Dyslexia: From Limiting Beliefs To Empowered Success

When I was a child, learning was challenging. The letters on a page look like symbols. They would move and dance around each other. Sometimes, they look like they form words, and at other times, they look like nothing. Even with numbers, they were the toughest for me. Adding, subtracting, multiplication, you name it, was a struggle.

Forget asking me if the color red is the color red because back then, the color red to me would be, well, maybe it’s orange, maybe it’s pink; I would see the shades, but could I actually say red? No.

It wasn’t until the age of 4 years old, after much testing, that they diagnosed me with dyslexia. I had to have tutoring 5 days a week, and on the weekends, my mother would help me learn. I remember hearing the different learning specialists saying, “Try to get Daphne into art. Maybe she can be successful there.”

So, it was very early on that my limited beliefs developed and shaped my life. I remember being with my peers, even in lower school, and saying, “Sorry, I can’t go to your house because I’m dyslexic,” “I need extra tutoring,” or “I can’t get a 70 on a grade because I’m dyslexic.”

Became of my limiting beliefs, I never felt I would amount too much. Maybe just being a caregiver to my mother would be it. Trying my hand at photography, but what could I possibly accomplish something with that? As I grew older and became a wife and mother, I continued to have my learning disability shrouded in a cloak of limiting beliefs.

In fact, it wasn’t until my early 30s that my mantra of “I can’t, I am dyslexic.” fell away.

First, it was my children who inspired me and gave me the courage to realize that I’m not just “Dyslexic.” With helping my kids learn how to read, how to be organized, and how to study changed my perspective of myself. When my mother got very ill, and our roles reversed where she needed my help with understanding.

I had the ability to stay organized with things and understand what the doctors were saying to her. My mom had many illnesses that played off of one another. It was finding the balance to try the symptoms. This took breaking down her symptoms, medications, side effects, setting up a workable schedule with her health and daily life.

All of a sudden my dyslexia became my superpower. Because of my dyslexia, I had learned how to learn. I learned how to stay organized and break things down into smaller parts. And that became a tremendous advantage in tackling more complex subjects with my kids in school and complicated medical needs with my mother. The once-limited belief that held me back for many years became a distant memory.

Above all, my determination, mixed with my passion and learning style, was my driving force . Overwhelmingly, I wanted more for me. So I dived into my watercolor, photography, and writing. Learning that was so scary and hard, became something that I stopped shying away from. I was tired of the limited belief that “I can’t because I’m dyslexic.”

“I can” became my motto.

Did learning things take me a little longer? Yes, but who was there to judge me? Just me. So, I started cutting myself some slack. If you told me at 16 years old, that by the time I’m 49 years old, I would run a successful online print-on-demand business at various shops that are selling my watercolor, and photography and now writing stories on a platform such as Vocal Media that people would actually read my stuff, I would have said, “No way I’m dyslexic; I won’t admit too much.”

Not anymore! As a result, I can actually honestly say I’m grateful for my dyslexia. It taught me who I am: I’m confident, I can juggle multiple things in my head, I can talk with various medical professionals and understand their terminology. I can write poems, short stories and create illustrations that people want to see. I’m grateful that my dyslexia taught me how to learn and how to persevere.

Thank you for reading about my limiting beliefs that are no longer with me.

This was originally posted of Medium.