Personal Story 29 April 2026·8 min read

Dyslexia: The Version Where the Label Wins

There is a version of my life where I never write a book.

It is the version where the label wins.

Dyslexic. Struggles with reading. Struggles with writing. Finds spelling difficult. Needs extra help.

Those things were true, but they were never the whole truth.

When you are a child, you do not always know the difference between a description and a sentence. You hear words often enough and they start to feel like a limit.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia in the early 90s. I was given a laptop to help me work, which sounds progressive now, but it was complicated. It helped me get words onto a page, but it did not teach me grammar, structure, spelling, tone or confidence.

And because I had the laptop, there was a sense that the problem had been solved.

It had not.

School was still hard. Some of the "support" made me hate writing more. I remember being made to practise cursive writing at what felt like a detention desk. I remember reading aloud in class, stumbling through words while the room seemed to close in around me.

So the idea that I would one day write children's books still feels slightly ridiculous.

But I did.

I started during one of the darkest periods of my life. Stress, addiction, burnout and health problems had made me think differently about legacy. Not titles, status or career achievements. The real kind.

What would my children have from me? What could I leave behind that said, "I was here, I loved you, and I wanted to give you something gentle"?

My children loved bedtime stories. One of my children has ADHD and autism, and stories became part of how we connected. They softened the world. They gave us a way into difficult feelings without having to explain everything directly.

So I wrote one.

My first children's book was There's a Monster Under My Bed!

It was messy. I dictated parts. I stumbled through parts. My wife, an English and Drama teacher, helped edit and shape it. But eventually, it existed.

That mattered.

More stories followed — about bedtime fears, noise, siblings, emotions, anxiety, imagination and the beautiful chaos of being a parent.

They were never about being perfect.

They were about love.

If you have dyslexia, or any learning difference, I want you to know this:

You are not limited to the way someone once measured you.

You may need different tools. Dictation. AI. An editor. A patient friend. A partner. A process that looks nothing like the one school tried to force on you.

That is not cheating.

That is building a bridge.

My books are not perfect. I am not pretending they are.

But they are real.

They came from bedtime, struggle, recovery, fatherhood and love. And if they make a child smile, laugh, feel brave, feel seen, or fall asleep a little easier, then they have done exactly what they were meant to do.

That is why I created My Story Time.

A dad telling stories.

A dyslexic child grown up.

A man who once thought writing was closed to him, finding another way in.

You can find the stories at www.MyStoryTime.co.uk

— Icarus