For many years, left-handed children were forced by their parents or schools to change hands and at least write right-handed. We have also heard many stories about other activities that have been forcibly changed - from eating to making the sign of the cross in Catholic schools.
We received a note from Kent in the USA that made us think about this again and try to get some more feedback from members on this subject. This is what he had to say:
I was forced to change my writing hand from left to right at a young age and I would like to see feedback from your other readers that were forced to write right handed as to how it affected them. I'm a male in the US and I wet the bed up until the age of 12 and I wonder if that was related. Also the universal opinion of my penmanship is that it is atrocious. I'm 62 now and a few years back I taught myself to write left handed. Although I'm slower left handed (probably less practice) the writing is clearly more legible.
Another thing that has made us think about this is a new film to be release shortly called "The King's Speech" about UK Monarch George VI (King from 1936 to 1952 and father of our current Queen Elizabeth II), starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. He was a natural left-hander but was forced to write with his right and grew up as a nervous child with a pronounced stammer. The film does not seem to make much of the forced change in handedness, but stuttering is one effect of changing hands that has come up in research before.
There is a good article about the film here:
https://enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com/2009/11/kings-speech-2010_14
- Are you a natural left-hander who was forced to write right handed?
- Is there anything else that you have been forced to change and do right-handed?
- What effect did these changes have on you and how have things changed as you have grown up?
Are you aware of any research into this subject, or do you want to undertake any?
Please add a comment to this blog post or use our contact form to send us your thoughts - we will report back in a future newsletter.
You can see an update on this article with more information here
Comments 427
Socially awkward
I have just bought a fidget ring. Hope it helps
I haven't experienced anything because of the switch. I'm 73 now
Recently, I felt drawn to purchase and learn the Celtic harp (my ancestors were bardic harpers in Ireland). While I was taking harp lessons, my harp instructor noticed that my left hand picked up quicker on the notes and strings on the harp than my right hand did. So, she asked me if I’d been forced to be right-handed when I was a child, to which I replied to the affirmative. She suggested I switch sides on my harp, and play the treble (or dominant hand) with my left hand, and the bass with my right hand. She stated, “If you decide to go left-handed with your treble notes, you cannot go back!”
So, I did exactly that. My right hand is still struggling, but I’m feeling much more comfortable using my left hand to play the treble notes and chords than I was with my right hand.
I have been a highly-skilled professional artist, sculptor and potter for most of my life. I’ve often told people, “I’m so right-brained, they call me ‘I-lean!!!” To which I then lean to the right. It’s a joke, but it’s worth paying attention to. I don’t know what might happen to me if I simply started to try to do more with my left hand than I’ve been used to doing. Maybe some things will become more natural.
Plus, my disability status (as it pertains to the pain in my right arm) is forcing me to use my left hand more. I haven’t attempted writing with my left hand yet.
If you’d like to connect with me re: this subject, feel free to.
by my teachers from left to right hand is that I stutter
when under stress.
I also have poor cursive handwriting with my right hand
and type all my letters or print everything else.
I also throw AND catch a ball and bowl with my left
hand.
I am an Engineer,but always had math anxiety taking tests
at school.
Any problem you see on here I had.
Two years ago I decided to switch back. I’m 82. It’s been an adventure. I’m slowing winning the battle. I’ll never be left handed but probably ambidextrous if I live long enough.
school.
Now:
I stutter when stressed.
I have very poor right handed writing.
I type all letters and checks.
Throw and catch a baseball left handed.
Bowl left handed.
Paint right handed.
Use a right handed can opener.
recognizing right and left is a complete nightmare brain goes into overdrive doing basic functions that I do all the time, which way to screw in a screw, changing bicycle gear, hitting the right direction on the buttons to open/close car windows
scrolling a computer screen in the right direction, checking mathematical calculations (I will always repeat the same mistake. country dancing at school they used to write a big L and R on my hands) anything I did naturally left handed before the change I still automatically do left handed, which is most things . many things I can do ambidextrously, ie painting a door I do one side then just put the brush in my other hand. I have a huge problem with anything with 2 choices, high failure rate and I will often think the correct option and say the opposite
It was when arrived at St.Marys Catholic school that 3verything went toH*** in a handbasket.
The none yelled and yelled, rapped my knuckles w a ruler. And nearlycrushed my hand under hers when Iwas trying to write a cursive S. Maybe Iexaggerate on thecrushing. But itfelt like it.
My mother never had an issue until the nuns got involved.
I have THREE handwritings each month:perfect cursive. Illegible and perfect left handed
Idont know what causes this.
I drink left handed, eat sandwichws left handed, play billards,. carry everything. I have poor balance and can Not tell my left from my right.
I guess thats enough
Listen, I'm worse: full-on spatial disorientation left/right, counter/clockwise, once switched forward/backwards in a gokart hiting a friend of mine. Broke my leg, cut the other in half with a lawnmower, lost a pinky finger, had a car accident with a bus - only last year ;) Poor balance, clumsy AF. "Doctor" handwriting obviously. Cold&calculated as the lovechild of Dr. House and Miss Sloan, emotional as some hypersensitvie idiot or risk-it-all like a HarleyQuinn-like maniac. IQ 137, successful creative artist, bur still compulsively(!) seeking constant intellectual stimulation - with a dramatic-disastreous romantic life.
As I suspect all of this happens to me due to unusually high inter-hemispheric connectivity CAUSED by forced right-handedness at the tender age of 5. Everything I've done since then was something I had to force against the natural wiring of my brain, body and nervous system - yes I ran a lot of extra circuits in my head and collected trendemneus amount of bonus miles. And you know what happens with the grass in a backyard where a dog lives and runs his routes...?! His "traffic" leaves a mark, the grass is eliminated and there will be a sleek highway(in our brain this is the bridge between the two sides, the corpus callosum) to use.
All my life I had the "I'm an alien or a joke" syndrome - BUT I learnt to love that I'm weird. Thanks to my daily right-hand-hurdles today I can use my 2 brains simultaneausly AS ONE without running the extra miles as others - I see patterns, associations and possibilities where one-hemispherics are unable to see. I'm sharp, insaitably curious, raw, an original - with streaming ideas and questions noone ever taught of. Thinking for me is like playing for a child - because my brain is now wired that way and wants his entertainment.
I had to learn that I can invent my own limitless world if the normal one is too small, conventional and boring for me.
WHO SAID YOU HAVE TO MAKE SENSE TO OTHERS??!
...OR BETTER: WHY DID YoU BELIEVE THEM?!
Dare to believe your own intuition, that you are fully okay the way you are! Embrace your flaws, investigate your unique powers - hype up yourself instead of worrying about NOT BEING AVERAGE ;)
That was not the only thing that they tried to switch on me. They also tried to raise me (an albino) as normal. My family was constantly telling me I was just like everyone else and society was bullying me and calling me names that I didn't understand and so much more. I am coming to terms with having albinism and realize my parents didn't want me to grow up as different, but damn! Denial didn't make it not so! Now I am thinking I also need to change my hand back.
To this day (I'm approaching 60) I still have to think carefully about which way is left or right (or which arm is my left or right) as left or right do not flow naturally for me.
Now, on the other hand, I seem to excel at activities that require the use of both hands (twirling 2 batons as easily as 1 - competitively), and friends and family have pointed out that I unconsciously switch hands when eating.
Though times have changed and less lefties are being forced to become righties(thankfully)I have often felt as if some part of me has been blocked.
Misguided adults who impose there brand of life on the young are nothing but psychological bullies..
Thank you
The worse thing is my father confirmed he was the murder of my leftie since i was 2...ai
I have been resuming my left in all ways last 5 years . I just used my left when i wanted to use. Very nice I have quite good progress ( I felt) . My emotion , memeory and concentration is felt better and stable.
I think we could not 100 % resume it but do the best attempt to do GRUDUALLY . Now I am 40, still go ...Because i am a Leftie in born ..
As an experiment, two friends (left-handed) and I (right-handed) each wrote a few lines about the issue of left-handedness, using our other hand.
We thought it was an interesting - and difficult! - thing to do. Made us all realise how terrible it was that left-handed children were forced to write with their right hand....
Once I started primary school my teacher made such a scene over my writing with my left hand I believed I had to use my right hand. I felt as though I was wrong as everybody else was using their right hand.
As I grew up I would have moments of confusion where I naturally felt my left side was the way I wanted to go in playing cricket or guitar but everything lesson wise was suited to my right handed class mates so again I thought there was something wrong with me for not choosing my right hand.
Now I honestly don't know how this has affected me. I do tend to second guess or doubt myself which may be due to this as I often believe I'm wrong. Maybe this is a self esteem thing too. The other thing is my hand writing was never great unless I spent a long time focusing carefully on it or if I write in cursive. I often joke my handwriting was due to the fact I had to change from left to right hand. But who knows?
I was suppressed by the government, I could of been great!
I'm left-handed and I write overhand, above the page and I turn it sideways. At my first Primary school (age 4-7) I wasn't forced to change and I have no memory of being "corrected". Aged 7 though, I moved to a small town and a school where all the left-handed children were changed and had to use their right hand. I spent the year being bullied by the teacher and that left its mark on me. I'm 54. My son is 16 and writes like me. His teacher advised that he wrote as you were taught. He didn't respond and he still writes like me. I paid a price and wonder if others did too, for not changing. Go well.
So one thing nobody in the world was ever going to do to this man's children was to tell them to change the hand they used to write with. In my case, I ended up with a flair for writing, a badly maladapted right-handed pencil grip (and no one was allowed to force a change on me about that, either! Daddy said so!), and a late life (age 13) change of heart (by which I mean I spontaneously and deliberately elected to start writing with my left hand just to be a rebel).
Bizarrely, or not, I also stuttered in grade school, wet the bed until aged 11, and still have ADHD requiring medication. I just picked the wrong hand all by myself. WTF
As learning had become a battle of "wills" I am saddened that my mind developed a resistance to it and disengaged. Instead, I acted out and pushed away academic excellence because in my being I felt it impossible to attain. Why no one put the pieces together I have no idea.
