SOLC 15: ADD and Dyslexia

I have ADD and Dyslexia. Both ADD and Dyslexia affect my life in small and large ways. ADD makes it really easy for me to become distracted and off task. Normally I take medications to counteract this, but on the weekends, when I don’t have my meds, I almost become a different person. For most of the people in my class, I am known as a person with zero tolerance for annoying noises and talking. I am also known as someone who is always doing something and is OCD about everything. These features of my personality are caused by my medications. On days that I don’t take my meds, I am fine with noises/talking. I also like to just hang out and have fun. Dyslexia affects me differently than most people perceive. I used to have trouble reading books for my age, but since I have spent such a large amount of time reading, I now read at a grade level much higher than anyone my age is supposed to read. I have trouble with simple rote memorization of facts like what 5 X 8 is. Mental math, even if it as simple as subtraction, is much more challenging for me than Algebra. I believe the opposite is true in most people. For some reason, (I do not know how others think, but I can observe how they come to solutions) I can figure out engineering problems much faster than people without dyslexia. I believe this is because I think in a completely different way than others. The worst part about having dyslexia is how non-dyslexics stereotype dyslexics as stupid people who can’t read or tell the difference between words. This stereotype is inaccurate, with many dyslexics such as Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, George Washington, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Andy Warhol, Nikola Tesla, Pablo Picasso, and John Lennon achieving great things and pushing our society forward.

SGC