Dyslexia

My name is Karina Sykes.

I grew up in the 1960s, in a world that didn’t have a name for the way my brain worked.

Dyslexia wasn’t recognised.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) wasn’t recognised.

Children like me slipped quietly through the cracks.

I was the ninth of thirteen children.

Lost in the noise.

Lost in the chaos.

Lost in myself.

Door’s slamming.

Voices everywhere.

Instructions too fast.

Words twisting on the page.

Me, trying to keep up.

Me, masking.

Me, exhausted.

I didn’t know I was dyslexic.

I didn’t know I had Auditory Processing Disorder.

I only knew I was different.

Tired.

Behind.

Working twice as hard just to look like everyone else.

Have you ever lived in a world where everyone else seemed to understand the rules except you?

Where words slipped away?

Where sounds blurred?

Where you masked so hard you forgot who you were?

That was my world.

Every day.

Every hour.

Every breath.

What Dyslexia Is. In My World:

Dyslexia is a neurological difference.

A brain‑based way of processing written language.

Letters move.

Words vanish.

Sentences break apart before I can catch them.

Reading from the blackboard to my paper didn’t marry up.

Reading level of age 7 at 11.

Couldn’t tell the time until 9.

With one-to-one support, my reading age finally caught up,

Just slower, in my own time.

Reading a line three times and still not knowing what it says.

Spelling that changes every time I try.

Slow processing.

Thoughts refusing to line up.

Written instructions disappearing.

Vocabulary slipping away when I need it most.

A slow reader in a fast world.

It isn’t about intelligence.

It’s about wiring.

It’s about how the brain reads the world.

Dyslexia lives in the written word, in letters, symbols, and the pathways between eye and meaning.

Other neurodivergences live in sound, movement, attention, emotion, or sensory processing.

Dyslexia’s struggle begins on the page.

And Dyslexia gives me strengths too:

Big‑picture thinking.

Creativity and imagination.

Visual and spatial reasoning.

Seeing connections others miss.

Problem‑solving in unexpected ways.

Empathy that feels instinctive.

Reading body language and facial expression.

Original ideas born from a different way of seeing.

My accompanying Auditory Processing Disorder isn’t a hearing problem.

It’s a processing problem.

It’s about how sound is interpreted, not whether it is heard.

Some traits overlap with other learning differences, especially around reading and auditory understanding.

Two different pathways.

Two different challenges.

Both invisible.

Both misunderstood.

Misunderstanding, Masking, and the Spiral.

Misunderstanding on both sides:

Them assuming.

Me masking.

Them frustrated.

Me overwhelmed.

Them thinking I didn’t care.

Me caring too much.

People thought I wasn’t listening.

I thought I wasn’t enough.

They heard disinterest.

I felt shame.

They saw mistakes.

I saw confusion.

They thought I was slow.

Daydreaming was my safety net when I was overwhelmed.

I thought I was broken.

A loner by default.

A people pleaser by necessity.

Fear of diagnosis.

Fear of stigma.

Fear of being “found out.”

Fear of confirming you were.

“Try harder.”

“Pay attention.”

“Stop daydreaming.”

Words that cut deeper than the struggle itself.

The system failed me.

Not because I wasn’t capable.

But because it was designed for the mainstream.

One size fit all.

Except it doesn’t.

It never did.

I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 43.

Forty‑three years of guessing.

Forty‑three years of masking.

Forty‑three years of thinking the problem was me.

I didn’t have the tools.

I didn’t have the language.

I didn’t have the support.

But I had grit.

And grit carried me further than anyone imagined.

Creativity I knew I had.

Leadership I didn’t know existed in me.

Jobs far beyond my comfort zone.

Roles that terrified me.

Roles I took anyway.

I built a support network.

Piece by piece.

Person by person.

And yet…

Achievements came at a cost.

The full tools weren’t in place.

I retired earlier than I ever expected.

My body stopped before my will did.

My mind had carried too much for too long.

My resilience had been stretched past its limit.

I found belonging at 67, after writing my memoirs.

Far too long.

I spent a lifetime searching for my voice.

For understanding.

For a place where my brain wasn’t a burden, but a strength.

For a world that finally made sense.

Now that I’ve found it, I’m writing this blog for you.

For the child who feels lost.

For the adult who feels behind.

For the person who masks until they collapse.

For the one who thinks it’s too late.

For the one who thinks they’re alone.

You are not alone.

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

There are tools now.

There is understanding now.

There is support now.

There is language now.

There is hope now.

And you, yes, you, can find your voice at any age.

Wherever you are, hear this:

Dyslexia is not a deficit.

It is a different path.

A different rhythm.

A different way of seeing the world.

Decades ago, I couldn’t string two written words together.

Spoken language and written language didn’t marry up. What I hear and what I can write arrive as two different stories.

Bite‑size chunks.

One step at a time.

That’s the key.

Different can be powerful.

Your voice is waiting.

And the world needs it.