As an adult I seemed strangely focused on those who would write with their left-hand. It felt surprisingly familiar to me and so I began to practice teaching myself. The net result was that not only did it seem more natural for me but created a deeper sense of calm in my mind. Truly strange.
I am now an adult of 54 and only wish more had been known at an earlier age. Perhaps life would have created more roads of opportunity.
I didn't remember it at all. It only came back to me around the time I was 18 and in college... right around the same time I was having other bad memories resurface at that time.
I've been surrounded by people my whole life who were always trying to change me and install horrible self doubt on my own instincts growing up. My parents didn't help this. In fact, they made it worse and I made a lot of bad decisions because of that horrible demon of self doubt that I was always carrying around with me and not to say that any of that is on them, because I don't know if that is what started it all or what, but I think it might have had something to do with the long ride I had later in life, that felt a lot like a long slippery slope.
I wonder if this installation can cause, not just self doubt, but also find that you start to believe that everyone else is right and you are wrong and you need to be fixed. Metaphor taken in literally.
I would love to participate in this study, as I have a complex background growing up, especially in dealing with later mental problems and other black flags (as I like to call them), that seem to be magnets to everyone who suffers from a mental disorder. Particularly Bipolar Disorder. Is there anyway I can be included in this?
I've had minimal of the, "so-called", side effects others are talking about from being converted. I've always wondered if it affected my learning capabilities and maybe the career path I chose?
If you look on television, many actors seem to be left handed.
I was in primary school when my mother forced me to write with right hand which eventually led to spelling mistakes while writing and inappropriate or incorrect sentence formation. This also led in bed wetting and childhood depression
Otherwise I turned out fairly normal, no bed wetting problems, no extenuating nervousness, no bullying problems. I was by no means an extrovert, but I wasn't exactly an introvert either. In college I reverted to a simple block print instead of script - something my friends liked to call "Jerry's Japanese" because of how odd it looks. I also took to typing like a fish to water.
I'm 45 now and can't imagine going back to being left-handed, but the left-hand dominance is still there like a ghost. My left arm is stronger than my right. I often turn the car left when someone asks me to make a right hand turn.
It just feels like everything right should be on the left in my world :-)
I do often wonder how I would have turned out if I had remained left-handed. I think life would have been easier but I might not have turned out any better. In many ways having this small handicap probably trained me to try harder at everything I do. The world will never know.
I too was born left handed and was made to switch to writing with my right hand.
But I continue to be left handed with everything else.
I wonder if the fact that I was always a nervous child has anything to do with this.
She had a very hard time driving at night. She had an addictive personality. She smoked around her children so much we became nose blind to nicotine and had breathing problems that made activity tiring. She was neurotic, a drunk, emotionally unstable, excessively picky, and had a hard time controlling her temper. She couldn't be bothered to cook and shop so we grew up on mostly packaged food. She was abusive of and neglectful to both my sister and I.
However, she also loved us. My sister is left handed. When a teacher forced her to write with her right hand my mom stepped in and put a stop to it. She told me it was awful being forced to be a righty.
I am convinced the root of her destructive behaviors was how she was treated as a young person. She told it like it was normal but tales of being stuck on the hand for using her left and her reaction to my sister's teacher indicates it left quite the impression.
Kindly advice me should i keep quiet for this or do they any effects of using left hand??
Please assist.
Regards,
Beatrice
Into my late teens, I was ambidextrous, and could write just as well with my left hand as with my right, but I have lost this over the years.
I am very left brained, I have a Visual Communications degree from the Art Institute of Dallas and was a graphic designer for 15 years before becoming an interactive learning designer.
My father was also forced to write righthanded when he was young. His teacher would punish him with a stick and he developed a beautiful stutter. After much sessions he stutters rarely anymore but the King's speech did remind me of the fact what that horrible man had done to my dad!
I am an awkward and uncoordinated, clumsy person and I do feel this is why, it's like my brain just isn't wired right and I cant use either half to their full potential! It's very interesting to me!
I can't remember not writing with my right hand. I don't write well left-handed, but it ´s probably more because that puts an unnatural strain on the wrist than anything else. I am and have always been skilled at drawing, calligraphy and such, which seems odd if I am indeed not a natural right. But other things, such as throwing and opening doors and jars, I do with my left, and would not naturally, or successfully, do otherwise; also, I aim with my left eye. Playing soccer (as if that would ever happen), I am right-footed. What do you make of this?
There are some peculiarities that have sort of drawn my attention to this in the first place. My grip, holding a pen or eating utensils, is by far not the "normal" one, which has prompted many comments from my parents and others over the years. (It's hard to describe it; people who notice say it looks weird and uncomfortable, but of course, it is not, to me.) Also, it seems I haven't really developed a permanent style of handwriting: as I mentioned, I'm a good calligrapher (if I may say so) and can switch between styles at will, fluently and with a fine result - but if I try and just write quickly and "naturally", without thinking about the outcome, the result is barely legible. I also write quite fluently mirrored, or upside down, or both (only with my right hand, of course).
Does anyone recognise this or have a similar "skill set"?
As an adult (I'm 45), I function quite normally, but as a child and an adolescent I showed many signs that would point to Asperger syndrome. I mention this because I don't know whether it could somehow be a relevant factor; I seem to remember reading that autism spectrum disorder and left-handedness are (at least statistically) related, which wouldn't surprise me.
Sorry if this was all slightly beyond topic.
He definitely was not forced to use his right and thankfully suffers none of the other issues that can be caused by using the "wrong hand" but his handwriting is dreadful and that is the only area of learning that he finds very hard.
I am wondering whether two years after he began writing with his right hand, it is worth trying to switch to his left. I do not want to cause him further problems and as he is a reluctant writer, it would be quite hard work to get him to do a little everyday.
I wouldn't say I've had any adverse effects mentally but I do some tasks right-handed now and some left-handed - I think it depends who I was taught by. I learnt crocheting from a right-handed woman - it would be very difficult to replicate with the opposite hand to what you were shown. I became a keen crocheter but, one day, someone pointed out a funny thing. They pointed out that, while I had the crochet hook in my right hand, I kept it completely still and moved the whole garment over the hook!
I'm a bit strange when I make sandwiches - I slice the bread left-handed, butter it right-handed and then eat it left-handed!
Well I have read all of your stories and I must say, I feel for you all. Let me start from the beginning.
I have ALWAYS had terrible hand writing and it is something that I have had to deal with. A while back my parents told me that when I was younger I would "confuse" myself when I did certain things. Meaning when I shot a basketball, threw a baseball, or even held my fork, I would switch my hand; I never used one hand consistently. So they figured that they might as well teach me to use one hand and they chose my right hand (go figure). Now I am 24 years old still have terrible hand writing and all the tasks I do are right handed (tool handling, throwing, catching, etc.) but there are some tell tale signs of being left side dominant.
First of all I seem to be left eye dominance I force to aim with my right eye because all my guns are right handed, but all my other functions like looking through a peep hole or a microscope are left eye. I kick with my right foot. I also seem to be goofy footed (in skateboarding); that is where your right foot is forward on the board. The reason why this boggles me is because they say on a skateboard your dominant foot should be in the back, but I am more comfortable with my dominant foot being in the front. I have a similar issue with snowboarding. Also despite the fact that I throw and kick with my right "dominant" side and my technique for throwing and kicking are very good, I seem to have trouble with aim, in other words basketballs seem to veer to the left when I shoot them and soccer balls just go all over the place. Finally, I don't know how important this is, when I cross my arms, my left arm is on top which points to left dominance.
Any ideas/similar issues? I would really appreciate it. Really sorry for the long comment but I want to be as detailed as possible.
my names Kaitlyn im 22 years old, and my mom told me i was suppose to be left handed. i do fit almost all the effects previously mentioned. My mom also said it could effect my vision, mostly at night, is that true? is there anything i can do to reverse the effects?
I'm not sure how much all these things have an effect on me as an adult. I am an introvert. I only speak up when needed, but I always do speak up when it is for the benefits of my kids. I have a difficult time expressing feelings. I have episodes of suicidal thoughts and depression. I tend to focus deeply on one single thing as opposed to the "bigger picture." My wife hates it when I do that. I like math, maps, and logic. I tend to stumble form time to time. I have sprained my ankles for that very reason. I consider my self to be more intelligent that other kids when I was in school. I hate reading and books. I usually get lost in the words after a few pages. I did quite well in school despite not being at all diligent in trying to get good grades. Sometimes I wonder if my mom hadn't changed me, would I be able to connect more emotionally with others.
I was left handed from kinder garden thru second grade then got sent to parochial school and back then no one wrote left handed in a parochial school I got hit with a ruler every time I picked the pencil up left handed... I was in the third grade and I still can still remember the pain...I'm 58 now and starting left handed again...printing...Its coming so easy for me...writing I don't care about except my signature...that will be a problem...funny thing , I write right handed my signature goes to the left...I've been doing things with both hands all my life...their doing away with writing in the schools now just printing...start small like brushing your teeth left handed opening doors be aware of what hand your using at all times...draw too...the next thing that you talked about was the way you live your life which is almost the same way I live mine...but I'm on the spectrum--meaning I have aspergers syndrome which has nothing to do with switching hands...I have a very high IQ...I'm proud of who I am...The only thing that bothers me is I have no friends because my social skills stink and people can't keep up with what I'm talking about because of my IQ...so maybe being smart on a particular topic is not a good thing...I'm not sure of your age but maybe you should be tested by a therapist not a psychiatrist...if you do find out then everyone around you will have more understanding...I'm a musical prodigy self taught and my work was computers...where dealing with people was to a minimum...I hope I get a response... :))) Babs
I always wanted to be left handed. I don't know why, no one else was obsessed about being left handed. But I can clearly remembering my mother trying to get me to switch my fork and knife or fork and spoon to the "correct" way of holding, i.e. fork in Left and knife / spoon in right like everyone else in the household and I tried but i just couldn't.
Several years back, I learnt from my mum that I was a left handed child but she forced me to switch to my right for she was worried about my survival in a right-hand dominated world.
