You may not know it to look at me, but some days, I wake up an empress. The transition happens without warning, on any day of the week, in any month of the year. I simply wake up royal, the world at my feet, my fate in my hands. Sometimes, my royalty lasts all day. Quite often, though, it expires early, leaving me feeling breathless or, more accurately, deflated. It is disconcerting, every time. Still, I prefer those puffed-up empress days to the days when I wake up just myself, and the world is out of control. On those days, anything can happen, and I can’t stop any of it. Those are the days when it’s hard to leave the house. Because what if? What if my cat gets out? What if the dog gets out of his crate? What if the oak tree falls, smashing the loft? What if my daughter is ill at school and can’t reach me? Cell phone batteries die, after all. What if my husband spins out on the road? What if he’s hit? What if, what if, what if? On those days, I have two choices: sit very still, holding every possible thread, or try, somehow, to match the earth’s rotation, stopping all bad actions before they can begin. Both choices are simultaneously exhausting and futile. So, for the most part, I spend those days waiting to put myself to bed so that I might wake up an empress again.
I have been an anxious person most of my life. The funny thing about anxiety is that no matter how long you have it, you never get used to it. That makes sense, when you consider that anxiety is essentially the absence of comfort. Worry at this level won’t even let you sit still. It makes sleep either fitful or impossible and can make your muscles feel like they’ve run a race because you’ve held them in a clench all day. To relax takes conscious effort when you’re anxious, because the impulse to do something! is all-consuming to the point of becoming unbearable. It has taken me forty-three years to learn to look for safe situations where I can thrive, and to avoid those chaotic circumstances that make my brain feel combustible. And if I’m having a decidedly non-empress day, when I’ve had to endure situations that, for me, are not remotely okay, I end my day with a book. A book is the very definition of a controlled reality. No matter what happens in a plot, I can observe at a distance, and then put the book, the characters, and the feelings, neatly and safely away.
When I started working with kids who are dyslexic, I immediately felt I was among my kind. Sure, there were those kids, walking miracles, for whom a reading disorder was no big thing. It did not define them, sadden them, or even make them anxious. They were fine, except for the dyslexia. But the other group, the larger group, did not take to being “different” with the same ease as the walking miracles. It bothered them. They stuttered and stumbled through text when asked to read in class, and they were always asked to read. They took spelling tests with no understanding at all as to which letter might make a certain sound and no concept as to which, if any, rule might apply. They knew that their neighbors could see their nonsensical answers, and it filled them with shame. They saw no patterns in the words or information presented to them, and so life was chaotic, every day.
When I think of myself at eight or nine, I don’t remember a kid who acted out at school. My anxiety was not due to anything academic. The seed of my worry was formed by chemicals in my brain and planted more in illness than in shame. So, as a child, I did not act out. Instead, I pulled inward, as many girls do, and started my dangerous slide down the path of life-long anxiety. But school did not bother me. I can only imagine what goes on inside of a child for whom school is the stressor, a place that they are taken to day after day after day. Where is their release, I wonder? What is their book at the end of a long and horrible non-empress day?
For those with language-based disorders, even a chat with a friend can add stress to a day. Something that many of us look forward to is pockmarked with endless pitfalls for these kids. Word choice and grammar are difficult. Speech may come slowly, which fast-talking peers may find off-putting, or worse, take as a sign of low intelligence. Not surprisingly, children in this situation will often go quiet and withdrawal. They are, in a sense, always alone with their thoughts, which refuse to come out clearly when they speak or write. I know from working with these kids that alone in your own head is a lonely place to be. I also know what fear can do when it’s allowed to sit and steep.
Fear and anxiety are versions of stress, and we know from multiple studies that long-term stress can change and harm the human brain. Heightened levels of cortisol, when sustained over time, have been linked to numerous health issues, from obesity to insomnia to memory issues. Children with dyslexia already have a “different” brain, but there is no upside to an anxious brain as there can be to a dyslexic one. Stress is rarely a strong contributor to creative, out-of-the-box thinking, as dyslexia can be. In fact, stress keeps you very much in the box, because you are too afraid to peek outside.
For a child with dyslexia, school may not be the safe space that administrators and educators work so hard to create. Take a moment and think of your own greatest fear, whether that’s spiders or snakes, illness or public speaking, and try to put words in its place. It is generally possible to stay away from spiders and snakes. We can monitor our health, and we can choose a professional path that does not involve public speaking. But it is impossible to avoid words. They are everywhere. Words carry information and define relationships. New theories and discoveries come to us through words, and we often choose partners and leaders based on what they say. Try as one may, there is no escaping language. Still, there is no need to sentence children who struggle with words to a life of only lonely and scary non-empress days. We can do better for them. We should do better. Please visit the International Dyslexia Association to find out how we can: https://dyslexiaida.org/the-dyslexia-stress-anxiety-connection/.