’t learn and I can’t co-operate . . . but I get the blame.

Click here to find out more about ‘Inside the Dyslexic Mind’