The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place for people with dyslexia, making me hesitant to share this story. With my new tools, I gave myself permission to fall in love with writing. It felt like putting on glasses for the first time: writing was an exciting storytelling adventure rather than a wrestling match with rogue commas. With the diagnosis came tools and resources that set me free. After years of poor math grades from swapped numbers, dropped negatives and misplaced decimals, I finally stopped thinking that I was broken, bad or lazy. There was a reason I couldn’t remember if I lived at 3415 or 1534 Sheridan Road. It finally made sense that I struggled to place myself on a map. Things that had bothered me for decades instantly clicked. When the diagnosis came in, I felt more relieved than shocked. My immediate thought was indignant: weren’t people diagnosed with dyslexia as children? Surely it was not possible to get to the end of a PhD without knowing you have the condition.ĭespite these feelings, I went ahead and got tested. As my presentation came to an end, my mentor casually stated she thought I might be dyslexic. But the fancy new software I used to prepare the figures for my thesis defense did not come with my trusted ally. Until now, I could hide behind the red-squiggle safety net of spellcheckers. This was my practice PhD thesis defense, and while the science was sound, the spelling was anything but.įor as long as I can remember, spelling and commas have been my Achilles’ heel. I gulped, humiliated, as I looked around the packed auditorium. “That’s the fifth spelling error on this slide,” my (understandably) frustrated mentor mumbled. Stephanie Konecki is a Scientific Content Specialist at CG Life, Chicago, United States.
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