Tag Archives: Dyslexia

The Intriguing Consequences of a Lack of Communication Between the Two Hemispheres of the Brain

Posted on by under Writing and creativity

It makes things harder than they need to be

Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/finger-pointing-to-a-brain-scan-4226119/

It must have distressed my parents when I was a baby when it was time to sit up, crawl, and walk. I didn’t reach those milestones when I was supposed to. My mom told me stories of how she would be in tears because I couldn’t understand how to tie my shoes.

My parents thought they had some clarity when the doctors diagnosed my Dyslexia. How surprised they would be if they knew. Years after they passed away I found out Dyslexia wasn’t my problem.

My brain is wired differently, not a big deal at all

It was an honest mistake, I guess. Missing benchmarks is also symptomatic of Dyslexia. The “ Brain Damage” trope my parents rammed down my throat also makes sense.

It makes sense because I was born with agenesis of the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is a white matter tract. It connects the human brain’s two hemispheres.

It could be a problem, one side needs to know what the other is doing, I guess.

The corpus callosum allows the two hemispheres to communicate with each other. With agenesis, the corpus callosum doesn’t form, or The organ might not be there.

As you might imagine, when the two hemispheres of our brains can’t communicate with each other. There will be issues. It’s why I’m so clumsy and prone to messiness and disorganization.

It’s also why I overcompensate by doing things the same way, and it’s why I dislike change.

I grew up believing I was Dyslexic, but it appears that’s not true

Dyslexia and agenesis share a few of the same traits. Traits like sitting up and walking later than I should have. Having trouble learning to tie shoes is also a trait of Dyslexia and agenesis.

I thought it was interesting when I read the neuropsychologist’s report. It clearly stated that there was no evidence of Dyslexia. I had the symptoms. I understand how the doctors made the mistake when I was young.

ADHD is a common symptom of agenesis

I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD. If I had I wasn’t told about it. I have some of the traits. ADHD is a common symptom of agenesis. I have always had trouble focusing and sitting still. When I was a child the doctors prescribed drugs to calm me down.

They threw the drugs away, I’m not sure it was the right thing to do

My parents threw the drugs away because they turned me into a zombie. I always wondered why I had a hard time sleeping at night. Insomnia is one of the symptoms. I read the myriad of symptoms and shook my head in amazement.

It was like reading the story of my life. A man is supposed to be able to assemble things work on an engine and change a tire. If you see me trying to change a tire get your phone out and record the show.

The video will go viral.

Anger and bitterness are wastes of energy, I’m trying hard to let it go

I spent most of my life bitter about my situation. I wondered why I had no talents or gifts. I was angry at my parents and God for putting me on the earth to take up space and not be good for anything.

I owe my late parents and my God an apology. I have the gift of writing and communicating. It took a lifetime to find those gifts, it took too long but I’m making up for lost time.

The past doesn’t matter, I’m doing better here and now

Bitterness served no purpose. The hand that I was dealt doesn’t matter. What matters is how I’m playing the cards I’m dealt with. I’m determined to make the later stages of my life the best part of my life.

Making peace with myself is the start of that journey.

Final Thought:

None of us are perfect. I’m finding out late in life the reasons I had so much trouble. It’s a struggle, but I’m doing my best to stop letting my limitations get me down. I’m working hard and I’m defying the expectations of doctors and family members.

Whatever limitation you have, keep fighting. Continue to learn and grow as a person. It will be harder for you than it is with other people, but the victory of overcoming will be sweeter. Whatever you do, don’t be bitter. I know from experience that bitterness will weigh you down and keep you from your goals.

Never give up.

Subscribe to receive my stories in your inbox.

Interpreting a Psychiatric Report: Contemplating Borderline Intellectual Functioning
Trying to keep things in perspectivemedium.com

Did a Wrong Diagnosis of Dyslexia Hold Me Back?

Posted on by under Writing and creativity

I don’t know what to think

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-an-elderly-man-with-gray-facial-hair-8860209/

While I was cleaning out my Google Cloud storage, I came across the results of tests I underwent by a neuropsychologist and his team. I used my cellphone to photograph each page. I included the report in the paperwork I sent to apply for Disability.

I knew deep in my heart that Dyslexia wasn’t my problem

It’s been interesting reading, and it’s given me a lot to think about. The thing that jumped out at me yesterday when I was re-reading the report. I grew up hearing my parents talk about my Dyslexia. I was nine years old when the doctors diagnosed me with a learning disability.

“ Such a profile of Academic performance is not consistent with a language-based learning disability such as Dyslexia.”

Excerpt from the report from the Neuropsychology tests

“What the Hell?” I thought, To hear my parents tell it, I had all the symptoms. They reinforced the thought. They blamed Dyslexia for every setback and failure of my adult life.

