Growing up dyslexic is hard enough. Growing up as an undiagnosed dyslexic is even harder.

While there wasn't a lot of help for dyslexics when I was a child, the diagnosis mostly stopped people (mostly teachers) from belittling them and when they were belittled, one hopes that had enough grasp of their condition to realise that it wasn't stupidity, it's hat they need to process information in a different way. I'd like to think they might also have been made aware of their strengths, innate abilities which many "normal" people don't possess.

Without that diagnosis however, it's a free for all on making a kid feel inadequate and stupid, without giving the kid any way to understand why they find certain so called east things, so hard.

There were things that I was good at of course, and things that came far more easily to be than to my "normal" classmates, such as maths and physics. You would think that someone who performs well in areas which are traditionally viewed as difficult, would be praised and rewarded.

That was not the case. My reward for doing well was more work or sometimes, menial tasks. I would be given an extra worksheet, or told to tidy the supply closet, to wash up the experiment equipment, or just sit there silently as the others caught up. So naturally, I learned to slow down. What's the point in finishing early, only to be sent off to tidy a cupboard?

Fail to grasp the difference between there, their and they're however, even when no one had ever taught you the difference (that I recall) I was dragged to the front of the class and publicly humiliated. Once she was done with her dressing down, a classmate give me a handy tool to tell the difference. Their ans an i in it, which could be the body and head of a stick man, therefore their is used when talking about something belonging to people. If your 'their' could be written as 'they are', then it's 'they're' and for everything that doesnt fir those two, use 'there'.

I still write the wrong one from time to time, who doesn't, but now I actually understand which one to use when, and why. English teachers couldn't teach me that, just as they couldn't teach me the difference between a noun and verb, or the correct use of punctuation and 101 other things.

In all honesty, I have learned more about the English language since leaving school, then I ever learned in it. 

Then of course, we had the dreaded *reading aloud*. God, how I hated that. The diagnosed dyslexics were spared the humiliation but I was not. No amount of breathing deeply could calm me down, no carefully keeping my rule or bookmark under each line I was reading could keep my place and with each mistake I made (reading the words incorrectly or mispronouncing words) my anxiety grew and made me liable to make more mistakes, not fewer.

School also destroyed my love of reading. As a child I had loved a set of audiobooks with accompanying text to read and no, I didn't list listen, I read the pages too. In school however, I never read a single book we were assigned, save for the few torturous pages I was required to read aloud. I checked books out of the library each week because we were supposed to, and I always bought one book at out book fairs but i never read them, I only did it too fit in. It was my love of sci-fi which reignited my love of written fiction. It was a tie-in novel, so no high fiction, no complex sentence structure and with enough plot to get me caught up in the story and make me want to keep reading.

It was fanfiction communities that began and nurtured my love of writing, because storytelling is more important than spelling and grammar, and it was wanting to improve my skill level in my hobby that gave me the impetus to seek out my own understanding of language.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that school destroyed my pleasure in both reading and writing literature. It didn't exactly do wonders for my self esteem either.

I cant lay all my inadequacy at the door of school however, my family (who are not dyslexic and rather talented with language) were just as unforgiving. Not 6 months ago a family member called me lazy and stupid and just couldn't understand how I, a writer, could call Jane Austen, Jane Austin.

As an adult, when I realised that I might have dyslexia, it gave me a reason for my poor spelling, but it did nothing for my self esteem. I mostly ignored it and didn't tell anyone that I was dyslexic because, what was the point? I was ashamed of my lack of ability and felt that saying "but I'm dyslexic" was just an excuse, and school had drummed it into me early on, that there were no excuses.

I few years ago I really began researching it and the roller-coaster of emotions it brought out in me was pretty frightening. I wanted to yell and scream, and I wanted to cry. I was angry at the injustice of it all, of being blamed for something I couldn't help, of being made to feel stupid when it should be obvious to me that someone who can get a B in English without reading the books, was exceptionally creative and decidedly NOT stupid. I was sad for all the inadequacy I had been made to feel, and the missed opportunities I might have been given, such as specialist teaching.

The "what if" is a very tempting fairytale, so tempting that you can lose sight of what can be, by being bogged down in 'what if'. Even writing this is bringing some of those feelings and while I hope I have found most of the mistakes, the past 2 paragraphs are peppered with far more mistakes than usual.

I began to look into getting diagnosed and the possibility of adult learning courses. I quickly came to realise that if it's not caught as a child, no one really wants to know. To be diagnosed was £400 and couldn't be charged to the education authority, and what good would a diagnosis dome? I knew enough to know I had the condition. I hadn't done well in employment, so have been self employed for over a decade, so I wouldn't even show my diagnosis to my boss and ask for specialist equipment or programs to help me do my job.

As for adult learning courses, there were plenty for illiterate adults, but none for dyslexic adults. I know how to read and write, to quite a high standard actually, and I know my vocabulary outstrips many other people's, what I needed to learn, was a better way.

I spend my life surrounded by notes, on the computer, on scraps of paper, all sorts. it would be really nice to learn someone's name and actually be able to remember it. It would be wonderful to learn a technique for memorising numbers or names. And it's not that I don't want to remember. My last boyfriend's name was Paul and when I met him, obviously I wanted to make a good impression because he was smoking hot! To make life easier, I have an uncle Paul, a brother in all but name called Paul and my previous boyfriend had been called Paul. The second time I met him, do you think I could remember his name?

If I give someone directions, even for the town I was born and grew up in, I don't use street names. I know them butIi just cant recll them most of the time. However, I can tell you about the roundabout with Blockbuster on the corner, that you go past the Wollsey Theatre, or that you turn up by the old hospital, or that you turn off just past that Lloyds branch. One of the cruellest twists of directional fate was that Museum Street and High Street lead on from each other, but the Museum was on the High Street, while the High Street was out of the town centre, and Museum Street lead into the centre. That's just mean! ;)

And as for left and right, yeah, always getting that one wrong. I wish I knew why but if I don't stop and think 'I write with my right hand' and actually think about which hand holds my pen, there's at least a 50/50 chance I'll tell you to go in the wrong direction.

Something in my brain just doesn't process information in the same way as "normal" people do, and I'd really like to learn how to process information so that I can member it. As an adult however, I'm buggered. No one is interested so I'm as disenfranchised as an adult, as I was as a child.

If you don't believe me, Dyslexia Week is coming up and this is the local program. Everything is for children, young adults, or teachers and parents of dyslexic children. The only event that doesn't specifically state it's for those groups, is a repeat of Kara Tointon's BBC documentary, Don't Call Me Stupid, but that's from 1,30 to 3pm, hardly the type of event that your average, employed adult can go to.

I want to go to the White Box Method, which aims to make storytelling more accessible for young dyslexic people. That sounds exactly like what I want, help to further my writing career, to make it easier to keep track of my stories. But it's got an age limit of 25 and only 10 places available. I emailed, asking if they would make an exception for an undiagnosed dyslexic who has never received any specialist teaching and the reply? I can go is there's a space.

I feel like I don't matter. I was missed the first time around and now I'm just too much trouble to cater to."Move along now, adult dyslexic, you're reminding us how the education system fails some children and making us look bad!"

You would think I'd be used to such treatment by now and I am. I'll survive. I've managed for 36 years with absolutely zero help and I will continue to manage.

So why is my vision blurring as I write this?

For once, it would be really nice is rather than making do, I could thrive. I wonder how that feels?