zyx

Having slept well, I was ready for the next day.  I should say physically ready.  I don’t know if I was ever mentally ready for each day, as I never knew what was coming!

After the morning greetings and pleasantries, we began again.  Now she wanted me to clay the letters of the alphabet in lower case letters…backwards.  Wait now.  I don’t want to add to my confusion.  I see things backwards now, how is this going to help me!  At least I had the alphabet on the table from the day before, so I didn’t have to go to the end of the song and try go forward.  Again, a lot of time making rope clay so I could make my letters.

z   x   y   w   v   u   t   s   r   q   p   o   n   m   l   k   j   i   h   g   f   e   d   c   b    a

I had an assignment that day when I went home.  I was to memorize the alphabet backwards!  Come on now, I was trying to get rid of this backwardness I was experiencing!  This only seemed to me to encourage it.  Nevertheless, this was the assignment, so I did it.  Now I will tell you how I see this backwards, and how I learned it backwards, which I never thought of doing before.

zxy, letters used in math, if x=? and y=?, what is z?

wv, can’t you see volks wagon here?

uts, the first three letters of my name, backwards

rq, r a letter in my name, q just fits in here

pon, almost spells the word pond

mlkj everyone know m and n go together, so m has to come after n, and mlkj is Martin Luther King Jr

ih, the two dotted letters are together in the alphabet, so if I am at j, i must be next, and I see hi here.

g, this just had to be memorized for me

fed, do you see this word?

cba, shouldn’t be hard if you know your abc’s

What I thought would take a long time, really didn’t take long at all.  I just looked at the picture I had taken of this clay alphabet, and saw these little things to help me remember it backwards.

Now, I was to say the alphabet out loud to her, as she pointed to the letters with her pencil.  Forward and backwards, and backwards and forward. Then random pointing. She wasn’t going fast.  Wished she had.  I had this memorized and could even sing it to her.  In fact, most of us probably sing it to ourselves when we do it in our mind.  How many of us have that tune in our mind when we are reciting the alphabet out loud to another person?

No, she wouldn’t go fast.  Letter by letter, we went through it.  She said that I did a pretty good job, but there was one letter that kept tripping me up.  I don’t know if I hesitated, stuttered, stumbled, or what, but that darn letter ‘F’ was giving me some issues.

I have no idea why! She asked me to name some words that started with the letter ‘F’. Failure, flunk, frustrated, finicky, flawed, feeble, and on and on the list went.  Do you see a pattern here? Cindy wanted to know if I knew that other words started with that letter, such as fabulous, flower, friends, or friendly. I figured there could be other words, but I knew plenty of the negative ones already.  They were engrained in my mind all these years.  They had been my associates, my mentors for all these years, and now she wanted me to let go of them and make a mental change with the letter ‘F’?

Next blog: The huge internal struggle 

My Mentor

For me, finding a mentor was easy.  I had a choice of one person for the entire state of Utah. I didn’t have the choice of ‘interviewing’ or even reading a few credentials before I chose. Rather my decision was do I want to travel that far every day for a week, to go to my class?  So I sent an email out and waited for a response.

I want you to meet Cindy.  She is my dyslexia mentor.  I got an email back from her quickly, and a time was set up that my wife and I could go and visit her, and see if this program would be beneficial for me.  I remember her doing one exercise with me.  With my eyes closed, I pictured a piece of cake in one hand, with the point of it pointing towards my wife.  She then took my pointing finger of the other hand, placed it by my eye, and then asked me to view this piece of cake from that finger, and she was going to move my hand, and I was to see if I could see that piece of cake at different angles, all the time while the cake was still pointing towards my wife.  I had no problem following that in my mind.  It was as if a camera moved and went around the cake, and you could see all the sides of the cake, while the cake was still, like you would see on TV or in a movie. 

Cindy said I was a very visual person.  Now, about a year later, I understand why I close my eyes when I need to think or concentrate on something.  I am literally looking at the problem.  And seeing a picture, I see soo many angles, and other challenges that may come up in the process of that particular solution.  But that is another story, as that is a part of ‘my gift.’

