Books | Dyslexia

I am dyslexic. Not in the ‘letters jump around on the page’-kind of way, but in the ‘my reading speed is extremely slow and I have great trouble forming a coherent argument as my thoughts get jumbled very easily’-kind of way. I did not get diagnosed until I was in my first year of university, despite being tested in my final year of college – turns out it takes a more holistic approach to be diagnosed when you have developed coping mechanisms for undiagnosed dyslexia. But why am I telling you all this? Well, I am finally ready – seven years after being diagnosed – to figure out what my life can look like living with dyslexia. For too long I have treated it as a crutch. This blog is part of that process for me. I want to create a place where I can hold my self accountable to exploring my identity – dyslexia and all. A place where I can document my growths, struggles, frustrations and great experiences alike.

In the past 10 years I have read maybe only a handful of books – I have had very little drive to read and great frustration when a book took longer than a week to complete – often resulting it being put away unread. Granted part of the reason was that I was in university where the reading burden was large and looming, especially with my type of dyslexia… but also I was unaware of the consequences of allowing years of frustration with my reading speed dictate my relationship with books. In recent years I have taken a great interest in the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Theory (CBT), in particular the emphasis it puts on the importance of thought processes. Thanks to this method I have come to lots of realisations about my life, and managed to reassess a wealth of situations that previously stomped me, but more importantly it is currently helping me change my relation to reading. I am on a quest to change my relationship with books. So far for 2019 I have read a whole book and am well underway with the second. Might this be the year where I read at least twelve books before December 31st?

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