As a child finding out I was dyslexic was scary, I thought it made me different and weird. I couldn’t read like the other kids, I was put into a special class that would help me make sense of my words. I hated being there, I just wanted to be a “normal kid”.
I used to come home after primary school and play with all my toys, create worlds and stories for them and though I loved the idea of books and the stories they held, when it came to reading them I disliked it, because I felt so alone not being able to read it “normally”, I just wanted this problem to go away.
During my teen years I refused to read, when I would read something out aloud in class and I couldn’t get out normal sentences and words I felt like an idiot, the words were just running right off the page.
But it was the strangest thing, I was really good at public speaking. I didn’t realise at the time, but I would never write my speeches down, I always came up with an idea, memorised it, gave myself bullet points (just in case) and would basically go with it on…