By Helen Moon, Founding Director & CEO, EventWell®
I found out I was dyslexic at 51.
After a lifetime of finding creative ways to work around comprehension struggles, not the kind that make words “jump on the page”, but the kind that make you pause and think what does that word mean again? How do you pronounce that word?
I finally had an answer.
A name, a reason, a bit of understanding that made so much of my life suddenly click into place.
I’ve always been someone who learns by doing, observing, and feeling. I can hold big ideas, see connections between people and processes, and think strategically under pressure, but remembering names, places, dates, or the right word at the right moment? That’s always been the challenge.
Can you imagine what it’s like to never remember the names of your favourite songs, places you have visited, or holiday locations, people you have met? To hear the tune in your head but lose the title every single time? To tell people about your recent trip away but not be able to tell them the name of the place you visited?
It sounds small, but it’s those everyday moments that remind you how differently your brain works, and for years, I mistook that difference for weakness and that there was something wrong with me.
The Moment of Clarity
When my dyslexia assessment confirmed what I had long suspected, I felt relief more than anything else. A deep exhale of self-compassion.
I wasn’t lazy, I wasn’t forgetful, I wasn’t “just bad with words”. I was dyslexic, and I’d been adapting, coping, and succeeding in spite of it for five decades.
That understanding changed how I saw my past, but even more importantly, it changed how I spoke to myself in the present, and how I see my future. I began to see that my strengths, creativity, intuition, people skills, pattern recognition, have always been part of my dyslexic brain.
And then there’s my relationship with books, the beautiful irony of it all. I own so many, shelves full of them. I adore the smell of a new book, the texture of the paper, the sense of possibility in the pages, but I’ve rarely read them, not properly. For years, I’d buy books with the best intentions, only to find myself struggling to take in the words, losing focus, or re-reading the same line over and over.
Now, I’m a slave to my Kindle, and I mean that lovingly. I can set it to a dyslexia-friendly reading mode, adjust the background and spacing, and suddenly, reading becomes what it always should have been; enjoyable, accessible, mine.
Watching My Daughter Embrace Her Difference
The part that fills me with the most pride is watching my daughter grow with a completely different relationship to her dyslexia than I ever had.
She knows that it doesn’t make her less capable, it makes her different, and that difference brings so many strengths. She’s imaginative, expressive, and empathetic beyond her years, and she can tell a story in a way that makes people listen.
She’s learning early on what took me a lifetime to discover; that our brains are not problems to be solved, they are powerful, beautiful, creative systems, just wired a little differently.
Raising the Volume
At EventWell, we often say that wellbeing and inclusion are about belonging. For me, that’s at the heart of neuroinclusion too, it’s about creating environments where people don’t have to mask, hide, or apologise for how their brain works.
We need to raise the volume on the truth that difference is good.
It’s what drives creativity, empathy, and innovation, it’s what helps teams see the world from multiple perspectives, it’s what makes the events industry, and the people in it, so rich and dynamic.
My dyslexia helps me connect dots others might miss. It makes me notice feelings in a room, anticipate needs before they’re spoken, and design experiences that make people feel safe and seen. It’s part of everything I do, and everything EventWell does.
A Final Reflection
Finding out I was dyslexic at 51 didn’t change who I am, it simply gave me permission to understand myself fully, to embrace the parts of me that once felt like flaws, and to speak openly about them so others feel less alone.
To anyone discovering their neurodivergence later in life; you were never behind, and you were never broken.
And to the next generation, like my daughter, keep embracing who you are, keep celebrating your difference, keep reminding the world that it’s our diversity of thought, experience, and wiring that makes us stronger.
Let’s raise the volume, together, that difference is not something to fix, it’s something to value.
Helen Moon is the neurodivergent powerhouse behind EventWell, the award-winning not-for-profit championing neuroinclusion and mental wellbeing in the events industry. With nearly 30 years’ experience across hotels, venues, suppliers, and freelance operations, Helen knows events inside out.
Diagnosed with AuDHD and Dyslexia, she founded EventWell in 2017 to make wellbeing and inclusion the norm, not the nice-to-have. A qualified stress management therapist with diplomas in psychology, neurodiversity and safeguarding, she blends lived experience with professional clout to drive meaningful change.
Helen is a respected voice in event accessibility; an advocate, educator, and disruptor on a mission to rewire the way the industry thinks about inclusion.
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