Some days are better than others

BAD DAY

So speaking about myself, and a few other Dyslexic friends, some days are better than others. This is a question I really do not know the answer too. Sorry! Why is Dyslexia worst or better on different days.  Maybe that is why the medical community call Dyslexia a disability or disorder because the severity changes on a day to day basis. Some days I can write and it feels almost flawless. Days like today it seems nothing comes out quite right or its typo city. Sometimes my brain just goes blank or I will have a harder time than usual trying to remember things (short term memory).  What I mean by that is, "Did I eat lunch; What did I eat?".

I never noticed Dyslexia effecting my speech before but the older I get the more I notice it. It is not all the time, just some days I notice it more than others. For example I will be talking to a friend or even a random person for that matter and find myself unable to pronounce a word. Sometimes I'm thinking of a word when I am talking that I want to use and forget completely what it was. Its a pain in the butt. I really hate when it happens when I'm talking to someone that doesn't know I have Dyslexia then it just looks like I have brain trauma or something. That is odd right?

Dyslexia is a weird thing, it effects other completely differently for one person to the next. I love hearing from other Dyslexic people and how they deal/work around it. Its always nice to know your not alone. So for my readers that have Dyslexia you are welcome to comment or even email me questions or stories.

Standardized Testing & Dyslexia

If you have ever thrown gasoline on an open flame to see the effect, then you understand how the two elements don't mix unless controlled. (Please Do Not try that, this is my disclaimer)  So if Standardized testing is (Gasoline) and the (Open Flame) is Dyslexia then you understand my odd analogy.

The reason a Dyslexic person like myself doesn't typically score well on a standardized test is they are designed and formulated for the normal student ( one without learning differences).  I went to school in North Carolina, United States (for my Global readers) so testing here is 100% standardized.  The State formulated test are the worst, moving on to middle school or Jr. High more test. These test are better known as "end of the year" test. So for 13 years the student has standardized testing, so if you are Dyslexic or have other learning differences it is going to be a long road ahead.

I say that because there is no way to circumvent the test. I always did poorly on my test. It didn't help that no one knew I was Dyslexic. I'm going to go on a small tangent. When I was in school, teachers and staff had little to no training on how to spot Dyslexia . I would say roughly 90% of the teachers and staff couldn't tell you what Dyslexia was because they didn't know. They would say things like,  "You flip letters and are a poor reader". A.D.H.D. was the number one mislabeled learning difference out there. That isn't just including the school systems but even some of the medical professionals are throwing the parents of the children pills for a learning difference they might not even have. A scary percentage of the children after advanced testing were in fact NOT  A.D.H.D. at all. I was also one of those children mislabeled.

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Back to the standardized testing. The final note I want to address about is the PSAT's and SAT's. These test are claimed to not be standardized test, but they are just as bad as the state formulated test I took in grade school.  I remember having the scan-tron sheets, an having to color in the bubble. As soon as I was shown the sheet I was already having a lot of anxiety. For me it was hard enough not to color in the wrong circle or block than it was to get the answer right.

So in closing I wished the education system would address the issues with standardized testing and Dyslexia. Until its fixed Dyslexic people like myself fall victims to the system.

I'm Dyslexic so what!?

Just because I'm dyslexic, didn't mean I couldn't be good at other things in my life. In fact I was naturally good  at sports. I played as a child baseball and made it all the way up to the All-Star Team.

After that I started martial arts. The reason I started martial arts was when I was 11 years old I got attacked by neighbor and his friends which were much older. I was hurt really bad, I remember my parents making me take an icy bath to reduce the swelling. Needless to say within a month I was enrolled into Tae Kwon Do. I took Tae Kwon Do for several years and changed schools a few times landed at the best one in the state. I trained for endless hours a week, sorry to my poor mother having to sit in the car or drive me there. I ended up with a  first degree Black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a few other Deputy Black belts in other style hand to hand combat martial arts. I sparred in the states and even the US Championships coming home with not just one Gold medal but two. I shortly after was asked to be the Captain of the teen tiger demo team and also partnered with the Korean Tiger Demo team to conduct a few demo's in our state. Sadly my martial art career ended after a snowy day and a car crash. My left knee is completely messed up and needs surgery even today.

