My first memory is at primary school looking at the books in the corridor, I was on the red books and most of the children in my class were on the green books. I’m standing at the start of the corridor and my friends are in the middle picking their books and that was the first time I felt left behind. I also felt like I was being punished for not being able to read as well as my friends, at the age of 7 having to give up some of my lunch break to go and read to Mr Ruttish, I now know why as an adult looking back, but the 7 year old me just wanted to go and have fun with my friends and this is when I started to feel stupid and different, hiding my work from the child sitting next to me so they didn’t see my spelling and start taking the mick out of me for my handwriting. Sitting in the parent-teacher meeting, and the teacher telling my mum and dad that they know I’m not stupid because I’m able to articulate very well but I’m lazy with my reading and writing! LAZY you say LAZY! I feel I work so hard and I’m really trying why can’t I do it. This leads to low self-esteem.
This was the lack of education in schools when I was younger, no one believed in dyslexia.
Senior school, 12-year-old girl with exploding hormones, was not a good combination.
So I was in the lower set for English (no surprise there) and a group of us were pulled out of form class for extra learning, again everyone in form knew you’re the girl who needs the extra support but to top it off, they allocate you a year 10 pupil to help your reading session and as I walk in there he is, the hottest year 10 boy in school Rick, now I want the ground to open up and swallow me…. Arrrrr the fittest boy in school is now going to know that I’m dumb, cheers Miss, Just another day at school not wanting to be there because I’m made to feel stupid. My first English Teacher Mrs Whatson trying to make me read out loud to the rest of the class, I stand nervously and just start to cry, now I like to perform, and I love being on stage but get me to read directly from a book I have never seen or read before I’m going to crumble.
I did manage to fall in love with literature and that was due to Mr Morgan,my favourite teacher, he got it! He understands that some of us are picture learners and relate through emotion and I remember him reading us of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and he did all the accents and performed the book as he read it to us and I got to use my own imagination whilst listening to him, and I totally fell in love with reading after this (thank you Mr Morgan).
My Dyslexia was not picked up until I started college, I did performing arts (This is why I love presenting) It fuels my passion for the stage. My teacher was Dyslexic herself and spotted this in my report work, and if it hadn’t been for her, I don’t think I would have ever been assessed. A diagnosis is a relief because you now know the why behind it all, it’s not that you didn’t try, it’s not because you were lazy it’s because your brain works differently from others. The only problem is the stigma and the experience of feeling stupid is still there and I never tell anyone I’m Dyslexic I was determined to hide it!
Work, I fell into banking, this job was not in my 20-year plan… If I had it my way, I would have been in Eastenders.
My very good friend Nat saw something in me, she knew I was good with people and if anyone knows me, they know I can talk a lot, so she told me about this role in the bank, a Personal Banker, and for this role, you need a set of skills:
1. Recommending financial products to the customer‘s needs via finding out (Big Tick for me I’m so nosy) I also see in picture’s and can link and connect the problem to the solution.
2. Resolve complaints (Tick, I’m good with words and with people) again piecing the puzzle to resolve the problem.
So, my journey begins in the corporate world of banking and I’m still hiding my true self and struggling with all the exams but me being me, getting on with as I do and putting in 110% as always, I was also a very determined 21-year-old who wants bigger and better things so it only took me12 months before my first promotion and this continued.
I worked in Banking for over 17 years and for 15 years I felt like a fraud, I still felt like an outsider. Reading my peers notes or having to read huge reports and not being able to read some of the words I’ve not seen before or not getting what the acronym stands for, anyone in banking knows they love an acronym.
Listen to peers commenting over spelling in an email that landed in the inbox and feeling dread come over me thinking I hope it’s not from me. Going into the workplace classroom or meeting and seeing the flip chart and marker pen and feeling the anxiety come over me as I might be asked to write something in front of my peers, and I will be found out! I now know I was not the only person feeling like this (but at the time, it can be a very lonely place)
Then I stumbled across the dyslexia focus group. I was amazed to see that there were over 85 people sitting in a virtual meeting talking about their own neurodiverse journey, this was the moment I didn’t feel alone anymore, and I realised that there were more people like me than I ever realised. I could add all the facts and figures in this story that’s for another time.
I was amazed to see the different levels of senior leaders on the call advocating their neurodiversity in the workplace, it was at this point I never hid my dyslexia ever again. This group inspired me to be my true self and it gave me the platform to support more people like me to feel free of the stigma and see the strengths neurodiversity brings to the workplace. I’m truly thankful to this group for allowing me to become part of the neurodiversity leadership team which supported my journey in helping others through coaching, event speaking and neurodiversity leadership training, 2021 I presented over 14 leader training webinars and coached over 53 individual employees who have recently been diagnosed and now my journey continues.