I wonder if that is the reason why I am obsessed with being left handed? does anyone else feels this way? But I also know why, I do certain things the left way, e.g. I had a belt with motif that I did not notice I had been wearing the belt the wrong way till one day, I began to realise that the logo (motif) was upside down due to the way I had threaded the belt. Though I now do most things with my right hand, I do still do some with my left.
In any case, I had a lot of difficulties in school, I had poor concentration and memory especially with names. whenever I read I had to put everything into a pictorial form. I could envision and entire movie in my head by reading a book. I skip lines whenever I read and I tend to misread words, say "Think Twice", I read it as "Think witch". (Is this a problem that is common?)
I have problems expressing myself, I am always at a loss for words, this gives people the impression that I am aloof or shy. But I express myself better writing. I am introverted and highly sensitive.
For some strange reason though, people had the impression that I am lefty perhaps because I do things naturally the lefty way.
I do wonder if I had been left to be a left handed instead of being made to switch to the right, would I have faired better in life. I am in a state of ambivalence, never knowing what I really want, I always feel like I want to create things, so much of it is wanting to burst out of me, to be released but it's so trapped inside, I don't know how to release it.
I never understood why I saw things so differently from others. and I feel like a misfit all the time. I don't know if these are all related to the fact that I was changed over. but my dad's a lefty and a forced right-hander, but he does not seem to have all these problems. He writes with his right but does everything else with his left. (in any case, he's not my biological dad)
I am left handed but have not been forced to write with my right hand. Both my parents however were left handed and both were forced to write with their right hands. They don't seem to have developed any problems with thinking, memory, concentration while I did. I am also ambivalent, creative, at a loss for words. If you have anything else to share I would really appreciate it!
When I read your story it made me feel sad. Like you I was a definite lefty and was forced to change between 5 and 6. They let me use it a little in school but there were not enough teachers that could guide my hand when it came to writing. So they convinced my mom to force me. It took a lot of effort on their part. I was confused for a long time and my spacial depth was off. I remembered hours of after school writing books to "train my brain" Of course they could not beat it out of me...I still do many things naturally with my "right hand" (left of course). Speech impediment check, clumsy check, drifting into people check, left hand sticking and left foot running check, driving only with left hand cause right feels awkward on the wheel check, changing orientation on cutlery and glasses check, feeling more comfortable when the door knob is on the other side check, problems being outspoken am still an introvert check, wishing the break pedals were on the left ( I started to drive left footed but my instructor had big issues with it. But there is no reason to hold yourself down by thoughts of suicide, and depression. You are a unique individual and you are not alone. I know this changing of hands did something to my natural development psyche, but I live in a right handed world and there are many things that they cannot do that we can because were forced to live in their world. It makes me stronger and my coping mechanisms are phenomenal because I did not have a choice. But once a lefty always a lefty, you can regain some of your moxie by regaining your lefthandedness now. I learnt French as an adult and am fluently bilingual. It did not take away my ability to speak English so changing hands should be the same. Don't look at it as a disadvantage look at it an a gained ability and a strength. And remember you are not alone.
A very interesting article.
what happens to the brain then when the latest generation plays these computer games with both hands?
A regular one and turn it over. The spiral will be on the right instead of the left. Pretty soon you'll feel better
And happier. For some reason it works the right side of the brain and rests the left. Also get the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Do the exercises in it. I have always been a klutz and was such an introvert in my school days and feel like I should have been a great musician. I think it's still there and I' m trying at the ripe old age of 61 to help it escape. I'm not finished living yet. I always wated to draw and paint and never could. Very frustrating as I was switched in kindergarten but when I did the exercises in the book I mentioned, I could draw. Talk about a thrll. I have been practicing for several months and am slowly finding more and more that I'm naturally switching back left handed. It feels great. It's a happiness inside that is truly liberating. Also, mirror writing is a great brain exercise to keep the brain young and functioning right up to the very end. If there's one thing I want to keep it's my brain. Hope this helps.
When he discovered that I was to be left-handed, for some reason, he couldn't accept it. He viewed that as some sort of flaw, a defect, an imperfection. He needed me to conform to the way other people did things --- I wasn't allowed to be different. He apparently let this bother him so badly that he became abusive with me if I did anything left-handed. One day, when I was 3 or 4yrs old and my mother was at work, he went ballistic on me for coloring in a coloring book and he dislocated my left thumb so that I couldn't use my hand. I was too scared to tell my mother and she was too scared of him to do anything around him anyway. He dislocated my thumb many more times during my earlier years until I finally gave in and wrote right-handed for good --- still do, save for trying to teach myself how to do it again as an adult (which is difficult, but doable).
As for stuttering, I don't think I have a classic stutter per se, but more of a stammer. It seems like my brain will just hiccup several times a day when I'm talking to someone --- like I'm trying to find the right word or that my brain and my mouth aren't in sync with each other. I'll say one part of one word and finish it with the ending of another or conjugate something wrong or put a weird ending on a word. I also have been diagnosed with anxiety disorders and have been medicated for OCD and depression as an adult.
I hope that you'll keep me involved in this topic as I feel like I found my kindred souls as I read your posts.
I am from the UK and am 53 years old - only found out last year that I was switched as a very young child - 1 year - and like you I suffer from depression.
Sadly my father switched me and he had died before I found out.
I am now looking to stop work as I can no longer work as a chartered surveyor as my brain is mixed up and confused and memory very poor.
Regards.
Tony
I definitely feel this has affected me negatively. I feel that I was robbed from my brain developing as it should have if I had been using my left hand, and I was robbed from finding my true joy in career path. I have always wanted to try re-learning everthing using my left hand, but I don't know if it would help me at 37 years old.
Does this phenomenon only affect people who are forced to become right-handed? Or does it only affect people who started very young?
I'm interested.
(By the way, I am right-handed, although I sometimes write with my left hand for fun.)
Later my mum told me she forced me to use my right hand to write and use chopsticks when I was small. That explains why I use knife, scissors, toothbrush and most other tools with my left hand.
Although I've always done well academically with good language skills, I'm terribly absentminded in my daily life. I have no problem with finding direction when I'm behind the wheel but sometimes would give wrong direction to friends when sitting in the passenger seat, i.e., when I say 'turn right here', in fact I meant to tell them to turn left.
Maybe someday I'll try to use my left hand to write..
I lost my ability to write with the left hand. Yet, I still do everything else (cutting, throwing balls, typing, browsing mobile, opening doors, playing musical instruments .... etc) with my left hand.
Feel free to contact.
Great article. I was converted to right hand at age 3 . Since then, Ido everything with my right hand
My writing is terrible now
I bed wetted for a loooong time.till about 13 or so
When I stand like a boxer,my natural stance is still southpaw (I'm not a boxer though)
When I m upset I hit with my left
I type easily with my left hand.
Still very creative though
Thanks for this site though
Nnamdi
This of course gave me a reading disability and a hard time studying it would take me hours for what others took minutes to do. When I would fight they told me I was a south paw, everything else I did left handed Now I can do everything with both hands and my left hand penmanship is much neater.
I can draw and right with both hands at the same time I have two brains with different owners is how I would explain it and each one can do something different then the other.
I wish I could start all over again I am left broke because of bad desisions.
This letter was written by me with the help of my partner telling me how to spell the words.
Cannot really do anything with my left, however I remember feeling somewhat confused when I had to use two hands and deciding which was dominant i.e., fork and steak knife, or playing billiards.
Unless the "threading" is right in front of me, I have trouble with loosening or tightening screwed in things.
I am definately ADD.
My son has been born left handed, and will stay that way!!
I've never been given any indication that I might have left handed - my parents don't seem like the type to do that, though my grandmother may have encouraged using my right - I have a couple of older relatives on both paternal and maternal sides who were lefty who were taught to be righty.
I write and draw right handed and definitely can't do that left handed but in sports I can use my left hand almost as well and my left side is physically stronger than my right (and slightly larger! The fingers on my left hand are a quarter inch longer, same with my feet) A lot of times if I can't do something righthanded my inclination is to switch and try with my left.
Some of the things I relate to are neuroses/slight ocd, I have difficulty cognitively with the concept of left and right when giving or receiving directions. And someone said: "Its like they speak the same language, while my language skills are very specific and detailed, in order to rule out ANY confusion." which definitely sounds like me.
back all day.Then she called my mother and told her that my hand writing was terrible. I had to practice
handwriting every day after school.Every year the nuns made me keep my left hand behind my back.
When I was 45 years old I had a psychiatrist due to a concussion and he told me I was left handed.
He said the nuns are not allowed to make you switch hands any more.Many people have told me that
I was left handed because they see me using my left hand to do things. I still use my right hand to
write.
I grew up playing hockey and baseball and played both left-handed (although in baseball I catch/throw righty and bat lefty). I often find myself eating left-handed, but it feels weird to talk on the phone right handed.
I've also noticed that when I type, I only use the space bar with my right thumb. Not sure that has anything to do with anything though.
I was told that i was born a smart child and a very fast learner but as I grew older things changed. I started finding it difficult to grasp and process information in school and around me but to an extent I see traces of smartness in me, but I am not satisfied because I feel I could have been better. I think being forced to switch to using my right hand contributed to my set backs., Please what are your views on this?
My left-handed writing is very bold, though it looks like a small child's handwriting. My right-handed writing is very faint, although more refined since that is the hand I was forced to use my whole life.
Also, when playing softball or baseball, I can hit with much greater power left-handed than right-handed. My left arm is much stronger than my right, as well.
The switch caused me a myriad of problems, including mental problems, lack of energy, depression, avolition, etc. etc. I am now soon to be on disability as I developed a severe mental condition and had to drop out of school. Also, college was very difficult for me and I had no direction, motivation, or ambition.
Sorry to sound so low, but being forced to use the wrong hand has essentially made my life a living hell. I'm now trying to learn to write left-handed, but it seems to be awakening a lot of trauma and difficult memories. I hope that as I progress, the memories will filter out and my brain will develop the way it was supposed to to begin with. I just hope it's not too late.
It's very frustrating to feel like I'm starting over as a 2-year old child when I'm supposed to be a 28-year old competent adult. So when I reach the age of 49, I'll be a 21-year old mentally. Very frustrating.