As I said before, this class is not cheap.  I was unemployed, and we were struggling to keep our bills paid.  I sent out an email for assistance to my children who might be able to contribute a little to help pay for this, and talked to my parents in person.  My parents were the only ones who pitched in to help.  That meant a lot to me in many ways.  While what they contributed was far from the total cost, it was also by their means a huge sacrifice and commitment on their part.  Second, I felt my parents love and concern for me, as I was trying to improve myself.  Now I was ‘accountable’ to someone else besides my wife, in following through with this program.

But we still needed a lot more money.  We had already drained all savings and retirement funds that I had accumulated by this time, and the only thing left was to put this on a credit card, which neither my wife or I wanted to do.  Then one day, my wife suggested that we sell some stock she was purchasing at her job for some of her retirement to pay for this.  That had never crossed my mind, and I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do that.  It is a no brainer that this was far better, than paying the high interest rate on credit cards, but it was cutting in on what little we had left for retirement.  My wife said that if I thought this program would help me, it would be worth the sacrifice.  So we sold the needed shares of stock to come up with the difference, and a time was reserved for me to take the class. A decision was made, and I was committed to taking this class.

In a class of one, there is no one to sit behind, or someone else to answer the questions.  It is you and the teacher. Not the type of situation one likes who is use to sitting in the back of the class room.  Now I was sitting behind a desk, which was an older one, and had clay in the uneven parts of the desk. I thought that was interesting.  I didn’t realize that I was soon to contribute to that clay build up on that desk.  Me, a 50 plus person, playing with clay! Cindy was sitting on a chair directly across from me at that table.  Not only did this help my mind not to wonder, but she could tell, sitting that close, when my mind did start to wonder!

As I mentioned before, I am a very visual person.  So the best way for such a person to internalize things is to ‘clay’ it out.  So I was making people, or plants, or homes, or any word or concept I wasn’t sure of out of clay to help me visualize it.  Cindy showed me a way we could make a person quickly out of clay.  I was ready to take that person and use it, but she rolled it up into a ball.  No, this mentor wasn’t going to let me use her clay person.  I had to create my own.  If I didn’t make it out of clay, I didn’t ‘own’ it.  It had to be mine!  And I paid how much to play with clay?  And this teacher wouldn’t help me with some figures?

Now she wanted me to make all the letters of the alphabet in capital letters, same height, which ever height I wanted it to be.  You know how much rolling of clay you have to do to come up with enough ‘rope clay’ to make all 26 letters?  And she wouldn’t help me by rolling out the clay! How long is this week going to be?

I managed to get through that first day OK.  Physically, I didn’t move much, but mentally, my mind was exhausted.  It had been stretched, pushed, and pulled to positions it hadn’t been before.  Cindy told me I probably wouldn’t have problems falling asleep that night.  She was right.

Next blog: zyx…

The Gift of Dyslexia

I vowed when I was laid off, that I would not watch TV during the day, as it is a huge waste of time.  I also knew that it was important to improve myself as much as possible.  Through employment agencies, and community resources, I learned more about the computer, how to write a better resume’, how to interview, and on and on.  However, interviews were few and far apart, and when they saw me, they knew I was older, if they didn't figured it out from my resume’.  When you work for one company for almost 15 years, and the one before it for 7 years, to make me sound not as old, I would say ‘over 10 years….’  Perhaps I just should have said over 5 years of experience here, and over 5 years there.

During this time, I had lots of time on my hands, and had to use it wisely.  So I plucked away at some family history/genealogy work on a line that we had come to a brick wall.  At this point of life, I was all too eager to learn so as to improve my marketability for employment.  I learned so much while doing this hobby, and found some documents to help on this line, but still no job.  (Please note, the desire had to come from me, not someone else for me, and I had to make the change, not someone else.)

Then one day, as I was at an employment center closer to my home than the first one I went to, I explained all that I had done at the other place, and they were puzzled as to how they could help me.  I timidly mentioned that part of the challenge I have was dyslexia.  I am not sure what I had said, but she went to someone, and a few moments came back and I was in the office of the manager there, talking to him.  He had just recently come across a book called ‘The Gift of Dyslexia’, and had a family member read it, and said that it changed that person life around.  I was wondering to myself, 'Does he know what he is saying to me?  Read a book?'

He encouraged me to check it out at the local library and read it.  Was it out of obedience that I went to the library to check it out?  Or desperation?  Or was it that I was ready to strangle the person who thought this dyslexia was a gift!!

