Doing 5 to 7

At the age of 5, I discovered something about my self. I loved to draw and color and paint, I loved all things creative. I remember I was in my kindergarten class and it was art time. I took construction paper and made a pop-up house, grass, little people and everything. I must admit it was more than the other kids could do. I felt like a genius, I felt like I could take on the world. But as you will see as I continue to write my hubs. LIFE HAPPENS!!!

When I got to first grade something changed. I went thru the whole school year totally oblivious to the fact that I was experienceing something different then the rest of the children. I was writing backwards or in jumbled letters. I didn't know that I was doing anything different. I thought what I was seeing was what everyone else was seeing. Instead of speaking babble I was writing it.

I failed first grade and it was so confusing and devastating to me. I had a complex already as a child because everyone in my family on some level or another thought I was slow. My grandma thought I was "slow" because I was a premature baby. My dad thought I had a disease and/or I was "slow" because I had unusually long arms. My mother thought I was "slow" because I was very quiet and introverted. My sister, well she always made it painfully obvious everyday by taunting me. "dumby!, retard!, ugly!, buck tooth!, bubble eyed!, stupid!." This was a time in my life where I was doing 5 to 7. 

It was at this time they were just coming out with a diagnois/name for what I had. IT WAS DYSLEXIA!!. When the doctor told me I had "dyslexia", a myriad of things went thru my mind. Like, "WTF is that!" There is nothing wrong with me, there is something wrong with all of you! If there is something wrong with me, how do I get rid of it? Is it going to kill me? Maybe they are right and I am "slow", Does it require medicine? Before I knew it, I was going to see a specialist and eye doctors to help me re-learn how to see correctly. I was told that "maybe" because I was left handed and had a little bit of a lazy right eye that this may have attritbuted to my "malfunction" or "slowness" if you will. Even I knew then that being left handed and having a lazy right eye was not the reason for the ol 3lb noodle soup that was my mind to short circuit.

Everything that I did between the age of 5-7 was reading and writing all the time. But what the h-e-l-l!!! why didn't anyone help me with the math!!! I could out read and write everyone, but dog-gonnit, I couldn't count or do math problems. Raise your hand if you feel like an illiterate fool. "MEEEE!!!!" All the doctors and teachers that I had to see and no one said hmmm, she should be re-learning math too, and I was the "slow" one.

I once asked my therapist, "what is wrong with me?" she said. "nothing baby, you just see things differently." That one sentence helped me to view the glitche in my brain as a minor hick-up and that I wasn't "slow" I just needed to work a little harder than the rest. It kept my crumbling confidence afloat but my self-esteem was ruined. These three years would most undoubtly effect me for the rest of my life. However, with a little hard work, motivation and determination, by the time I made it to the 5th grade I had progressed enough for them to put me in my right grade. I proved everybody wrong, but that didn't stop my sister from teasing me constantly or raise my self-esteem & confidence to a healthy state. It was while I was doing 5-7, that I discovered emotionally I would be imprisoned thru my Life Thus Far.