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Hello. My name is Holly Kirk and I'm a dyslexic. Isn't that the way that all of these confessionals start? (Holly assures me that she didn't read my article until after she wrote the first half of hers. ed.). The initiation process to become a member of Dyslexics Anonymous. Considering that I want to go into law, that would not be a half bad society to create - so I can say I'm going to a DA meeting and everyone think that it's something that it really isn't. But I digress.
I am writing here today to talk about my fight with dyslexia and what it has done with my life. See, not many people will believe that I'm dyslexic. I was always bright - I don't even remember not being able to read. Books are my passion. I'll read anything - even the VCR manual. Twice. I guess I'm odd like that.
But not only can I read, I'm also very smart. I've always been tested at the upper end of the scale, 99th percentile usually. The only problem I ever had in elementary school was in spelling, but since I was smart, everyone just thought that I was lazy in that area. I will admit that I didn't apply myself there because it was boring, and nothing I ever did came out right.
Perhaps that wasn't the only problem. I was always in trouble for being lazy. I hated to do my schoolwork. Often it was just busy work and many times the homework confused me, whereas I knew the answers for certain if I didn't do it.
My brains carried me far. In the eighth grade I applied for and was accepted to the Math and Science Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA), actually named the 10th best school by Newsweek (I think). ASFA was a semi-public school - you had to audition to get in, but it was state-funded - with an unusual twist. If you lived too far away, you could live in the dorm. As my parents lived about two hours away, I moved off at the age of 14, a freshman in high school. The first few months were difficult, but once through them, I discovered a whole new world - one of acceptance and friendship, of bonding, and of lifelong relationships. At ASFA there was a whole new kind of world. Since about 10% of the school or more lived in the dorms, there was a unique bonding among the dorm students. Also, everyone went to ASFA because they wanted to do something, be someone. The relief of finding other kids like me that wanted to change the world for the better was immense.
All that was threatened by my dyslexia, although I did not know it at the time. For the first time, I had REAL struggles with my classes. I made poor grades in Trigonometry, and nothing I did seemed to make things better. I knew that to stay at ASFA I had to keep a 3.0 GPA in my Math and Science classes. After I bombed the first semester, and was put on probation, I became despondent, I didn't want to go to classes, and I was afraid that I would lose the only place where I fit in and had friends like me.
Then I got sick. I would stay out a day, then stay up late for a week trying to make it up, and then have to stay out another day. I felt that it was just a cold, and had no time to go to the doctor. Eventually, I was forced to go - to find out that I had bronchitis, sinusitis and laryngitis, all three. With the help of some caring relatives and good medicine, I struggled through my sophomore year in high school, making a 3.01 GPA and staying at ASFA.
But that was not the end to my struggles. My grades never really recovered. I would stay up late and work as hard as I could, but they never seemed good enough. I ran on little sleep and would make "stupid mistakes" where I would accidentally mix up numbers or write down notes wrong. The mistakes infuriated me and I studied even harder, stayed up later working on homework, and had friends tutor me so that I would get better. And eventually I did. By my senior year, I made all A's and B's, and felt that I could conquer the world.
So I went off to college. I applied and was accepted into The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. They gave me an academic scholarship: The President's Academic Scholarship. It is the highest academic scholarship they award! I had no fear - after conquering ASFA, I could beat anything! I planned to become a lawyer and GW was the perfect place to take a Bachelor's Degree…and then Law School. No problem.
Or so I thought.
Knowing that I am a social creature, I asked for and was placed in the dorm room with the greatest number of residents on campus - in a Thurston six. I had hoped that I would find at least one person that I would become friends with. But my hopes were not to be.
No matter how I tried, none of my roommates would accept me. I was too…against everything that they enjoyed. I refused to drink or do drugs, I did not sleep with every guy I met, and I knew that Greek life was not for me, and so I was alienated from my roommates, as that was all they were interested in. They were so interested in it, that I would often stay for days at a time with my aunt and uncle (That's Linda and me. ed.) who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, on the outskirts of DC, just to get away from the drunken shouts at 3 AM on weeknights and the sex that would happen, even while I was trying to study in the same room.
I did try to fit in with my roommates. I got blastingly drunk one night, and somehow lived to tell the tale - though I will never know how I survived the next morning. I even went to a fraternity party with two of my roommates. While they were off getting drunk, I met a great guy named Alex. (He and I married just recently. See some of our photos at http://3acesolutions.com/Kirk001.)
