Noticing Newbies

True story. I was eight and fourteen years later I still consider the wasp to be the devil's watchdog. Yet, wasps are not what this is about. I just used that line to get you here. I go by E.J.Patton when I write and I'm new to writing.com. My goals on writing.com are to get my work noticed, entertain fellow readers, and hopefully get some feedback. The good, the bad, and the ugly will all be greatly appreciated. I would also like to be published eventually, as most writers do. Unlike most writers through my start to wrighting is a bit different. When I was a kid I suffered from severe social anxiety, as well as equally severe dyslexia that; along with a few terrible teachers and a bad home life all but wrecked my younger days.
When I say sever dyslexia I mean my writing looked like hieroglyphics. Letters would appear to me backward, upside down, inside out, twisted, bent, and in the form of numbers. Learning took me twice to three times as long as the other kids and I was bullied EVERY. DAY. I received no help from home, no help from school but damn if I wouldn't get into trouble for failing. Being sent home with a big, fat red F on your reading assignment accompanied with a frowning face filled me with the worst sense of dread. I'd already be crying before I walked in the door of the house because I would then have to endure mother who was going to explode all over the walls.She'd scream in frustration into empty soup pots, slam every cabinet in the house and come after me like a cornered bear. I stayed terrified. I dreaded school. I dreaded home. Everything I did was forced.
I did not taste success until the third grade. That year I brought home my first A. That year I read my first very chapter book instead of listing to the tape and following along. That year I had a teacher that understood me as an individual. She saw right through me. She saw my struggle, my anxiety, my depression and most importantly she saw that I had not given up. I was able to go to school now and not be scared because of this one person who wanted to make a difference in my life. It was the middle of the year and we had an assignment to write a short story based off of one of the Disney storybooks that we had read as a class. Though I could now slowly read a book and understand it, for the most part, my handwriting had not improved any. So, I wrote in my language that no one else could understand and I gave the assignment my best shot.
Over the few years that I was socially not accepted by others kids and adults alike, I had found my imagination. I found that I liked the pictures that appeared in my head while I created my characters and wrote their story. I liked it because it was mine and I could make the characters be my friends. It was a place where i felt safe, in my head, i was no longer alone. The Day after the assignment was due my teacher had come and found me sitting by myself under the only tree on the recess ground watching everyone else play. She had smiled, taken my hand and lead me back to the classroom where to my surprise my mother sat waiting in my desk chair. My heart had dropped into the pit of my stomach which then vanished leaving me empty and frozen.
My teacher sat me down opposite of my mother before putting three pieces of paper in front of her. I noticed two of them as writing assignments. One was the story I had just turned in, the other was of a homework assignment where she had me trace the letters of the alphabet then under the letter while it was covered up i would write it again or what I thought it was as it appeared to me. The third piece of paper was my story, translated into proper word form. My teacher put a hand on my mother's shoulder and said: "Your child is different, but your child is also gifted." I will never forget that day because it was that day that my mother cried because she was happy and it was I that had made her happy. It was that day that I found I could make someone cry by using words and boy did that make me feel powerful! It was that day that my work was read out to the class and I gained instant friends when I was pointed out for writing it. That was the day I was relieved of my anxiety of going to school.
Well, that took longer than I thought. Anyways, that was how I had first gotten into writing. Over the years I faded in and out of writing. Id tried many different jobs but found them all to constricting. I just keep coming back to this one point down every path I decide to take in life. So why not take that point and create my own path? I've got a long way to go but this is a start and if you've stayed to read this entire thing I thank you greatly.