Being on Substack makes me feel like a fraud.

Confessions of a Dyslexic Substack Writer

I’m dyslexic.

Never officially diagnosed—partly because I’ve always resisted the mainstream medical system. And partly because I learned how to survive without its permission. When I was younger, I found my own creative ways to get through school.

Still, reading books felt like friction. I loved words, but reading them often came with a frustration I didn’t feel was worth the fight. So my words stayed hidden. They lived quietly in my notes app and in the pages of my journals.

I never told people I enjoyed writing, because the next question was always the same: Who’s your favorite author? I never had an answer. I didn’t read—not the way readers are supposed to read. And somehow, that made me feel unworthy of writing at all.

When I write, my thoughts arrive scrambled. I untangle them slowly, carefully. For the longest time, I believed my words would only ever matter to me. I thought I lacked the skill set of those who devour fifty books a year. The ones whose sentences drip with rich vocabulary and literary references.

I assumed my writing would expose me.
My limitations.
My smaller word bank.
My difference.

To publish anything, I lean on editing apps. To double-check spelling. To restructure sentences. I hand my drafts to an AI model before I ever hand them to the world. And as helpful as it is, it often tries to polish the humanity out of my words.

Somewhere along the way, I started to believe I needed to change everything to be understood. That my words—as they are—weren’t enough. That a bot had more authority over my voice than I did.

I’d read my own words back and hear someone else. The rhythm would be cleaner, yes. The grammar tighter. But something essential had been ironed out in the process. The rawness that made it mine. I started to wonder if the price of being understood was becoming unrecognizable to myself. Whether clarity was worth the cost of losing my own fingerprint on the page.

And then there was Substack.

Not only did it show me that my words matter—it showed me that I actually enjoy reading. The words I’ve encountered here have landed gently and deeply in my soul. I open this app with curiosity now, excited to step into worlds written by strangers who somehow feel familiar.

Their words meet me where I am.

So thank you to those whose writing has expanded my inner language.
Thank you to myself for being brave enough to share my words anyway.
Thank you to my dyslexia for opening doors to creativity many never access.
Thank you to the tools that help my words be read.
And thank you, Substack, for giving me a place where I finally see that my words belong.

I apologize in advance if my dyslexia shows in my writing. But it will no longer be the thing that stops me from posting.

And if you’ve ever read something and felt that slight friction — Think of me. In the moments where a word sits wrong or a sentence breaks the flow. That is my everyday life. Not occasionally. Every single time.

I’ve just learned to read anyway. To find meaning inside the imperfection. So if my writing ever asks a little more of you as a reader, know that it asks the same of me as a writer. And I show up anyway.

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