Now I am sure that you are wondering what this has to do with my dyslexia, but I assure you it has a whole lot. As I said before, I had the brains. But even those cannot help when there are too many stressors on the system. The great guy I was madly in love with, moved across the country to Sacramento California. And while I could shut the door against my roommates, I could not shut out their sounds and one thing that I have problems with is sounds. If there is noise, I focus in on it, especially if it is in the next room, or I don't hear exactly what is going on.
I eventually had to move out of that dorm and into my aunt Linda and uncle Glenn's apartment. I really didn't want to move off campus, but I just couldn't study at school and life in the dorm with all of the noise was becoming unbearable. Alex left DC and moved back to Sacramento CA at the end of the Fall Semester in 1999. (That's a long story.) So I moved off-campus at Christmas break and just didn't move back.
It was difficult for me to concentrate at school and even at home I couldn't sleep at night or concentrate on my studies. This led me to just getting further and further behind. Not only were my studies suffering, but I had really bad mood swings and was always so tired that Linda and Glenn decided that something had to be done. They started me on a series of appointments with all kinds of doctors.
I had been seeing Dr. Linda Fay (a teaching Doctor at Georgetown University Hospital) ever since I moved to the DC area. She ran a bunch of tests: allergies, thyroid, diabetes (it runs in my family). Nothing turned up that could cause my problems. I did have some long-term infections that were found when I first moved to DC, but those had been treated and cured within a few months and that had been a while ago (I hate going to the doctor!). We were at a complete loss to understand what was going on.
After those test came back negative, we thought that the difficulties might just come from lack of rest, even though I was sleeping 9 or 10 hours a day. Glenn has sleep apnea, so we thought I might also have some form of it. Dr. Fay referred me to the Georgetown Sleep Clinic and I had an overnight sleep study done. Unfortunately, we had no luck there. Even though I was somewhat restless and woke up several times in the night, the doctors felt that it was not bad enough to indicate a physical problem. So I went back to Dr. Fay for another consultation. She, Linda, and I talked it over Dr. Fay felt that I had stress related insomnia and referred me to Dr. Starbuck, a Clinical Neuropsychologist with Georgetown Neuropsychology Associates, so that we could figure out what was stressing me and how to fix it. I took an all-day-long battery of tests. After two weeks, we went back for the results. Dr. Starbuck said that I was very high on the IQ tests (which I knew already), but had some problems with concentration, perception and perception-related memory, which she said was caused by stress related insomnia, which was why I went to her in the first place! She suggested some counseling and training, but said that there was a low probably of it helping.
So we were stuck. I was having real problems, but some of the best medical experts in Washington DC couldn't give me any idea of what was causing them or how to treat them.
I finished the Fall semester, my first at GW, with a very disappointing C average (a 2.60). I got a warning that I was in danger of losing my scholarship if I didn't bring my grades up to a 3.0 GPA average. I struggled through the Spring semester. Linda and Glenn tried to help me study and Alex helped from California through long-distance and over the internet. It helped, but I still finished with only a 2.85 average - better, but still not good enough. I got another letter from the Student Finance Office. If something didn't change, I would lose my scholarship after one more semester.
I got a Summer job in the Vice President's office at the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union (HERE). Then on the 4th of July, Alex came to visit me and just didn't take the plane ride home. Linda and Glenn didn't want us to have to live in an apartment in a bad section of town in DC (what we could afford), so they let us share their apartment. Alex got a good job and everything was going well, but I was still always tired and stressed. Also, I knew that at the end of the Summer, I was going back to school and I had to get much better grades than I had been able to the year before.
School started. I had some very good classes, but the workload was very heavy, I just couldn't seem to stay caught up. At mid-term, I spent days cramming and reading in preparation for the tests. Everyone was helping me study and work on the things I had to memorize. It helped, but not enough, I had mostly C averages on my exams. Now I only had one-half of a semester to pull my grades up and I was already working as hard as I could.
Back in the first part of the Summer, Linda, Glenn and I were at a yard sale in Manassas where we found a book which worked out to be nothing short of a miracle. Glenn is Dyslexic, so we keep our eyes open for books that deal with Dyslexia and there was a book called Dyslexia: A Scientific Watergate. We had never heard of the author, but the price was only 25 cents, so Linda and I bought it and gave it to Glenn. He read the blurb on the jacket and said it might be interesting. When we got home, he put it in the box of books he has stacked aside to read. I didn't think any more about it.
