Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
Those who follow my blog know about my struggles with Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia. You are also perhaps aware of how some people laugh at those with ADD and Dyslexia, often calling them lazy, morons, liars/untrustworthy, and even crazy. Due to their executive functioning and processing challenges, people with ADHD can be prone to problematic processing and communication. This often leaves them having questionable authenticity in the eyes of others (mostly the normals), and tragically such miscommunications and misunderstandings can make the speakers be quite unfairly labeled as lying, untrustworthy, or manipulative, or in other ways as negative throughout their lives. Those with ADHD may have a tough time expressing themselves and being perceived in a consistent, accurate, and believable manner. If you Google you will also find that those with ADHD have a decreased ability to self-regulate their actions and reactions toward others. This can cause relationships to be overly tense and fragile. Now, on the other hand, Dyslexia is not an emotional disorder, but it can lead to feelings of anxiety, anger, low self-esteem and depression. Anxiety is the emotional symptom that adults with dyslexia experience the most. They become fearful because of their constant confusion and frustration at work or an educational setting. People with Dyslexia have problems learning the names and sounds of letters, particularly unpredictable and inconsistent spellings, they have confusion over letters that look similar and putting letters the wrong way round (such as writing “b” instead of “d”) confusing the order of letters in words, ad often even placing people and names together. And yes, there are ways to navigate both Dyslexia and ADD, and becoming a functioning person – provided you got diagnosed very early in life.
Remember this.
Here’s a story about a professor – who had a positive impact on my life.
“I am not racist, I fought side by side with my black brothers and sisters in South Africa against apartheid” said he when I asked him why he was penalising me for pointing out racism and discrimination by a fellow student. My professor who used to be in German Police, wrote a PhD where his students put together the research work for him (and he quite openly boasts about it). When I told him how distressing it is to be questioned about my nationality cause I am a Brown-Swiss: “I am cooking butter chicken for my daughters right now as we speak, how can you say I have no regards for what you are going through”.
2017 was a tough year. Try getting a divorce while writing a master thesis, with a professor who kept the “quota” for high marks reserved only for his German students while getting a Swiss salary. A professor who enters a classroom yelling “where are all my German students at?” and not seeing a problem when one of them discriminates against a brown Swiss-Romande by directly assaulting her project-exposé. And then when told that she has to calm down as this kind of behaviour is frowned upon in Switzerland “Oh! Du bist jetzt Schweizerin!? Warum sprichst du dann nicht Deutsch?” (Oh you’re a Swiss now!? Then why don’t you speak German (high German to be precise)); in one sentence discriminating against Swiss-French, Swiss-Italians and the Romansh speakers… while also dissing Swiss German as a cosmos-of-dialects and language (there are Swiss German grammar books)… as is expected of ignorant racists. And thus my ADD and dyslexia struck and I wrote about how it is important not to forget one’s past as with this mentality Nazi era Germany might just repeat itself.
And I was termed lazy, moronic, untrustworthy, and even crazy. Here the “German guilt” was evidently less guilt and more arrogance and ego. An email was sent out to many affiliated with him, telling them not to hire me cause I am emotionally unstable and use the race-card. Till date I never worked in any design bureau in Basel in the field of Design. Nothing happened to that professor. He still has his job and he still happily discriminates against non-Germans, and coloured people. When caught? He cooks butter chicken for his daughters and fights with his black brothers against apartheid (still).
The extent of this obvious racism and discrimination had people in the institute asking “how do you deal with covert racism?” But what people did not realise was how deeply it affected me as a person with specific kind of disorders. It put me through depression and extreme self reflection.
Now… what is positive impact on life? Google says: The impact that something has on a situation, process, or person… is a sudden and powerful effect that it has on them.
I wrote a book. Right after this incidence. Right after scoring a 93% in my overall MA grade (despite all odds). While getting a divorce. I wrote a book inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois. I called it: “Otherness: Souls of Brown Women”. It was no.1 new release on Amazon, and had many women of colour buying and commenting on it.
I was heard, also hated by some (as is usual when you have the courage and ability to put yourself out there to be judged) but no one knew what triggered this book. That was my secret to keep. I was ashamed that I was black-listed by my professor on professional capacity based on his biased subjective point of view.
So when I saw this prompt for writing a blog, I thought hard… And as I look back – I see him as someone who had a positive impact on my life despite his negative actions. And every year more and more people see his true colours and I? I have learnt to stand up against discrimination by accepting who I am, a brown woman, with ADHD/ADD & Dyslexia, who speaks French better than German but somehow understands Swiss German better than high German. I am weird. I am loud. I am honest. I am a fighter. And most importantly… I have learnt not to wither but live by my motto: Qui vivra verra (time will tell).
For injustice, lies and pretences can go only that far.
ANTHROPOLOGY OF LOVE 