I’m not diagnosed dyslexic yet, but I’m in the process of going through evaluation. Looking for somewhere that’ll evaluate adults. I can’t speak for everyone, especially without the diagnosis. So please keep that in mind. I can only talk about the traits I have that I think might be related to dyslexia.

It’s a spectrum, kind of like how autism or even ADHD is a spectrum. People get into adulthood undiagnosed because it isn’t really talked about how it feels and instead it’s only talked about how it looks to everyone else. It can also be masked, similar to how ADHD & autism can.

It’s a neurological condition, it isn’t as simple as “just check your work” before turning it in. Before I realized I might be dyslexic, I would spend sooooo long editing comments/posts on social media. Then even after hitting post, I would still find more errors. Now I’m trying to cut back on that proof reading time when I’m online, because why should I spend all that time when I’m using social media for personal use? Besides preventing people from being assholes to me, there’s no good reason.

For academic and professional purposes - I’ll use a spell and grammar checker. But it still takes me forever to get the words out on paper. It’s like I have “abstract” thoughts and finding the words is very difficult sometimes. Then after finding the (maybe) right words… getting them out following all the rules of language is another hurdle.

Dyslexia is also way bigger than just spelling errors. It’s how the world is processed. I can’t really explain it but while my grammar, spelling, and sentence structure isn’t the best, I can listen to educational videos about physics for people who already know about it, and I can still grasp the concepts. It feels like I’m able to understand complex big picture things, even if they’re “difficult” for the average person, but then grammar and spelling takes me a little longer.

For me - when I’m writing I’ll jump ahead and forget a letter but then almost always catch it. Or I’ll start to write the wrong letter and then catch it. (Again, it’s important to mention here that I’m not officially diagnosed. But even if I was, it’s a spectrum and that doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone)

So while it might have taken you (guessing) 15 minutes or so to write your post, it would probably take me hours. I’m only not taking hours to edit this comment because I’m trying to cut back AND in this case, show how I write on social media without proof reading to hell lmao.

I also feel like perfecting grammar, spelling and sentence structure kind of unnecessarily slow me down. I could learn more in academic settings if I didn’t have to focus on that. Instead I spent more time appealing to this man made concept so I’m not mocked or lose credit for errors. Where if I was accommodated and could speak my assignments instead of writing them…. I would perform better AND learn more.

But the world sees this silly man made concept as important enough that anyone who struggles with it, no matter what else they can do, gets their intelligence mocked.

So to answer your question, yes. It is possible to “check it before turning in” but it takes forever and takes away from using your mind to its fullest potential. I could argue that people who don’t understand physics concepts after watching a video or two are lazy because I am able to in a lot of cases. I could argue that people who write instead of plan a speech are lazy because they’re not taking the time to plan a presentation.

If you judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree, it’ll never succeed. Put it in water, and it’ll swim.