11/21/2025
Typically, my focus here is on Liv and our family's journey advocating for her. This morning, she sleeps. She sleeps and I sit here unable to shut my mind off.
I have come full circle to the fact that I too am dyslexic. And this is a self realization after replaying so many struggles, tummy aches in 1st grade that I don’t even remember, so so so many failed spelling test, and really tests on anything I had to memorize. Directions! Oh geez my struggle with directions is so real… but the strengths too. That 6th sense intuition I have, my creativity and empathy. So much more!
I remember hating 2nd grade but I cant tell you why. I do remember the feeling that I was never enough, and I know that was was embeded in me early in school… because that didn’t come to me from my family. I remember failing multiplication timed tests daily in third grade because again memorization. Yet in high school my gifts began to shine as I took higher level math courses. Again this follows the list of expected patterns of someone who is dyslexic.
The other evening speaking with my Dad. His incredible giftedness. The things he can engineer and build and fix! All his strengths that were overlooked in school because he didn’t fit the mold and no one knew what dyslexia was. And as he and I are realizing that this is a real thing.
When he spoke of his 1st grade year… I wanted to commit a crime on a teacher from another day and time… as I listened all I could feel was anger for this woman I didn’t know and her cruelty. And parallel to that was a broken heart for a 6-7 year old boy whose parents were not home due to his baby sisters fight with leukemia. A battle she lost in December of that year, and the complete lack of compassion for a boy that learned to be stronger than he had to way before he should have. I was angry and sad for that young boy because instead of being met with love and compassion at school… he was met with humiliation and scars that time hasn’t faded.
Where am I going with all this… well it is therapeutic and 1 in 5 people in any written language are dyslexic… 20% regardless of language … if it is written and can be read 20% of the people struggle with dyslexia. Decades have passed letting people grow up believing they are not enough and then they fall through the cracks. Today literacy is a health epidemic. 70% of 4th graders are not proficient at grade level reading let alone depending on their reading skills as a learning tool.
I have advocated for all 4 of my daughters through some major issues… all different broken systems! The medical system, the foster care system, the education system…. Which is tricky because that is the system that employs me…
It is my goal to become a resource for kids and families to pioneer change in our little part of the world! To advocate for not just my children but all children and families! Dyslexia is hereditary, someone has a 40% chance of passing it to their children. Many adults like me have no clue they are dyslexic. When we know better we can do better for ourselves and our children!
