Dyslexia in Adulthood: Stop Sabotaging Your Success!

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

I am super curious to hear how this applies to your life...

[@IstandwithGaza111]

Do you have an email? Arije am also dyslexic person and I really need a help.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

@IstandwithGaza111 Here, you will find everything you need to know: dehaas1on1.com. Just for the sake of clarity and because your user name is "I stand with Gaza," I am living in Jerusalem, so you would be supporting the Israeli economy if we started to work together.

[@BobrLovr]

​@@ArijeAikedeHaas damn now that is a good guy

[@JoeBuddy19]

Wow!!!!! My whole life!!!! I’m in tears. I feel seen

[@Jackson-gp1ks]

I’m 24 years old, this same depression come over me when I was a kid. This video made reminded me, I’m not alone in this world. It’s a big sigh of relief. 🙏🏻💪🏻

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

So glad to hear that!

[@jamesmoore9511]

I coined my own phrase "failure avoidance". As a result I frequently would never quite finish things I was doing so any negative things people said about my work didn't count because it wasn't finished yet.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Now that you mention it. There might also be some "failure avoidance" going on regarding the frequency of my uploads 😅

[@wkt2506]

Ah this type of thing is so interesting! ... I think the patterns of behaviour and psychology around the dyslexic experience need to be unpacked a lot more. Ideally that would be via research but initially I think we just need to have more conversations online. But how? & when? It's not just the dyslexia but how our experiences then impact our behaviour in other ways .... forming habits where we don't even recognise the reason is dyslexia because we're so used to it we don't 'see' it. I guess I mean such as various accommodations, avoidance and emotional responses we do without thinking.... And may not associate with dyslexia at all ...but dyslexia is the root cause. Then there is the impact that can have in work, social and home environments.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

@@wkt2506 We should definitely have these kinds of conversations and of course research would be ideal. There is research done on psychological phenomena that strongly relate to dyslexia, but initially people didn't think of these issues as related. With my videos I am trying to make this connection, to take what we already know from psychology and make it more applicable to dyslexia. For example the masking behavior in my last video and how dyslexia connects to Karl Jung's model of the psyche...

[@T_Sagar17]

I like to watch your videos. I feel like there is someone who understands the real feelings dyslexic people and how they face the society.

[@RondomName9277]

This was the single most relatable thing I've ever seen in terms of my behavior

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

That is how I felt when I discovered this research. It is quite sobering. 😅

[@Annalorraine2x]

Same finely

[@RTFK]

I think the biggest hurdle on this topic that I am working to get over is a need for my university teachers to acknowledge how damn hard I work. I was always dismissed and put down by teachers for failures and now I seek validation from teachers. I am working my ass off here getting straight A's and still being told by my teachers that I am lazy because I ask for an extension or ask a question they put in a long email I couldn't read. When I was a kid I would shut down and stop putting in effort if my teachers disrespected me and I still struggle with that now. I'll just stop caring about the course or about putting in work until my partner tells me off and gets me back on track. Its a bad pattern but I think the worse pattern is psychology professors still spouting the bullshit rhetoric that dyslexics are lazy and incapable of high academic success. Then at the end of the course I walk out with an A+ and 2 middles fingers pointed at the teaching staff

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Stopping to care about a course would certainly be a ride to experiencing failure once more. I'm glad to hear that you have people in your life who get you back on track.

[@wkt2506]

Here is another example - bad earlier and school experiences lead to an enhanced need for external validation... Maybe for some dyslexics this could become extreme .... We need to discuss this stuff more openly as dyslexia-related (Like the Autistic community does). AA de Haas, I wonder if you could do a video with a few numbers about Dyslexia on social media Vs Autism? Eg comparing the # hits you get on those hashtags on different platforms. I find the Autism community inspiring and they have done a LOT of self-advocacy, but I am a teensy bit jealous. When I try to discuss with dyslexics they don't seem to be aware what I'm talking about....

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

@@wkt2506 Right, that makes sense. From a creator's perspective, it makes more sense to create content around the topic of autism than it does for dyslexia. This is because a lot more people are looking for information about autism, and if there is more demand, then creators are seeking to fill that need. The interesting thing is that dyslexia is actually a lot more common than autism; however, dyslexic adults don't seem to look for information about dyslexia all that much, which might go back to the idea that they aren't really aware that many things that are happening in their lives are due to their childhood experiences surrounding their learning differences.

[@Leafawn]

⁠@@ArijeAikedeHaasI like what @wkt2506 said about increased need for external validation. Would also be interesting to explore that in a video. Did you do that already? (btw this is Lucy from London)

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

@@Leafawn Hi Lucy :) That also sounds like a really good idea for a future video. And I have not really talked about it yet. So I added to my list of future videos.

[@NoFearReading]

Great video! I stayed back in third grade because I could not read (dyslexia/APD) and worked hard to fight "repetition disorder" my whole life - never had a name for it, just knew it was there. I barely graduated high school and joined the Army, where I started to figure things out. I taught myself coping skills and began to realize the condition that made life so difficult may actually contain some advantages. I ended up winning awards and being in an elite unit. I decided to get out and go to college and help children like me. When I walked onto college campus I was terrified. I had jumped out of planes in the middle of the night and done all types of things that would frighten most people. None of that frightened me - college did. I was going back into the classroom - where so much humiliation had occurred years before. I felt "compelled" to be afraid, to run, to quit before I started. Guess it was "repetition compulsion." Thats not what happened. I simply did not care, if I had to ask a question I asked it, if I had to do more work than the "normal" students I did it, I developed systems and approaches that allowed me to flourish in the classroom. I spent three years in the Army to get the money to go to college: I was not going to fail. I did not want to "repeat" what had always happened in the classroom before the Army: embarrassment, humiliation, and failure. I graduated college with a degree in elementary education and became an award winning teacher and now run a program that teaches dyslexic children how to read. I never had a name for what I (actually all of us) was fighting - thanks! Also, thanks for all you are doing to educate and inspire us.