Never mind the fact that other Dyslexics have productive lives, my Dyslexia was worse, or some crap like that

It was the theme of my life growing up, “ You were born with Dyslexia and Brain Damage.” I grew so frustrated with it. I told my dad once, when I was in my twenties, “Not everything is about Dyslexia, Sometimes I f_ up like everyone else.”

I have heard other people talk about Learning Disabilities. “ I never let Dyslexia define me.” Well, isn’t that special? It was beat into my psyche from the minute I started school.

Mom wasn’t forthcoming, she flat-out lied

Mom and Dad were holding out on me. One day out of frustration. I asked my mom, “The Doctors must have diagnosed something other than Dyslexia. Other Dyslexics are successful, why am I having so much trouble? What did the Doctors tell you?”

“ I don’t remember.” my mom answered without looking me in the eyes. The only time I caught her in a lie. I was in my thirties at the time. At this point, It doesn’t make any difference.

I ask myself, “What difference does it make?”

I try to put it in perspective If I had known the extent of the cognitive issues I was born with, would I have given up? What should I have done? All I wanted was to have gainful employment and a family of my own. I never achieved those goals.

The thought of giving up never entered my mind. I was driven to work hard to show others I wasn’t feeble-minded and lazy. I also wanted to prove it to myself.

If I had known the truth, would things been different?

If I knew the truth what would I have done differently? I don’t know, but I suspect the knowledge would have been a crutch. I learned to work hard and never quit. If I had been a quitter I would have ended up where the doctors said I should be, in an institution.

Hopes and dreams are powerful. Would I have accepted it if I knew for sure that I wouldn’t get to where I dreamed of being? would I have muddled through life waiting for death?

In the past, I looked back and wondered what might have been, but what if it was never meant to be, to begin with? I’m not stupid. I have a writing talent. I proved that I’m a good communicator, and my growing YouTube channel has established that.

Better late than never, I guess

Why did it take so long to figure this out? The plan is to not worry about the timing. I am grateful I discovered my writing talent and I’m grateful for Medium and Illumination. The Illumination Publication and the Medium Platform have given me an outlet.

The question was, “Did a Wrong Diagnosis of Dyslexia hold me back?” I’m not sure it did. I’m also not sure what path I could have chosen that would have led to a fulfilled life.

I knew deep down Dyslexia wasn’t the whole story

I was diagnosed with Dyslexia at a young age. As I grew older I had the nagging feeling that Dyslexia wasn’t the reason for my dysfunction. I found out years later that my feelings were correct.

Knowing the truth has no practical benefit. I’m on disability and will never get fired from a job again. The information has given me a certain amount of peace, but I can’t help feeling angry and bitter.

I have a lot of time now to do what makes me happy

I’m not proud of that, but I always try to be honest when I write. There is a bright side. I have more time to write and make videos. My content entertains and helps people. It took a lifetime, but I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

My past has helped me be productive in the present and I provide value for people, so it’s all good.

Final Thought:

It’s hard to get out of the box life puts you in. Your hopes and dreams Life thwarts your dreams every chance it gets. Never lose hope. Keep trying to find your way and do what you can to be happy. If God wills it, you will get to where you’re supposed to be.

Mom and Dad Held Out on Me, but What Difference Does It Make?
Questions without answersmedium.com

Subscribe to get my stories in your inbox.

I Wanted to Leave the Labels Behind, but They Followed Me into Adulthood

Posted on by under Dyslexia

No matter where you go, there you are

Photo by RJ Prabu: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-tank-top-1630618/

I walked across the floor that May evening in 1978, I was on cloud nine. I thought I had burned the crutches of “ He’s brain damaged, and he’s Dyslexic” to ashes.

Special Education left scars on my psyche

I had spent my grade school years and part of middle school in Special Education. Classmates would tease me because “He’s in the retard’s class.”

My self-confidence grew to the point that I did what a lot of my classmates did. I left the base in Japan and flew to the States a year before the rest of the family.

I was happy to be back with the family, but I was disappointed in myself

I failed and ended up moving back with my family when they came back to the States. I have tried every Federal and State job training and Rehabilitation Service.

I never could learn a Trade or keep a job. We were living in Florida after my most recent firing. That’s when my parents insisted I apply for a security guard job, because, “ anyone can be a security guard.”

I was on the edge for a long time

I went through some things. I had been hiding my mental health issues for years. I couldn’t hide them when I became homeless. I now have another label that I never wanted to have, I’m Disabled.

Being on Disability goes against everything my parents taught me. I felt guilty at first, but now I take advantage of it. I can do what I want to do.

I can write and be me

I don’t have to pay attention to the whispers of how slow I am, or the comments about how lazy I am. I’m not lazy, and I’m not slow, I’m deliberate.

There is no one to tell me I can’t be a writer. If my dad were alive, he would shake his head in disbelief. I took a creative writing class and did well in it.