During my martial art career I landed myself in male modeling and acting school. Which I graduated from and applied and landed a starring role in a mini- series on HBO. My parents decided that wasn't good for me so I never got to do it.... the what if's drive me crazy even today.

After that I taught myself how to play drums and played in several bands but found I enjoyed singing more than drumming. Nothing ever came of it, but I still enjoy it. I have used my martial art background to get jobs and also teach class. I taught a mixed martial arts class for students at Duke University.

Don't give up on yourself, if you want to do something just learn how, and go do it. You are the only person holding you back.

Chasing a Dream.

As you have seen in some of my other post, picking a job/ career has been a challenge for me. First Art, then criminal Justice, then electrical, then just getting a degree was my plan. Finding what kind of work I wanted to do for a living for the rest of my life has been a life-long battle. I think my hardship of not fitting in the world because of my Dyslexia has stemmed down into me not being able to find something I enjoy and could make a living at. It took a lot of thinking and support from my wife and family to finally get my mind focused and create some kind of plan. Finding or creating a goal that I can indeed reach and obtain.

I'm two classes away from having my first college degree and being able to walk on graduation day. I have a dream that I'm chasing. The biggest dream I had was getting a degree from college in general. I was always told things I would never be able to do. Sadly, even at the college I'm at now, there have been staff members who have told me to just quit and get a job in something I was good at. They said college was not for me. For all those people, kiss my___!

I have had some good and bad advise for people, mainly the people that asked "What are you doing these days?".  The advise is mainly from  family and friends, and other people. A lot of the advise just is negative and sucks. They make comments like "That isn't a real job!" or "That isn't a good major in college" or even "I wouldn't do that major or career but you should do this instead".

I have spent a growing amount of time researching career fields. I finally think I might have found one that I might love working in. I have not officially decided on it, meaning I haven't told anyone yet besides my wife of course. There are some big life changes with picking the major and career I think might be my dream job. Its hard for me to make such a huge decision for me, but that effects my whole family. As a husband and father my first goal is to make my wife and son's dreams come true before my own. They are always before myself. Its a hard choice to make as the leader in my home. Apart of me feels guilty inside but I know I will be able to provide for my family and they will have a better life in the long run.

Only time will tell my story... Maybe I will be able to obtain my dreams. We will just have to see what happens, right?!

What is Dysgraphia?

What exactly is "Dysgraphia"? The word "Dysgraphia" comes from the Greek words dys meaning impaired and graphia meaning "making letter forms by hand".

Dysgraphia still is being studied and researched more and more. At this point there is no black and white definition. It can occur regardless of a persons IQ and regardless of their reading level. Researchers say Dysgraphia is a transcription disability. I personally hate the work disorder or disability. I prefer difference.
The main reason I hate the term(s) is because it tells outsiders or the "normal" person there is something wrong with you and damaged, or broken. I am NOT damaged, broken, nor am I "retarded" or do I have any lack of intelligence.
Most researchers consider it more a writing difference and not a coding issue. I have found that persons with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia tend to have the "Orthographic issues" Orthography is a storing process problem that effects spelling and figuring out unknown words. 


Roughly 80% of Dyslexic people including myself have some form of "Dysgraphia". Both Dysgraphia and Dyslexia stem from the persons parents. It tends to be passed through the persons genes but not always. Both learning differences can be overcome with hard work but will never go away.

How Dyslexia effects my brain

(I hate the wording!)

Lets start with reading. I hated reading as child. Only because it caused more stress and frustration than enjoyment. Imagine reading and having to stop every other sentence to sound out a word you didn't know. I have always had a large vocabulary but spelling it out and writing words I want to use is a different story. I have a hard time recognizing the same words that I use in my vocabulary. Needless to say my spoken vocabulary is much higher than my written. Back to reading, I know I personally have this issue and I'm sure there are other Dyslexic guys and girls that have this. I get really tired and my eyes get sore during long amounts of reading. Back in my other post I talked about "How Dyslexia works with the brain", I talked about how the your eyes take twice as long to transfer data to a Dyslexic brain. For example: A non-Dyslexic brain takes the images (data for the eyes to the brain) which is originally upside down and flips it. The Dyslexic brain does that process twice. Your eyes are working twice as hard, and become twice as tired.