I went to the library, and tried to use the computer to check it out, but I couldn’t find the book.  Surely, this must be a user error, as I am sure the library has this book, so I went to the desk to get help.  They typed in the title, and nothing came up. I knew I had the title right, as I saw the book in his office! So they did some more searching, and there was none in the library system.  I learned something that day.  Libraries check out books from other library systems, and they said they could order it in, and I said OK, and asked how long, thinking it would be about 10 days.  Oh, we should have it here in about 3 to 4 weeks!

That title intrigued me so much, it wouldn’t leave my mind.  How could anyone think this is a gift?  It has felt like a rope around my neck my entire life, and lost employment because of this!  Then the thought came to me, perhaps I could find this book online, and get it here faster.  Sure enough, I found it online, and the cost wasn't that much. I had earned enough reward points on a credit card, that there was no cost out of pocket.  What surprised me, was that it came in the mail the very next day!  I hadn’t put any rush shipment on it.  I thought I would have it in 3 or 4 days, but there it was in my hands the next day.

Now I am ready to find out why this author thinks this way. I have had this all my life, and I had not found one way it has been a gift for me.  What is this person thinking?

 The book is written by Ronald D. Davis.  As I was reading his accomplishment working with dyslexia people, and how he came to discover a way to help people with this, I found out that he too, has dyslexia.  He had the same struggles and challenges I have had, and bit by bit, he discovered ways to conquer and overcome challenges.  The first part had some medical terms that I did not get involved in, but the next part, I was glued to the book.  I could relate to him!  He had the same challenges I had, the same frustrations!  He was blessed with the ability to figure out how to focus, or ‘orientate’ oneself while reading.  I was at the point ready to do anything to help me out.  However, I was skeptical at some of his teaching methods, as described at the end of his book.  It seemed too easy, and in my mind very unlikely to work.  Yet he nailed my feelings and frustrations to a T in his book, and I knew he knew how it felt to have this challenge.

He mentioned the Davis Dyslexia Association in his book, and programs that can help in other areas as well, that are out there that one can search the web sites for.  So I started searching.  Surely, in the state of Utah, there should be a handful of them, that I can find one close by, and talk to them and get some more information.  I was wrong.  There was only one for the entire state!  And I had to travel to another county to see her if I wanted to do this.  The cost?  Well, it’s not cheap.  But then again, it is a one on one class for one week.  It would require a huge financial commitment on our part.  Could something so simple really work?

Next post: My mentor

Note:  I have not met the author.  I have no financial gain to be had here.  This is simply what I have done.  The cost of the book is very reasonable, if you can’t find it in your local library. I highly recommend this book.  As I had this book read in less than one week after I got it, that should tell you lots.

Everyone is a Genius

I came across a quote from Albert Einstein, which I love, and appreciate more every day.  He said ‘Everyone is a genius.  However, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will go through its life thinking he is stupid.’

Read that again, and ponder on it.  I have report cards to prove that I was ‘stupid’!  If I wasn’t stressed out enough at school, I got more at home when poor report cards came home, which was most of the time.  My parents saw that I got the best 5^th grade teacher, but the damage that was done the year before was to last for the next 40 years or more. As I look back at it, I don’t think anyone could know how long my experience in 4^th grade would last, nor to what extent the mental challenges I would have during that time. I didn’t enjoy sports, as I was always the last person chosen for a team.  In high school, I would always do better in my elective classes than the required ones.  Go figure that one out!  Everyone was better than me, in my mind.  I was quite the loner.  Very few friends, and even fewer really close friends.  I often would ask myself ‘Who would want to hang out with me?’

The damage to my mind and mental attitude for so many years is the main reason for this blog site. It has, and will continue to take time to undo the poor self-mage I have had.  I can’t help but believe other people with dyslexia have the same complex feeling, and thus my blog and plead to those who know people with this.  They are really the geniuses in this world today, they just don’t know it, and need help to find it. It would have been nice to have learned what I know now much earlier in life, but early or not, I want all who have this challenge to know there is help out there for them now…NO MATTER HOW OLD THEY ARE!

