Life as a dyslexic writer
My name is Lynny, I’m the owner of this website, and thought you might find the following article interesting.
Having dyslexia and desperately wanting to write is a challenge few could understand or appreciate.
I am not able to spell many words, which a majority of the time the computer spell check takes care of -if I actually know which of the words it offers is the correct one, as many of the words have the same/similar letters.
So it’s often a case of choosing one, and then seeing if the computer picks up that I’ve used a word in the wrong context. But does that mean the word I actually wanted to use is wrong, or does that mean I have chosen the wrong word from the list of possible options, or what if the word isn’t in the list, what then?
Each time I write an article or content for a webpage, I must get someone else to check what I have written. As well as not spelling correctly, often my thoughts are muddled and don’t come out as I had meant them to, or I over-explain things, making the article difficult to read.
My partner did this proofreading when she had time, but if she didn’t have time to do it as soon as she received it, often it would get forgotten. The good thing about asking my partner to do it was that she could ask me what I meant with some particular sentence which meant that what I was trying to convey wasn’t lost.
This of course couldn’t work if anyone else was doing it, they could really only check my spelling syntax etc and wouldn’t feel confident changing whole parts of what I had written.
Before I met people that could check my spelling I would often be considered an idiot, as only idiots can’t spell RIGHT? and would you believe, one of these people was actually a teacher so goodness help her students.
Growing up I was considered an stupid as well and was put into the dummy’s class, simply because of my lack of written skills. It wasn’t until I meet my present partner and speaking to me on MSN with headphones and the phone, she picked up that I was indeed very intelligent, I simply couldn’t spell.
She found a website online that had some sort of questionnaire and if you had a certain number of these symptoms you probably had dyslexia, I had all but three of the 50 or so symptoms.
Funnily enough that made me feel better, proving that I wasn’t a dummy or stupid as I had always believed.
But back to life now as a dyslexic (ghee’s I wish they would find an easier word to spell for this condition, every time I use it I have to look it up!) Anyway, life as a dyslexic is a struggle, especially when you want to write, when you love to write. People that know me say that they have to learn a new language when they start to talk to me on a chat program or through emails, they call it Lynnese and say it’s very easy to pick up.
Many words I spell are spelt like they sound, and I’m forever mixing up words like “their and there” , “live and life”, and “how and who” “quite and quiet”.
Dyslexia is an odd condition, well the version I have of it is. Often I know all the letters that are in a word, just not what order they come in, and often I can tell when a word is spelt wrong, even though I have no idea how to spell it right.
I have a list of words on the wall that I use all the time which I never have learnt how to spell. Also on the list is my address and phone number which I can never remember, I always mix up the sequence the numbers come in if I don’t look at them while I’m saying them on the phone or typing them.
I was going to leave this article as it was written, to show you what my writing looks like, but just looking back at Word’s spell check it’s far too embarrassing.
So I’ll send it away, and get someone to check it for me, and only let you all see the way it was supposed to be without you getting caught up in the spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Can anyone think of any other way one of us might spell dyslexic, i have done it these ways, dislexsick, dislexic, disslexsic, dyslexsick, dislexsyck, dyslici, dislesic .... you really do think they could have thought of an easier word/label to spell huh?
My name is Kym; I am Lynny’s partner, proof reader and general partner in crime and business.
I am a fairly good proof reader, my English, while American verses Lynny's New Zealand, is usually pretty good and I am a fair technical writer.
I do not have the skills, or the inclination to be an author, blogger or general communicator when it comes to the written word. My imagination is bent towards the images and websites I create. I love a conversation with an intelligent articulate person that is able to investigate all the pros and cons of a good logical argument or conversation.
Lynny has been my partner for over 10 years and she never ceases to amaze me with her humor, intelligence and willingness to overcome any and all difficulties life throws her way. I have never wasted my time correcting her spelling unless I am proof reading her articles, musings and web pages. I do not see the point, she is able to do the thing so many of us cannot… she can verbalize and put to webpage many things on multiple subjects in a concise logical well thought out manner. Quite frankly, the fact that she is spelling, grammar and syntax challenged is pretty irrelevant.
I do not find a person particularly cutting edge because they are able to correct other peoples spelling mistakes and not create anything original themselves. As you can see, there is a reason Lynny writes and I merely proofread.