Here is the big thing about writing for me. I have enjoyed writing since high school but there are challenges I have to face every time I write. My brain can not proof read. That sounds really odd I'm sure. When I proof read for some reason I read what I wanted to write and not what is actually there. Now I use a software program made for Dyslexics called "Natural Reader"; it's changed my life in a non corny way. Moving on, my brain does do the normal flipping letters like most outsiders think is Dyslexia. The word "if" becomes "it" or "in". The word "me" becomes "be", etc. I will type the wrong past tense or present tense.  I'm also a really bad speller. There is a name for this issue that 80% of Dyslexic people have. It's called "Dysgraphia", I will blog about that next.

The area that I hate the most is Math, more so Algebra than anything. The reason isn't really that math is horrible as much as I always flip elements in the equation so then the solution is wrong. I have had some really really horrible Math teachers over the years, some in high school and a few in college.

I hope my personal troubles and insight will help others. That really is the reason I am doing this. If you like the blog please sign up to follow it. If you would like me to talk about a topic post it in the comments. Thanks again.

Hitting a Brick Wall

I finally made it to college. Since I was half way through high school when I found out I had Dyslexia my Grade Point Average was horrible and getting accepted to a big university was out of the question. Taking any standardized test was pointless. That means the SAT's or college placement test were going to be bombed. I landed myself in the local community college and failed their placement test. I had to retake a ton of classes just to get up to their standard of college classes. That made me feel really smart, let me tell you. I was 18 years old and had no clue what I wanted to do with my life or what I wanted to major in. I was really good at art in high school. I decided on art in college, my first semester was horrible. I had the worst English professor, the guy was a real jerk. After that semester I felt kind of defeated and didn't try as hard in the next few semesters. My grades started to drop as my classes got harder. The history classes were really really hard mainly because of the amount of reading required in such a short time frame.  It was a Tuesday and Thursday class, Tuesday would require you to read 20-30 pages in day an half. It didn't take me too long to get completely behind and failing the class. It didn't help that I ran into another professor that did not care for my style of art and would fail me on each project. The last project was a crime scene. I made a dead body out of trash bags, with old clothes in it to shape the body and used red paint for the blood. I used a toy gun as the murder weapon. The professor saw I used a toy gun and tried to get me kicked out of school. She claimed it was real and after showing her repeatedly it was just plastic and a toy, she dropped it. I transferred out of the Art department.

I decided on Criminal Justice. What was I thinking, really? My grades were okay but not great. A friend of the family recommended me applying for a local job in law enforcement.  After tons of interviews and background checks and months of waiting I got the job. I decided to leave college without getting my degree. That was a really dump decision.  I worked in law enforcement for almost five years. I hated my job. The supervisors were complete jerks and on a power trip. There was a lot of dirty behavior in plain view. On a pure ethics point of view it wasn't for me. I was promised a lot of things when I was hired. Nothing happened. They just lied and didn't honor anything they said. I asked to go back to college and work a shift that would help with that. I ended up losing my job over it. The only good thing that came out of it was it allowed me to buy my first house at 22 years old and put money in stock "google" to be exact. After working five years I had roughly 22,000 dollars in my retirement account which helped pay for some house updates and my college.

Since I have been back in college I have made A's and B's. My GPA last semester was 3.8 the highest I have ever had. Just because I have Dyslexia doesn't mean you can not do College. I'll be honest I hit a lot of "walls" in college and took a lot of classes I just couldn't hack it. I have had a lot of people that took the time to help me and on the other hand I have had some really crappy people too. I have a lot of drive to push on. I have been told most of my life I could not do it. I wouldn't get through high school and college was  not possible for me. I will be the only child of my parents that has a degree from college. That is even more push to do it for me. I am also doing it for my my wife, son, parents, brother, and sisters. I will finally graduate in December of 2012. Then I plan on working on another degree in something I will enjoy the rest of my life. I found from working in a job I hated. It doesn't matter how much you make if you hate it, its not worth it. If you can do something you love and make a good living that is all that really matters. So that is exactly what I am doing.

