I’m Sorry Your Son is Stupid

I think we’ve all run into the misconceptions about dyslexia. It’s vastly misunderstood and if you stand on a street corner and ask everyone that passes you what they know about dyslexia, you’ll get a lot of vague looks and if people provide an answer it will be, “they see the letters backwards.”

Have you seen the Made by Dyslexia video where they’re trying to steer people into a Dyslexia Sperm Bank? It’s brilliant. My favorite is the woman who tells them that they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to spread the learning disability.

Dyslexia was originally identified in 1887, and for the portion of the population with dyslexia (20%), the lack of knowledge about what dyslexia is, is staggering.

My son is not the only grandchild in the family with dyslexia, but when he was diagnosed my father called me and asked if this was a new fancy made up disease like gluten intolerance. I took a deep breath and immediately understood where he was coming from and took the statement as an opportunity to educate.

I’ve shared articles and books with my parents and they follow my pages and everything I’ve written. We discuss it’s nuances. The biggest breakthrough in their understanding of dyslexia though has been through observation. My son spends several weeks with them each year and the questions they’ve asked me about dyslexia based off of their observations have been fascinating. They can “see” his dyslexia in how he thinks. They understand that it is a language processing disorder. They love watching his mind work and are fascinated by it.

Unfortunately, this enlightenment cannot and will not be gained by all.

I once, publicly, self-diagnosed a specific member of my family as dyslexic. He was a computer engineer for NASA and even worked on the space shuttle. He is the perfect example that a dyslexic can be anything they want to be and that dyslexia will never hold them back if they don’t let it.

This person had spoken to me repeatedly about how he had struggled to learn to read and spell. His inability to spell was supported by his son through stories we shared. When this family member was ill, before he passed away, I was charged with going through 13 years of paperwork in order to prepare the estate. I spoke with his son, commenting on all the stories I had been told, things this man had said to me over the years and how I finally understood that his inability to spell was not at all exaggerated. His son laughed and said, “I told you so.”

Sadly, just a few days later, this family member passed away.

My son was in PK4 at the time, and while it wouldn’t be until near the end of 1st grade that he hit the wall, he was showing classic signs of dyslexia at that time.

So we’re fast forwarding from the PK4 days to the summer months between 1st and 2nd grade. As we traversed the road that is undergoing a dyslexia diagnosis with our son, I recall turning to my husband one day and exclaiming with certainty that this particular family member was dyslexic, that his stories and his inability to spell, it all made sense. My husband completely agreed.

It was also during this time that another family member approached me and said that he had always believed himself to be dyslexic, but he had never been diagnosed.

As I gained understanding I could see who in the family was dyslexic. All adults at that time, not a single one of them had been diagnosed when they were in school and they all lay on different points in the spectrum, but it was only in my son’s generation, that a diagnosis was sought and understanding was finally taking hold.

Then I went “public” with that realization and got attacked.

For all of the support I have within the family, which is absolutely amazing and so heart warming, there was one particular family member who was very displeased.

In their opinion I had crossed a line. The exchanges were not pretty. Things were said that cannot be taken back. Things like (and don’t forget to spit these words out with undiluted venom), “Well, I’m sorry your son is stupid but this family member you’re mislabeling was a brilliant man! How dare you say he was dyslexic! You’re not a doctor!”