dyslexia woes

so, I'm dyslexic.

have been for as long as I know.

I have always managed, so nothing was really done about it in school.

I remember it coming up once when talking to an academic advisor (aka guidance councelor) in university and discussing that the feeling was since I was also depressed, and I seemed to have my own coping mechanisms for the dyslexia, that we should focus on that.

Mostly my dyslexia has been something that kind of frustrates me, and often gives me fodder for laughing at myself. For instance, in the world of letters that I mix up, for some reason one thing that I will do often is write "reslut" instead of "result" - good times are had by all when I'm writing at the white-board...

But lately things have been different. The focus of my job has kind of shifted, and suddenly, instead of being someone who does a lot of giving of advice and consulting with folks, I'm someone who is expected to deliver a lot of written products, strategic products. It kind of changed without warning because the direction of the Branch kind of changed.

on one hand I'm very excited about the opportunity to learn lots of new skills. on the other hand this is one hell of a painful learning curve. And, just to make things more interesting, my dyslexia gets way worse when I'm stressed.

So, basically I'm pretty stressed about work right now. Filled with anxiety and yech. I think I haven't been performing up to expectations for the last while while I'm learning all this.

This being me, I do have a plan. Step one will be to go and get assessed and documented, which I think I do through my family doctor. If I'm documented then at least they can't penalize me for it, in fact, technically I think they are required by law to provide reasonable accomidations, which, in my case, is just going to be mostly talk to me about it, let me talk it out then figure out how to write it.

Step two (the terrifying step) will be to talk to my manager about it.

Step three will be to seek out resources that help with this kind of stuff, and do some actual considered work to figure out coping mechanisms that will help me.

Step two is the scariest because I'm just worried that it's going to look like an excuse or something, because I've been there for three years now, why hasn't it come up before, that kind of thing.

The truth is, I didn't realise what it was until a couple weeks ago, and I've been sorting through it in my head since then.

I certainly have some weirdness around this, not sure what that's about.

In fact, I am having some general life weirdness these days. I'm not depressed at all, but I'm not in great shape. I think it might be time for me to go back to a therapist. And of course, because of my inability to set priorities, apparently what goes through my head when I think about this is "when will I have time for that?!?!?!"

I think it's time for me to do some serious self-care. So, I'm going to have to figure out what that self-care involves, and what I need to give up to do it.

la la la...