If I was to be in a group of people, and was judge by the ability to play basketball, I would more than likely come in last place.  However, if that same group was judged on their ability to tune a piano, I would probably come out on top.  Have I mentioned that I have tuned many pianos in my life time?  Same group of people, different results.  So how are we judging people?

About 10 years ago, I did some serious reflecting on where I was in life, what I had accomplished, and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t stupid.  If I didn’t have such a supporting wife, I may never have figured that out.  Yes, I have a hard time reading, but if I kept at it, I could read.  I am not saying that I enjoyed it, but I could.  My wife loves reading, and she would love to go to a cabin on a cool day, sit in front of a fireplace, and read for most of the day.  I think I would rather sit and watch the paint on the wall dry, rather than to read.  Both would be boring to me, but watching paint dry would be less painful to me.

Now I will put in one disclaimer here.  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, our leaders tell us we should be reading from the Book of Mormon daily.  I remembered as a teenager, that I owed it to myself to read it at least once to see if it was true or not. I got my answer and then I thought I would go through life, saying I had read that book, once.  As this teaching to read daily has continued to be taught, and as one who believes we have prophets and apostles on the earth today, I could not ignore that council, so I read.  It wasn’t much in the early years, and defiantly not consistent, but I read, and read.  Over these almost 40 years, I have read that book countless times, so when one hears me read from it, they don’t think I have a problem reading.  Repetition has a place, and I learn so much more every time I read that book

Following that council has literally changed my life.  I knew I could read.  The more I read the same thing, the better I understood it.  And the more I read the same book, more detail pictures would come to my mind.  I would throw out to my wife and children thoughts that come to my mind, and they probably wonder about me at times.  But I was learning that I wasn’t stupid. I was seeing pictures in my mind, and those pictures were worth at least a thousand words each! At first, I thought I was a slow learner, have to read over and over and over again.  But then I was seeing things others didn’t see…reading between the lines, so to speak.  I wasn’t stupid at all, and I wasn’t necessarily a slow learner.  I was beginning to find out that I learned differently.  And when I learned, it stuck with me.  Forever.  Let me explain.

In 8^th grade, we had to pass both the US constitution and the state constitution exams to graduate from grade school.  I remember my 8^th grade teacher very clearly as well.  She had to have read all the notes about me from other teachers, as she came to me at the beginning of the school year and express her concerns she had, and wanted to help me pass those exams.  I appreciated her concern, and during the year, I could tell she really meant it. As we studied the US constitution, we took it a section at a time.  I don’t recall reading any books there, though I am sure there were some to read.  She went through each branch of the government, the names, their duties, and drew it out on the chalk board.  Over and over she went.  I was told I had to pass this exam, and I had a teacher that cared, and taught at a level that I understood.  I scored a 96% on that exam, and also got an A on the exam for the state as well.  How do I remember my score? Repetition! How many times do you think I looked at that score!

Fast forward to a few years ago, when my daughter was studying US government in high school, and couldn’t understand it, and had problems finding the answers in the book.  I started throwing out the answers to her questions without even glancing at her book.  She looked at me in wonderment, as I could explain concepts to her.  There was a term or two I may have forgotten, but I knew when she didn’t have the correct answer, without looking in the book. I don’t claim to be a constitution scholar, but I do remember what was taught to me when I was in the 8^th grade those many years ago.

Now back to my first post.  I am in my mid 50’s, unemployed for some time, desperately trying to find a job, and doing anything to improve my chance of getting a job. And then, a book was recommended to me!

Next post: The Gift of Dyslexia

 

How a dyslexia reads

Let me say here, dyslexia’s don’t like to read. The sound of fingernails on a chalk board is to you what reading is to a dyslexia person.  It is to be avoided at all costs.  Put a new piece of equipment in my hands, along with the owner’s manual, and the manual will seldom be opened.  I will use the ‘seek and ye shall find’ method.  Perhaps if I found someone who knew how to use it, I would find some time to talk to that person and learn more.

When computers became popular and affordable, we got one, but I knew I was underusing the computer HUGELY.   To me, it was a big, glorified typewriter.  (Some people may have to look up what a typewriter was!)  Even today, I feel that I under use what is available out there, but not nearly as much. And new things keep coming out!  (I am in the process of learning how to blog, as I am sure it is evident to most.)  The best picture I can paint of how I felt on a computer would be like a person in the cockpit of a 747 jet airplane, and driving it down a freeway, on the ground, doing the best to avoid things that would break off the wings.  I knew there was power in the computer, but didn’t know how to use it, and reading the manuals were of very little help to me.

