Years ago, I wrote this essay for an online magazine. They never published it, so you are the first to read this.
“You’ll never be a writer and you know it,” says one teacher.
“The rules say neat handwriting. I had to fail you,” says another.
“I’m dyslexic too!” goes a third.
“Learning disabilities” and “dyslexia” are not synonymous. I don’t have dyslexia, but dysgraphia. This disability impacts writing. It can affect how words look, the way they’re spaced on paper and converting thoughts into text. Even when I concentrate, things are too far apart or too close together. My letters look alike, with “e”s that resemble “c”s or “y”s. The longer I handwrite, the more I hurt. The pen crushes my flesh while my muscles cramp into a solid mass.
Pain is as integral to writing as holding a pencil. Refusing to do basic classwork is unthinkable. I must put up with it, the same as my classmates. It’s years before it occurs to me that hurting is uncommon and worth mentioning. Little changes after I speak up.
My hands don’t conform to standards. It’s why one teacher sends a note home complaining about my work. Others knock my grades down, despite my understanding the lessons. They have power, I do not. I must do as they say.
A major rule is the use of lined paper dictating the size of my letters. Eight millimeters high is comfortable for teachers to read. Writing taller than four millimeters makes pain come quicker.
Language Arts classes are supposed to teach me how to write. My pain persists while I butt heads with teachers. They get mad at me for not following unspoken rules. Years of tutelage boiled down to “This is wrong, fix it.”
Several teachers stand out. One was encouraging and friendly. I don’t remember formal instruction on the elements of creative writing. We’re encouraged to be ourselves on the page.
Another teacher around this time confuses me. We have six weeks to write a story, and he’ll help us get there. He emphasizes the role of research, but never explains why it is relevant. His critiques are bizarre.
I’m an eight-year-old who lives and breathes fairy tales. I’m very familiar with the genre and don’t appreciate feedback like “Why is the wicked witch evil?” I don’t yet have to words to respond, “I’m writing a fairy tale, everyone’s a stock character with defined roles.
My sore hand does not appreciate your desire to make this piece longer.”
In fourth grade, one classroom gets a computer in each desk, their monitors visible through glass windows. I spend a period learning to use this novelty. It’s important to write our thoughts on inch-high ruled paper before typing them onto these devices. Writing in my head before converting things into text stays with me for years.
Every so often teachers produce blank paper folded and stapled to form books. Our job is to fill them with stories and illustrations. My hands don’t do what I want. The words are there, but they don’t come out as they should. The prose must be perfect before I write, or my book will be polluted with eraser lines. Every sentence must be a height the teacher approves of. Pain kicks in during the first paragraph. I become more laconic by the sentence. My work remains unfinished.
I get my diagnosis in middle school. Adults tell me to type, saying it’s painless. In grade school, I’d pecked the keyboard with my index finger, a capped pen, or whatever tool amused me. As a grown sixth grader I must conform to typing lessons. Touch typing is best, they say. I use more brain power trying to remember which finger touches what key, than saying what I please. The implication is I shouldn’t be writing however I feel comfortable.
My parents help with typing school assignments, including creative writing. Throughout middle school I dictate as prose flashes on screen faster than I can manage. It’s magic seeing my tales become homework without stops, starts or indecision.
As much as my parents want to help, they also wish to please my teachers. Through their hands, “she said” becomes “the young lady opened her mouth in order to convey.” Asking them to stop leads to the counterattack of looking good for school. Every so often they pause and make sure I understand what they type. The scheme is no good if the teachers are suspicious.
Dictations end in ninth grade. These teachers don’t make sense to anyone. High school instructors also have the power to destroy my future. No hint of imperfection is allowed. Asking for aid underscores how my life peaked before age fourteen. It’s easier to suffer alone.
Things do not get better with age. High school believes in the “inspirational” model. Television, movies and motivational posters state that disability is something anyone can overcome with a bit of effort. Any student who remains disabled is lazy and must have all empathy and accommodations revoked to draw out their full potential.
One instructor’s modus operandi is telling me how awful I am. It offends her how I’m not like other students. Her mission is to improve me though vague means. She gets upset when I remain myself.
Once, she gives a fiction assignment. She says only one page, and I do what I can. Her only feedback was “This is bad.” She adds no constructive words, but deepens her resolve to force me into her mold. I remain suspect for preferring stories and their freedom to her essay whims.
A year later comes a teacher who knows the formula to writing quality tales. We must emulate his favorite authors and hang onto his every word. Despite his fondness for speaking, he’s stingy with explanations. He won’t discuss the ideas behind his truisms, nor teach concepts like outlines or editing. What matters was doing as he says without question.