He would be amazed and proud of me

He would also be amazed that I write and publish online and people enjoy what I write. I’m sixty-two years old, and I’m erasing the labels that were chains that bound me most of my life.

My adulthood was stunted. I wasn’t able to get out on my own like I was supposed to. I have done a good job of making up for the lost time.

I have new labels now, labels that I have chosen for myself. I am a husband, I am an uncle. I’m a writer and a good man. I will never let anyone define me again.

They will try to put you in a box:

Parents, teachers, and Vocational Rehab caseworkers tried to put me in a box. I’m free of the box. If you have Learning Disabilities or Mental Health issues, fight the real enemy.

Rise above the whispers and low expectations. Find your path and follow it. Don’t allow others’ lack of faith to get you down.

Believe in yourself and live your life.

Mom and Dad Held Out on Me, but What Difference Does It Make?

Posted on by under Parents and Family

Questions without answers

Photo by cottonbro: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-wearing-brown-dress-shirt-6566823/

I honestly wanted to know

One day I was talking to my mom. It was before she passed away, so I was in my thirties. We were talking about my issues, the fact that I couldn’t keep a job until I started working as a security guard.

“ Come on mom, there are Dyslexics that are keeping jobs, why am I the only one that can’t?” It didn’t register then, but looking back, I know she was holding out on me.

She wouldn’t look me in the eyes, she never avoided eye-contact before

“ Surely the Doctors found other things wrong, there has to be something else going on.” I looked at mom silently pleading with her to tell me the truth.

“ They diagnosed something else, but I don’t remember what it was.” She wouldn’t look at me when she said it. At the time, I thought my mom was perfect it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t ever tell me the truth.

As one Vocational Rehab counselor told me, “ Dyslexia isn’t your problem.”

I had problems. Dyslexia was the obvious one. I found out years after mom and dad died, that the problems were more extensive than mom and dad let on.

I never could get out on my own. At first, it was because I couldn’t keep a job. I couldn’t learn what I needed to learn fast enough, or once I learned it, I was too slow.

Mom and dad were always insisting that I join these programs

I lost count of the Vocational Rehabilitation programs I completed. I would complete the programs with hope and new confidence, only to be knocked down again.

I was in my fifties; and homeless in Minneapolis. I had State Insurance, so I was able to receive care from a Psychotherapist. She arranged for me to get tested.

I was in my fifties when I found out the truth

After years of confusion and self-pity. I found out there are reasons that I have so much trouble. It also dawned on me that mom and dad knew the extent of the problems, but they wouldn’t tell me.

I underwent Neuro-Psychological testing. The testing was supposed to last a full day, but they stopped before noon. I was too stressed out. They were probably concerned that I would have another Stroke or a nervous breakdown.

Things make sense now

I was upset when I received the results, but I was also relieved. I’m still confused about why my parents didn’t tell me the full truth. I guess they did but in their own way.

Looking back, not a day went by, “ you’re Dyslexic, Lawson, and you were born with Brain Damage.” Mom and dad meant well. They loved me.

They were repeating what the Doctors told them in the early sixties. When I looked at the Brain-scans with the Doctor in Minneapolis, I learned the real diagnosis.

Not Brain-Damaged so much, but Brain-different

“ You’re brain is Interesting.” He said; as he pointed to the C-scan picture. He told me every way that my brain” is wired differently.” I’m not Brain-Damaged at all.

I have a High School Diploma, I have a few years of college. I was reading college level before I was in High School. I’m not Brain-Damaged, I’m different.

They meant well

Mom and dad tried to help me. I was always pushed into programs that they thought would help.

That stopped when mom died. Dad wanted me to be a security guard forever. He didn’t think I could do anything else. He damned sure didn’t believe for a minute that I could live on my own without help.

Obviously, my dad was correct

History shows that my dad was right. Eight years after he died, I was homeless.

I’m confused, and I don’t know what to think of any of this. If I had known the full truth, would it have made any difference? was I fated to be homeless for almost three years?

Would knowing have changed things?

I wonder if I would have been kinder to myself. More forgiving if I had known the truth all those years, years that I struggled to learn and keep a job?

None of this matters now. All the mental health and Learning Disabilities issues came to a head in Minneapolis. I’m on Disability now.

I no longer have to worry about it

I no longer have to worry about getting fired, and I don’t have to hear the whispers of co-workers. Co-workers who thought I was lazy and trying to get out of doing my job.

My life is good now. Every once in a while I think about what might have been. Every once in a while, I wish my parents were still alive so I could ask them questions.

Final Thought:

Worrying about the past is fruitless. Forgive your parents. They were human and did the best they could, and if the thoughts and memories get too much, write about them. You will feel so much better after you get it out of your system.

