My sister's paper about growing up Dyslexic

Dyslexic Brain

            sdrawkcab etirw I semitemos I mean, sometimes I write backwards. As a little kid I didn?t understand up, down, left, right, or diagonal; there just was. Forget about trying to remember right from left, or which way characters are supposed to face. It seemed so arbitrary, but in school I found out how seriously people took directions.

            I remember starting school and thinking first grade was a big deal. First grade was when you started learning the real stuff; kindergarten was just practice. I tried doing my best, but I always messed up because I?m backwards. My name and all the letters would get turned around, because I didn?t see a difference between frontward and backward. So, in school I hid my worksheets and tests in my desk and never brought them home to show my parents. The teacher found out; she sent the school test-man to examine me. He locked me up in his small office and made me take tests that hurt my whole head. He was a fat, short man, balding, with a beard. He smelled like spices and I did not like him. He made me hate myself. He made me feel stupid.

            The test-man would take me away right before lunch and recess. The tests were super hard; he told me there was a shape in the puzzle that I could put together, but it was constantly twitching and switching. The test-man moved it just a little bit and it stopped dancing around, and became a soccer ball on a field. Test after test that are all hurting my head, I couldn?t take it anymore! I smacked the pieces away and started to cry, which always makes my nose bleed. The test-man gave me a rough, brown, paper towel, and I cried some more. I told him I won?t ever see him again and ran back to Mrs. Lavender?s class. She?s mean and always points out my backwards to the class, but the teacher?s assistant, Ms. Babe liked me.

            In class we learned how to write letters and numbers; at first it was tracing a people-faced alphabet, but next they say your hand has to do it alone and I got it all mixed up. Mrs. Lavender sometimes would snatch up my worksheets and tell everyone: ?Kenny and Caitlin are the only students still writing up!? I liked pushing the pencil upwards instead of down to make characters, because I know it doesn?t matter.

            My Mom and Dad got a big package in the mail. It was filled with all the schoolwork I had hidden in my desk, along with all the notes I was supposed to bring home from teacher. My parents had to meet with the teachers; just because I?ll write my name like this sometimes: ?niltaic? and do things like match up the letter J with the word dress. It?s hard to tell the difference between: ?d-b-p-q? because they all look the same! Mom and Dad met with the test-man and Mrs. Lavender said that kids like me take up too much time. It?s my fault when the class gets slowed down, and if I stopped daydreaming, and playing with letters and numbers I would learn something, but if I kept being ?lazy? nothing could happen. Mrs. Lavender didn?t know me, and she didn?t know how hard I tried not to be backwards.

After the meeting the school made me get my eyes tested, and I failed since the letters wiggle around. So, they switched out the card with letters for one with tiny pictures of birthday cakes, glasses, lamps?I knew those pictures! My eyes ended up being perfect. Next we test my ears; they?re so good I raise my hand when the phone in the other room rings, thinking it was a beep. My eyes and ears were more than fine so, the teacher says to pay attention and stop wasting everyone?s time. But Mom and Dad knew that wasn?t it ? they know I?m super smart and motivated, but something else was wrong. Like when Mom gave me lots of things to put away and I got all confused: shampoo in the fridge, and milk in the shower (seemed to make sense at the time).

            Ms. Babe was a spy from the school; I know because she was in second grade with me, but we left the room together to go to special class. I was afraid of the other kids in the room, because they didn?t sit still or listen to the teacher. But I end up liking it there because I learned to write my whole name right, and they taught me in a way I liked. The E and I sounds were too similar for me to tell apart so, Ms. Babe showed me a picture of a mouth making the sounds than I traced my own mouth as we made the noise of letters and their combinations. I also started to remember which ways letters were supposed to face because we covered the table in sand or shaving cream?physically writing with our fingers, and I felt which way each letter should go. But, I was still sad because I wanted to read and write all by myself.   

In third grade we moved, but my parents didn?t sign me up for school right away.  My parents were nervous about new teachers; they didn?t think I was stupid or disabled only different and they believed I needed to be taught differently. But in the new school things only got better (even though learning was still hard) because the teachers understood how to teach me. Everyone was nice and they thought I was so smart, because pretty soon I was learning words and reading little by little.

By fourth grade I had made huge strides, and read a book all on my own. My Mom bought me lots of small chapter books; I started one and finished it a few days later (all ninety double spaced pages). It was an abridged children?s version of Anne of Green Gables; it was fantastic! I laughed and jumped around screaming, ?I love the book! I love to read!? I danced all over instead of the letters on the page, but I still couldn?t write without it ending up backwards.

I moved through the grades doing well with the help of Special Ed, my parents, and reading by a little lamp all night. In sixth grade we had English class, which I loved! We read cool stories, acted out plays, and kept a journal; the teacher had us write about whatever for ten minutes before class started, and it made me feel incredible, just like reading. I decided to start writing at home, and one night I sat down to the family computer and wrote one long run-on sentence about a friend in elementary school. I printed it out and showed my parents, and they cried! I wasn?t sure if it was really good or if they were amazed I wrote a fluent expression of my emotions around an event.

I started writing a little before reading in bed all night; I loved it, I felt like I was going against my DNA by developing a passion for reading and writing. My embarrassing backwards could not stop me from moving forward, and reading and writing became my emotional outlet. I began experimenting with poems, short stories, songs, whatever my hand produced I went with, even if it was backwards. A weird appreciation for my dyslexia, and the struggle to learn because of it, came over a progression of years; as an illiterate child I yearned for the communication capabilities of writing and reading. I had finally entered that world on my own, and there didn?t seem to be any words to describe the flame that engulfed my heart. I value reading and writing (abilities I was unsure I would ever possess) so much, that it?s become my addiction.

Coming to West Chester gave me peace in a way, and validated something I had felt my whole life. In the Eng 296 class I learned about things like the signifier, signified, that some believe words/letters, and their meanings are fluid. So, maybe it?s not terrible I can?t remember one side of me is ?left? and the other is ?right.? Some of the things I?m attracted to in Literature are: the stories people tell, how they?re told, and the influences?all possible meanings of the word. After all, words are a vehicle used by the writer to express an emotion.