The Girl in the Red Dress

During my journey through high school I changed schools. I was in the 11th grade when that happened. My parents moved into a really nice neighborhood and I attended a really nice high school. It was a little scary being the new guy on campus. It wasn't too hard to fit in, which was a first for me. Being popular wasn't even consider before but now was a reality. It was a good new burst of confidence. My classes were going good for the first time in my life and my grades were pretty good.

After the first month of living in our new home, I noticed we kept getting flyers from some church in the area. We weren't really even looking for a church.  Church in itself wasn't new to me, I had attended church before but was not really connected to anyone my age. I asked my parents after the millionth flyer if we could check it out. The church was currently meeting in a school which to me was odd but wasn't a turn off. We finally made it to church and afterwards the pastor stopped and talked to us. I remember him looking at my bible which must have had a lot of dust on it. He smiled and asked a few questions. I remember him asking me if I played any instruments. I had been playing drums for a few years but was only self taught. The pastor stated the youth high school band badly needed one and would I be interested. I was really unsure but said okay. The band met in the evening at a band members house. Needless to say after a few practices I had fit right in. All the kids accepted me and I almost over night had some really good friends. One of the girls that always came to youth group meetings I became friends with.  After a few months of being friends she asked if I would take her to prom. She was a junior and I was now a senior.  We were still friends but had talked about dating but she was really nervous about it and stated we would see after prom.

Prom day finally came. I met her at her parents house and left there to go to her friends house where everyone planned on meeting and taking pictures. I drove there and met everyone that was going to prom with us. It was a large group fourteen guys and girls. A few of the girls did not have a date and had planned on going solo. I remember there was a girl there in a red dress that was amazing. I knew she had a date and so I didn't think much about it. I just remember she was the prettiest girl by far. I wasn't one to steal another guys girl so the idea of her dating me or even being interested, is about as possible as me growing wings and flying.

(I'm the guy directly behind the girl in the red dress.)

The plan was to eat dinner at a really nice place downtown Raleigh, prom ,and back to my dates house to hangout. Dinner went great and was a lot of fun. Prom, not so much! My date took her prom pictures with me and I got maybe one slow dance in before she completely ditched me. I ended up dancing with all her friends that went "Solo". That was the only thing that saved the night for me. The drive back to her house was horrible, mainly because deep down I was hurt and felt used. I remember dropping her off and saying bye to everyone. I tried to get back to my Jeep and go home as soon as I could.

Around a week or two later I got an instant message (back then everyone did that and AOL messenger was huge) for the girl in the red dress. I found out her prom date wasn't anything serious and her father was my next door neighbor. Her parents were no longer together and the other person I knew that stayed there was her older brother which I had met once before. I never knew he had a sister.

After weeks a chatting on AIM and praying it would lead to dating her. I finally got a first date. She was going to a friends beauty contest. I kept asking to hangout with her so that was our first date. I took  her to ice cream afterwards, super exciting right?! Needless to say it went well and led to more dates. Two or three months later I asked her to be my girlfriend with a charm bracelet. She said "Yes". That was the start of our relationship. I went to the local community college and a year later she got accepted to UNCC which was 3 hours away. I was sick to my tummy. The girl I dated before her went off to college and left me behind. Shortly after she cheated on me and broke my heart. I was seriously afraid of the same thing happening again.

We continued to date while she was in college there but sadly the distance was too much. We broke up. She didn't get into nursing school there and was forced to come back home. I was excited to be living close again. We dated and our relationship got a lot better. I decided like a dummy to leave college before I got my degree and work in law enforcement. I had to go through basic training for 6 months. Right before I started my grandmother passed which was a hard blow to take. Basic training was rough on our relationship and end up causing us to break up again. At this point you are most likely shaking your head. You have to keep in mind we fell in love at 18 and we at this point are 21. After I graduated from Basic we found each other again. After a year  I decided to ask her to marry me.