Most people are aware of the reversed words when they think of dyslexia.  Spot is seen as tops, dog is seen as god.  Not only does that happen, but letters inside of words can be inverted, switch places, or not seen the first time when looking at the word, making them a totally different word.  This just happens on its own.

Now add in words that sound the same but are spelled differently, such as their and there, or to, too and two.  A sign that one has dyslexia is that they are poor spellers.  I can’t live without spell check on my computer!  So which their do I need to write out? Do I write she went over their two?

And thanks to our language, words that are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently are challenging. Did he read the book, or he has read the book?  Are you getting the lead out of your foot, or did you lead a group of people to there destination? (Note, spelling has been purposefully changed here, so you can get a feel of having to go back and try to understand what is going on.) When reading, ‘Please go wind up the toy for your brother’, one is wondering what in the world does the breeze have to do with the toy.  If one is to read ‘He sings bass in the choir’, one would think something fishy was going on. Or ‘did you sow the seeds?’, one is pondering did I pig the seeds?  What in the world is that!!  Enough said?  It sounds funny now, but trust me, it is very real to us who have dyslexia.

   

If a person has to read a sentence over a few times to understand it, this is a good clue he/she is comprehending things differently than you are.

Dyslexia’s put a picture to every word they read.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does one with dyslexia see after reading one simple sentence, putting a picture to each word?  It can be grand and glorious, or way out in left field.

Let me give you another example of how one with dyslexia reads.  A simple sentence as ‘The brown horse jumped over a stone wall and ran through the pasture’, brings a nice picture to you, but will drive us crazy as we work through this challenge.  You must understand that we are very visual people, and with every word we read, we put a picture to it.  You could almost say it is like a movie, word for word there is a picture.  But what happens when you come across words that you can’t draw, or ‘picture’?  Can you draw ‘a’?  How about ‘the’?  Perhaps you can draw ‘and’ with a plus sign, but when one starts out to read, they don’t know what it means.  So this ‘movie’ all of a sudden has blank spots in it.  When a dyslexia person comes across a word they don’t know or can picture, it becomes a blank to them, and they start to stress out.  The more words in there they can’t picture, the more stress, and with more stress, the less one can focus, or stay oriented. 

There are 4 words in this sentence one can’t draw, ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘and’ twice.  So right off the bat, one would stress out.  I will replace the words one can’t draw or visualize, and replace it with (stress).  As one under stress doesn’t see things accurately, they will see other words incorrectly.  So one could read it this way:

 (stress) brown horse jumped over (stress) wall (stress and disorientation) ran throwing (unbelievable stress) grass.  Do you see my picture?  Brown horse jumped over wall, ran throwing grass.  How does a horse throw grass, much less while running?  Did you see that picture when you read it?  And because one sees this picture, and you see another picture, you are calling those who have this challenge dumb or stupid?

Next post:  Everyone is a genius.

A very supportive wife

I will say here that when I married, I married up in a huge way.  I believe my wife is a living Saint, and to put up with me on top of it all, she should be doubled Sainted.  She sees the good in everyone, and always has a smile on her face.  She laughs often, even at my jokes.  She is caring, and will do all that she can to help her family and those around her.  I can say she has no guile in her at all!

When we married, we committed to be faithful and loyal to each other, through thick and thin, through all challenges that would come our way.  We have honored those vows, and can almost finish the sentence of the other person.  We have become one in so many ways.  I didn’t say it was always easy, but it sure has been worth it.  Believe it or not, she tells me she wonders why I married her, while I am wondering why she married me!  I love her with all my heart, and she me.  Trust me, the making of a good marriage is worth another blog, but that is not what this is about.  However, you need to know that I have always had the support of my wife all this time.

How does one go about telling someone you love of your own weakness?  From our first date to our wedding day was only six months.  While many would argue you don’t know the other person in that short of time, I will counter with, a person who doesn’t want you to know something will never tell you, no matter how long you know that person.