Thanks for posting this thread. : )
The first thing I ever noticed is that I got left and right mixed up, when giving or receiving directions, I easily got confused - lost the thread of the instructions, or pointed the wrong way with the right direction being spoken.
In my adult life now, it requires an inordinate amount of concentration for me just to listen and learn basic things. By the time I have something nailed down in my head, I have to do the task often, otherwise I forget what I am doing, or get muddled.
The only good thing is that I am a very skilled abstract thinker, and can get paradoxical/unusual ideas quite quickly. But in this day and age, there really isn't a need for that sort of thing.
I relate to the world cognitively quite differently to other people. Its like they speak the same language, while my language skills are very specific and detailed, in order to rule out ANY confusion.
All this ever does is gets me either strange looks like I am mad, fired, laughed at and humiliated - then fired when they get bored playing with me.
If directions are given, I have to double check everything else. It's like I can only do everything in gestalt, and bits of information are only like spanners in my mind, as I can make out what people say in more than one way, so i have to annoy the hell out of them just to clarify. Either there is something wrong with me, or I am incredibly smart (in the pedantic sense of the word) in a world of really poor communicators.
Seyi
I am trying to find any research to proof my thoughts on this subject to be able to proof that this forcing has caused these problems they are facing at school.
Best Regards
On one occasion I had to give a briefing, lasting about an hour, to the entire squadron. Half would attend the morning session. the other half in the afternoon. I was determined to give it despite one of the other pilots volunteering to. The morning session was a nightmare, stuttering every few words while the audience of fellow pilots probably wondered why the Air Force allowed me to fly, much less instruct. The afternoon was just the opposite, not a pause anywhere. If the morning pilots spoke to the afternoon pilots, they probably thought they were talking about two different people. I can only think there is an inner mechanism, not always in the "on" position, triggering my stuttering. I am 68, hardly stuttering now, and still wonder what my life would have been had I not.
it has affected my memory, the way i think in general is far slower and it shows psyically. it is not as severe as some of the cases i have read about, but has affected my memory etc. i think it is very stupid and i dont know why people still think that old fashion tought.
I had been researcing probable causes of my trouble to comprehend logic,(school) for about 5 years. Finding no answers, I even considered some kind of family genetic disorder. Not too long ago my mother told me she fought with the School district when i was little because she had read that converting can and is likely to pose problems with the brain,they did it anyways. I excel in imagination and creativity but lack in comprehension and book studies as well as memory issues, motor skills are in consistant, and ive had to sit in front of classrooms when i was in high school/middle school by rquest of my mother and teachers. i still had many difficulties understanding.
Forced conversion from right to left, i believe, has posed major difficulties with me throughout the last 23 years of my life and has made things very difficult for me.
My self confidence in school was shot because the other girls wrote beautifully compared to my chicken scratch. Though I excelled in composition and history, I struggled in penmanship & math. I failed algebra and had to go to summer school.
My Mom later realized that switching me was a huge mistake and feels guilty about it to this day.
I would like to re-learn how to write with my left hand. Does anyone have any suggestions how to go about it?
I'm left handed, but was forced by nerve injury (umbilical chord accident, injured arm, but went undetected) to use my right hand for everything. Like you, I've always been extremely self conscious of my writing. My family, teachers, and I didn't realize I was left handed-so I was constantly in trouble for my sloppiness.
I decided to retrain my left hand, and here's how:
Use your left hand for everything. The first three weeks are horrible, but worth it. After about three weeks, your handwriting with your left hand will be about equal to your right. Then, your handwriting will slowly improve. It takes about a year to have nice, natural handwriting.
There is no other secret to it. It's just hard work I'm afraid. It's worth it, however, for nice writing. It may take you less time because you don't have nerve damage.
I notice that when I use my right hand excessively one day, I might have trouble speaking (more than normal, haha!), weirder dreams (than normal), and be more clumsy (than normal!)
The doctor told me it was a known symptom and he advised to stop writing right-handed. A few weeks later the stammering stopped.
As a check I of the connection between writing right-handed and stammering I started writing right-handed again. It took only a few days before the stammering started again…
Today I have a left-handed mouse and keyboard and all sorts of left-handed utensils and tools. My husband (right-handed) has gotten used to lamp switches being on the left, paperwork being filed "backwards", and all sorts of things not being quite where he naturally assumes things "should" be.
I'm also an adoptee who found my birth parents and my birthfather turned out to be left-handed and was delighted to have a left-handed daughter, his only left-handed child. I wish I had met him earlier because he was a champion bowler and could have taught me to bowl!
I was a very quite kid, which explains why I never said a word about it to my family.
Luckily the teacher himself came to my home and told my family members that he'd done them a huge favor by forcing me to switch from left to right hand.
They almost killed him immediately, but he was old and brainwashed by his Church and beliefs. So they just told him to leave the house and never come back or even touch me again.
Now, I only write with my right hand, and the rest I use my left.
I could try to write with my left hand but would take a while to finish a meaning.
When others are writing the top of their books faces the "straight" front direction, but in my case the book or paper lays vertically on the table. (The top of the paper faces my left side if that helps).
-I'm a very good football player (left footed), I produce, sing and write music, I'm very observant, I learn quick, I speak 5 languages, I can read/spell without a problem, I have almost equal strength in left & right arms, I have very good reflex, I'm extremely realistic, no problem switching from right to left without taking time to think.
*I wet the bed till the age of 11 if not 12 too.* Sometimes I thought it will never go away!
-I'm not a math person "plus that I never liked too much calculating".
-School doesn't teach me a lot, most of the things I know came from life experiences and research.
My grades looked something like:
50% in math, science, chemistry, history,..
100% in sports, language and art.
I have noticed that I use my right brain most of the time cause I'm more of an artist than a banker, but my left brain is also very active since I write with my right hand. The characteristics are pretty much MIXED a lot, sometimes it takes years for my friends to notice that I'm left handed or a lefty like they used to call me.
But I have a couple problems since I switched from left to right, which I'd like to know if they are related to the switching:
-I lost the interest of cars that I had as a kid (Until today as an adult, "driving" does not exist to me) "Could it be that I'm subconsciously afraid of driving?"
-I tend forget peoples names very quickly! (Sometimes I need to think of something that will remind a persons name).
-I sometimes lose concentration thinking about other things.
-I do not dream during my sleep like everybody else.. you know like winning a million dollars at the lottery or having a house on a beautiful beach and such...
Instead I kind of see things that might happen or that have happened.
My question:
- IS IT POSSIBLE TO GO BACK TO MY LEFT HANDWRITING PERMANENTLY? IF SO, WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?
Thanks in advance.
So I taught myself, slowly but surely, how to write and draw... And do everything left-handed. After a few months I succeeded, and no I can write/draw/eat/brush my teeth and etc equally well with both hands! I do enjoy using my left over my right, though.
Also, before becoming ambidextrous (more like a lefty righty) I took a right-brained/left brained test, and the result was that I was slightly left brained (hence, right-handed) After switching, I took another test... Now I'm dominantly right-brained! Hooray!
I've always wondered why the world is right handed while the lefties are always the coolest people.
Like a lot of us here, I have great deal of problems telling left from right. I say right when I meant the opposite and turn left when I am told right. I mean, in my head I have the picture so I do not need to tell myself "left" or "right" when moving around but the translation into language is a real difficulty.
Also, I have problems balancing myself and have really clumsy movement since I was little. I always tripped, always did bad in PE class. Yet I have better reflex than all my friends when I play badminton or table tennis with them.
One more thing is that I am terrible at organization. Since I was little I was used to eating with one hand and and doing homework with another - it makes me a multitasker. That's why I have horrible attention span and is disorganized most of the time.
Despite all the difficulties... being a leftie writing with my right hand is fun :)
always understand what she reads. I'm trying to research if this causes any type of learning disabilities.
Please advice.
Regards
I stuttered and staminered horribly. This was 1970 and the speech therapist aren't what they are today.
In 1972 my dad (a cowboy with no special training) decied to try to help. He had me read very very slowly outloud to him every night. One slow syllable at a time. It was almost a year before I could speak most of the time without stuttering. I also did several of the tongue twisters over and over 24/7 for years.
Because of my speech difficulties, I was a very nervous child and adult. It felt like I was in constant conflict with my brain in making decisions. It was like my left and right sides were fighting each other for control. I managed to succeed someone in life but it was not without great difficulty.
I am ambidextrous in that I do alot of things with my left hand like dealing card.
Now im 27 years and i have a problem with directions, i say "go left" when i actually mean to say "go right" and i can attribute this problem to the fact that i was forced to be a "rightie" at a tender age of 3years. Suprisingly, i have discovered that other left handed people that where not forced to be right handed do not have this same problem at all.
I am indeed glad ive found someone with the same issues as i do.
On reading your comment it might help gto know that my husband who is right handed has the same problem as you with saying turn right when he means left.
My son who is now 35 and a left handed has the same ptoblem althogh we have never forced him to change hands.
I don't think this problem has anything to do with beeing forced to change hands.
A few years later ('86) I had a teacher approach me and as she had a left handed student in her class and he didn't know how to hold a pencil "properly" (He would clutch it in a fist and write with his arm instead of his wrist) This teacher, bless her, got me out of my regular class for 1/2 hour each day to work one-on-one with the boy so the he could learn to write better with someone who understood the difficulties he was facing. The teacher also sat with us for a while near the beginning so she could learn something from me as well in case she needed to help other students in the future.
On the whole I haven't found being left handed a burden but more as an interesting challenge when I encounter something new. At work (I'm an Electronics Engineer) I have my computer and work station set up for my comfort (Left-handed) and really enjoy watching me right handed counterparts attempting to work at my station. They all get frustrated very quickly and as soon as they say something about it I smile and tell them they are starting to gain some empathy for us south-paws!
PS> Setting up a computer mouse as left handed is a great security measure against right handed people!
