Incredibly Elaine Roper wasn’t diagnosed as being dyslexic until she was 45-years-old.
Elaine, now 51, shied away from promotion in her job as a civil servant for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as she lived in fear of her disability being discovered.
“It’s like being an alcoholic – you are ashamed. You end up thinking you a just a bit thick as you haven’t mastered what most people take for granted,” she says.
A mother of three, from Manchester, Elaine joined the Civil Service at 16 where she started in administrative job that required very little reading and writing.
“I got very used to thinking on my feet and became a master at hiding my lack of literacy skills.”
But Elaine did not just hide her problems with reading and writing at work, but she also disguised them at home.
“My husband, Paul, always dealt with the written communication in our family, right down to writing notes to the children’s teachers. I just used to say, ‘Oh, could you do it? You are so much better at it than me.’
“My whole life was one big act. Some days I’d feel so weighed down I could hardly bear to step outside my front door. Then I’d be in the ‘written world’ and have to start pretending all over again.”
Eventually Elaine found the pressure of her ‘secret’ being discovered at work too much to bear.
She says: “All of a sudden the stress became just too much. Over the years I had regularly visited my doctor and been prescribed anti-depressants, but these were no longer working for me. I’d get so tired with the stress I’d just come home and go straight to bed.”
It was when she took on a more senior role as a customs officer that her problems began to unravel.
She says: “I was doing lots of good quality work. I have excellent communications skills and great empathy with people, but I was finding all the written work a great problem. I had a hidden life. I felt there was no where left to hide and that I couldn’t carry on.”
At this point, Elaine saw an advert on television about getting help with literacy skills, and found the confidence to pick up the phone and investigate night classes.
She says: “I was given a few simple tests which revealed I was dyslexic. I can’t explain the relief – I cried. To have someone tell me I wasn’t thick and that it could all be sorted out was just amazing.”
Elaine approached her boss at work and told them about Access to Work, run by the Department for Work and Pensions.
She was given Dragon Naturally Speaking Speech Recognition, so that she could do all her written work by speaking rather than typing. She was also recommended Text Help, which reads text back to her, Read and Write Gold and Inspiration, mind-mapping software, which helps her plan out her work.
She also has a Dictaphone, which converts speech to text that helps her in meetings.
Elaine says: “The speech recognition is just amazing. I can actually say what I want now in emails, rather than keeping to the limited words I can spell. I was given several days training and my confidence has just soared.
“There’s been no looking back for me – I’ve excelled at work and am going from strength to strength. I’ve even been promoted again and given a pay rise.
Elaine’s boss Jacqueline Townsend, a senior civil servant with HMRC, says that for many years she was unaware that Elaine was dyslexic.
She says: “Elaine had to do a lot of case reports which had to be read by others in her team. They were not very good at all and we couldn’t understand why.
“At her reviews we used to discuss how she could improve her paper work. She used to think she was being stupid, but that was not the impression we got with every other aspect of her work – she was very good indeed.”