 

I wanted to get more education when we were first married.  I am sure we could have found a way to get the funds to do it.  What prevented me was my past history in school.  How could I get the study time in while working, and now raising a family?  Reading was very unbearable back then.  While my wife would encourage me to get more education, slowly, over time, she understood both my concerns, and limitations, as I was able to tell her.  Yet she still loved me, and supported me in my place in the family.  She never demanded to know anything, but as I was able to build up courage, she listened….and loved me.

Our goal was to never send our children to day care, but one of us would be home with the children.  I can say we were successful in this.  However, as you could figure out, this meant that we would be working odd hours, and I would be working two jobs or more.  We were able to take care of our needs most of the time.  We did receive help from time to time from family, those close to us who knew our situations, and occasionally, anonymously, especially at Christmas time.

 

Vacation time each year would be a trip to grandparents homes for a week.  As the children got older, we ventured out and roughed it camping one year.  We never had funds to take our family to any amusement parks, or to see any historical sites.  Funds just were not in the budget for such things, yet my wife supported me, and never complained.

Through a neighbor, I found a job with a national company, working in their credit card department.  I started in collections, then moved into other departments in that company.  As the mother company was in the same building, and their busy time was different than ours, I had a chance to go over there and work in their customer service department.  I proved myself valuable there, and I was hired on there, shortly before they sold off the credit card division.

 

I felt proud of myself, working myself up, with the education I had.  I jumped at opportunities that came to me, and when the company offered to pay for those who wanted to take the series 7 exam in the financial world, I jumped at it.  Little did I know what I was getting into. They paid for the expenses, I did all the study on my own time.

I got a 3 ring binder that was 3 inches thick to study.  Over 500 pages with words on both sides!  They gave us an outline to study, and practice exams to take to help us.  From around February through October of that year, I study at least 2, if not more, many times 4 or more hours, 6 days a week.  I calculated I had answered over 3,500 practice questions on numerous exams.  I shut the door to the bedroom, with a note on it ‘do not disturb.  Taking exam’ and my children knew not to come in, as the exams were timed exams.  We went to a cabin that year for a family vacation, and I stayed in the cabin that week, studying.

The exam was 130 questions, and you had about 3 ½ hours to take it.  Then you had to take a short break, and then get to take another exam, same number of questions, and time.  You had no idea how you did on the first one, and if your mind wasn’t fried after the first exam, it was by the second.  I remembered how drained I was, how numbed I was, and almost not caring what the score was, I just needed this exam to be over with! I pushed the button, which they say once pressed, you can’t go back…no changing answers now, and waiting for what seemed to be an eternity, and finally my score showed up.  I had passed.  The first time I had taken it, I had passed! I can’t explain the feeling I had, nor the weight that was lifted off my shoulders at that moment! I undertook a huge challenge, and I passed.

I took the series 63 exam two months later, and passed that one as well the first time.  Again, what a great feeling I had.  Confidence was coming to me in a way I haven’t had before.

Time passed, and openings came up, and I started using my licenses in other departments of that company.  I was now reviewing a sampling of emails that were sent or received by brokers and their assistants.  I was on the team that was selected to start this process for the company.  We grew slowly, and started covering more of the nation as we grew, and I was happy.  For the most part.

Did you catch that part what I was doing?  READING emails.  I was busy the entire day to do my share of the emails.  All day.  I started early.  I got there before the boss.  I worked through my lunch more days than I can count.  Many times, I ate lunch at my desk.  On rare occasions, I would take a 15 min. lunch to get away from my desk.  My only breaks during the day was down the hall to the restroom, and then back to the grind.  I was busy, reading.  Yet others were bored, and would finish early, and talk a lot.  I didn’t mind that, just keep it down so I would not be disturbed.  Yet I got a pay raise with this new position I had, and was on salary, and had earned 5 weeks of vacation!  I was busy, and stressed, but got paid, and had time off.

Things were going fine for me, but I could tell we were going to lose people, as they were bored with their jobs. I couldn’t picture that at all.  Then a meeting was called, and the news caused a pit to come to my stomach.  The job we were doing was going to be outsourced, but not to worry.  Another job was coming in, and we would all still have jobs.  However, we needed the series 8, 9 and 65 licenses to do this job.  We would have time to study at work, and they would pay all expenses.  We had to sign forms that if we didn’t get those licenses, we would be let go, with no severance pay, etc.  It was not a good day for me.

