Acceptance

So I guess I should tell you all that I have a learning disability. I never EVER wanted to say this because it makes me feel dumb, but I should just accept it. I have dyslexia. I have always had a hard time reading and writing. It was so bad that in kindergarten they thought that I couldn't read. My mom, who has the same problem, forced me to read a lot. She helped me develop strategies to learn how to read better, better rather than really learning how to spell and sound things out I just decided to memorize the general shape of words. It has gotten me through school more or less. But because I just memorized words just to help me pronounce it I didn't really associate words with its meaning too much, so throughout elementary school I consistently scored significantly lower in reading sections because I just comprehend what I was reading. Like I could read a whole passage and once it came time to really analyze what I just read I couldn't make the connection. It was especially bad when I would copy notes from the board (or overhead projectors) because first off I couldn't really write what I saw because words and letter would move or disappear and then I couldn't really make sense of what I was writing because it was just a compilation of letters and not a word that had meaning. It stung and I really. Luckily, Georgia got rid of spelling test and reading assigned books so I was able to ignore my shortcomings. All of these ignored reading and writing problems caused me to fail my 5th grade writing test. I felt dumb. I retook it and thankfully passed. Then in middle school and early high school my school thought that I was really good at math and science, so they emphasized for me to study these topics, but in Georgia everyone has to take an English class in their junior year and my problem reemerged.

I hate this book with a burning passion

I sucked and would literally fail my essays (but I was able to rewrite them so it wasn't too bad) and we almost never read in that class. Then my senior year in high school the problem came to a head. It would take me 4 and 6 hours to read a small section of Heart of Darkness my mom noticed and was a concerned. When I bought this up to my teacher she didn't believe that I could have dyslexia if I had a good GPA and that made my mom mad. She tried to explain to her that I was spending an exorbitant amount of time trying to perform like everyone else, but once she realized my teacher didn't care she shutdown and left she the school. She later explained to me that I wasn't going to be getting help from my teacher and that stressed me out because if I was having so much trouble in high school then my problem would only get worse in college and it has. And the worst part for me is that the more stressed or anxious I am the worse my reading and writing skills get which isn't helpful since Smith specializes in writing. That is why when I write I want so many people to read it because I have good ideas in my head I just can't express it in my writing and I hope with other people's opinions I can express myself a little more. If all of my exams were oral I would be set, but since that is not how the world works I need to adapt and try not to make any excuses for myself :))