What Dyslexic Adults Actually Struggle With (Insights From a Coach)

Most articles about the signs of dyslexia read like a checklist pulled from a textbook. This one is different. These are the signs I actually see in coaching, day in and day out, across the thousands of dyslexic adults I have worked with. Some of them will be familiar. Some of them might name something you have felt for years but never had the words for.

Before we start, one honest thing. Recognising these signs in yourself is not the same as a diagnosis, and you do not need a diagnosis to start making sense of how your mind works. Plenty of people find clarity and real change long before they ever sit a formal assessment, and some never pursue one at all. This is simply about understanding yourself a little better.

For many of you, the stereotype of the dyslexic person who cannot read simply is not your reality. You might read perfectly well, and yet still spend years quietly wondering why certain things feel so much harder for you than they seem to for everyone else. 

Here are the seven signs I see most often:

1. Reading takes energy – not just effort.

Most of the dyslexic adults I work with read perfectly competently. The difference is what it costs them. Reading drains them in a way that others do not seem to experience, and by the end of a long document there is a real sense of wading through treacle.

You might notice it in the quiet avoidance. Leaving long emails until later, skimming dense reports, feeling your stomach drop when someone asks you to read aloud. It is not a lack of ability. It is the sheer amount of fuel the task uses up.

2. Writing feels harder to structure than to think.

Getting words onto the page is one thing. Ordering them is where it tends to fall apart. Sentences come out confused or slightly tangled, the structure does not quite hold, and the finished piece rarely matches how clear the idea felt in your head.

It can be a strange experience, because so many dyslexic adults are articulate when they speak. The thought is all there. It is the translation from mind to page, and specifically the ordering of it, that becomes the sticking point.

3. Working memory drops things constantly.

Names, words, instructions, the reason you just walked into the room. Working memory is the ability to hold several pieces of information in mind at once, and for a lot of dyslexic adults it feels like juggling with one hand.

You might lose the thread halfway through a set of spoken instructions, or reach for a word you absolutely know and find it simply is not there. It is not carelessness and it is not a sign of anything slipping. It is just how the wiring holds information.

4. Energy management is a daily balancing act.

This is one of the most common things clients raise, and one of the least talked about. Compensating all day, checking and re-reading and masking, takes a quiet, constant toll.

One woman I worked with described coming home from work and being unable to speak to her family for an hour. She was not unwell and nothing had gone wrong. She had simply spent the entire day compensating, and there was nothing left in the tank. What looked to everyone else like a normal working day had quietly taken everything she had.

If you find yourself running at full effort just to keep pace, and then have nothing left over, you are not imagining it.

5. Ideas are hard to explain and break down.

You can often see the whole picture at once. The connections, the outcome, the way it all fits together, arriving almost instantly. The struggle is translating that into ordered steps that someone else can follow.

The thinking is fast and expansive. The explaining is slow. It can feel frustrating to hold something so clearly in your own mind and then watch it come out in fragments when you try to lay it out for someone else.

6. Confidence has quietly taken the hit.

This is the one that sits underneath all the others. Years of assuming the difficulties were a personal failing, rather than simply a different way of processing, leave a mark.

One client in his forties told me he had carried a single sentence from a former boss for the best part of thirty years. He had been told, early in his career, that he "just needed to try harder." He built an entire self-image around the idea that he was not quite good enough. It was only when he understood how his mind actually worked that he began to see those years differently. The problem had never been effort.

If any of this lands, know that the story you have told yourself about your difficulties is often the part that most needs revisiting.

7. Strengths feel clear but not always valued.

Most dyslexic adults know what they are good at. The big-picture thinking, the problem-solving, the ability to see connections other people miss. The difficulty is that these strengths often go unrecognised or unrewarded, because so many environments are built around the very things dyslexia makes harder.

It can leave you in an odd position, quietly aware of what you bring but rarely seeing it valued in the places that measure performance by spelling, speed and paperwork.

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If several of these feel familiar...

You are not alone, and you are not making it up. When people recognise themselves in a list like this, the most common reaction is relief. Finally, a name for something that has been there all along.

Recognising the signs is the beginning, not the destination. In my coaching I work through three areas, and they tend to be exactly what helps most.

• Creating Confidence comes first, because so much of the difficulty is tangled up in years of self-doubt. This is about accepting being different and gently unpicking the beliefs that may have followed you from school.

  
  

• Building Systems is the practical layer. Simple, easy-to-implement ways of managing the things that dyslexia makes harder, so that far less of your energy goes into just keeping up.

  
  

• Unlocking Strengths is where we make sure the things you are genuinely good at stop being overlooked, and start being understood and used deliberately.

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Dyslexia in Adults

Dyslexia in Adults was created to help people stop struggling in silence and finally get the understanding and support I could never find myself. If you are ready to take the next step.

Here are a few ways to start:

Read the book. My book Dyslexia Unlocked, published by Bloomsbury, explores all of this in much more detail, and is a good place to begin making sense of your own dyslexic mind. 

Grab the free resource. Our free guide has been downloaded over 8,000 times and is full of practical, simple strategies you can start using straight away.

Explore coaching. If you would like more personal, tailored support, coaching works through exactly these challenges with you. You can find more details here.