(the engagement ring w/ wedding bands)

My grandmother that passed asked me to use her diamond in the ring and told me I needed to hang onto her. So far I haven't done a good job of that. I found a store that would let me design it and I had it handmade. I took her to a high-end steak place in Raleigh. I planned it down to a t. She thought it was just a Valentine day dinner since we missed going out for that. I surprised her with a ring and popped the question. She said "Yes".  After being engaged for a year and our parents telling us to wait and wait and wait... The stress of everything caused us to break up again. Yes I said again. This time it was for good. It was a really really bad break up. Another year passed and she moved on and was dating another guy and I was dating other girl. I just couldn't stand seeing her with someone else. I couldn't not love her... I couldn't not be with her. I got her contact information and started talking to her again. Several months later I got her back and she left her boyfriend. I wanted this to work. I went to get help on some of my issues and went to her mom and ask if I could marry her daughter. Her mom was her best friend, and she said yes. I got her to go to her mom's and surprised her with our final and 2nd engagement.   She says "Yes" again... last time I promise.  She moved in with me and we live together for a year. It was the best thing for our relationship.  On November 7th 2009 we tied the knot.

 On January 13th 2012 we had our first child, a baby boy.

The girl in the red dress change my life, and I'm sorry I couldn't have made it a smoother ride but I wouldn't take the ride of life with anyone else. She is my world and the best thing and person I have ever had and will ever have. I love you, girl in the red dress!

(sorry if there are typos)

The Ripple Effect

I wanted to talk about how Dyslexia effected not just my life but others around me. It didn't take too long to figure out I was different and being different from other children growing up is not a good thing like my mother always said. It means you get bullied and picked on. It means you have a harder time making friends and you learn how to welcome loneliness.  I remember how children would laugh at me when I had to read out loud. I remember how lunch time sucked because it meant I was sitting by myself. Even my birthday parties I remember my mother inviting tons of kids some I wasn't really even friends with to show up. I found myself playing with my toys by myself and becoming more and more of an introvert.

The effects on my parents were pretty hard. My mother took the main hit of it. I feel like she blamed herself for me having Dyslexia or at least that she could not help me more. I remember having to do tons of extra school stuff during the summers when other kids were on vacation with their parents. I remember it seemed like every report card getting a strong talking to about my grades and that I was lazy and not trying hard enough. It didn't help that my teachers couldn't see or didn't have the training to spot Dyslexia and thought the same things. I don't know how many times I heard from my teachers and even my parents that "Perry is smart but lazy".

As for my father, I just remember the long talks about if I do not get a good education I will be digging ditches for a living. He wanted more for me than that. I don't think it was easy for either parent during my journey through school. It wasn't till I was 16 years old that we found the right person to refer us to Bowman & Gray and their Neurological department. After waiting for what felt like forever we drove to Charlotte, North Carolina. I went under numerous tests and the answer I have asked my entire life upto this point was finally going to be answered, I hoped! I was in fact Dyslexic and the reason it was not found sooner was my intelligence quotient was very high. So instead of what my parents and teachers thought of me being smart but lazy, the reality of it was that I was smart (high 130's IQ at 16 years old) and Dyslexic. The doctor told me she thought because of my high IQ, I managed to hide my learning differences from everyone. I was happy I knew what was wrong with my brain but stressed that no one could fix it. For the next year and a half I spent re-learning the English language through a learning program called "Wilson". It was a pain in the rear.

After completing high school I found myself lost and with no direction when it came to my education. Lucky for me I fell madly in love with the girl of my dreams, my neighbor at the time and now my loving wife.

Feeling different than others

The beginning of my education there weren't many signs of Dyslexia appearing. I was tested a few times later on and I was told there was a possibility that I was in fact Dyslexic but at that time the learning "disorder" was not easily detected. The reason I was guess would be the  lack of research done on Dyslexia and people in general did not know much about it. The normal thought that came to everyone's mind was you read backwards and flip letters if you were Dyslexic. What they do not understand is that is just a small indication of Dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a much larger difference in the way the brain processes data  (this is called the decoding process). I normal person, meaning someone without Dyslexia uses the majority of one side of their brain. A Dyslexic brain uses close to 50% of both sides of the brain at the same time. If you were to look at the brain patterns it would be lighting up like a Christmas tree during a decoding process. In addition to using both sides of the brain, it takes the eyes twice as long to process data and send it to the brain to be translated. For this reason decoding unknown words may take twice as long to understand and decode. I like to call this process "reading lag". The reading lag is why when a teacher asked a student that is Dyslexic to stand and read out loud. They might as well ask the student to commit a horrible crime because the emotional feeling and stress it causes is about the same. I remember when my teachers asked me to read aloud I would always say I forgot my glasses at home, I had to use the restroom, or anything to get out of doing it. It causes alot of stress and embarrassment.

