Of the way we were

I remember running out of the kitchen and fleeing up the staircase. I didn’t make it to my bedroom, only managing to get to the top of the stairs before my sobbing rendered me immobile.

I lay face down, my head buried in my bended arm, tears streaming from my eyes. My mother followed me up and tried to comfort me, tried to reassure me; hampered in her attempts by the steep narrow staircase.

“I don’t want to be stupid.” I gasped between sobs

“You aren’t stupid, you just find things more difficult.”

My parents had just told me I had been diagnosed as being dyslexic. A learning difficulty. A learning difficulty just like the girl at school who drooled when she spoke.

I knew I wasn’t as good at spelling as my friends. And I had difficulty with multiplication tables and remembering ordered lists such as the months or the alphabet. I had been to special classes in reading and writing, and I had been excused assembly to learn how to have nice handwriting. And just recently I had spent time with a nice man called Mr Wolfe who gave me lots of tests and puzzles to do. A lot of them were quite hard.

But I had never thought there was something wrong with me. I never thought I was any different from the rest of the kids at school. And now I was.

I have nothing but praise for the way my parents supported me through that time. I later learnt that they fought to have my difficulties recognized, the school having dismissed me as lazy and dyslexia as a “middle class disease”.

My father had programed me a special spelling game on the ZX Spectrum. If I got a spelling right a man ran across the screen and if I got it wrong he was crushed halfway across by a falling block.

Once a week my mother picked me up from school at lunchtime and took me to a lady called Ruth who was doing a course in dyslexia. I was her case study. When there I again did lots of tests and puzzles and was always rewarded with a game of connect four at the end, she often let me win. She had a King Charles Spaniel which used to pee every time it got excited. I remember enjoying my time with her.

Because I was missing school dinner my mum used to make me a packed lunch, which I used to eat in the car on the way. It consisted of all sorts of treats that on regular days I would never get a sniff of. My enjoyment of the food was always marred with a smattering of travel sickness. Nevertheless I remember relishing those trips, sitting in the front seat of the car, cramming food and drink into my mouth despite my ever present nauseousness, and most importantly getting to have my mum all to myself. The taste of banana milkshake still evokes those memories to this day.

I don’t think I’ve ever truly appreciated my parents role in me overcoming my dyslexia. My diagnosis rarely even crosses my mind these days, and I no longer consider myself disabled by it. I have them to thank for that, not the education system, and I will be always grateful.

I have been surprised about how emotional I have got when writing this post. I’ve dredged up old feelings that have been unexamined for years. It was a difficult time, when my self esteem took a real bashing. But those days are over, and it is ironic that one of my favorite things to do, writing, is one of the things that caused me so much distress in my childhood.

Thank you Mum and Dad. From the 8 year old me.