Myomancy ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism

I’m on many dyslexia email lists, chat rooms and forums. When I introduce myself I say that I used to be dyslexia and now I’m no longer dyslexic. This generally gets the response, “that’s impossible, you can’t cure dyslexia” and there after follows an argument about what dyslexia is and whether you can cure it or just mask it with better coping strategies. As I’m the only one on there saying you can cure dyslexia it gets lonely and depressing but every now and then I find inspiration in strange places that keeps me on my soap box telling the world that things don’t have to be this way.
Wired magazine has a feature, My Bionic Quest for Boléro, about a partially deaf man and his love for Boléro.
“In 1964, my mother contracted rubella while pregnant with me. Hearing aids allowed me to understand speech well enough, but most music was lost on me. Boléro was one of the few pieces I actually enjoyed. A few years later, I bought the CD and played it so much it eventually grew pitted and scratched. It became my touchstone. Every time I tried out a new hearing aid, I’d check to see if Boléro sounded OK. If it didn’t, the hearing aid went back“.
Then his remaining hearing suddenly failed him and his only option was a cochlear implant. This restored some of his hearing but not his ability to hear music due to the limit of the implant’s technology. What followed next was a four year quest to hear Boléro again until June 2005 when he tried some experiment new software.
“Boléro starts off softly and slowly, meandering like a breeze through the trees. Da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-dum, dum-dum, da-da-da-dum. … My God, the oboes d’amore do sound richer and warmer. I let out a long, slow breath, coasting down a river of sound, waiting for the soprano saxophones and the piccolos. They’ll come in around six minutes into the piece - and it’s only then that I’ll know if I’ve truly got it back …. At 5:59, the soprano saxophones leap out bright and clear, arcing above the snare drum. I hold my breath. At 6:39, I hear the piccolos. For me, the stretch between 6:39 and 7:22 is the most Boléro of Boléro, the part I wait for each time. I concentrate. It sounds … right … And there it is again, that exultant ascent. I can hear Boléro’s force, its intensity and passion. My chin starts to tremble. I open my eyes, blinking back tears. ‘Congratulations,’ I say to Emadi. ‘You have done it.’ And I reach across the desk with absurd formality and shake his hand“.
The reason this story touched me was that being able to spell with confidence is like re-hearing Boléro. I knew, being dyslexic, there was something missing in my life. A hole in my mind where other people had the circuitry to do spelling. Filling that hole and discovering all the possibilities that are now open to me has been, and still is, the most incredible experience.