An experiment in reversing changes in the perceived dominant hand.
When someone asks me to use my dominant hand, there is often a lag, before I comply, and even then, the result can be less than ideal. You see, when I first attended school at the age of five, it was noticed that I was left-handed, and I was forced to change to right-handed.
Many people reading this will think this was no big deal, just an inconvenience. The truth is very different. I had my left hand strapped up to prevent me from using it, and at times when it was free, I would be slapped across the face if I used what they considered to be the wrong hand.
My parents didn’t think anything of it, as the school happily told them it was the best thing for my future.
The year was 1968, and there were no left-handers in my school, or I imagine in most state schools in England at the time.
Within the next few years, I began to suffer from several issues, which, until recently, I had considered totally unconnected.
It reads like a litany of school-aged woe:
- Bedwetting
- Bad handwriting
- Stuttering
- Shyness
- Bad memory
- Poor Concentration
- Reading difficulties
- Poor spelling
- Neurotic personality
The above list is a classic set among those natural left-handers who have been forced to become right-handed.
Around the age of seven, I experienced an extraordinary phenomenon of backward writing. That is, everything I wrote, each letter or number copied, was back to front.
Thankfully at the time, I had a progressive teacher with a certain amount of training in psychology, and he advised my parents to do nothing and just to be patient with me.
He also suggested allowing me to begin writing and using my left hand as the dominant hand. After about three months, the mirror writing stopped.
I was a slow learner and only learned to read at the age of ten, and this was because of another good teacher who was prepared to take me to one side and work with me at my own pace.
Over the years, I’ve become used to using different hands for different tasks. I did revert to writing with my left hand, as mentioned above, but my handwriting has always been poor.
Today I write, throw darts, and eat using a knife and fork, all left-handed; however, I eat with a spoon or single fork/cake fork, play the guitar, and catch a ball, all using my right hand.
I also found that my spatial awareness is inferior. I discovered this when I began taking driving lessons back in 20019.
I had taken a minimal number of lessons about 15 years earlier but hadn’t progressed enough to notice a problem.
In 2019 it became apparent. I was taking lessons for four months, usually at the rate of three per week, and yet after all that time judging space, car width and parking and reversing, it was clear I had a problem,
Sometimes I would freeze in my thinking; not something you can afford to do when driving. My brain would appear to procrastinate.
I was expected to act from instinct, and yet my brain would so easily confuse what should be left or right.
Putting all of these things together made me decide to try an experiment. For the following six weeks, I attempted to reverse what was done so long ago.
Conclusion:
Fifty years is too long, and my left hand wouldn’t change enough to make it a lasting experience. I now use a mouse lefthanded, but that is the only change to come out of the experiment. Trying to force this change proved problematic, and I spent weeks confused and unable to perform basic tasks. For me, this is how I am, and since I can’t even use left-handed scissors properly, this is how I’m going to stay.
Phil
Philip Hilton is a deaf Freelance Writer for hire. He has a background in journalism and offers expert inside knowledge of the deaf WellBeing, Lifestyle and Creative Writing fields. He has worked with or been published by, The BBC, NHS, College of Media and Publishing, Pagan Dawn magazine, Better Life Choices magazine, Today, Medium, Phonak, Sonova. He is a regular contributor to Hearing Like Me.com. Brand Ambassador for Phonak Phonak hEARo DANC (Disabled Artists Networking Community)