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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Dyslucksia, published by Shoshannah Tekofsky on May 9, 2024 on LessWrong.
The curious tale of how I mistook my dyslexia for stupidity - and talked, sang, and drew my way out of it.
Sometimes I tell people I'm dyslexic and they don't believe me. I love to read, I can mostly write without error, and I'm fluent in more than one language.
Also, I don't actually technically know if I'm dyslectic cause I was never diagnosed. Instead I thought I was pretty dumb but if I worked really hard no one would notice. Later I felt inordinately angry about why anyone could possibly care about the exact order of letters when the gist is perfectly clear even if if if I right liike tis.
I mean, clear to me anyway.
I was 25 before it dawned on me that all the tricks I was using were not remotely related to how other people process language. One of my friends of six years was specialized in dyslexia, and I contacted her, full excitement about my latest insight.
"Man, guess what? I realized I am dyslectic! This explains so much! I wish someone had told me sooner. It would have saved me so much grief."
"Oh, yeah, I know."
"Wait, what?"
"You are very obviously dyslectic."
"Wait, why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't seem bothered."
"Oh…"
Turns out my dyslexia was a public secret that dated back all the way to my childhood (and this was obviously unrelated to my constitutional lack of self-awareness).
Anyway.
How come I kind of did fine? I'm fluent in English (not my native language), wrote my PhD thesis of 150 pages in 3 months without much effort, and was a localization tester for Dutch-English video game translation for two years.
I also read out loud till the age of 21, trace every letter like it's a drawing, and need to sing new word sounds to be able to remember them.
I thought everyone had to but no one sent me the memo.
Dear reader, not everyone has to.
When I recently shared my information processing techniques with old and new friends, they asked if I had ever written them down so maybe other people could use them too.
I hadn't.
So here is my arsenal of alternative information processing techniques.
Read Out Loud
Honestly, I didn't realize there was an age where you were supposed to stop doing this. In school you obviously had to whisper to yourself. At home you go to your room and read at normal volume. If it's a fiction book, you do voices for the different characters. It's great.
I remember my sister sometimes walking in to my room when I was little cause she said it sounded like so much fun in there. It totally was.
Later I found out my mother made sure my siblings never made me aware it was unusual I was still reading out loud. Instead she signed me up for competitions to read books on the local radio. This was before the wide-spread internet and audio books. Later I'd read to my parents sometimes, who were always excited about how much energy I threw into the endeavor.
I didn't know any different.
In college I was still reading out loud. Research papers have a voice. Mathematical equations especially. They take longer to say out loud than to read in your head, but you can never be sure what's on the page if you don't.
According to my brain anyway.
When I was 22 I moved in with my first boyfriend and reading out loud got a little obstructive. I started subvocalizing, and that was definitely less fun. I still subvocalize now. But if I struggle to follow a passage, I go back to reading it out loud.
I've probably read out this essay a dozen times by now. I keep checking the cadence of every sentence. It's easier to spot word duplications, cause I find myself repeating myself. Missing words also stick out like inverted pot holes. They destroy the flow. So I jump back and smooth them over. Sometimes when I talk, I finish the sentence differently than it's written. Then I go back and ...
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