I write about dyslexia as a researcher and an assessor. I also live it. I was diagnosed dyslexic at 17, and, much later, with ADHD at 44. So when I talk about what it means to carry a label, and to build an identity around a mind that works differently, I’m speaking from the inside as well as the outside. That double view is where the title of my Dystinct piece, Dyslexia: from the Inside and Out, came from, and it’s the thread I want to pull on here.
My own story, briefly
I did not read for pleasure as a child, and I still largely don’t. It isn’t the books’ fault. I find reading genuinely hard, and always have. The moment things changed was in A-level maths, when I kept reading the mechanics questions, decoding every word, and having no idea what I’d just read. My teacher and my mum put their heads together and sent me for an assessment, which came back saying I was dyslexic. That explained an enormous amount.
Much of the rest was explained years later, in 2024, when I was diagnosed with ADHD at 44, after a lifetime of berating myself for what I’d affectionately come to call my “goldfish brain”. Both diagnoses did the same thing for me: they replaced a story of personal failure with an explanation. I had felt stupid at school, and I’ve had moments of feeling it since. I don’t want anyone else to carry that, and honestly, that’s a fair chunk of why I do the work I do.
I tell you this not because a report should be about me, but because understanding yourself changes everything, and I’ve felt that from the inside.
The two things a label does
From both the research and my own life, I’ve come to think a diagnosis does two quite different jobs, and it helps to separate them.
The first is practical. A label can unlock support, adjustments and access to the right help, and for hidden difficulties like dyslexia it can serve, as others have put it, to prove the difficulty is real when there’s nothing physical to point to.
The second is personal, and it’s the one people underestimate. A label can hand you a new story about yourself. For me, and for many of the late-diagnosed adults I meet, the relief isn’t mainly administrative. It’s the sudden sense that you were never stupid, or lazy, or broken. Your brain just does some things differently, and always did.
Why the story you tell yourself matters so much
This is where my research and my experience say exactly the same thing. In my study of dyslexic young people, how a young person understood their own dyslexia sat underneath everything: their relationships, their engagement, their willingness to accept help. The internal story becomes the external life.
Which means the work of identity isn’t a soft extra alongside the “real” support. It is real support. A young person who believes they’re thick will shrink from challenges and hide their difficulties. A young person who understands they have a particular profile, with real strengths as well as real barriers, can advocate for themselves and ask for what they need. The difference between those two young people is often just the story the adults around them helped them build.
Taking control of the story
So how do you move from a difficulty that happens to you towards an identity you own? A few things, from both sides of my experience.
Get an accurate picture. Vague shame thrives on not-knowing. Understanding your actual profile, your strengths as much as your barriers, replaces a fog of “something’s wrong with me” with something you can work with. (If you’re near the start of that, what is dyslexia, really? is a plain-English place to begin.)
Separate the difficulty from your worth. Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. Reading being hard says precisely nothing about how clever, capable or valuable you are. That’s not a comforting slogan; it’s simply true.
Name your strengths, out loud. Dyslexic and ADHD minds often bring real gifts, and they deserve as much attention as the challenges. Knowing yours is part of taking control.
Find your people. The young people in my research often gravitated towards others who understood. Community, whether that’s peers, a good assessor, or the wider neurodivergent world, makes the story easier to hold.
And know it’s never too late. I was 44 when the second piece of my own puzzle fell into place. Understanding yourself is worth doing at any age, and it is very often a genuine relief. If any of this connects with concerns about mood or self-worth, my piece on dyslexia and mental health may help too.
The view from both sides
Working on dyslexia from the inside and the outside at once has taught me one thing above all. The facts of dyslexia matter, and so does the support. But the deepest work is about the story: whether a person comes to see their dyslexic mind as evidence they’re failing, or as simply a different, workable, worthwhile way of being. Getting that story right is, in the end, what the whole thing is for. It’s also part of what I explore in my ongoing Churchill Fellowship work on the choices and confidence we afford young people.
Questions people often ask
Can you be diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult? Yes, at any age, and many people are. Late diagnosis is common and often brings real relief, replacing years of self-blame with an explanation. I was diagnosed with ADHD myself at 44.
Does a diagnosis really change anything if you’re already grown up? For a lot of adults, yes, and not only practically. Understanding your own profile can reframe a lifetime of feeling “not enough” and let you build on your strengths rather than fighting a fog of shame.
Is dyslexia part of someone’s identity? It can be, and for many people it becomes a valued part of how they understand themselves. How a person relates to their dyslexia, with shame or with acceptance, shapes a great deal, which is why the “story” matters so much.
How do I help my child build a positive dyslexic identity? Give them an accurate picture of their strengths as well as their difficulties, separate the difficulty from their worth, name what they’re good at, and help them find others who understand. The story the adults around them tell becomes the one they tell themselves.
References and further reading
- Ross, H. (2022) Dyslexia: from the Inside and Out, Dystinct Magazine, 12, 41-56.
- Ross, H. (2026) School & Beyond: Supporting Dyslexic and Neurodivergent Girls’ Next Moves, Churchill Fellowship. Read the report
- Ross, H. (2021) ‘I’m Dyslexic but What Does That Even Mean?’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 23(1), 284-294. https://doi.org/10.16993/sjdr.782
See the full list of publications.