Subject:  Confused, but what else is new? |
Author:
LM (am cocking my head to one side like my dog)
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Date Posted: 23:53:33 12/10/08 Wed
Being told I have dyslexia sure explains a lot. So now what? Well, first I apparently turn into Tolstoy and write a honking LONG message about it
Yesterday my psychiatrist told me she is thinks that I have dyslexia. Because I am 48 years old, she says it is not worth getting a formal diagnosis, but to just take it as fact and find whatever work-arounds I can. What I am reading online is agreeing with her too. One online checklist I just found says a dyslexic will have about 10 of the symptoms noted and I racked up 15. It also added up when comparing notes with a formally diagnosed dyslexic friend too. Some of what I’m noticing now might be related, like having trouble organizing my thoughts or having words stuck on the tip of my tongue.
It is a GIANT relief that I am not really just some kind of complete scatterbrain who's too poor to pay attention. I have no complaint that it wasn’t caught earlier somehow, since I had plenty of other problems as a child. I didn’t do so badly in school anyway. Yeah, about that...
Shouldn’t I have had some kind of real trouble with school work? It doesn’t sound like reading and math are the same struggle for me as it is for so many others. But one interesting clue is I was once told my father will need special testing for Alzheimer’s, because he is intelligent enough to compensate on regular testing. So maybe I have been compensating somehow too? I seemed to learn well enough as a kid if I “applied myself” and “used my potential.” So I didn’t think I was dumb anyway. But come on, no one, including me, had a CLUE that I might have a real learning disability?
So why am I noticing difficulties more as an adult? Can its onset, or increase in severity, be connected to PTSD or depression? I also spent many years of grade school medicated for being “hyperactive”. So throw in ADHD too. I somehow want to tie it all together in come coherent way, however I am not finding much out there on dyslexia combined with other problems. I’m already a mess, and now I’ve just been handed this big shiny new puzzle piece to figure out. Is it even for the same puzzle?
But after all that, somehow it’s there. While it’s apparently much worse now, I realize I always had some symptoms. I’ve only really noticed any major difficulty after I went through the extreme shock of suddenly losing my husband many years ago. I joke that my husband took my intelligence with him and he still hasn’t brought it back. The grief “fog” and numbness actually lasted many years, a (relatively) mild PTSD, and it seems that wisps of it are still hanging around after almost 10 years now. I have been treated for depression off and on ever since.
Are all these problems unrelated? Variations on a theme? Are there degrees of dyslexia? Can it be sorted out at all or is it always going to be just one tangled mess?
I am not going to pursue these questions with my doc, since the answers will only satisfy my curiosity and I can’t see how they would help. For now, it’s more important that I realize that spell check is my friend, there’s other helpful ideas out there too, and I’m probably not such a sloppy, lazy, and careless person as I thought. Since last month when I first realized that dyslexia might be a real possibility, I’m already looking for and catching more mistakes, and also being less frustrated about making them. I have started working on my typing accuracy with a new typing program. Blue paper might be a good one for work especially.
I’m still sticking to my ditzy blonde story since I’ve used it for soooo long, but any insight on any of this would be GREATLY appreciated!! And if not, well, c’est la vie.
Thank you!! -LM
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