Old Wounds

Last year at my stepdaughters graduation ceremony, a lifetime achievement award was presented to a senior lecturer for his services to academia. At the top of his profession, he gave an acceptance speech, confidently detailing a varied and successful career in his chosen field of engineering.

He confided though, that he had managed to achieve his ambitions despite the undiagnosed Dyslexia that had seen him written off as a child, and before leaving the stage he challenged himself to do something he said he had never done before, to read his favourite poem aloud in public.

This struck a chord with me, this person being celebrated for his incredible professional achievements, still had something to prove. I’m not projecting here, he said as much and it was clear that despite the eloquence of his delivery, the odd jumbled word severely rattled his composure, all be it momentarily. Reading that poem was a very big deal to him. He finished to rapturous applause and a standing ovation and his personal pride was palpable.

I often think of this, perhaps more than I should, but it reassures me that it not just me. I am familiar with that need to cast off those labels, applied by educators that categorized me as less than, below average, incompetent, lazy, stupid, just not very bright, not listening, not bothering, not even trying, not paying attention, too busy daydreaming, not good enough. Not likely to succeed before I’d even left the starting line.

University the first-time round was no better than school, despite studying a creative subject I still only scraped through with a pass. But out in the real world I excelled, my academic shortcomings didn’t matter when I could use my creativity and determination to build a design business.

I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in my mid 40’s after returning to education to study teaching. I struggled from the offset which was quickly picked up on by my tutor who suggested I might be Dyslexic and should consider getting tested. I almost didn’t dare go through with one, convinced the educational psychologist would tell me ‘actually you’re not Dyslexic, you’re just really stupid’. Apparently a common fear for those about to go through the evaluation.

I can’t even begin to describe the relief I felt on receiving my diagnosis but with it came a full range of difficult emotions, sadness, anger, regret and bitterness all of which have taken time to work through. I’m loath to say this, as it feels too raw and exposing but the aspect of my diagnosis that I struggled with the most was the discovery that far from being stupid, intellectually I’m actually pretty smart, in fact I’m in the top 8% of the human race when it comes to brains.

The disparity between the reality of who I was and how I’d been labelled hit me like a brick. The impact that has had on my life, on my view of myself, of my capabilities, of my life choices was just overwhelming. I feel it now as I write this, every bit as intensely as I did in that office 3 years ago. How had they got it so wrong? Why was this not recognised? How was it possible to spend fifteen years at school and university and not have one single teacher recognise the traits that my teacher training tutor noticed after only a few lessons?

I know things were different then, there was not the understanding to identify my specific issues and even if there had have been, I probably would have been sent straight to ‘remedial class’ universally acknowledged within my school as a fate worse than death.

And beside my particular brand of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia does tend to slip under the radar. I have always been an avid reader, as such I had dismissed the possibility of dyslexia being the cause of the issues I experienced even after my younger sisters diagnosis in her late twenties, who true to the common perception, hated reading. What I didn’t realise until undergoing the diagnostic assessment is just how slowly I do that.

My return to university was in part been driven by my diagnosis, I too had something to prove. In the last 3 years I have achieved more than I could ever have imagined and discovered a love of learning that has transformed my career aspirations to the point where I am actually seriously considering applying to study a PHD. But even as I write that for the first time on paper, a tiny voice in my head tells me not to be ridiculous.

Recently whilst attempting to set myself up in the photography studio I was asked to type in my university login in and password. The truth is after two years on the MA I still don’t know them. I just don’t remember numbers and abbreviations mean nothing to me, add a few extra dots, slashes and dashes into the mix and my brain just can’t take it in. Top this off with NTU’s password entry boxes that don’t allow you to view the word you just typed and I’m pretty much screwed. Ordinarily this sort of thing is easily managed with spreadsheets that I paste and copy from and login lists but at that moment I was unprepared. After 10 minutes trying to access my account, the burning sense of shame that I am so familiar with spread through me, as I heard the words ‘You don’t know your N number?’. No actually I really don’t.

Old wounds run deep, and I’m not sure if I will ever truly silence that voice in my head or not have an internal melt down at the prospect of recalling my telephone number, but I think what’s more important is to recognise these things for what they are, fleeting moments of self-doubt.

And if feeling the need to prove myself has pushed me to achieve my goals, I don’t consider that a bad thing. After all I’m just about to complete a Masters, something I wouldn’t have even contemplated undertaking until a few years ago. My degree was about proving myself; my masters was about seeing what I could do once I had.

I don’t feel that desire quite so much anymore. Instead, there is a recognition of just how much I have gained from the last two years academically, creatively, personally and professionally. I’m leaving the masters with a renewed sense of engagement and confidence with my work. It feels like anything is possible if I put my mind to it and that this is the beginning of something not the end.

Animation: Josh Penn 2017.