I will question and disagree as I see fit. Rules must make sense. It’s more fun to write what I enjoy, not what other people like. My refusal to conform makes me his favorite target. I don’t take another fiction class for fifteen years.
Structure chokes me. I can resist all I want, but I’m still forced to do as adults say. It doesn’t matter if I don’t know what they want, orders are orders. I’m strong armed into writing what they dictate. They still get mad that I’m not following their unstated wishes.
I stop writing and take up transcribing. I compose sentences and paragraphs in my head, only writing when they’re just so. Writing for school stays a slow, painful process, but my fiction dries to almost nothing. I’m a snail crawling on salt. Over the span of nine years, I only complete five tales.
I can only be myself by myself. There is no mandatory handwriting. I don’t penalize myself for being illegible or too small to read. It doesn’t matter if it takes months to eke out a five-hundred-word story. Alone, there is no “This is wrong, fix it.”
There are so many worlds and people I want to convey; they have to come out somehow. Talking is a compromise. I can share the stories in my head without triple-guessing every sentence. Speaking frees me from arbitrary standards.
Novel length ideas stagnate. Committing things to a notebook never lasts more than a few pages. When I graduate to computers, habits stay the same. I can get more words into text, but everything has to be perfect to reach that stage. I have chronic writer’s constipation.
Change is gradual. When typing for high school and college, I stare at my keyboard and flail my fingers at the buttons. I accomplish more with this messy style than I ever do via touch typing. Translating raw thoughts into written sentences remain an issue. I have to triage for school. Homework comes first, with fiction a distant second.
College is full of teachers less eager to wave authority over me. One even teaches writing by telling us about structure before assignments. I lived with the “You’re wrong” model for so long, I don’t realize there were alternatives. Papers still take weeks to craft, and some later professors are incomprehensible with their writing requirements. More often than not though, I have a grain of logic to follow.
Creative writing remains an issue. College offers lessons on the subject, but memories of earlier classes kill my interest. I have better things to do than hear I failed standards no one talks about.
I find an outlet playing online. There’s a series of games where people take turns writing in a shared fantasy world. A player represents one or more characters and writes from a persona’s perspective. Others respond through their characters. The rules are posted for everyone to see, and the majority make sense.
With no ownership of the overall plot, I don’t have to worry a sentence into perfection. I type in a comfortable flow, justifying these games as writing practice. My personal output may be pitiful, but I’m still creating.
After graduation, the old lessons refuse to be un-learned. Yet another novel length tale stagnates and dies. It’s been so long since I completed a draft, I turn to short stories. The snail can’t manage a book, but thousand-word pieces are something else.
The few times I write stories by hand now, they’re flash fiction. Pain is a risk that grows with every sentence. Laconic minimizes suffering. Handwriting is limited to workshops where paper is easier to wrangle than laptops. If I’m on my own, I type.
During my resolve to focus on short pieces, I complete a book length draft. Another hole in my teachers’ methods arises. While quick to point out my flaws, they taught me little about revising. I edit so much in my head to begin with, I don’t know where else to go.
Podcasts are a happy accident. I find experienced authors providing advice for other writers. One goes out of her way to say perfection isn’t mandatory. It’s more important to get the words out first, then beautify them later. She answers a question I send regarding editing, giving me concrete ideas. Everything is a suggestion, nothing is mandatory.
I craft with fingertips thrashing on the keyboard. I don’t always know how to phrase things, and this is all right. Raw thoughts may flow until I find the gem within the mess. Teachers of old are not here to disapprove or insist on pain. With fewer limits, I’m able to craft.
I have publications under my belt. This does not erase my dysgraphia. Years of trial and error have given me work-arounds. I now write with minimal pain. Even more important is that writing makes sense. Few people impose bizarre or unexplained rules on me.
It's a mistake to assume my story applies to others with dysgraphia. We are not a monolith, and the disability expresses in many ways. What applies to me may not be true for others. The best I can say is to experiment. One size fits all is a terrible way to teach, especially for someone unlike other students. It’s better to experiment, trying a variety of methods to see what works. Learning what doesn’t hurt and finding expression you enjoy is better than forced assimilation.
To say I’m “handicapable” or that I’ve “beaten my disability” is absurd. It implies my dysgraphia is so disgusting, it must be treated like Voldemort. It is not something to destroy or pretend doesn’t exist. My years of classroom grief should not be overlooked or covered with a pretty bow. I write, I have dysgraphia and neither erases the other.
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