My parents are right handed. I'm left handed. Had a pretty hard time in communist Poland too. It started with a kind of wrong diagnosis where the doctor told my parents that I'm both and that they could choose which side I'd use. So my grandparents lobbied for right. I started out left but it was hard with a fountain pen and since I had nobody to help me out with that my parents finally broke and told me to learn writing right.

My writing is still horrible. Sometimes even I can't read it. I became used to getting worse grades just for that. Same goes for art class. I was the only person in class to cut himself with paper scissors...

Thanks to the motivation of my gf and colleges, I've started learning to write with my left hand but it's not easy. It's like starting over again. My gf bought me scissors for lefties. What a beautiful feeling to cut paper with the "right" hand!