About two weeks before my mid-terms, Glenn and I were sitting at the table after dinner. He was telling about this book that he had been reading, the one from the yard sale. He said that as he read it he became more and more convinced that its author, Dr. Levinson, was right on track with a theory about what caused Dyslexia. I knew that Glenn got confused when trying to remember numbers and lists and that he had trouble when you gave him driving directions and stuff like that, but he started telling me about other difficulties that I didn't even know about and that he had never linked to his Dyslexia. As we talked, I got very excited. This stuff sounded just like me, too! Then Glenn showed me some illustrations of the drawings and writing by Dr. Levinson's Dyslexic patients. I was completely amazed! I went and got some old stuff that I had written and saved in an album. It looked exactly like those illustrations! The more we talked, the more convinced we became that I was Dyslexic, too! We called in Linda and Alex, and told them what Glenn and I had just realized. We decided that I had to see this Dr. Levinson as soon as possible!
The next day, Linda called and made an appointment for me. Dr. Levinson's office is in New York and it was the middle of November before the four of us could drive up there, about two weeks after mid-term exams.
When I went up to Dr. Levinson's clinic, Alex, Linda and Glenn went with me. Dr. Levinson and his assistant gave me a bunch of tests. After a break for lunch, Dr Levinson had us all come in for a family interview, during which he gave me a couple more tests. Then came the verdict! I am Dyslexic with related Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Dr. Levinson prescribed a whole bunch of medications and dietary supplements. I was to start them one-at-a-time over the next few days, slowly increasing the dosage over time to make sure that I had no reactions to any of the medications. We thanked Dr. Levinson, and went straight to a drugstore, so I could start the first one that afternoon.
By the time for final exams, I had started all of the medicines and some of the supplements. It was amazing! I could sit and read really boring textbooks for 7 or 8 hours at a time, with very good comprehension and recall. Memorization was unbelievably easy! I didn't need anyone to drill me on the stuff that would be on the exams and I could actually remember it on demand. I was able to face the tests without all of the stress that I had suffered from before. I didn't "lock-up" during the tests and the material came back to me easily. For example, before I had taken the medicine, the mid-term for my Introduction to Asian Humanities class was my hardest. I had studied for days, without actually being able to read all of the material. When I took the test, I barely finished the mid-term on time, and only made a B-. For the same class, my experience with the final was completely different. I was able to catch up on all the reading in just a few days, and even though I arrived forty minutes late for that exam (traffic on I-66 is always problematical), I still remained relatively calm and in control. I finished before the exam time was up and actually made an A- on it!
I felt that I had done very well on all of the exams. I was RIGHT! I got all A's and B's, and enough A's to pull my GPA up far enough to keep my scholarship and make the Dean's list for the semester! My GPA for the semester was a 3.55, which pulled my overall GPA all the way up to a 3.01! And this all within 4 weeks of seeing Dr. Levinson!
Now it is almost a year later. I am a second semester Junior at GW. During this last summer, I married Alex, we went on a cruise for our honeymoon. Also this summer, I took a two and a half week seminar at Oxford University in England comparing the Constitutional Law of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. After coming back to the United States, I had to write a fifteen to twenty page paper on an aspect of EU or UK constitutional law to receive credit for the class. It was no problem. I finished my paper on time, and received an A for the course.
I am still a Dyslexic, but, with Dr Levinson's treatment, I am more able to accomplish my academic and career goals. I don't have nearly as much stress when I interact with other people, especially in large groups. I can sleep better and rest better, now that I am on my medicine. There may be a question in your mind that maybe what happened was just that I "grew up" and learned to deal with life and life's stresses better. That did happen, but believe me that is not ALL that happened. Whenever I forget to take my medications, I am reminded how much difference they make. I almost "revert" to my previous self. I have difficulty concentrating, I mishear things, and simple tasks leave me so frustrated that I will blow up over nothing - in effect, my mood swings will return. Dr. Levinson's treatment is allowing me to be happy by reducing the effects of my Dyslexia. That is really a miracle!
Glenn often says that finding that book Dyslexia: A Scientific Watergate just in time to save my college career was an incredible stroke of good luck. Linda and I remind him that the timing wasn't "good luck," it was a blessing from God. Without that book, I would have lost everything that I have ever wanted to do and be. We all thank both God AND Dr. Levinson.
Holly Beth Kirk
Summer 2000
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