Disability Narratives
Personal impact
Video clip: Although growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia affected occasionally Ruth’s confidence, it did not stop her seeking career progression.
Since I've known about it, it was quite a relief to know that there was a label for how I was feeling about the challenges to, to work. I, I think it affected me more before I knew. In that, when I was younger, I was very conscious that it was much harder - it seemed to me to be much harder for me to do any work than it was for anyone else. And that, looking back - was about my poor spelling.
But I think, you know, people - I remember other people studying, or writing reports and things, where I realised I was spending - If they were spending a day, I'd be spending two or three days. That sort of thing. And I, and I couldn't understand why it was always taking me longer. And that was very frustrating. And also it didn't help with confidence. Now, I don't know that it takes me so much longer. But - I'm still aware that I think - I feel as though I'm slower than other people. I now know that I'm not necessarily thicker than other people. But when I didn't realise what the diagnosis was, I used to think I was thick. And that didn't help in terms of career, ambition, confidence, those sorts of things. So I always used to think 'oh, you know, they can do it but I wouldn't be able to'. So, my career progressed really because - Don't know if it's an attribute or not, probably not. But I get bored quite quickly. So I would be in a job, most of my upward progression was in [name of a previous employer], and I stayed about a year, eighteen months, in a job and then I would move on. And naturally, most often, that was upwards.