My Difficulties with Dyslexia

The Story Behind My Stories

Part #1: Dyslexia

I have dyslexia.

It’s a condition that affects millions, so I know I’m not alone in this endeavor. But, for those that do experience it, especially for young children first beginning their learning and reading efforts, it can feel very isolating.

I was one of those kids.

If you don’t already know, dyslexia affects your ability to read. It causes your mind to flip and distort the letters that you see, making words just a confusing jumble of incomprehensible squiggles. Dyslexia varies in severity from individual to individual, but every single person who has it will tell you that reading out loud is one of the most panic-inducing experiences you can ever have in a social setting. Which always seemed to be every teacher’s favorite “game” to play with their students; taking turns to read a paragraph out of the book everyone has to read.

Now, if you have very patient and caring teachers, dyslexia is something that you can “grow out of,” or at least get to the point where it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable in academic settings. Unfortunately, I never had any of those teachers growing up. As a result, learning was always a challenging and demoralizing experience with always feeling like the dumb kid in class. So much of our lives are influenced by the circumstances in which we grew up, and mine made it such that learning, reading, and school in general were never things I enjoyed.

Which definitely makes it odd that I decided I would be a writer and illustrator, eh?

Trust me, all of those thoughts have gone through my head, and still do!

Even when I was that same little kid who couldn’t read a sentence out loud without being laughed at, I still always loved drawing and making stories. I would always get lost in my imagination (which was just another thing I got in trouble for in school) and stories upon stories would just spring forth from those imaginings.

The funny thing?

My ability to draw was just as bad, if not worse, than my ability to read and write! (That’s a story for another time)

As you can see, I had my work cut out for me, with no shortage of obstacles to overcome just to get started. Yet, I knew that this was a task that I was here on this planet to do

But, dyslexia was the first issue that caused me the greatest amount of grief, and still to this day makes my spelling atrocious. If you’re wondering why the spelling on this post seems to be oddly well-done, that’s because my husband acts as my editor and also types up these blogs here on my website. Yet, you’ll notice if you go on Webtoon that you can still find many, many of my typos. (*rubs back of head in embarrassment*)

Knowing that I’m not alone in growing up with dyslexia, I knew I wanted to do everything I could to show others that you can still accomplish the things you want to do. Additionally, I wanted to make the stories that I write easy to read and digest for my audience as literally as possible.

Which is why I actually publish all of my books in Dyslexie Font.

This font was made to intentionally help those who have trouble reading normal fonts due to their dyslexia. All of the letters are uniquely shaped, which helps the dyslexic reader distinguish the shapes and not confuse them for others. It’s really helped me be a better writer, and it really does make reading that much better and enjoyable. I hope it does for you too.

Well, I’m not too sure what my goal was in writing this, but I just wanted to give you, my readers, a little more of a glimpse behind what I do.

Until next time.

Stay stranger, strangers!