The one thing I wanted more than anything else was to fit in. 

I was 8 years old, fresh off a plane from Africa, and didn’t speak any English at all.

I didn't know the rules yet but I could already sense that belonging was the key to survival. 

So when they put me in the back of the classroom with a teacher's assistant who spoke a little French, I felt the opportunity to belong being taken away without my say.

It was meant to help. 

But at 8, all I knew was that every kid in that room could see exactly where I was sitting and why. 

The attention I got was the exact opposite of the attention I wanted.

That moment planted something in me. 

And over the years, it settled in and grew roots.

HOMEGROWN

Some of our biggest wounds are homegrown. Meaning they came from the people whose entire job was to protect our development. 

Teachers, adults, parents. 

When someone with that kind of authority over you makes you feel like you’re the problem, the wound goes a hell of a lot deeper than just embarrassment.

It's like being let down twice.

Once by the moment itself. 

And again by the person who was supposed to catch you.

Whether it was a pullout program or Special Ed class, the short bus, or being grouped with others no one knew what else to do with….

Even at a young age, you had a sneaking suspicion that something here was fundamentally wrong.

You just didn't have the words for it yet.

But the adults who separated you did. They just didn’t care to notice what it was costing you.

And maybe that's the part that still stings the most.

PERP

You’ve seen it a thousand times - the PERP walk. 

That’s short for perpetrator or person alleged to have committed a crime.  

It’s usually a spectacle…

Meant to embarrass the alleged PERP, parade them for all to see, adding shame as the insult on top of injury.

But you didn’t understand dyslexia. 

You didn’t have a language for it yet. 

Yet you were made to feel guilty about a critical part of your development without an explanation. 

That’s why it’s dyslexia’s original sin.

They didn't know what to do with you, so they did what was easy.

Research would later show there was no guarantee the method they used to justify separating you would work at all.

They traded your sense of belonging for nothing.

This was their sin, not yours. 

But you inherited it.

SOFTWARE 

The PERP walk didn't just hurt in the moment. 

It taught you something; it installed unwanted software.

And belief you never agreed to.

Being visibly different in front of a group leads to shame. 

This belief became a rule you started living by without even knowing it. 

Social media telling you that you're uniquely gifted can’t compete with a verdict that’s been collecting evidence since you were a kid.

In other words, you can't remove an ink tattoo with a #2 pencil eraser.

So now as an adult, any situation that rhymes with that moment, being watched, singled out, seen struggling, brings back that same feeling from the PERP walk.

SINNERS

If you’ve been living under a verdict…

It was never your guilt to carry.

Not because it didn't happen. It did.

Not because it didn't hurt. Still might.

We were never the problem.

We were just kids - stuck inside systems that didn't know what to do with us.

These were not our sins.

They were committed against us.

And we were too young to know the difference.

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