As I got older another teacher tried to teach me to sew using my right hand, this time she had more success, with the result that I can now use both hands for sewing but use my left hand for intricate work. I'm now 59 and over the years I've had to adapt to a right handed world, I've managed with most things (including using the computer mouse right handed) but I still need a left handed check book, and can sew from left to right & right to left.
but now, I am 22 years old and still left handed n I'm so happy with this...
read my story about being lefthanded woman here :)
https://purpletulippinkrose.blogspot.com/2010/07/lefthanded-woman-in-righthanded-world
I remember no major problems with my handedness (except for "chewing" up paper with kids' safety scissors unless I turned my hand over upside down--I was amazed the first pair of left-handed scissors I picked up) until second grade (mid '60s), when my elderly female teacher informed me that I was the "Devil's Spawn" for using my left hand, and forced me to sit on my left hand while writing with my right. After a short time of illegible papers and terrible grades, my mother figured out what was going on and raised cain with the teacher until I was allowed to return to using my left hand. Then my third grade teacher, who meant well and as an attempt to draw me out of severe shyness, taught me to knit, but as a right-hander. I never did very well, and put it aside until later in life, after I had taught myself to crochet and do other needlework as a lefthander. When I attempted to relearn knitting as a left-hander, there evidently was enough of the memory of learning the other way in my brain that I still cannot do well with it.
I also realized shortly after learning cursive writing that I had the ability to mirror write and later on out of boredom in class would turn in "backwards" papers just to see the teachers' reactions (I graduated valedictorian, so evidently it didn't hurt).
Sports? Forget it. I was (and still am) so clutzy I could trip and fall walking on flat ground. I do bowl, but with a kind of underhand backwards spin to the ball--and a 165 average.
In college I had to deal with the small writing desks attached to the chair, and was forced to turn completely sideways in my chair in order to write, frequently attracting the ire of my professors. During tests, I was banished to the far side of the room by myself to prevent cheating. I did have one professor who noted that my backwards-slanting handwriting could be misconstrued as a sign of weakness (I was a business major), and had me copy text out of a book while "adjusting" my writing to slant to the right. I still slant to the right unless extremely hurried, and have been told that I have beautiful handwriting.
I learned to use a computer in a shared office of right handers, so could not reverse the mouse button position. I move it with my left hand, but use the middle finger on the left mouse button, index on the right.
I still run into problems being left-handed. In addition to all the common can opener/ruler/etc. noted by others here, I'd like to add power tools to the list. When using a power circular saw, I hold it with my left hand, extend that arm out to the right, and lean my head and upper body back to the left to watch the cutting guide to cut straight. Not the safest method, but it works.
The only reason why I was left alone was because of my kindergarten teacher. My dad had tried to get her to teach me to use my right hand. Lucky for me, she told him, "No!" and explained why I should be able to use my left hand. This didn't stop my dad from pointing out, in front of dinner company, when I would use my left hand to eat; I would be so embarrassed that I learned to use my right hand to serve myself just as well as my left hand (except for chopsticks). Pretty sure that had negative ramifications on my childhood self-esteem.
Interestingly enough, my mom tells me that I used to try to get out of using my right hand by saying that my right hand was "too tired" to be used. I thought I was being crafty but now, after reading some effects of converting handedness, I wonder if I was experiencing early fatigue/difficulty in concentrating at the time.
For most of my life, I had thought my parents were ashamed of or disliked my left-handedness--didn't like Me. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found out that they actually enjoyed that I'm special--the only left-hander in the family. This lifted a huge burden that I wasn't even aware was there. My self-esteem and confidence suddenly skyrocketed.
I never would have thought that being left-handed could become so much a part of my identity.
My nightmares actually risen once again as my 8 month old son is left-handed too. I just wished that he wasnt as the societies we live in are not orientated for us. Of course I will not force him to change to right, but there should be things that I can show him so that he can survive in a right-hand orientated world. I would be very grateful if you could give us parents some tips on what to do, how to train them etc. (above documentary states what NOT to do).
to advise that their child should be coerced into writing right-handed because they were "ashamed" of the child's sinistrality; there had to be a health concern behind such a change.
My paternal grandmother was totally sinsitral, except for her writing, and that was browbeaten into her by a schoolteacher aunt who felt that her lefthandedness was a "moral failing." As a result, my grandmother had significant neurological problems; her hands shook uncontrollably, and sometimes while walking, she would sudden pitch face first onto the ground. My father also was lefthanded apparently, and accidently let the fact slip once. When I questioned him, though, he launched into an almost hysterical tantrum about it. He then deflected any further enquiries into the subject by raving about MY "abnormality" - the one which I inherited from HIS mother, and from HIM.
I'm happy to see that our numbers are growing, and that dextrals now have the opportunity to realize that our handedness is simply a variation in nature (e.g., brown eyes vs. blue eyes), and nothing nefarious. Hopefully, everyone will come into the 21st century someday, so that no child will ever have to suffer again for the "crime" of lefthandedness, nor will they have to undergo the annoyance of a teacher who told me that I was "Satan's own" (the Devil is presumably left-handed) -
then proceeded herself to write on the blackboard in that clumsy, overhanded style forced on us
in years past!
Recently at a family gathering, as 12 of us (cousins and their children) were starting to sit down together in a restaurant; seven of us headed for the left-handed corner of the table and we all had a good laugh as we realized that the majority of us were left-handed and we knew immediately which side of our respective family that trait came from!
So, for me left-handedness is not a problem. However, 50 years ago when I did student teaching in preparation for receiving a teacher's license, the director of the program in our weekly seminar during that period, asked us if any of us had encountered learning disabilities such as left-handedness. I immediately raised my left hand and told him that I was left-handed and that I always thought it made me special, not disabled. I was really insulted by his comment.
When computers came along, I was an early learner, but had trouble with the trackball built into the right side of the keyboard of the PC's. When the Macintosh came out in 1985, and the instructor in a class moved that mouse from the right to the left side, I was sold. I have used a Mac ever since.
I have two left-handed sons, both very successful. Several years ago, Omni Magazine had a test to determine how left or right handed you are. I tested at 100% left-handed; my sons were 60 and 70%. I am very creative and love to work with my hands. I knit, sew, quilt, and do other crafts. Left-handed people are often creative. I feel very fortunate to have grown up fully left-handed without being hindered in any way.
Other children at the school had ruler edges rapped over their knuckles or pencil points stabbed onto the backs of their hands. Because in those days (1944) you accepted punishment at school and I did not tell my parents of these happenings until I was an adult and then it just came out in conversation with another leftie. My mother would have gone down to the school to sort it out had she known. However then you just accepted things as I mentioned. Apart from that there hasn't been any trouble except the odd remark throughout school in later years. "Oh you're left handed are you?" like it was a crime.
I haven't found any difficulty on the whole. I even learned to use right handed scissors.
I do however love the left handed ruler I bought from you.
As it happens I am not a complete leftie alhough I think of myself as one and am proud to be one. I play golf right handed. I can play tennis with both. I throw and catch a ball with my right hand, can't do it at all with my left. I use cutlery the right handed way and can use either hand to hold a cup or glass. If and when I have fallen my right hand goes out to save myself. I stir with the left hand. I operate a mouse with the right hand.I can housepaint with both.
I would kick a ball more readily with my left foot but can do so with either.
So it's a real mixture. Cross dexterity. The writing though is so important and that is really what singles us out, apart from golf or using a fork it is the most noticeable.
When I was 16 I hurt my left hand and had to wear a huge bandage for weeks. Therefore the teachers encourged me to try the right hand to write. This I did badly and as soon as my hand was useable I was straight back to writing with it.
My daughter is very left handed and my Lithuanian granny was left handed.
I was a primary teacher for many years and took pleasure in encouraging all my left handers to be proud to be lefties.
I was amazed that even during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s there were still people who still believed that young children should be taught to use their right hands!
mother forced me to do ALL things with my right hand. She was a
teacher and also my teacher in the first and second grade in the
elementary (primary) school. My writing with the right hand was always
very slow. When I went to the commercial school I often had an
inflammation of the tendon and the sheeth and a lot of pain in my
right hand. So I started to write with my left hand. But I changed to
the right hand when the inflammation was gone. What a mistake! But at
that time I was still believing that I am a right-hander. My mother
always told me that. (If you would ask her today if I'm a right- or a
left-hander, she still would say that I'm a right-hander.) But since
16 years I write ONLY with my left hand and I'm very, very happy! I
NEVER change my hand again!!
Once I joined the Army no one was qualified to teach me to fire my weapon left-handed, so I had to learn to fire right-handed. However, my brain would not let the left be left out. I know fire my weapon with either hand or eye.
No matter what the world says, I love being unique.
Lauren
The funny thing is even though I am a true southpaw, the fact is my right hand can do everything better than my left except write. The fine moter skills are just better. The curse of right hand heritage maybe.
And I hate to say it but I'm glad that my son and daughter are right-handed. They don't have to go through the things we still have to.
Recovery took me many years partly because of my age(26 at the time, I am now 48), the duration and intensity of the symptoms suffered and the disruption in social interaction during what should have been my formative years. Basically having to learn many things that the neurosis induced had stopped me learning
Now I can get on with people a lot better, and be a much more efficient worker and am a lot happier.
The cause of the symptoms was much more difficult for me to find as I had retained no memory of being coerced into writing with my right hand at school in 1967 when I was 5 years old. It must have happened from bigotry in the school system in my country (Scotland) at the time because my parents never showed any attitude towards handedness ever.
My circumstances very much conform to the scientific discovery of Dr Johanna Barbara Sattler (a Psychologist) in 1987 (a person I did not find out about until 2 years ago on the internet. The description of symptoms on her website matched very closely what I had experienced, although bed-wetting was not one of the symptoms I experienced).
I find if I look around today at groups of young children writing that about one in 5 is writing with the left hand, because the policy of coercing left handed kids into writing with the right hand was ended after Doctor Sattler’s discovery. It was one in 10 in my days at school in the 1960s and 1970s, so there must be a lot more victims than just me.
Recently I went to my current family doctor and as an off chance asked if there were better recovery therapies than my own deduced ones, and to my sadness I found that he had never heard of this science.
Although government and education in Scotland has ended the anti-lefthanded education policies in the classrooms, and thus preventing more victims like me happening, they will not do anything to provide diagnosis and recovery assistance, something I could have well benefited from. A human rights case that is wanting. I have written to politicians here but they do not want to help.
