Something stirred in the summer of 1968, though I didn’t recognize it as change at the time. Earlier in that year I learned why I struggle in school to read. I was dyslexic.
My father enrolled me in a communication class through the Church of Scientology. It was hard. Distressing. Emotionally confronting in ways I didn’t yet have language for. My confidence was fragile, my sense of right and wrong felt skewed, and I didn’t trust myself in the world. Still, that class became the event that quietly changed my life. That and how to read as a dyslexic.
I had to pay for half of it myself. My father paid the other half.
I was worth every penny.
At the time, I didn’t see it that way. I only knew it pushed me beyond my comfort zone. It forced me to speak. To listen. To remain present instead of disappearing. What I couldn’t know then was that this was my salvation—the first real interruption of the belief that I was meant to stay silent.
That class taught me how to communicate. More than that, it taught me how profound it is simply to exist comfortably while speaking. The value of that lesson wouldn’t fully register until much later in my life, but its impact was immediate.
For the first time, I began to talk to the kids in my class.
These were the same kids I had gone to school with since third grade. The same kids who had tormented me for years. They didn’t know how to respond to this version of me. Honestly, neither did I. But I didn’t back down. I kept showing up. I kept talking.
And somehow, it worked.
My new communication skills were already working for me before I understood what they were. I began watching other kids closely—studying how they acted, how they responded, how they fit together. I had been made aware that my own behavior had often been awkward, even off-putting, and I wanted to learn. I was educating myself in how to exist among my classmates.
I wasn’t very successful at first.
Real progress didn’t come until high school, when I became best friends with Colleen Taylor. She helped me tremendously. Through her, I learned how to be more social, how to read situations, and how to soften without disappearing. As I improved, I began making more friends—but only one-on-one.
Groups were still terrifying.
In group situations, I froze. I turned red. I felt painfully self-conscious. I believe this came from being teased almost exclusively by groups, not individuals. One-on-one felt manageable. Groups felt unsafe.
With Colleen by my side, I could socialize. Without her, I felt abandoned and scared. Kids would still pick at me in subtle ways, and the old fear rushed back in. I avoided social situations unless I had Colleen—or another close friend, Janice Pando—with me.
It felt good to finally be part of a group, even if I couldn’t yet stand there alone.
I made progress. Real progress. I did almost everything with Colleen—together and in groups. She was my bridge. My safety. My proof that I could belong.
I wasn’t fully free yet.
But I was no longer silent.
And for the first time, my voice had a place to land.
