# Reading problems (dyslexia?)



## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

The thing that bothers me most about this crap condition is my complete inability to memorize, concentrate on and retain information --

The one thing I really love to do is being seriously affected, reading.
Reading is difficult for the following reasons..

-I seem to lose concentration after each sentence continues onto another line - it is not as if I discontinue reading, I just don't understand what is going on and I don't remember.

-I forget what is going on, so I'm really reading until I forget what is going on - I can't connect instances and its impossible for me to summarize a book along the way because I CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT.

-I don't understand sentences that aren't incredibly simple. I know the meaning of all the words but when they are thrown together it seems like chaos and I have to read a sentence over and over before I grasp it.

-Hyperfocusing on everything leads me to think more about the words' sound than their meaning. I think this is what throws me off, not sure.

-I have trouble learning words not previously known. I actually became obsessed with this last year and made a whole notebook dedicated to my vocabulary, writing definitions to all the words I didn't know. It didn't really help at all.

I've considered the idea of dyslexia as the problem, but I don't have some of the major symptoms and I didn't have problems as a child.


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## peacedove (Aug 15, 2004)

I'm always telling my boyfriend I think I'm dyslexic. He doesn't believe me cuz I don't see letters backwards. But I know there's other forms of it... not sure what they are though.

I have the same problem with reading. It sucks. I keep buying books and never finishing them. I read a sentence and I'll forget what I just read. So I have to read it again... and again. Sometimes I'm able to finish a book... most often not.

I can remember that The Catcher in the Rye was my favorite book, but I can't remember what it was about. I know I felt like I related to the main character... but I don't remember how.

Man I just took a glance around the room and spotted like six books laying around that I attempted to read recently, but just couldn't. The topics are stuff I'm into, but for some reason I couldn't get very far into them.

Also, this is what really makes me think I have dyslexia... I don't see letters backwards, but when it comes to maps I am so lost. Someone will be explaining a room to me or roads to get somewhere and I get so confused and so I ask them to draw it out, and I'll draw it out too, but our drawings will be from like opposite views. I don't know, maybe it's nothing but it's happened quite a few times.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

Yeah, I have trouble visualizing things too. Directions are impossible. I've always been bad with them. 
I'll see your 5 unread books and raise you 20. I just realized I haven't read more than the first chapter of most of my books.


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## Guest (Nov 25, 2005)

In the past few years my typing has changed. I constantly reverse letters and have to correct them. I can't seem to correct this because my brain will tell me to type cna for can. My brain thinks the n is an a and vice versa, just for a second. It's strange, I was never 'dyslexic' before.
fingertingle, I also went through a period of many years when I couldn't read. Were you always like that? I know a girl who is very bright, does well in school, but hates to read. Won't read anymore than she has to and rarely reads a whole book. She loved 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

beachgirl said:


> In the past few years my typing has changed. I constantly reverse letters and have to correct them. I can't seem to correct this because my brain will tell me to type cna for can. My brain thinks the n is an a and vice versa, just for a second. It's strange, I was never 'dyslexic' before.
> fingertingle, I also went through a period of many years when I couldn't read. Were you always like that? I know a girl who is very bright, does well in school, but hates to read. Won't read anymore than she has to and rarely reads a whole book. She loved 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath.


I always had trouble remembering books after I completed them, but I never had trouble actually reading them or remembering what was going on while reading them.


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## jft (Jan 10, 2005)

Reading was a blow for me, for I was a voracious reader before onset. I reentered college a year afer onset and found that I literally had to read papers, books etc twice if not three times over while I was symptomatic. The problem was twofold. One was the damn lights making the words white and blurry, the other was my cognitive symptoms messing with the concentration. I too played with the idea of a reading disorder, but knew that when I was not real dr'rd that I could read fine. I wound up doing most of my homework in the mornings and attended classes that had natural lighting, and took no more night classes. My college has exit graduation testing, and when it came to taking the four hour exam I had to quit half way through because of my vision and wound up being penalized 6 semester credits. But they say there is always a good side to everything, in this case I graduated magna cum laude ONLY because I had to read everything twice and concentrate harder than I otherwise would have, and when I needed recall it came fluidly. I found too that after the first year that reading came easier for me, I just had to adjust or back off if I was too symptomatic. I had to forego grad school though because the research was too intense for my eyes and reading, way too much reading in the back corners of libraries.

It is interesting one of you made coment in this context on maps and directional things etc. When I am symptomatic I lose these abilities as well. It is a vision thing, but also an internal temporary shut down of understanding, processing and concentration. Everything just seems scattered in my head. I look at a map, or a text, or blueprint, or even directions to putting something together and my head just draws a blank, as if soemthing is trying to fire up there but it just cannot for a while. Almost like I cannot connect from vision to brain. Just like being stoned and reading a map. .Same thing happenss when reading. Same dynamic involved maybe.. But it is only temporary, which says that it is not organic me thinks..
jft


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## Guest (Nov 26, 2005)

yeah, it's dp that you are talking about. The reading issues have nothing to do with dyslexia, eventhough they are similar when described. The problem is that our dp causes some of us to remember only the things that we are currently thinking about. fingertingle said that she would feel disoriented after each sentance (after the beginning! of each sentence to be precise).. so according to me she had to DROP the sentance she just remmebered in detail reading, the moment she started remembering the next one! Anycase, I have about thirty books on my desk that have never been read fully.


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## sunflower (Jun 7, 2005)

Fingertingle & Beachgirl, I have exactly same problem as you. I know for sure I`m not dyslexic because I`m 37, graduated University at 25 without any problem and had an active life till about a year ago. I never had these symptoms before, enjoyed reading and didn`t make mistakes while writing(the ones beachgirl describes; I`m not reversing only letters but numbers too). 
I wandered many times what`s wrong with me but never thought at them as being part of dr/dp but of depression. 
Did any medicine help? Did you observe a remission of this problem under a specifical med?


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## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

I couldnt posssibly describe it beter than that..i got EXACTLY!!!! same thing and it breaks my heart cuz i really loved to read when i was...here


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

sunflower said:


> Fingertingle & Beachgirl, I have exactly same problem as you. I know for sure I`m not dyslexic because I`m 37, graduated University at 25 without any problem and had an active life till about a year ago. I never had these symptoms before, enjoyed reading and didn`t make mistakes while writing(the ones beachgirl describes; I`m not reversing only letters but numbers too).
> I wandered many times what`s wrong with me but never thought at them as being part of dr/dp but of depression.
> Did any medicine help? Did you observe a remission of this problem under a specifical med?


I've tried Adderall when I suspected ADD -was definitely fun- though I would say it worsened my concentration when it came to reading --- writing was MUCH easier and quicker for me though! I don't know.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

ft, did you have trouble learning to read as a kid? Because if you are dyslexic it would have evinced itself from an early age.

I don't know, this sounds like a concentration problem tp me. I have a very good memory for what I've read but I often read things out of order. I watch movies out of order too, skipping around scenes. With books I often start with the last chapter and work backwards, and/ or skip around.


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## fingertingle (Sep 29, 2005)

littlecrocodile said:


> ft, did you have trouble learning to read as a kid? Because if you are dyslexic it would have evinced itself from an early age.
> 
> I don't know, this sounds like a concentration problem tp me. I have a very good memory for what I've read but I often read things out of order. I watch movies out of order too, skipping around scenes. With books I often start with the last chapter and work backwards, and/ or skip around.


No, I had no problems reading as a child.


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## socognito116 (Jan 25, 2014)

I Feel The Exact Same Way


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