Alan MG
On the plus side I found that playing a right handed guitar as a lefty meant that my more agile hand was the one making the chord shapes, which I thought was a bonus.
my left side. I throw, kick, and shoot a bow right handed. Master eye is left. I carried my side arm for years on my right side and then for years on my left. Sound messed up don't I.
Police shooting sould not be teaching you to be a target shooter but instinctive style in which you do not close your eye but focus on the target with both eyes and your weapon comes into the picture without thought. That goes for both left handed or right handed people. Do not learn to shoot with just the left hand, it could in handy one day.
My grandmother was my babysitter and when I was with her I was scolded and slapped and spanked me when ever she observed me using my left hand as my primary hand. She resorted to also tying my left arm/hand to my body leaving only my right had to use when eating, writing and daily things. To my grandmother being left handed was abnormal maybe a sign of retardation. Her intentions, I'm sure were well meant but somewhat incorrect. Discovered at a much later time in the future.
To the best of my knowledge I am the only "left handed" one of my relatives in my age group. I have never really thought of my condition until in a discussion with a very dear friend. She explained to me what I had never thought about. I am left handed and always have been and always will be.
My left side is my dominate side I use my left eye as my "master eye". Throw me something and I will attempt to catch it left handed. I was a military combat shooting instructor in the U.S. Air Force. I just naturally switched rifles or pistols to either hand when shooting. I could shoot just about the same overall score either way. There are some things though I do right handed like like handling a cutting knife, scissors, flipping things on a cooking grill, electrical wiring etc.. It just depends. But I am able to adapt very easy and quickly in accomplishing tasks. I "switch" like a light switch most of the time. Don't even have to "think" about it.
Pretty "neat" don't you think?
Seems it's all "good" to me. :-)
When asked to to something a certain way at work, I usually ask why, which has at times gotten me in trouble, as people think that I'm questioning their authority. Not so! I find that if I understand the "reason" behind the action I'm much more likely to remember it and do it correctly. I never have thought of this as being "left-handed reasoning," but maybe it is! :)
I was never whacked on the hand by my teachers for being left-handed. I do tend to be a slow learner and I do have a high IQ...it's over 100.
As far as I'm concerned, I think that parents should let their children progress naturally as left-handers if their kids start picking things up with their left hands.
I'm an Australian lefty. At school (in the sixties) I was whacked with a ruler time and time again for writing left handed. My hand writing is really bad. I can read it easily, but other people can't. I can't say how many times I was told that I was simply too lazy and clumsy to do things the "right" way. Many times I was called cacky handed or molly duker. I remember hearing a teacher telling my parents that he thought that I would always be a slow learner (as it turned out, I had a very high IQ). Many times I was made to sit in the hallway of the school as punishment for being lazy. As a result, I used to skip classes and go to the library and read. They would come and get me, and make me sit in the hallway. As soon as they weren't looking, I would take off again to the library.
After a while, I got really good at hiding when they came looking for me. I often wonder if that's the reason I turned into a rebel, with a very healthy disrespect for authority. None of their methods worked, and I am still a proud lefty.
I made electronic communications my career, and because my workstation was set up for me, nobody else could use it because it was set up "backwards" and right handed people burned themselves on the soldering tool. I got a giggle out of that. Test gear was a bit of a problem, because the knobs were all on the right side, which meant that I couldn't see the dials and screens whilst making adjustments.
Later on in life, I joined law enforcement. My right eye is my dominant one, which meant that I had to hold a revolver at about a 45 degree angle so I could sight it properly. Also with revolvers, when reloading, I had to turn it upside down because the cylinder comes out the left side. With practice, I could fire six shots, turn it over, reload, and set off another six as quick as a right hander (I call them commoners). I never used a semi automatic pistol because the safety catch was too hard to use quickly.
In the seventies, I went motorcycle racing for about 10 years. I discovered that for some odd reason, I could lap much quicker on circuits that went anticlockwise compared to clockwise.
I read most magazines and newspapers from the back to the front. I can read upside down and in a mirror easily.
learning to knit was hard my aunt though right handed herself taught me , i hold the knitting needles towards me , it all looks back to front but it ends up the same as right handers . my sewing also ,i sew the opposite way to right handers but it ends up the same.i turn the page at an angle when i write and its been no problem to me ,for years i started to read a newspaper or magazine back to front , but now i start at the front page.
Stutter vanished.
I have become quasi ambidextrous because most tools and kitchen stuff are for righties, even ladles! So I can use a screw driver either way. I do get a lot of sawdust on me using the circular saw but I see the cut line better. And if I have to switch I can due to many of the tool designs and much much more.
I read on my Left Hander's Calendar today that it's possible to get the lefty gene, but only from the father if he is left-handed.
Extremely fortunate to have had RH parents & a Mother who found a way to teach me (& her younger sister) to knit left handed.
I am the only leftie in all my family, so thanks to my mother for sticking up for me!
Mother was down with the flu so for the first time ever I was with another teacher. The first lesson was drawing and she called me to the blackboard and handed me the chalf.
I took it with my left hand of course but she said "No, with the good hand ! " I said, sorry, I can't, I'm left-handed. She stubbornly insisted, almost threatening me.
So I took the chalf in my right hand and stared at the blackboard.
And then an odd thing happened. I stared and stared at the blackboard, unable to talk, hearing a kind of big ringing in my ears, and then my eyesight got blurred and.. I fainted.
I just passed out.
So far I remember when I woke up again, there was a terrible row between my mother and this teacher, who never ever tried again to have a left-handed write against its grain !
Good luck to all lefties !
Elisabeth
She sewed left handed, and was very good at it; however, in school that would make her fail at a time these things were an important part of the cirriculum. She had to hem right handed etc, but the thing that did her in were buttonholes. in order to make them appear to be right handed she had to do them upside down and backwards. She said she could n't stand it. This occured her Junior year, 11th grade in US. When Septembe arrived her senior year she was in bed unable to walk. She was unable to walk for one year, cause unknown, but when 12th grade was over and she knew she didn't have to go back I believe that let her mind let her walk. She also had some what we call panic attacks over the years/
She swore no one would ever force me to use my right and they didn't. However, they had no idea how to teach me and I didn't have a left handed desk till I went back to finish a college degree in my fith decade!
She sewed left handed, and was very good at it; however, in school that would make her fail at a time these things were an important part of the ciriculum. she had to hem right handed etc, but the thing that did her in were buttonholes. in order to make them appear to be right handed whe had to do them upside down and backwards. She said she could n't stand it. This occured her Junior year, 11th grade in US. When S eptember arrived her senior year she was in bed unable to walk. She was unable to walk for one year, cause unknown, but when 12th grade was over and she knew she didn't have to go back I believed that let hermind let her walk. She also had some, what we call panic attacks.
She swore no one would ever force me to use my right and they didn't. However, they had no idea how to teach me and I didn't have a left handed desk till I went back to finish a college degree in my fith decade!
I am left handed but, being born in the 60's meant that I was allowed to write with my left hand. Awkward for sure (with right handed desks) but at least not 'forced' to become right handed.
I love being 'different' but, all in all, am glad my 3 children are right handers :)
Thanks.
Janet/Canada
Meanwhile back at home I was not allowed to cook, God forbid if I were to use a knife left handed!!!!!!!!! I did not begin to really bake or cook until I left home. The same was true with sewing and using a sewing machine. My mother finally realized that I could really cook and sew (ten times better than her.)
I have learned to use a drafting board, food processor left handed and showed everyone that, "A left hander has to work twice as hard to show others that we are the best at what we do, and fortunately it is not difficult.!!! GO LEFT HANDERS!!
I have 2 sons one is right and one left. My father said it is my mothers fault I am a lefty because she would feed me and put the spoon down her right my left.
I tried this with my sons. My oldest who is right. I put the spoon on the right he picked it up with his right. I put the spoon on his left he picked it up with his right. I put the spoon in the middle and he still picked it up with his right.
My youngest son is a lefty and I did the same test with him and he picked it up with his left every time.
When my younger son started playing little league he played right. I did nothing to change him. and he is right at all sports.
Thankfully I was allowed to use my left hand, but I can't say my writing was ever any good.
Using a pen that needed to be dipped into an inkwell for handwriting classes meant lots of blots and messy work as I dragged my hand across the still wet ink! Ballpoint pens were a wonderful invention.
At primary school a page of writing would start on the left and gradually each line would start a little further to the right so by the end the left side of writing was on the diagonal with the right side in a straight line down the page.
I have one daughter who is left handed and the other is righted handed, the same as my husband. I did not push them to be left or right but left it up to them. One day in the infant school the teacher used the ruler to do maths, adding and subtracting. As it was a day when I was helping I had a quiet word with the teacher afterwards. For anyone left handed they would start at the right end of the ruler not the left. For someone righthanded they could easily add 2 to 3 and make 5 using the numbers from the left, not so easy for a left hander like my daughter.
I am grateful for Anything LeftHanded and have bought many things over the years, thank you.
I had a terrible stammer and stuttering for years. To me stammer is the blocked hesitation when you brain is crosses channels and can't get the words out. Stuttering is repeating part of the word over and over because your brain can't let go.
My dad cured me. Although I still have ADD type symptoms that I feel is a part of this. I read outloud every night for maybe an hour. I read very very slowly one syllable at a time. You can't imagine how slowly. I wasn't allowed to speed up the speech for months and months. When he felt I had mastered the extreme slowly speaking I was allowed to speak a little tiny bit faster. I said tongue twisters all the time 24/7. Outloud. It took almost a year before I could have a normal conversation.
Eventually I gave speeches as a project manager of a very large company to hundreds of people. I strongly recommend this process and to join Toastmasters. It gives you confidence so fear doesn't bring back all the speech issues. It seems like when you are afraid, it makes it harder for your brain to process and can bring back the old issues. Toastmasters will help with that.
I have experienced several things in school where I was forced to do things right-handed. When playing baseball, the schools didn't have any left-handed mitts (which would have been mitts for the right hand) and refused to accommodate left handers, so I had to catch the ball with the mitt on my left hand and then quickly tear it off my hand and throw the ball in the way that was natural to me, with my left hand. Needless to say, no scouts in the stands looked at me as a potential for the major leagues (LOL). I also bat left-handed but that, of course, was not a problem and I was allowed to do that.
