Living With Dyslexia - experiences, insecurities, and tips [CC]

WHERE TO FIND ME:

[UdyKumra]

"There are 7.5 billion people on this Earth. You don't have time for people who treat you like that." —this is just solid advice in general :)

[toganium]

And you are still able to analyze literature. Mad respect.

[carahamelie]

My daughter is 9 and dyslexic.... it's super tough to watch as a parent. I want to be able to help her so badly but I can't. It's so encouraging to see success stories like yours. I think she would LOVE reading, but it's very difficult at this age.

[wesleybrown]

I didn't find out that I was dyslexic until about 3 weeks before graduation. It's not especially bad. Then 3.5 years later I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was told that put together it's no wonder why I've struggled with reading my whole life. School system where I grew up was comparably awful. They pretty much just thought I was stupid. Funny thing with the typing however, I was such a fast typer with so few mistakes the computer teacher wanted to sign me up for some advanced thing. I declined because I had better things to do than school. Like work on writing my books. Now I'm a published author.

[boboblacksheep]

I had no idea you are dyslexic. Mad respect.

Rando on the internet: 'But you're a BookTuber! You can't be dyslexic.'

I hate such comments.
The other person might seem so successful and able doesn't mean that they aren't struggling. Everyone has struggles of their own.

Edit: typo.

[ambale]

I love this, I need "Dyslexics, we are not a monolith" on a shirt

The word thing, I totally relate to, and actually I want to share a bit of my story


I was diagnosed when I was 6, and I couldn't read or write at all. But I had a lot of support from teachers and my grandma. I would read out loud to the principal. I would read short books ALL THE TIME. And I would also write a bunch of short stories. I never did it because I loved it, it was always to "cure myself of dyslexia"

In fifth grade, I realised that I won't be cured, this is a part of me. And then I realized that I actually liked reading and writing, and I looked at all the books I've been reading. All of them were written by people, they didn't just manifest. So... if they could write a book, why couldn't I?

Dyslexia helped me discover my passion and love

Also a quick reading comprehension tip, on days when my dyslexia is bad, after a reading a paragraph I ask myself "what did this say?" If can't answer it, I try again, until I can understand. If I can't do paragraph then I do a sentence. I break down the text

[anabencomo]

To all of Merphy's dyslexic subscribers (and Merphy herself, of course): You guys are amazing!!! Keep fighting 💖💖💖

[brinleyowens]

This puts reading in a whole different perspective for me! I didn't know what dyslexics went through. Thank you for letting me know!

[emmavossen]

I almost never comment but I have to this time! I am 32, I have dyslexia, and I have a PhD in English literature. It was incredibly hard, but I did it because I love reading and writing. SO much of what you said in this video resonated with me. I actually think I didn't get diagnosed early in part BECAUSE I loved reading. Teachers were like "well it can't be that then!" despite the fact that I was failing EVERY SINGLE spelling test and struggling HARD in most other subjects as well. At one point they told my mom I had to read more or I was going to fail third grade and my mom was like "that is physically impossible" and so they brought a reading expert in who found I read (very slowly) at a 10th-grade level. They just couldn't fathom that I read constantly but could not spell even though the answer was SO OBVIOUS!

I didn't get diagnosed until I was in university and figured it out myself and went and made an appointment at the learning centre. At that point, they were basically like "Well you have done an amazing job in adapting to your situation so we can't do much to help you unless you want ADHD medication." Then the first teacher I told about my dyslexia literally told me to drop out of my master's degree! She told me to drop out and find a job where I "never had to read and write" and then she paused and said, "actually, I'm not sure that exists." It was one of the worst moments of my life as someone who loved reading and wanted to be a writer!

Now I have a PhD and am a published author, and I see how 50% of my struggle was the disability and 50% was just other ppl. People refusing to accommodate me, people mocking me, people making me feel ashamed, people labelling me as stupid, etc. If people were just kind so much struggling could be avoided! Thank you for making this video I think it will help a lot of people.