[@royeastland-drawing5505]

This is a really useful video. It's good to focus on some of the psychological issues created by having dyslexia (not just on the obvious problems with reading and writing). It's amazing how much of our adult self is influenced, or driven, by childhood difficulties. I think it's good to acknowledge how deep rooted a lot of our problems are. I'm finding that I've only recently started to see the connections with how specific events played out for me at school and how they've caused me to think of myself as fundamentally stupid, even now. Online forms are a regular cause of intense worry for me. My tendency to catastrophise as I'm grappling with them is thanks to my school experiences, I'm sure. I can't go back and fix the past (or those dreadful teachers!), but it's useful to try to see how events back then created consequences that are still playing out now. I think your videos are excellent.

[@JamesBerry-my5rq]

This is so relatable to me. I only just realised that I’m stuck in a pattern of failure when working. I find that I get overwhelmed when I lose track of how to finish a project or piece of work. I don’t ask for help because I think that makes me appear stupid and I should know what to do. So I find something within the project, something that I know how to do but might not be the highest priority or the most important thing, and I fixate on doing that to a very high standard. I work extremely hard and for long hours so no-one can say I’m being lazy. But while I’m working so hard on the thing I can do there are more important things that aren’t getting done that sabotage the project as a whole. Then when the part of project that I should have done comes back to bite me I feel I can’t explain to anyone why I didn’t do it and I can’t ask for help so it all comes down around me and I let people down. It’s so ingrained that sometimes I even know I’m doing it but I can’t stop it.

[@JamesBerry-my5rq]

A related thing to the above is to do with asking questions. I hate asking questions because it feels like I should know what to do. So I avoid asking questions. But I need to ask lots of questions for reassurance and to make sure I am doing the right thing and I’m working on the right thing and that I haven’t missed something. I think this is because I can’t rely on myself and my memory to get those things right 100% of the time so I need to check what I think with someone else to make sure it’s right. So I either ask questions all the time that make me feel stupid and annoys my boss because I know the answer and I’m right 95% of the time. Or I don’t ask questions and I get very stressed and overwhelmed because I don’t know what to do or I’m constantly second guessing what I’m doing and so I’m very slow in completing jobs and that stresses me out too. I’m an engineer so if I get things wrong 5% of the time those are major issues that will be found out and come back to bite me. I need to get everything right 100% of the time to be good at my job. Even if I get things wrong 1% of the time that will be found out and pulled up and I’ll be asked why I got it wrong.

[@craigmerkey8518]

Thank you for the amazing videos, I look forward to your content. As someone who has an LD, I came to realized not speaking up and asking for help was one form of self sabotage. I present as a typical person and since my processing obstacles and unpredictable recall are not observable, a casual observer has no frame of reference. In keeping quiet my motivation is avoiding irritating tired spontaneous advice. I understand who is motivated with action, and who wants to share opinions.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Yes not speeking up will certainly prevent you from receiving the help you need and then failure becomes more likely to repeat itself. Definitely a good thing to realize and to keep an eye on.

[@Bluebell-17n]

Thank you this video has helped so much

[@tb8827]

Thanks!

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

That’s so nice! I really appreciate the support ☺️

[@hannahteddyschachter7407]

Thank you for this! 😊

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

You're so welcome!

[@mdstudio5903]

You just explained my life & my problems with solution😮,Thank you!

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Happy to help!

[@T_Sagar17]

Does anyone know the any international society who help and understand the peoples who are suffering from the dyslexic?

[@andshewas296]

I've been lucky, I always had someone to help me get through life. I could never fill out paperwork I don't like questions I let a lot of things slide, I don't care. So far so good.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Thanks for sharing!!

[@yurytitarciuc4540]

I have a question why do people tell that I walk strangely is it because I am Dyslexic.

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

No, I do not think so however, dyslexia sometimes also comes with dyspraxia and that might be the reason. If you want to learn more about it take a look here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGmte5uImJqDrJY

[@yurytitarciuc4540]

@@ArijeAikedeHaas I do not have the symptoms but I heard people talk about way I walk. I am Dyslexic so I thought that was the reason.

[@xaawosoomaali1800]

I'm crying 😢😢😢😢😢i have dyslexia so help me exam failed two years my life sad I'm 22 years

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

You're definitely not alone. Feel free to schedule an appointment with me if you need to talk. Link is in the description box of the video

[@ronaldwhite6476]

How can I tell if I am Dyslexia or just stupid ?

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

Back in the day, you would only be diagnosed with dyslexia if you had an average or above-average intelegence. Now, intelegence, most of the time not a criterion anymore. Meaning there are dyslexics with normal high and low intelegence. That being said, dyslexia is a more specific problem, while low intelligence would effect all kinds of areas.

[@BobrLovr]

I dont think I'm stupid I think I'm just below average enough for it to not make sense to pick me over the average person for anything

[@ArijeAikedeHaas]

We all have strengths and weaknesses. A person without any talents is a true rarity. You might be below average but you might also disregard your more positive sides.