When I took golf lessons I was the only left-hander in the class, and the instructor said there was no way he was going to teach me different from anyone else in the class so he said I would learn to golf right-handed or not at all.
Those were the 2 most memorable times where I was forced to do things right-handed, and although they were awkward for me at the time, I didn't end up with any residual effects later in life.
Oh, I also use the computer mouse in my right hand, since I never was given a left-handed mouse, and now I find it more comfortable to use the computer mouse with my right hand and awkward in my left, which I think is actually an advantage, as I can be writing and mousing at the same time, not something the right-handed can do.
I was born left-handed but no-one made any attempt to make me change. The only change I made was with eating. When I learnt to use a knife and fork I did so with the knife in my left hand. Whe I started school, at lunch we all sat on benches and I found it very difficult as I kept putting my elbow into my neighbour, so I changed and used my knife in the right hand as everone else. I have dreadful hanwriting as no-one helped me and just left me to it - eith resulting messy work!!!
I notice that my 7 year old grandson get's a lot of help from his teachers with his writing - he says there are 3 other boys in his class who are left=handed
But I do agree that from personal memory, being forced to try to write (and eat) as a right-hander did have a traumatic effect on me.
I can remember crying and being very confused because I couldn't 'get it' at all. From being able to write conventionally (albeit very scruffily) from left to right, I became very disorientated and started writing from the right to the left. This led to me receiving even more abuse, so I'm sure people can imagine how traumatic it was for a child who was already trying to cope with undiagnosed dyslexia!
Eventually, after weeks of me crying and being totally traumatised, I was allowed to continue writing with my left hand. But the 'dinner ladies' at school were determined that I would eat with my fork in my left hand and knife in my right, so that persecution continued.
I can confirm that systematic indoctrination does work and that to this day, I eat with a knife and fork in the same way as 'righties'. But I have never been able to master eating 'spoon stuff' (soup, cereal, custard, etc.) with my right hand and still use my left.
Why do you use your mouse righthanded ? It is very easy to switch to the left of your keyboard and change the pointers....
I have always used a mouse with my left hand without problems
When I was in Grade 2, my mother blamed my school teacher for "making me left handed"
I had to sit down at the kitchen table for an hour after school and was forced to try right handedness
I somehow grew up still left handed, I don't remember why mom gave up on the writing right handed
To this day, my mother insists that she is also 'left handed', even though she tried to properly squish it out of me
Both my brother and sister are right handed.
anyway, i consider this was a big mistake to change me, i was not disturbing nobody writing with left hand :)
[sorry for the mistakes of grammar, i am not native english speaker]
My husband is lefthanded too and he uses the righthanded scissors with his lefthand without problems (just as easily as the lefthanded scissors.)
One strange benefit of all of this was that he had a talent for writing simultaneoulsly with both hands. He could start in the middle of a piece of paper and write 'normally' with his right hand whilst wrtiting the same text in mirror writing with his left going towardss the left hand edge of the page.
When I held up what he had written to a mirror it looked identical. Sadly he has passed away long since and I no longer have an example that I can show you.
Sometimes when I am really sleepy for having just waking up, I make myself a bowl of cereal and will realize later that I am holding the spoon with my left hand when I normally eat with my right.
Interestingly enough, if I operate a drill with my right hand and drill a 4-inch hole, I find the hole comes out crooked because I am observing the bubble on the drill with my left eye. If I hold the drill with my left hand or close my right eye while holding the drill with my right hand, then the hole comes out much straighter. Apparently, the slight parallax at observing the bubble with my dominant, left eye while holding the drill right-handed is enough to introduce a slight slant to the hole I am drilling.
Other than that, I find myself doing most things right-handed: Batting, catching, using the computer, cooking, cutting, turning a screw driver, shooting a handgun, using a fork, etc. If I eat with my hands or collect items, I will use my left hand and transfer them over to my right.
illegible that now many people think I'm a doctor. Also, no left-handed desks at that school. Ironically, I was a fairly good pitcher on the school's baseball team - so none of the teachers had the courage to suggest that I throw with my right hand. Fortunately the so-called stuttering curse bypassed me, enabling me to pursue a career in broadcasting.
Other than writing, I was also forced to eat right-handed. Now I use my RH when I eat with hand but I use my LH whenever I use a spoon or chopsticks. Most people associate being left-handed with writing with the LH so they would always be surprised when I eat with my left hand since I write with my RH.
I always wished my mom had stood up for me during kindergarten and told my teacher off. But being a forced-convert herself, I guess she didn't think it would have any serious consequences.
Though I never did catch on to writing with my right hand, I developed a block towards Hindi and ever since then I've been struggling with the language! Also, I never really took a shine towards religion because as far as I am concerned, there really is no point in being a part of a religion that cannot accept me as a left hander. I too have been forced on many occasions to do things right handed in religious functions when I was younger.
obviously never read thier bible...in the book of judges..God chose 200 soldiers who were left handed...so ..we are Gods chosen..!!!..lol..
I ´m not too keen on slinging rocks though.
I have two sons and one is left-handed, and the other ones is right-handed but eats left-handed. We could always count on a lecture when my father would see the boys eating because he didn't get where the left-handedness came from. Subsequently we found out my mom was supposed to be left handed and so was my older sister.
I never connected my ability to write backwards or to read upside down with left-handedness but after reading the other comments I see I'm far from alone. I also got in trouble in Catholic school for doing the sign of the cross "backwards" - ah, memories (?)
Here's to a world where people can be who they are.
Thanks, Mom for letting me be me!!
We moved part way through third grade, and also both my parents are right handed, so I grew up doing only two things exclusively left-handed--eating and writing. Ohter things I do mostly left handed, but can use my right hand.
Some things I am able to do equally well (or badly, depending on what it is) with either hand, and some stuff I do mostly or only with my right hand.
My brother and a first-cousin on my mom's side are left handed, and at least two of my three nephews are naturally left handed.
My experience of being left handed in a right handed world were not discussing. But I had to learn to use scissors and kitchen utensils right handed because there wasn't anything else. I hated sitting in a right handed desk in school..my left arm got tired. I had my left handed aunt teach me to knit right handed....boy, do we look funny when we knit. We left handed people are so adaptable!!!! But I never could learn to crochet left handed...the mirror did not work and the patterns did not work in my mind.
My children were always given thing in the centre of their body so that they could decide which hand to use. the interesting observation in doing this is that my youngest was very ambidextrous until she was about 6 and she ended up being right handed. I had to advocate for the choice being her choice and there were a few challenges in her sports activities. We made our point very clear. I have 2 lefties and 2 righties children and household that is set up to meet our needs. I have all sort of tools in the home to meet the needs of all of us.
An interesting observation I have made working in health care in a hospital setting, there is a higher than average number of left handed people in the field. Makes you wonder if we use our brains differently than the rest of the world that draws us to health care???
When i was about 12, i started learning to use the chopstick with my right. And now i can use both hands with chopstick though my right hand is still not so strong.
As for working on the computer, i uses my mouse with my right hand.
I don't agree is forcing a child to change if they are left handed. What i think is that as htey grow up with surrouding influence, they will learn to adapt and switch hand to do certain things.
I'm 28 years old now and an engineer. I do use my right hand for certain tools and equipments. Generally people around me don't realize that i'm a left hander. Being a left hander basically are better at adapting to new surroundings and they are always a more versatile person!
and told my mother to tell the nuns to stop enforcing the right handed writing immediately. They stopped, and I stopped stammering. The writing became a non issue. Lefties have a tough time adapting to many things in our daily lives. But I am glad I am a lefty, and glad there is this forum. Thanks. Bill K.
However, I did run into problems later. Throughout school I was often corrected from left-handedness or left-footedness or left-eyedness, since I wrote with my right hand and was therefore assumed to be like "normal" people. However, the writing was dreadful and really went to pieces in high school. My teachers couldn't figure it out and even suggested using special writing pens to straighten out my scrawl. This was despite the fact that I was good at art, even with my right hand.
It was through art that I discovered my inner lefty. Someone suggested a kind of game one day where we would try to draw something with the "wrong" hand. I discovered that I was particularly good at this party trick and soon adopted ambidextrous drawing as a personal technique to avoid fatigue while working. At university I started to write with both hands as a means of keeping up with the intensive note-taking that was an essential part of lectures in those days. Another lefty trait of mine is always to use my left eye with a camera or telescope. I just can't seem to concentrate properly on what I am seeing when I use my right eye, despite having much better vision in my right eye.
It wasn't until after the birth of my left-handed daughter that I started to pay more attention to the whole right and left thing. Particularly when I noticed my mother starting to correct her when she picked up objects with her left hand. We had to tell my mum that her grand-daughter was left-handed and didn't need correcting. A situation that got me wondering about my own early years.
On reading about sidedness, I discovered that being ambidextrous is not a natural state and that you have to devote many years of training to your less-able hand to achieve it and yet it only took me a few days to master left-handed drawing and then writing. I had also started to suffer from a strange affliction which had prevented me continuing to enjoy hill-walking. This happened whenever I was on the side of a mountain and didn't have a clear view of the horizon. Suddenly my brain would switch the world around so that the mountain slope appeared to be horizontal ground. The result was that I fell over - not a safe situation on a mountain. So I was suffering from some kind of spacial organisation problem.
Putting all of this together I decided to try going fully left-handed and, after a month or two, started to develop beautifully clear handwriting. I can also now climb a mountain without falling over. I have also improved tremendously at all sports as I now approach them from the left side. So I would have to strongly oppose any attempts to convert someone's handedness from the natural side, and encourage people to be open-minded about the handedness of young children.
I have run across at least two left-handers who switched hands for writing *voluntarily,* at an early age. One is a small boy of five, who insists on trying to write with his right hand in spite of being decidedly left-handed; when his mom suggests that he would have an easier time writing with his left, he says "No mom it is too messy." Another is an adult who also switched to writing with his right hand at a young age. I am curious if switching voluntarily has the same brain-frustrating consequences of being forced to switch.
