Hazel Ellis Saxon
I grew up in a large family. I was tiny, underdeveloped and considered socially unacceptable by other children at my school. When I was about eight years old I was diagnosed as mentally retarded, which I understood meant that I wasn’t normal. After that school became a question of enduring it quietly until I could leave. At sixteen I went to work as a typist for a local employer, and every day I walked to work over the brow of a hill, on the right my factory spread out as far as you could see and on the left was an equally large cemetery. I used to ask myself if I would spend my life walking over the hill and turning right, until the day I was carried over the hill and turned left. I didn’t have anything to look forward to, but felt that the useless, hopeless, unloveable failure I had become was not the real ‘me’.
At 18 I moved to London and it was there I first began to find myself. I got married, had two children and moved to Sweden. After a few years I became ill losing the use of both my legs for a year. I returned to England to get the support of my parents and within six months both had died. A few weeks after burying my mum my husband told me he was leaving me. I had a mental, emotional and physical breakdown and spent some time receiving psychiatric treatment. I decided to start over and moved to Scotland where my mental health worker encouraged me to go to college. I thought it was a daft idea. You name it, I had failed it, and I didn’t want to expose myself to further ridicule.
After about a year I decided to do it and signed up for an access course at Dundee College. I was treated with consideration and respect, offered help, and found out that I wasn’t retarded, just dyslexic. I absolutely loved learning! This year I finished my BA degree in Social Work at the University of Dundee. I felt a fool at first, I didn’t know if I’d cope academically and was frightened everybody would see what a fraud and failure I was, but slowly I began to relax and discovered the people around me were terrific.
I stand taller now, enjoy some social functions and believe I am a better mother today. I enjoy the theatre, particularly Shakespeare, read poetry and have developed a real interest in art, history and archaeology. Before I studied I think I was like caterpillar crawling around the ground, frightened of being attacked all the time and concentrating on what was directly in front of me.
Do it! Do it now! Don’t hesitate! Don’t walk to matriculation – RUN!
Now, although it’s corny I feel like a butterfly and I am so happy and grateful. I’m the person I was all along, but education has enabled me to find that person and to have confidence in myself.