Highly Educated Adult Dyslexic Seeking Advice

[Hope]

Regardless of how hard I try, or what I try, I seem to not make any progress past what I have already achieved. I need some advice on how to get pass this impass. But, first let me give you some background information about my struggle with dyslexia. Early in my childhood, I was raised in a household that did not seem to value reading or other academic endeavors, and at about this time I was first diagnosed with dyslexia and place in special education classes starting in first grade. This was back in the early 1960s, and there was little learning going on in these classes. Later in my childhood, things got much worse regarding my education. My parents divorced, my family was place on welfare, and we moved to inner city slums and ghettos in which the education was horrendously inadequate. Most of the students that attended my inner city school district quit school. So, I spent my entire public school career in special education classes within profoundly inferior schools. By the time I graduated from high school, I was functionally illiterate. I do not believe that I was the only student among my classmates who could not read or write.

My education really began when I started college. My first few years at college were an immense struggle for me. But, slowly I earned to read and write at a functioning level that allowed me to survive my underclassmen years in school. As an upperclassmen, the improvements in my basic skills allowed me to better function as a college student and put more effort into my college studies. My grade point average was making steady improvement, but I was still reading incredibly slowly, and I was forced to continue to put much more effort into my studies than most other students. I also discovered that I had great difficulty in remembering and memorizing certain things. This was also a great challenge to my academic pursuits. Well, I was able to graduate with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from a fairly competitive school with about a 3.0 grade point average. This was an important personal achievement for me, not just because I had, to some
degree, prevailed over my life long struggle with dyslexia and educational deprivation, but I had a very strong desire to go onto graduated school.

I entered graduate school and attended a fairly good and well established MBA program. I can still recall the fear and intimidation I first felt as an MBA student studying in New England. But, I quickly got over my fears, and did adequately well my first year. My slow reading rate and difficulties with memorizing were still a challenge for me. At the start of my second year of graduate school, I bought a self help book on improving memory, and tied very hard to put to practice the techniques I learned, but only achieved disappointing results. In my frustration, I sort out specialized help for my learning disability on campus, but those on campus really did not have any specialized knowledge or experience treating dyslexia, and were of little help. So, I graduated in good academic standings with an MBA, really without any affective outside assistance.

At this point, I was not diagnosed with any other learning disability other than dyslexia, and was not prescribed any medications. In my mid to late twenties, I decide to sit for the American Medical School Exam. Subsequently, I decided to go back to undergraduate school to take all of the prerequisite basic science courses required to sit for the exam. I found these classes much more challenging than anything I had ever attempted to do academically before, and really felt overwhelmed.

At about this time, I contacted some local experts in learning disabilities that referred me to a local pediatrician, whom, without the merits of further testing, diagnosed me with an additional learning disability. He told me that I had non hyperactive attention deficit disorder, or ADD. He prescribed me stimulant medications Ritalin and Adderall that I took while I was studying for the Medical School Exam and for the next 15 years of my adult life. Initially, I was very impressed with the medications ability to focus my attention and allow me to study for many more hours than I ever was able to do before. But, these beneficial affects of the medication began to slowly disappear over a few months. After taking these medications for a while, they were of only marginal benefit to my academic progress. Strangely, the medications did not seem to ever improve my poor ability to memorize and retain what I was studying. In fact, I believe that the stimulant medications probably harmed my ability to retain, what I read and possibly has harmed my memory in general. More recently, I have been taking the Ritalin in combination with Peracitam. I am uncertain weather this has provided any benefit.

I have now been out of school for more than ten years, and am working at a barely professional job in which I am making a marginal income. I am profoundly under employed. I am insecure and frustrated regarding my abilities to do more occupationally. I have tried everything I know how to improve my abilities. I still read at an alarmingly slow rate, because I can not stop sub-vocalizing the words while I am reading. Additionally, I believe my memory has gotten worse, since I was in school. Is there something out there that I do not know about that can reduce my struggle with my learning disabilities? Are there techniques or other medication that I may try that can possibly help me?

Sincerely,
Hope