The demon in my head

From about the age of 10, the education system pretty much wrote me off. Sure I could do maths, but reading and language were a mystery. I had teachers who defined me as backward, whilst others told me I would never survive Secondary School because I could not do dictation let alone read anything that was more complex than something that you'd find in a 6 year old's reading bag these days. I was not a child you would 'statement', but I was also not a child that anyone believed would get very far. Luckily I have a mother who thought otherwise.

Twenty-two years down the line and I have just completed my second year of a theology undergraduate course at the University of Cambridge. This is not my first degree either, I have already successfully completed an undergraduate masters and postgraduate masters in engineering. However, the last 22 years have been a continuous battle - not just with the words on the page, but with a demon telling me I can't and shouldn't be doing what I'm doing and how ever hard I try to prove it wrong, its still there.

This week was results week, never a good week in my life especially these past couple of years. I doubt and over analyse. I beat myself up over the smallest of errors and the most insignificant comments. I convince myself I did not work hard enough or put enough effort in. I am very rarely happy with the results that are written on the piece of paper, because however high or low the marks are, I have still failed.

All of this I know is stupid, and there are plenty of people who will read this and tell me to stop being stupid. But I do wonder somedays whether if my dyslexia had been diagnosed at the age of 10 things may have been different. Would I be sat here now, two years into a Cambridge degree? Would I have spent the last 22 years trying to prove a point?

Who knows, but maybe it is time to say whatever point it was I set out to prove I have now proved. But please forgive me if I occassionally still beat myself up.