I was asked at the weekend about how I was doing wtih the OU and if it was helping me re-assess how I feel about my abilities adn so on. I am afraid I was a litle flippant in my answer without intending to be as I couldn’t get what I wanted to say in a straight line to make sense. But it got me thinking about what exactly I have got sorted out this year.
I think I have to accept that actually, on reflection, I’m not quite so stupid as I’ve always been led to believe by teachers. I don’t think it’s possible to get marks in the high 70s at the OU and be thick. Words are never going to behave properly inside my head but that’s not my fault and it’s not because I am globally dim, it’s one specific marker of inteligence out of quite a few, it just happens that the wiring isn’t right on that circuit. The fact that the world gauges inteligence by literacy is unfortunate.
My short term memory is always going to be somewhat akin to that of a goldfish but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention, just that things fall out of the holes in my brain never to be seen again. It’s a nuicance but hardly earthshattering and nothing that writing down important things right away won’t compensate for.
I am directionally challenged but that’s not exactly unique to dyselxics now is it? Otherwise TomTom would be out of business. And so what if I still need to look at my hands to remember which is left and right, it’s worked for 30+ years, why be awkward about a winning formula 
I’ve learned that throwing everything I need to say in my essay into a mindmap and sorting it all out once it’s out of my head and on teh screen makes it much more likely that I will produce something coherent. It’s interesting that the essay I scored badly on by missing the point of hte question was the one I wrote mostly at camp without the aid of a mindmap - had I stopped and thought about it I should have still done the map once I got home and just used my notes as the basis of that rather than type them straight up and hang a bit of grammar round it. So that was a learning experience as they say.
I am (slowly) learning to ask for help. I think I once very publically declared myself to be fiercely independent and was quite proud of being so. That was my armour, my defence against being laughed at for not managing, not coping. It very nearly drove me under. The whole process of assessment, of being put under the microscope by professionals, has forced me to remove that armour, to admit and accept that sometimes strength comes from admitting I need help rather than limping on pretending nothing is wrong when inside I am falling apart. It is not easy, I catch myself using every avoidance tactic in my array rather than sit down with something that is not clear and send an e-mail to the tutor with what I have "got" so far and a request for help.
I am going to have to learn not to run away from situations where I could fail, I have an exam in October for which special arrangements are being made so that I won’t be disadvantaged by my foibles. To run away from that would be rude as well as wimpy. With my last course I deliberately "forgot" to log on for my final assessment rather than turn up and "fail". I passed after my tutor steamrollered me into an alternative date.
I’ve discovered that there are an awful lot of very successful people who also just happen to be dyslexic to some degree. The moderator of the OU Dyslexia conference has a phenomenal mind and expresses himself really well - with the aid of whatever "assistive technology" he can lay hands on. That conference is full of "stupid" "lazy" and "ignorant" folks who actually aren’t but have spent so much of their life being told that they are that it sort of sticks. The support in the group of people is fabulous.
When I had my assessment and was "diagnosed" as moderately dyslexic I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to me, I think i had known for a very long time, but to have it confirmed and to have my weaknesses laid bare in black and white was hard. Somehow to have my strengths similarly laid out was just as hard, I didn’t know that person, she wasn’t me was she? But a few months down the line I’m getting the hang of it. I’m getting the hang of accepting good days and bad days are normal. I can laugh when i have the sort of day when I’m so uncoordinated that I poke my eye trying to clean my teeth (if ever there was a reason not to use mint toothpaste it has to be the agony that is menthol in the eye!) I can say that one day I will have my degree, I may have to sample a few different types of course to find what fits but thanks to the way the OU works I acn do that, enjoy the ride, and get a few more points towards that degree on the way.
So yes, the OU is helping me to get over the crappy image I had/have of myself. And I wish I’d done it sooner.