Over 6 months later, my supervisor had to walk me out of the building, as I couldn’t pass those exams,  The company was downsizing, and as I had been there almost 15 years, the department I came from did not want to pay my salary for what I would be doing there.  My boss was sad to see me go, but his hands were tied.  I will say here, that he was a caring boss, and did all he could do to keep me, but that was not to happen.

All because of my dyslexia.

Next blog: A feel for how one with dyslexia reads

The begining years

I have dyslexia.  I have had it my entire life.  I was not aware that I had it when I was in grade school.  All I knew was that reading was not enjoyable, and other children my age could read quickly, and actually understood what they read.  I couldn't understand that!

I remember a book when I was young entitled something like 'Spot, the dog.'  It was a reading book for beginners about a boy and his dog named Spot.  I remembered reading something similar to 'My god's name is tops,' and I was wondering why God was mentioned in a book about a dog..

My mom tells the story that my siblings enjoyed sitting next to her and have her read stories, but that I was never as interested in story time as they were.  I don't remember that part, but believe that to be true.

Later in life, my parents told me they thought I might have dyslexia, but didn't have me tested.  As I look back on that, I believe that was a blessing in disguise.  I feel that if I had been tested, and determined that I had it back then, I would not have struggled in my studies, thinking I had something that could not be changed (as there was no research back those many years ago to help them) and gone through life thinking I was unable to learn, or worse, stupid. It wasn't an easy row to hoe, but as I look back, a needed experience for me.  I am thankful to my parents for that decision they made on my behalf.

I could learn, and did, but not like the other children.  It was always a struggle. I know the teacher, grade and school in great detail, where a huge negative impact came into my life.  It is as clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday.  In short, we had just moved into a new school district, where they learned the multiplication table in 3rd grade, and the school I came from learned them in 4th grade.  The teacher I had was new that year...at the school.  She was an elderly lady, never married, and had taught mainly in high school, but this was the highest grade she could find to teach.  My parents and I thought all was going well, until the day I brought home the first report card in 4th grade.

Can you imagine what morale damage it does to a 4th grader to come home with D's and F's?  Do you know how humiliating I felt literally lugging home all my books in my desk for rest of the year?  Or the 'fun' time I knew was ahead of me that night doing homework with my mother's help? I have no idea how I passed that grade, other than I know my parents were talking with the principle, (apparently along with other parents as well) and help with the Good man above. 

By the end of that school year, I was convinced I was stupid.  I was embarrassed in that class for not knowing things. I made several promises to myself.  One was to never ask questions in a classroom again.  Another was that I would never read another book again. When I found out the next school year when I was in 5th grade, that she was now teaching 6th grade, I didn't care what my parents said, if I got her, I made a promise I would not go to school that year. (Luckily for apparently many, she was not teaching at that school when I got to 6th grade.)

School was a challenge for the rest of my life.  I graduated from high school with my peers, but my grades were very poor. I felt that all should celebrate if I came home with a report card with  nothing lower than a C-.  Over time, I realized that I could learn things, but I could not learn from reading from a book alone. 

With that background, I will fast forward many years.  I got an associate degree at a technical college in building construction.  I got good grades there.  Half was study from books, half was hands on experience.  I was taking classes in something I wanted to do, instead of the mandatory core classes.  I got married to a wonderful woman, and been happily married for over 30 years now, and we had children. 

Now with a wife and children to support, and construction work is feast or famine, I was trying to find employment anywhere I could that would be stable.  So I got  jobs from people who knew my dad, and had small companies where they needed help.  I was trained in those jobs, but the position came more from people my dad knew instead of education I had gotten.  I worked hard, but as is the case with small companies, challenges come up, and they had to downsize.  This is when seniority hurts, as they are the ones that get paid the most, and are the first ones to go when you need to cut expenses.

I even expanded out, and with a friend started a custodial cleaning job at nights, after I worked.  My wife worked odd jobs, and times, so that one of us would always be home with the children, our most prized gifts.  We felt God gave them to us, and we had the responsibility to raise them, not others.  Somehow, through the grace of God, we were able to meet our obligations, with a growing family.  But we lived pay check to pay check, and never had extra.

Next Post:  The straw that started the change.