Hyperlexia

This is another stub to update.

I heard a very interesting thing this last week from Penelope Trunk, this is a paraphrase: females on the spectrum focus on words and language because it is comforting and makes sense. So we’ll read just about anything and we’ll re-read books (which almost no one does apparently?). That was definitely true for me. I only found out about hyperlexia from And Next Comes L – Hyperlexia Resources sometime between 2020 & 2022. And then I found out that I taught myself to read when I was 3. I have quite a few stories about my reading, but definitely I met VERY few books that I couldn’t read even if they were kinda meh.

I have always known I’m a visual thinker – I need to see an image or words to attach to a memory. Which is especially funny since I even more recently found out I have complete aphantasia.

I recently realized I was hoarding books in part due to poverty mindset paired with anxiety, but also because they were my friends during my childhood. And even if they made me mad or cry, they still were kinder to me than my peers.

I’ve also noticed that since starting anxiety meds I’m doing drastically less “pleasure” reading and being much more selective, so the idea that words/books/reading can be used as a coping tool seems very reasonable to me.