I’m a Writer; I’m Dyslexic… Why Am I Doing It?
By: Moni Vazquez
Tags: Writing, Personal Essay, Life Lessons, Dyslexia, Mental Health

Because writing is my gift and my curse. It gives me life, a life unknown beyond ink and keyboard.

Yet my writing looks like a roller coaster without rails before I pass it through those fancy analyzers… and after that again, into another one; I have to use three for I can’t see my own mistakes.

I look at words to find their secrets… finding only what my brain wants me to see.

So I breathe. I breathe the words discarding thought as thoughts trick me into believing what is not there and breathing helps me to feel there’s something wrong. Dyslexia is a true hallucination and breathing words is not that easy.

I was hit for writing wrong you see, and screamed at too, yet stories, those orphan prompts, kept coming, requesting a place in the world. I honored them despite my bruises thinking the ether of words must have needed funnels so bad it choose a broken one.

But when I write, misspell, mix-up, f*ck up so bad… the sense is there and so is the feeling. Argh! So frustrating to look at my own page, my own creation to see a perfection not living there. My mind translates my scribbles the way they were intended to, but not the way they are. Computers –and wife– show me what my brain can’t see to bring the world of words to peace and order.

But I’m slow. I can’t just write, edit and submit. I have doubts, fears, I shake in front of my own creation dreading the publish click might bring to the world some crazy words I did not see. I do despite my best intention. Too often to want to count. Grammarly, ProWritingAid, embedded spell checks… I beat them all! I should be hired by one of those companies! For sure I’d make them glow.

Programs, you see, correct only 'normal mistakes’. Those senseless words I’m so naturally inclined to produce strangely make sense to soulless data…

I do not stop at words though, I won the whole lottery being dyslexic with numbers too. I mostly can’t read them. Imagine my math days… Oh so fun explaining ‘I understand your concept Prof yet I can’t see how to apply it’. According to them I did not need to see them, I needed to use them. How unsmart of me not to understand. The mysteries of brains, the mysteries of mind.

I studied the mind by the way, I made myself a doctor in cognitive neuroscience looking for answers, yet my questions were greater than the answers. I had to push though, I had to beat my faulty system. I did not really enjoy it. It gave me nothing I would use to make my life a happy place. I wanted to write not cut brains. I wanted to hide behind stories not mine.

Yet when I wrote I hid alone. In silence I would use my skill for my own good, a secret practice for the few. I was afraid of screams and hits I think… they hurt inside way more than the skin. So I decided I would break my shyness and write again out loud. For words to be where they belong; for all to see. That’s how Medium came to me. A gift of will I made my daily bread.

My words still secrets in the world for the many, my success so slim one could overlook it; yet I did win.

Myself.

I won myself, I won my fears and now my hands are free to tease my eyes as I proudly laugh at my mistakes and day in day out bring my stories into life. I look at them and feel joy for their existence! Can you believe?

I hear them sing, the words, for they have sound. A symphony of meanings, an orchestra of fears I won.

I can’t promote myself, my day so filled with writing, and shyly pitch some publication, surprised each time I get a yes.

A brain that works spaghetti instead of words could seem an enemy, a foe. Yet it is me and I decided, after running far away, it was my duty to overcome the dread.

I did. I won. I write and learn the ways of soul. For limitations can be seen as blessings and my attention, now, is greater than it’s ever been and my obsession makes me learn to edit, revise and re-edit to the bone.

The gift of public can be good.

Mistakes still slip and I accept the guilt. I forced myself to write short form in fiction. Stories ending as they start, filled with essential words, the utmost needed information to say what needed to be said.

My brain feels happy and so my soul. I won a lifelong fear. I show my face, I share my words, the stories wanting to be told.

I feel a hero of myself thanks to those few but warming claps and publications opening their doors to me.

Medium gave me a space I never had before. I will forever thank and give it all I can.