Liz Evans on the mental health implications of dyslexia.
When it comes to dyslexia, most people will tell you that it’s about difficulties with reading and writing. They’ll probably know someone with dyslexia too, because it’s one of the most common learning differences. Often said with a chuckle about bad spelling, there’s still a misconception that people with dyslexia just aren’t as clever as others. What we rarely hear about though, is the emotional toll dyslexia takes, and the silent impact it can have on your mental health.
I’m a late diagnosed dyslexic. I was diagnosed in my 40s, and the assessment process was tough. It took me a long time to find the courage, yes courage, to go and get an assessment. There was something really vulnerable about dropping all my masking and coping strategies and laying bare everything I’d been trying to cover up all my life.
Give me a challenge on something different, like learning to ride a motorcycle, and I’m all over it. But ask me to write something in front of someone, and I’m out the door. As far back as I can remember, there was always a narrative that I couldn’t spell. I remember my primary school teacher jumping up and down on her chair shouting (in a playful way) There is only one E in Evans. I know it was meant kindly, but I was mortified. Spelling tests were torturous. My poor dad spent hours and hours practising spelling with me. I was so anxious about not getting them right that there was never a question of not practising them. There were tears and frustration and exhaustion, then a night of anxiety and stress, worrying that I’d get them wrong. I’d go into school for the test, only for the teacher to do the spelling list out of sequence, and then I had no hope. I also remember being made to stand on my chair if we scored below a certain number of spellings. I know (or hope I know) that this doesn’t happen any more, but this was the start of my inner voice telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I had to work harder, and that I simply wasn’t as capable as everyone else.
Fast forward to secondary school, and I mastered the art of hiding. I hated speaking and reading aloud. In English, we learned Shakespeare. I struggle with modern English, so Shakespearean English? I just had no chance. I used to sit in class waiting for my turn to read, feeling sick, trying to remember how to say the words I couldn’t read, as others before me read them with ease. I can still feel the anxiety, my heart jumping out of my chest, wanting the earth to swallow me whole.
And still no one picked up on my dyslexia.
By the time I got to university and into my early work as an OT, I struggled with everything written. There were other parts of my dyslexia that had a big impact too, although I didn’t know it at the time.
So do I think my dyslexia is a superpower? No, I don’t. Calling it a superpower somehow lessens and negates the impact it has on me. It makes it sound like something film-like, but superheroes aren’t real, and this is very real. Now, in my late forties, I can finally say I appreciate the strengths my dyslexia brings, but the hard bits still make life harder than it needs to be. And life can be hard enough.
Getting my diagnosis has been huge. So, for those who think it’s just a label that kids and adults don’t need, let me tell you, we find other labels for ourselves instead. I’d much rather be labelled dyslexic than thick.
One of the biggest impacts of my dyslexia on my mental health has been poor self-esteem, believing I wasn’t as good as others, and all the missed opportunities, shying away from things because I wasn’t good enough, and embarrassment over my spelling and reading. It’s no surprise that people with dyslexia are more likely to experience anxiety and depression. I lived that reality long before I knew why. What I didn’t realise until my assessment was how much my working memory difficulties affected me. The extra effort nearly everything took (and still takes) left me exhausted in ways I couldn’t explain.
And what has interested me more recently, in my own work and life, is the impact of dyslexia on my parenting. There’s a whole generation of us out there, diagnosed and undiagnosed, who are only now beginning to realise how dyslexia shapes the way we parent. Just like being autistic or having ADHD can influence how someone relates to and supports their children, so can being dyslexic. It can affect everything from how we help with homework to how we talk about learning, mistakes, and self-worth. But it also brings empathy, creativity, and patience–qualities that our children benefit deeply from.
If you’re supporting a dyslexic child or adult, the most powerful thing you can do is to believe in them. Notice the effort, not just the outcome. Be curious rather than critical when things take longer. Understand that what looks like avoidance or carelessness might actually be fear or exhaustion. Offer reassurance before correction. And celebrate the creativity and problem-solving that dyslexic minds often bring, even when the words on the page don’t match the brilliance in their head.
We need to be better at recognising how dyslexia manifests itself. Not just the obvious signs, but the quiet, hidden struggles of those who mask. We need to diagnose much earlier, and we need to support reading and writing so dyslexics can share their thinking, ideas, and knowledge. I’m not ashamed to say that I used AI to help me write this. I find the judgement around using AI really difficult. AI gives me a voice through writing. I write or speak it, and then AI helps make sense of my words, reducing what would have been hours of work. [A competent editor can help, too–Ed]
We also need a curriculum that moves away from seeing reading, writing, and spelling as the ultimate markers of intelligence. Charities such as Made by Dyslexia are working hard to show what dyslexics bring to the workplace. But if we destroy their mental health on the road to employment, we’re missing out on their skills and genius, and the recovery from that damage takes a long time.
Most of all, we need to let children, young people, and adults play to their strengths. We live in a neurodiverse world. We need all types of brains for our communities to survive, progress, and thrive. A school curriculum that values difference and the myriad skills that diverse brains bring is one that builds confidence, not breaks it.
We don’t need to fix dyslexic people–we need to fix the systems and the people that make them doubt themselves. Dyslexia doesn’t just go away when we finish school, it comes with us into new roles, into work, parenting, and beyond. Poor mental health doesn’t lead to good outcomes, and the world needs dyslexic brains. It shouldn’t be that we have to survive a school system that doesn’t fit us, or one that fails to understand and value what we bring. We need dyslexic people to leave school with their mental health intact so they can go on to be the amazing human beings they are.
Who on earth came up with the name dyslexia anyway? It’s so hard to spell—ironic, really.