[natt]

As someone who didn’t know I had a form of dyslexia (numbers specifically numbers) until I was much older, I appreciate this video so much! I struggle with reading numbers daily, and have problems with letters when I’m tired. I’m a professional writer now, and man is it tiring at times! I feel you Merphy, and this video is so refreshing!

[ayushsrivastava]

For dyslexic words are like faces
Some time We mistake some for other like reading Sirius instead of severus
Sometimes we look at a familiar word but not known what it is or how to pronounce it
Just like looking at a familiar but not knowing who he/she is
Forgetting the most basic spelling
Like which, witch? 🤔
And what's most funny, the spelling of
Dislexa dixlexyea dislexyia ?

[violetadaguiar]

Dude, you are dyslexic and you were a narrator? Don't care if it ended up not being sustainable... That's SO powerful !!!

[thesaltypickle]

I am both dyslexic and adhd, I find reading hard for the same reason you mentioned as my brain skips around words. I can take away a total different meaning from text because my brain can’t “follow the bouncing ball” as I put it😂 I find it hard to read out loud and even mispronounce words I know how to say just my brain says “nope” at that moment. I miss spell words all the time which KILLS me, and I am super insecure about it especially now in college. But, I’m going to graduate school soon with these “learning disabilities”. I just now understand it’s apart of who I am and I can still accomplish my dreams with them. I can totally relate, thank you for this video🥺.

[OracleTruth]

It always amazes me that you and Daniel are such avid, voracious readers, considering you would both classify yourselves in the moderate to severe range in this disability. It's so interesting how your strategies for overcoming dyslexia diverge from Daniel's in several ways. This was enlightening. Thank you for the video!

[zlivingbook]

I have dyscalculia, but I still related to what you were saying on a spiritual level. Instead of skipping over words, I skip over + and - signs which did a lot of good for me in math classes X__X

[BlueEyedSkinner]

I can read bold print, but I can't read cursive or that really colorful picture that you showed in the video.

My dyslexia was very very evident when I was little. My mom homeschooled us, and she would get so frustrated because I would be able to read my sight words one day, in the next day I would have no clue what they were. It was really frustrating and confusing for everybody. When we finally figured out that dyslexia was my struggle, she backed off quite a bit and let me learn at my own pace, while having me do exercises that trained my right and left brain to work together. I loved books, I wanted to be a newspaper editor, and at the time I didn't see dyslexia is being something that would mess with that.
things were easier at home, but I was required to read at church sometimes, and that was a very humiliating experience.
High school was hard. I think the thing that resonated with me the most was that you said something to the effect of "you are not dumb". I always have felt less intelligent, not as smart, not as quick as other people. More than anything, dyslexia tanked my self-esteem.
I am now a stay-at-home mom of two little girls, and I'm homeschooling them right now. My 6-year-old is a fantastic reader and she loves books. I have honestly shed tears over the fact that reading has not been a struggle for her the way it was for me. I do my best to read to them every day, and I'm thankful that they are simpler books with simpler sentence structure. But I still trip over my words constantly, and my young girls are very gracious.
I don't know if it's the dyslexia, but the biggest hindrance to my reading is the fact that I have to have absolute quiet. If my kids are playing in the background, or if the TV is going, I can't read anything. I listen to a lot of audiobooks for this reason.

[clareclements]

I'm not dyslexic but I do have epilepsy. Much of what you said really resonated with me. I find my eyes flicker and skip lines altogether, or return to the beginning of the same line so I read the same one over again. Some days it's so bad the lines merge into each other and I can't focus at all. Thank you for being so forthright about your dyslexia and sharing your experience with us :)

[drishtibharath]

I do not suffer from dyslexia (luckily) so i couldn't related but I totally understand how difficult it is for you to deal with it ! And for you to talk about it and help others it's so nice and also important ! Cz if you can read this much while bearing with dyslexia, , that's motivating (inspiring too) 🌻🌻

[swarmsea]

As a speech therapist, I have been waiting for you to do this video for months, since I heard in one of your videos that you have it. Thank you for sharing your story with us!

[petrusjnaude]

After watching this video, and having never known you were dyslexic, I find it a strange coincidence that you and Daniel Greene are the two BookTubers I actively follow on YouTube.