Please no hate. I appreciate to know for sure I need to get an assessment done. However, I’m just wondering if this is common for people or if I’ve always had an underlying struggle.
I’ve over compensated much of my life and often memorise bigger words and insert them into my conversations to appear smarter. I believe I’ve effectively masked my struggles for many years. However, recently, I’m so tired and I’m noticing particular traits more pronounced and I’m so stressed. Some significant traits I’ve noticed throughout my life.
- I struggled telling time and do still to this day.
- my spelling is poor and I rely heavily on spellcheck/Google
- I’ve always struggled with pronunciation and have to really practice and break down the word - especially bigger words
- I still struggle with my left and right, although I make my hands into ‘L’ shapes to help
- I have difficulty expressing what I actually feel or think, it always comes out different. I feel very misunderstood and I’m used to seeing people look a little confused when they speak with me
- I take down numbers wrong, even if they are off a phone
- I confuse words like rely/relay, seth/Steph Brian/brain. I have to really concentrate and sometimes Google
- I have a very bad sense of direction and can get lost even in familiar places. Especially if I take a different route
- People say I look worried when they are talking to me. I don’t feel worried, I’m just really concentrating
- I failed GSCEs in school and it was chalked up to being naughty/not listening
- I’m super organised but not because it comes naturally to me but because if I don’t manage every aspect of my life to the point of serve stress, it’s chaos (which it was until I had kids)
- If people read out numbers for me to write down I forget them instantly and feel frustrated
- My Mum cannot tell the time, poor SPaG and struggles with reading too. She was never assessed, she was just told she wasn’t that smart by family members
I will be booking in an assessment. For anyone who has been diagnosed later in life, did you have a sense of sadness that you’d been missed? That you would have struggled less if appropriate support was in place? I’ve been asked a few time in the past if I’m dsylexic but the only thing said to me is “are all the words jumbled on the page?” - that isn’t the case for me. Although I have to re-read sentences and sometimes skip words, I also zone out.
Thanks for reading my ramble!