When I was 9 my whole world fell apart I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting in the waiting room with my parents 'the results are in, Jo has tested positive' I heard the lady say. Everything went quiet, I couldn't breath. So much confusion was going around in my head, so many thoughts, I felt like I was being sucked down a plug hole into the dark abis. I felt my parents arms around me but I didn't feel connected to my body, I felt like I was swirling around and around, barely keeping my head above water, any minute now I'll be lost forever into a deep dark hole. That was the day I found out I was different from everybody else. The day I found out I had Dyslexia. I was dyslexic. Labeled. Branded. Not only was I now never going to be considered 'normal' again, they made it quite clear that every dyslexic walking the planet were different to each other too. I was unlike anything else. I no longer belonged I no longer had anyone who was like me I from that moment I was alone. Completely. It has taken over 20 years for me to get over that day. 20 years of heartache and struggle to feel 'normal' again, to feel like one of the human race again. To feel accepted. Acceptable. I didn't want this or ask for it, I spent my life fighting it to no avail. I researched and tried techniques. I had tutors and therapy and dark dark days. It has been a long, hard road but finally I realised that I'm not that different after all and the relief has been overwhelming. You see when I was young I was convinced I was an alien. I was so worried about it I made myself ill. My mouth and throat would get so covered in ulcers that I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't function properly which only reinforced my fears. After countless doctors appointments I was finally sent for blood tests. I was terrified. I got sicker. They are going to find out about me. They were going to know I was different. Surely aliens can't have the same blood as humans, can they? Are they going to take me away and do experiments on me - or worse? I'll never see my family again. The results came back negative. nothing. Zilch. Nothing wrong with me apparently - must be stress. At least I wasn't an alien - or at least they didn't notice. I could stay with my family but the feeling of being different, an alien, never really went completely. I grew up with this dark, heavy cloud hanging over me. I grew up with chains around my wrists and ankles worried if I acted too differently to everyone else people would find out who I was. That I was different. I tried so many different things to fight the feelings of worthlessness, never being enough, feeling like an outcast, an impostor, like I didn't deserve to be in a room with 'normal' people. Tutors and coaches, therapy. It tried so many things to feel a little less defective, a little less broken, a little less odd. CBT, EFT, hypnosis. But the more I went over the problems the bigger they seemed to get, the deeper they seemed to cut, the more it seemed to hurt. Could nothing help me? It wasn't until I got an understanding of the truth about how the human mind actually works that it all became clear. The day I finally understood changed my life forever. The truth about how the context you are existing in affects everything in your life. Everything you think, everything you do, everything you feel. It's the context that is the problem - not me . My context was that I was different - an alien. Everything I thought, felt, did was based on that and until the context could change everything else would be shrouded in that light. You see, if you actually believe your an alien, everything you think and do and feel in that context is normal. If you think you are different to every other human being who ever walked the earth everything you think and do and feel in that context is normal. If I could change the context I could change how I feel - and I finally had the key to changing the context. But I couldn't change my diagnosis, so how could I change the context? I took a long time to realise that I am not my diagnosis. I am not my dyslexia. I am not that scar on my arm from 1999. I am not the colour of my hair. Those things are all part of me but they don't define the human being that I am. Like being left handed or not great a sports. Like being good at parking or 5 foot 6½ tall (the half is important!) Those things are all part of me but they don't define the human being that I am. Deep beneath all the 'labels' and categories I am a human like everybody else, my brain may be wired slightly differently but my mind, my body, my soul is just the same as yours, just the same as everybody else's. I was set free, the chains dropped away, the plug hole I was constantly trying to swim out of sealed and the water stopped running. I get to decide the context of my life by changing the stories I tell myself - and the best bit is so can you. Once you know that all the stories anyone ever tells themselves are completely made up - you're then free to make up whatever stories you like. You get to decide the context of your life, the stories you tell yourself and you get to change your mind if it stops working for you. It's the same for everybody. It's what makes us human, it is what makes us normal. You see, there is so much to being a human being and a diagnosis of anything at all doesn't change any of the things that make you human - any of the things that make you 'normal'. You or anyone else are never less than or more than anyone else. We are all human, doing the best within the context that we are currently working in. I'm not an alien I am a human being just like everybody else and so are you. We are all normal.