At 46, I was diagnosed with dyslexia – I’ll never get back the time and money I’ve lost ...Middle East

Jamie Oliver has revealed he has been diagnosed with dyslexia at 50. In a new Channel 4 documentary, the celebrity chef talks about how the learning disability has shaped his life – from feeling “worthless, stupid and thick” at school to struggling with accounts and running a business as an adult.

It might sound shocking that he has waited this long to have his dyslexia confirmed – but it happened to me, too. I was 46 when I learned I am dyslexic – and am still unpacking all the ways it has affected my life, from my finances to my parenting and my self-esteem.

Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects reading, writing and information processing. Around 10 per cent of the population – 6.3 million people in the UK – are dyslexic, according to the British Dyslexia Association.

Like Oliver, I struggled at school: I had terrible handwriting, I frequently wrote numbers and letters back to front, and it took me years to learn how to tell the time, to distinguish between clockwise and anti-clockwise, and to learn how to tie my shoelaces. I was nothing like my big sister, who got 10 straight As in her GCSE’s and went onto become a lawyer.

But dyslexia was never raised – I was never tested or offered extra support or time in exams. I thought I just wasn’t very bright – even my mum, who was an English teacher, once told me dyslexia was “an excuse for being thick”.

During my secondary school years, I struggled with grammar and pronunciation, despite the fact I loved words and books (and English Literature was one of my favourite subjects). I still mostly enjoyed school, especially the social side where I was something of a class clown and excelled at drama.

Over the years, I was supported by some brilliant teachers and developed coping strategies – I just accepted that I sometimes had to work twice as hard as others or read everything twice before I got it. I went on to get a degree and a postgraduate diploma in journalism.

It wasn’t until I had children, and tried to teach them to read, that my dyslexia really showed up again. I struggled to teach them phonics the system schools now use, which correlates sounds with letters in the alphabet. The sounds, methods and words all felt alien to me. I just couldn’t grasp or even pronounce some of them.

I have three children, and two have been diagnosed as neurodiverse (Oliver, too reveals his family members were also diagnosed autistic and with ADHD).

There was a lightbulb moment a few years ago when I was trying to teach my son, now 13, to read. He had speech and learning delays and was diagnosed with dyslexia, and also autism and sensory processing disorder in 2019. His educational psychologist suggested we scrap phonics (she said dyslexia made phonics harder to understand) and go back to the old school, rote learning method, and bingo – he got it.

I began reading and researching a bit more on the condition and realised it was about so much more than just struggling with reading and writing. It could also, I learned, relate to working memory, organisation and time-keeping. These are all things I struggle with. I was formally diagnosed last year (I have also recently been diagnosed with ADHD).

The consultant I saw, Laura Gowers, founder of This is Dyslexia, a teacher and a special educational needs coordinator, told me that I have what is known as “stealth dyslexia”. She said that I have developed a skillset of strong compensatory strategies to manage my dyslexia. Adults like me may, for example, be able to read fluently but unintentionally add words in, have difficulty pronouncing words, or have to read text several times to truly understand it.

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I finally felt understood and vindicated when I got my diagnosis. All my life, I’ve blamed myself for being disorganised, and watched in awe as others seem to effortlessly manage the demands of work and family life. I now saw that much of this was not my fault – I have a learning disability. As I learned more about how the dyslexic brain works, I felt relieved, but at times, aggrieved.

Oliver says he now believes his dyslexia contributed to the financial difficulties he faced (in 2019 he had to close 22 out of 25 of his UK restaurants, leading to a thousand job losses overnight). I now think it has cost me money, too. I’ve been self-employed for 16 years and I still find managing finances, keeping on top of invoices and tax returns an ongoing issue.

It’s not just money I’ve lost. When I read that many people with dyslexia experience ‘time debt’ – the feeling of being constantly behind, and having to spend more hours of the day on tasks – it really chimed.

Part of that is down to my concentration issues. Unless it’s something that captivates my interest straight away – a great quote or picture, for example – I don’t retain it unless I concentrate really hard and even then I often get distracted. I frequently lose things or forget what I’m doing.

It’s become so bad that in recent years I’ve had multiple speeding tickets and been on several speed awareness courses. I’m also currently waiting to see if I will have to go to court after using a railcard I hadn’t realised had expired.

Then there’s the fact I have never applied for any form of disability benefits for my autistic son, who is visually impaired and goes to a specialist school. I’m not sure if he will ever be able to leave home, have a job or drive, but I can’t face filling out the pages and pages of forms. One of the therapists at his school had to help me complete his ADHD referral.

Ultimately, though, getting a dyslexia diagnosis later in life has helped silence my inner critic and be more self-compassionate. This is also why I wanted my children to get diagnosed – so they wouldn’t wonder what was wrong with them in the same way that I used to.

The advantages of having dyslexia are now evidenced in compelling research. Many successful leaders and chief executives have credited their success to having a dyslexic brain that thinks differently and more creatively – from Richard Branson to Steve Jobs. One theory is that having dyslexia can give you a strong drive to prove you’re not as stupid as you are made to inwardly feel.

After over two decades as a journalist, I think my dyslexia has been an advantage in some ways too – making me creative, intuitive, and highly motivated. I’ve always had an eye for detail and an ability to spot things others miss – perhaps because of my habit for reading everything so carefully.

I’m glad that things are getting better for people with dyslexia – and hope that documentaries like Oliver’s and articles like this will raise awareness further. This condition can bring a myriad of benefits and different perspectives too. And wouldn’t it be boring if every brain was the same?

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