In fifth grade, though, a teacher tried to shame me into switching hands, saying I was sloppy and 'backward'. He quickly learned who the more stubborn of the two of us was.
When I was training to become an OR nurse, I was forced to hand off instruments to the surgeon with my right hand, which was very difficult-I'd know what instrument I wanted and about where it was on my table, but I couldn't transmit that information to my right hand. When I began working professionally in the OR, I'd pick the instrument up in my left hand, pass it to my right and then hand it off to the surgeon-within a very short period of time I was working as quickly going my double-handed way as my co-workers who were only using their right hands.
It actually left me reeling as all my life ( I'm 56 ) my friends, driving instructor etc etc have commented on me being left handed, which of course I always said I wasn't but my mother came from a large family with 6 brothers and one sister all of whom were left handed except my mother. She always said how they were teased at school and how left handed people are clack handed. It was only my father that told me when I questioned him about my late mothers dislike of left handed people that he said that Mum had "strongly encouraged" us to write with our right hands (I also went to a Convent in the 60's where they did'nt let you use your left hand either). I remember an incident when I was about 4 being told off by my Mum for crayoning left handed infront of her friends..it mortified me to be embarrassed like that. The upshot is that I was always called "clack handed" by my mother (it obviously didn't occur to her that switching hands may have caused the very thing she disliked in left handers) my writing is atrocious and even to this day that people comment on it! I am clumsy and drop things, my co-ordination causes me problems at work and always has done..and the comment from my optician sums it up perfectly..."I don't know how you've coped with your brain so scrambled."
Needless to say when my daughter showed signs of being left handed at an early age I let Nature take its course, she is very musical and creative.
Has there been any research done on dominant / lazy eyes, and their impact on handedness?
On a slightly different tack, I live in a culture (Mongolia) where use of the right hand is really important for certain gestures. Giving and receiving food or drink with the left hand is considered offensive. I was recently challenged on this by my language teacher when I gave her a cup of tea with my left hand. However, people here sometimes see a left-handed child or grand-child as someone who is destined to be particularly clever. I'm happy not to disagree with them!
However, one thing REALLY bugged me and I never got used to it. When I was in the Air Force, I was forced to carry my shoulder bag on my left shoulder, as the right hand (and shoulder, I guess) are required to be unencumbered for saluting. I hated it! I could never get the bag to stay on my left shoulder. I looked much like a hunchback, with my left shoulder all scrunched up in an attempt to keep the bag there. Fortunately, that was years ago, I am long out of the Air Force, and I can now carry my bag on the right (though I still have narrow, sloping shoulders, so shoulder bags are a bit problematic in any case!)
My Dad is a left-hander who was changed to a righty for writing and his writing is atrocious, but I don't really blame that on the change. He's a doctor, too, so we "kids" (we're all adults now) joke that he has two counts against him for writing legibly! Ironically enough, he was the sponsor of a bill in the Washington State legislature (and tried to get it going nationwide) called the anti-scribbling bill. It would require all doctors to print (not write in script) their prescriptions and in patients' charts. Doctors are notorious for writing illegibly and lots of medical errors are due to their writing being misread. I think a lot of the illegibility is due to haste, not necessarily poor handwriting overall. With computers becoming more ubiquitous, that law might be updated to everything having to be typed on a computer, rather than handwritten or printed.
The only thing I was forced to do with my right was making the sign of the cross as a child. But now as an adult I find myself crossing myself using my left hand and this is done without thinking. When I use the computer mouse I use my right hand, this is so I can write with my left if I needed to.
I had taken a quilting class a couple of years ago. I was the only lefty in the class. The teacher was very accommodating, she would she me how to do certain things the lefty way. There was one point in the class that it was my advantage to being lefthanded. We were cutting material using big clear rulers. The other ladies had to use their rulers in such a way the inches were backwards, reading from right to left. But I could place the ruler so the numbers could read left to right. either way would have been fine with me. The other ladies were grumbling and complaining and I told them "Welcome to my everyday world". :-)
I have some ambidextrous abilities. I can hold a pair of scissors in either hand to trim the fingernails of the opposite hand. I can't think of any of my right-handed friends who can do that. They have to use clippers in their left hand to manicure the right. I also reach for objects with whichever hand is closer.
I use a golf club and baseball bat right-handed, but not particularly well. It's just the way I was taught those items. I throw and catch left-handed, and am completely lost if I try it with my right hand. In younger years, I also took part in boxing, and my stance was definitely left-handed, because that's where the power is.
Two of our five daughters are left handed, I found myself using the mouse ok on a left handed desk setup, I just sat down and did it without thinking, only realising some time later.
When using tools I find I can exert more force with my left hand although I am more accurate with a hammer in my right hand!
I was a shotist in the RN and could use a single shot .22 pistol with either hand although the 9mm Browning pistol, the 9mm sub-machine gun and the 7.62mm rifle were all used right handed. I always shot with both eyes open. I use long-bow and cross-bow right handed although as a kid I used a catapult left handed. I guess I'm a little mixed up but I'm feelin' fine....
Everyhting I learned at home as a child, brushing my teeth, combing my hair, sewing, cutting with knives, all are done left handed. Everything I learned in school was done right handed.
I am now ambidextrous, yet have problems with directions. When I give directions I will often tell the person to go right when it is really on the left. I am also left footed ( I used to play soccer)
I don't think the forced right handedness did any harm. I believe it created a fully functioning, ambidextrous adult.
There are right-handed people who write with a crook to their wrist. It's really strange to see it. Look around to see if anyone you know does this. Again, the tendency to "crook" is genetic, but it can be caused by well-meaning teachers, too!
I learned tennis righ- handed and now couldn't do it left-handed for the life of me (the brain paths have been trained!). I play golf and fence left-handed, as the equipment provided was left-handed. Most everyday chores that require equipment that is "handed," like cutting with scissors, I do right-handed, as that was the only kind of equipment available and it was fairly easy for me to learn to adapt.
We're the lucky lefties, as we are more easily adaptable to a right-handed world. I've known some "extreme" lefties who have an absolutely terrible time coping. Besides, if we ever have an injury (or a stroke, God forbid), we'd probably be in a better position to change hands to the healthy hand.
I am definitely a lefty when it comes down to everything else. I"m LH at Golf my main sport, also throwing balls, and Cricket if I did that to. Ive always been a lefty in Soccer
But coming back to writing, I actually have a good style, but this may have come from years of sign writing (not professional) but in my line of work
One comment I have is that I am glad I write Right handed as LH writing looks so wrong
(note you cannot see what you have just scribed) without concorting your neck, or lifting the pen to see what you are covering over with your arm
No offence to LH writers, but RH is natural unless you are chinese etc where they go from right to left anyway.
My son now 33, and my daughter 37 are the same as myself, and always have been from birth
In my family the left handed skips generations. My grandfather was left handed, I am left handed but none of my children are. One of my grandkids is left handed.
I never really learned to cut correctly because there were no left-handed scissors in the 50's and early 60's provided either at school or at home. In essence, I was forced to cut with a right-handed pair of scissors. I was almost 30 when I went to an exclusive cutlery shop looking for a good pair of pinking shears. The saleslady assured me that the pair she showed me were of superb quality. Needless to say, the fabric just bent when I tried to cut with them. The saleslady exclaimed in shear disgust, "Well, my dear, you don't need scissors, you simply don't know how to cut!"
I feel badly for those who were forced to use their right hand because being a lefty is a point of pride for me!
once or twice i have even forgotten which hand i use and need to try out things to see what happens
i am facinated by this subject and would gladly take part in any studies.
my dad one of my sisters and my uncle are all left handed and they dont have half the problems i do, (although they have the obvious problems of being left handed in a right handed world ) they do like watching me stir 2 cups of coffee at once or make a cup of tea using both hands simultaniously to do different tasks though.i think it's my party piece
Quite sometime ago I read some research (sadly did not make a note of the paper) that found being made to be right-handed actually damages your brain. I felt devastated. I determined to use my left hand as much as I could. Nowadays I use my left hand far more than my right, and I have even started to experiment with drawing and writing left-handed. It feels like coming home.
I would say that the emotional damage of being made to be right-handed is as great as the physical consequences, at least for me. Am I the only one to feel this way?
If any of this has taught me anything, I think changing my leniency made me doubt my self and my instincts... and no one should have that taken away from them. For years, I grew up surrounded by people trying to change me. Make me better, so to say, but I didn't understand why I had to, since I never saw myself as broken. Everyone else was encouraged, that I could see, to be themselves. I was not... but I think that might be a more external factor, in my case, that just worsened the results of myself. I don't know how much mental disorders, psychological, or behavioral problems play a role in it, but I do think low self esteem, just by it's self, is the start of a slippery slope that can snowball later in life to other problems. For me, it was ADD (not the hyperactive kind) coupled with bipolar disorder (but I strongly suspect this may have been a gene passed on through my family lineage and only activated in me because of trauma I was exposed to at the ripe age of 13; my twin sister doesn't have bipolar disorder, that I can tell, but I do suspect she has a behavioral personality disorder, but that's completely unrelated). I also bit my nails to the point I bled, daily, but from what I remember, the bleeding only happened whenever I was seriously stressed out.
Today, at the age of 32, I'm exploring other avenues to help with the other problems I have developed later on in life. Trying to work of yoga and meditation and surround myself with positive people who aren't judgmental or overly critical of myself (granted, they are critical of everyone, but that's family for yah). It's a work in progress.
Now, I have a left-handed granddaughter, age 4, whose parents are both righties. They live in Japan, and she is growing up bi-lingual. I sent the information about how to properly write left-handed from your site. And now, I am thinking it might be good if she learns to write English left-handed, and Japanese right-handed (because it has a sort of calligraphic thick and thin aspect to it).
Anyone with this sort of experience?
I'm not a "complete" lefty; I'm fairly ambidextrous. I was glad, however, that I didn't throw a baseball with my left hand because those kids always had to have their own glove. They could never borrow one from someone else.
I'm the only lefty in my family. I've got three kids and I really wanted one of them to write with their left hand but, it never happened. Oh, well.
My mother was forced to write right handed and as a protest she wrote with two pens, mirror with left and normal with right. She switched back when she could.
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