The Day I Learned Something new about Myself
And it wasn’t a surprisemedium.com

My Most Viewed Stories Since I Began Writing on Medium
The top eleven in my writing portfoliomedium.com

https://ko-fi.com/lawsonwallace54054

lawsonthewriter1@GMail.com

My Mom Thought There Was a Program or Class That Would Help Me, but She Was Wrong

Posted on by under Writing and creativity

I wasted a lot of time and lost all my self-esteem

The help came from inside of me, not a program

I was so excited that night. I graduated from high school six months earlier. I got the nerve to do what a lot of kids did. I went back to the States ahead of my family. It didn’t last. A year and a half after my family returned to the States, I came home with my tail between my legs.

I was living with my grandparents before I moved back with my family. While I was living with them they encouraged me to get into a Federal jobs Program. It was the first of many programs my family pushed me into.

Was it Learning Disabilities, or was it a character flaw?

“ You need help because you’re brain damaged and Dyslexic, you can’t help it.” Mom and Dad said that in so many words. To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. Is it Learning Disabilities, or Brain damage? I know I’m Dyslexic, but a lot of people have Dyslexia and are successful.

The job program in Denver placed me in a warehouse. Taxpayers paid us to work in the warehouse when we weren’t drinking and getting high. My family ended up in Texas. Mom came and got me and my brother who was going to School in Boulder.

Another State, another program, still no success

Mom and Dad decided that Vocational Rehabilitation was what I needed. Testing confirmed that I had poor hand-eye coordination and spatial issues. The logical thing to do, the class that would be a perfect fit was a meat cutting class.

How I got through that class with all my fingers is a miracle. The not-surprising thing was that I completed another taxpayer-funded program. A program to learn meat cutting and I didn’t know how to cut meat.

I went my whole adult life without learning a marketable skill

I was in and out of jobs after that. My family moved to Florida. You guessed it. My parents pressured me into another Vocational Rehabilitation Program. I did so well in that program I was offered a job.

That didn’t work out, of course, it didn’t. Mom and Dad had a sit-down with me. I was told to get a security guard job. A lot of this I have written about before. I have been thinking a lot about those programs.

All those classes and programs were doomed to failure

There was never going to be any program, no class, or anything else that was going to break the cycle of failure. The only thing that would have saved me was finding what I was good at when I was young and working for it.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

Proverbs 29:18

I had no plan. There was no vision for the future and no course of action. I started with all the faith and confidence in the world only to lose it all. The problem was that I wanted everything too soon.

Chronological age has nothing to do with maturity

I thought I was a mature adult when I was in my late teens and twenties. I wasn’t. If I had maturity I would have had a plan before I left home. I would have been self-aware. I would have realized that I needed a plan and a vision.

I wanted to leave home for the sake of leaving. I should have stayed with my family. If I had taken it slow I might have built the life skills and confidence to live as an adult. The way things happened stunted my maturity and emotional growth.

I would have a lot to say if I was in front of a classroom

If I was giving a talk in a Remedial class of school students I would encourage them to not try to grow up too fast. I would tell them to find their passion and gift early. Develop it and have a plan for their life.

If I had had the dream fully formed of being a writer as far back as grade school I could have worked for it from the start. The Bible says in the Book of Proverbs, “ Without a vision my people perish.”

I have a vision now. I turned sixty-four this past November. I’m progressing in my life with my writing and my YouTube channel. It will not be long until I’m a guest on Podcasts, Radio, and TV. Those things are possible because I believe in myself now after a lifetime of beatdowns.

It could have happened sooner if I had a vision for my life and worked for it at a younger age.

Final Thought:

Classes and programs might help you if you’re neuro-divergent. The best thing you can do is have a vision for your future. Once you have the vision you will have to fight resistance every step of the way. Please don’t wait until you’re in you’re sixties to be doing what you should have been doing for years.

You deserve to be happy.

Subscribe to receive my stories in your inbox.

If You are Dyslexic, Play to Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses
Be who you are, not what they want you to bemedium.com

I Had Wanted to Write, Working at Bus Terminals Inspired Me to Do That
The beginning of an ongoing journeywritingcooperative.com

Dyslexia

Posted on by under Dyslexia

I was nine or ten years old when I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. I spent years in Special Education; My reading and writing were   exactly backwards. My Parents would hold my school work up to a mirror so they could read what I wrote. Enlightened Doctors and Social Workers told my Parents that I would never amount to anything; at most I might be in a group Home somewhere, and I would never be a real productive person. I worked very hard and I had a lot of good support from my Siblings and Parents. I did learn to read and write, My handwriting still sucks, but people can sort of read it. I never did learn math though. I have a High School Diploma and three years of college. I think I have done a little better than a group home or an assisted living center. dyslexics are not slow or stupid, they can learn, A good support system and consistent instruction I think are key. The most important things the Dyslexic can do is work hard and never lose faith in himself and the abilities he has.