I didn't detect that I had something different about me until I reached the third grade. I would guess it was the increased amount of reading or even math. At the beginning on my schooling English and reading were my biggest nightmare. Later on in high school and even into college English was actually my strongest skill and my mathematics were horrible.

I changed schools a lot growing up. I started at the school my mother taught at then moved to a private school from third grade to fifth grade. I changed from the private school back to public from sixth to ninth. I finally made it to high school but again changed to another high school after my parents moved to a better part of town. I went there until I graduated and went to the local community college for several years.

The hard straight punch of life hit me in middle school and kept hitting me dead in the face all the way through high school. I will talk about that a little later. I hope you have enjoy my story thus far.

The Beginning

I was born in Kinston. It's a small eastern town. The town has were my mother was from and raised. On the other hand my father was from the capital, Raleigh. My mother worked as a public school teacher and my father has a locomotive engineer with the railroad. At some point our family moved back to Raleigh where my father's side of the family lived. That is where we remained for the most part of my childhood. I was not an only child even though I felt like it most of my childhood. I have two sisters and one older brother. The oldest is Ron (which is a Jr.) named directly after my father. Then it's Elizabeth (Beth), then Cassy and myself. Cassy was from my mother's first marriage; My father always acted like she was his daughter and it wasn't till I was much older did I find out otherwise. Ron and Beth are from my father's first marriage but growing up I never put much stock in (half or in law status) brothers were brothers and sisters were sisters. I was a baby when all my brother and sisters lived with my parents. My memories are mainly of Cassy living with us. As for my brother Ron and sister Beth  they were in and out of my life which didn't really give me a chance to get to know them as well my sister Cassy.

The oldest memories that come to mind would be my "Granny" watching me. Granny wasn't a family member like you might think. She was an older lady that my mother begged to watch me so my parents could work. Granny was out of the business of daycare because of her age. She took one look at me and couldn't say No, says my mother. Granny had a husband named Marshall which I remember too. He was a really awesome man, gentle and kind. Somewhere in the time frame of her watching me Marshall passed. I remember that was the first person I knew that life as I knew it just stopped.  It was really scary. Next I fast forward several years where I'm riding my bike for the first time and driving a red Jeep power wheels vehicle in the yard with my puppy. Stephie. She was a mintier schnauzer that was large (in her case small) in charge. She was my buddy and best friend. She would attack the neighbors cat just to protect me when she wasn't riding in the passenger seat. Stephie was my first dog of many. There are only two dogs that money itself couldn't buy. The first is Stephie and then next is a German Shepherd named Tag". I'll tell more about them later.

At this point in my life I didn't know I had Dyslexia nor did my parents or anyone else for that matter. It was hidden from me and the world. Only if I would have known what an effect it was going to have on the rest of my life.

Anyone out there?

I first want to start off with who I am. Seems a little deep for a first time chat but on the other hand it seems somewhat needed. I'm a 27 year old, returning college student. I have an amazing wife and awesome son. The family I always wanted and never thought I would ever have. I enjoy writing, taking pictures in an artistic kind of way, art itself, and the normal outdoors, sports and beer guy stuff.

I'm not sure but I would guess you have already asked yourself; Why is the blog called "Signs of Dyslexia"?? For starters I have Dyslexia and most of my life I was in the dark about it, not by choice. The phrase I heard repeatedly through my life was your son or friend or whoever has "Signs of Dyslexia". As a kid you can take that in several ways:
1. It sounds cool, like a Star Wars character.
2. That sounds like a really bad disease that I could die from.
3. It's none of the above and I'm stuck with this "thing" for life.

This is a story of a boy that battles Dyslexia into his manhood. I hope you enjoy it.