When Being Different Became My Edge

The crushing feeling of being made redundant is like no other. Anxiety and lack of confidence can hit hard. It’s taken over a year for me to process the red flags that I over looked at the time. In the 6 months that I was jobless I was forced to think about my identity as a designer and why I kept repeating my story.

 Hindsight can be cruel when you keep living the same way. During the ever ending job hunt, I did what any overactive and determined women with adhd would do. I threw myself in to making money. If there was ever a time to pursue my dreams now was the time. I could finally purse the dreams that I had two, and even three years ago. However, the fun side of having learning disabilities burn out quickly comes.  My brain and body just needed relief and stability.

Six months after my last stable job, I was a stable worker bee again – Albeit a temporary one. That was almost nine months ago.

When I started the structured working, I went to basics of execution of design. I was too scared to lose what had taken months to find. I had missed being part of a team, the banter, brainstorming, and presence of another adult that was not my husband (I love him dearly). As time when on, the shine had started to diminish and the love I had for it was forced - The thing I had trained to do for 10 years. It was my identity.

I needed the job so I continued forcing the excitement with new inspiration while putting my energy into the side gigs I had started. One of which was writing my book, while thinking of careers that I could do with my skills.

For context, I had been attempting to write a book for years and as a dyslexic I thought it was for giggles. How could I, who failed GCSE English and getting a low grade the third time, ever write a book. I joked about not being able to write a sentence properly. Nevertheless, I went down the rabbit whole of learning to be a writer, how I could get the words in without the over explanation.

My dyslexic trauma started to rear its head with intrusive thoughts and doubts. Years of being told because I couldn’t spell or that I rushed over and downplayed my efforts I couldn’t be a writer. It’s why i partly went into design. I wrote as though I was talking, which was one feedback someone gave, not knowing that was a good thing. I dived into structure, pacing (still working on it), and writing objectives. As time went on it settled. I realised I was okay at writing, that it was partly down to not being given the tools to support me.

I found the tools that not only to help me write but to support my learning disabilities. read books, listened to podcasts and even started a CIM Accreditation course. What surprised me the most that I was half decent. That the rules, practices and thinking behind copywriting is what I found most interesting and frustrating as a designer.

The more I learned, I found my joy for design again and I was eager to implement it back into my work — reworking headlines and body copy. Emails and social media posts. The words became more than pretty things. I thought about each word and what that meant. How communication is about having a conversation with a person. In the same way that each design decision has a purpose in that conversation, so does the written word – That is what the messaging of a campaign should be.

I’d blur over words not trusting my skills and believing that I wasn’t a copywriter so need to look closely - unless It was really bad. Now, I read and design from the readers view. Do the words make someone feel or act beyond telling me. Are the words relatable? The skill of communication that I have found so far is that we need to understand who is reading it and how they act. Design is not just decoration in a nice layout. It is a tool that words and pictures should reflect each other.

I will always be dyslexic but the relationship I have with word has changed. I am more confident, stronger in the details than I was ever before. In the past what made me deflate and quietly question, because I was the designer gave me an edge.

It’s made me change my output in ways I never thought. Become a writer… ‘Oh no. No, you can’t do that’. But I can and I am already a writer! I haven’t fallen back in love with the execution of design and part of me only did that because it was the only thing I could do without struggling. What I have fallen in love with, is the creativity of communication.

I will always wish that the workforce had seen what I was capable of. That I wasn’t afraid of what made me different as this was always my edge. I’m glad it didn’t work out because being fired from that job was the classic saying of keep repeating the same thing, hoping for a different outcome.