my story

this is the story i am going to submitt to someone i don't know. and hopefully they will like it.

I am Abby. I am 15 years old and in 10th grade. I am being told that I am dyslexic. Among many other titles at this point, we don't know. I may never know. So when people ask I just say that I am dyslexic with a few things added. My story starts in third grade. That was the first time I remember being treated differently than the other kids. Me and another girl would leave the class when the other kids wouldn’t be leaving. The teachers told us that everyone had to leave at some point but today was just our turn. They never had their turn. It was always the two of us; we would walk down this long hall, and walk into this room filled with all sorts of things to do. We mostly played games. And this helper teacher (that is what our normal teacher would call her) would always tell us these games would be “fun” but really they weren’t. They were all about letters and the sounds they make. And when we add them together they make words. I never understood them. I just did what I was told. And I guess the teachers thought I would understand. For the next three years things would get harder. I learned to love reading a year later in forth grade. Then we worked on writing, something I am still not very good at as a sophomore in high school. I have problems organizing what my thoughts are out on paper. This was also the year I started talking to my teachers about what worked for my learning style. I myself knew what worked for me and what didn’t. I knew that having a teacher just talk didn’t work at all. And taking notes was out of the question. I knew I needed to be involved in the lesson hands on. Or I needed to be teaching it. But I didn’t know that anything could be done about it. I didn’t know that I was a different learner. I didn’t know what was wrong with me I didn’t know that not everyone saw the world as I did. No one really knew what was wrong with me. One day in 6^th grade I needed to write a book report. And had no idea what to do, and so I just wrote and wrote and thought I was doing a great job and then my mom read it. And said that I didn’t write it in the right way, so I tried again frustrated, the way I thought she said to write it, but mixed the order up. And had to do it again, at this point I was in tears. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I didn’t even know what the book was about! I hated myself for being so stupid that I didn’t know anything. After I had calmed down my mom asked me to explain the book. (It was so happened she had read the book too) I started to explain it, and once I had finished my mom said that the two versions didn’t match up. My idea and her idea were two different books! My mom looked concerned and said she would talk to my teacher. I didn’t think about anything like that until my transition meeting that June going into 7^th grade and how we can make it as easy for me to switch as possible. At that meeting I asked a question that had plaguing my mind for years. “what is wrong with me” I remember not getting a straight answer. And hearing “there is nothing wrong with you, you are just different” I wanted to tell them “but there is. I don’t know most things other kids do. Need different math sheets, I need a teacher to help me write a paper when the other kids can just write one.” I just want to have a straight answer. I wouldn’t get one until the end of ninth grade. I had a master plan for the first day of seventh grade. Don’t let on that you have something wrong with you until you have a solid friendship going. That worked until I tried to open my locker. I couldn’t get the numbers in the right order, so it wouldn’t open, I freaked out at the metal thing and condemned it forever. Yeah that was a great start. Over all seventh grade was good for me. I made friends. And they accepted me for my weird tendencies or not being able to spell, and not understanding some things. But over the summer most of that was gone. I lost all but one. And we didn’t talk that much anyway. But I was learning to compensate for things I couldn’t do. an example would be if I couldn’t spell something, I would find another word to put in it’s place, so over time my vocabulary increased, and for math well calculators are something that just make things so much easier. As for writing I still most times need someone to sit down and talk me though an essay. As for my ninth grade year, this was the year I could finally say I was in a relationship. I was comfortable. Because we are the same type of person, no one knows what was wrong with us, I had met him last year and we became friends. And well the rest is history there. As for my friends, I only have kept one solid friend who knows the good the bad and the ugly about me and my struggles. And she was the first to know when I started testing to see what was wrong with me to find the answer as to why I am not normal. In the short time before this I had just been learning to accept me for who I am. And all my faults, but it was being coming increasingly difficult when friends were saying they couldn’t handle me and all my little faults. I just “wasn’t manageable” these things that have been said can really hurt some ones self image. But in the end they made me stronger. Those days weren’t all they should have been for me. Yet this left me more time to work on my new relationship, and how to read a book and get all the information out of the book and stop just guessing as to what the author is saying. One day I was told I was going to be retested. I am thinking the whole time “Retested…what in the world are you looking for that you couldn’t find last time!?” I couldn’t the last time I was tested. So I guess it was time to update. One test I remember very well is one where the person who did the testing would read a string of numbers and I had to repeat them back to her, backwards. That test was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I couldn’t remember the numbers in the right order anyway but backward! That is crazy. I failed that test by the way. And there were other tests such as ones where you had to fill in the missing word in the sentence, or spell the word spoken to you. Or define the word given in the sentence. Once the test results came back it showed I had definitely learned to compensate for what I couldn’t do. and the tested showed in writing had an amazing vocabulary. But my number, basic math and organization skills were at extremely low points. In other words I had really high test scores in some areas, and really low in others. This is the day I was told that if anyone asks you are dyslexic. My mom said she has had the feeling that is what I had since third grade, but the school wouldn’t perform the test. From that day on I have been telling everyone that I am. But the school is now saying that I am not. And how I shouldn’t be on an education plan, how I should be treated like a normal kids because they have no real proof that I am dyslexic. We asked the school to test me specifically for being dyslexic. They said they would do the testing at the start of my tenth grade year. I am almost done with tenth grade. And have no answer. But I have an answer for myself. I have found that there is nothing wrong with me. There really isn’t. I am just unique. It took me seven years to figure that out, it took three circles of friends for me to realize who my real friends are. Many long conversations with my mom and just as many tears to help make school, a normally horrid experience. Something that is fun, and something I can manage. I have found friends that support me when things get hard, but don’t petty me. They have problems of their own. Actually, most of my friends are undiagnosed cases; they are just trying to belong in this crazy world of high school, and together we can. Someday I hope they can know what is different about them because not knowing where to get support, where to look for help, where you can belong is the most horrid feeling in the world.so please don't feel sorry for me. I have found my way. I well it was an adventure

Well that is my story.