Entry 4 — Memoir Shard: The Diagnosis I Never Understood

BLOG SERIES: The Twelve Pages of My Own Cheerleader

PAGE 4 — Memoir Shard: The Diagnosis I Never Understood

In 2006 they handed me the word dyslexia like it was a label, not a language.

No explanation.

No translation.

No map.

I thought it meant I couldn’t spell.

I thought it meant I was slow.

I thought it meant I had failed again.

No one told me it meant my brain worked differently —

brilliantly, inconveniently, creatively,

in ways the world wasn’t built to support.

I didn’t understand then why words slipped, flipped, tangled, or refused to land.

I didn’t understand why I could feel everything but explain nothing.

I didn’t understand why my mind moved sideways while everyone else moved straight.

I took the diagnosis as a flaw, not a framework.

A stamp, not a story.

A problem, not a pattern.

It took me decades to realise that dyslexia wasn’t the reason I struggled —

the lack of understanding around it was.

I was already becoming my own cheerleader — I just didn’t know it yet.

Footnote: Twelve future chapters for a book.

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