What We Are Not

In educational terms, I'm what's sometimes called a triple threat.  I have three significant learning disabilities.   Born into a generation where educators and doctors first began to treat these conditions, although they'd known about them for many years before, I was diagnosed with: Dyslexia, all four types, and its lesser-known cousin, dyscalculia, which is the same thing but for math, Developmental Stuttering, and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.  Three severe threats to any form of education.

For men of my generation (most were, and still are, men), we were often considered uneducable and incorrigible.  Many of us never completed our education.  I never actually graduated from High School.  I took two courses at the Education Center and a test and went to college a year sooner than my classmates.  Having been held back in the second grade, I ended up going to college right on time by skipping my senior year in high school.  I received one degree in college and lack just a few semester hours for three more.   My Grade Point Average was far below stellar, but I crossed the finish line and completed all the work, just not always on time.

My dyslexia and dyscalculia were treated at home by my mother.  Already having an education degree from Belhaven, she taught herself Montisory Methods, so I might have a chance.  Among other things, she cut letters and numbers out of sandpaper so that I could feel them with my fingers in hopes it might sink in that way.  With these and many other means, I did eventually learn to read and write, things I cannot imagine life without.

The Stuttering was treated at St. Andrews by a woman who came twice a week to work privately with a few other students and me.  They call it developmental stuttering because it can't be traced to any brain damage, deformation, or emotional trauma.  In other words, they don't know what causes it.  After third grade, they treated my stuttering by enrolling me in every form of public speaking or acting class they could find, with hopes that it would give me more confidence and become less shy.  This is the same sort of treatment the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie prescribes for himself, so maybe it was common in the fifties and sixties.  I can't say that it made me more confident, and I'm as shy now as I was at six, but it did give me a life-long appreciation and love for acting, so there's that.

When I was in school, the treatment for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder was sports, sports, and more sports and lots and lots of punishment.  The operative theory being that we needed a way to burn off that extra energy and learn some discipline, goddamnit!   

Unlike the previous two, I can't say this worked very well.  Modern methods are much more effective.   Everything ended up feeling like punishment, which made sports that were supposed to be fun sometimes a miserable experience for me.  While many of my coaches are men I still love dearly, many others became the bane of my existence because I associated them with punishment, and to be honest, some of them did too.  

Even today, scientists disagree about the causes of these conditions, and educators disagree on the best method to cope with these conditions, so I can't really tell you what people like me are, but I can tell you what we are not with a high degree of certainty.

We are not stupid.

I can understand any subject or concept you can.  I can read any book or poem you can.  It may take me more time, but I'll get there, and I almost always do.  I've met very few people who said they had dyslexia, who I couldn't describe as above average in intelligence.  Whatever happens in our brains to cause this condition doesn't impair our ability to think.

We don't lack discipline or motivation.

Living with my father, discipline was never an option.  It was a survival tool.  Motivation, I brought myself.  I can and do sometimes want to accomplish things with a burning desire that I rarely discuss with anyone because I'm worried they'll think I've gone mad.  What breaks discipline, motivation, and determination in people like me is not a lack of character, but depression, which becomes our life-long companion.  We know we don't fit in.  We know it from diapers to death.  That fact can sometimes break even the strongest desire or most constant discipline.  

We're not bad kids.

We can be, and often are, deeply moralistic people.    No amount of punishment will resolve our issues.  This one might be the most important.  I've spent my life trying to understand the intricacies of right and wrong.  Morality is not something you ever really figure out.  That man's reach should exceed his grasp; else, what's a heaven for?  Because we are different, we often see things differently and make different decisions from other people.  That might make us seem bad in the eyes of a society that places a high value on conformity.  I would conform if I could.  So would most people like me.  It's not an option, though.  

If you're considering becoming a parent, or a grandparent, or an educator, you will encounter people like me.  We work differently and think differently, which sometimes will be very frustrating and annoying for you.   Sometimes you'll wonder if the extra effort we require is worth it.  We're not enemies, though.  I can tell you this:  we struggle to understand you as much as you struggle to understand us, but if you make the effort, so shall we.  If you make the effort, we will love and remember you our life long.  There are many, some who may even read this, who made the effort for me, and I will remember that until my eyes shut for the final time.