dyscalculia - my experience
I didn't know what dyscalculia was until I found that word by mistake. I still don't know how to deal with it, but well... I'm on my way to try.
After a lot of research and relating to events in my life that became traumas, I discovered that my problem was never "stupidity", it's a mean word, I know. But that's what I heard most during childhood and sometimes in the current moments. I never understood why other kids could understand everything about math but me. I always thought the problem was me... My teachers seemed to humiliate me in front of the whole class. It has affected me in many areas of my life and I have always struggled to try to learn something, but in vain. I was always ashamed of it, since I was always good at other things, my parents never understood my problem, they tried to teach me but learning something from a stressed adult because you can't calculate or remember numbers scares any child with dyscalculia.
My three years of high school were exhausting, at this point I no longer felt like putting in the effort to learn, knowing that it wouldn't bring any results. All my school exams I always found a way to get answers from someone, but calculating? Out of question. In November of last year, I took my first entrance exam, in exact science I didn't do well, but hearing this from my family is honestly humiliating, saying mean things won't make me learn and understand mathematical and exact concepts in general. dealing with money, reading clock (pointer clock) is like a nightmare for me.
Well, I've never opened up to anyone on this subject, but today I decided to share my experience. I would like to read the experiences of people with dyscauculia and understand how they deal with it and how to accept this disability.
thanks for reading my experience, stay safe and wear masks 🤍
@iS2maev I don't have dyscauculia but I wanted to thank you for introducing me to this term. We all have different areas where we struggle. You write well so you should be confident that you are not stupid. It is hard to heal from the harsh words people have said in the past. Surround yourself with people who support you instead of tearing you down and you will grow stronger.
I understand exactly how you feel. I’ve always had trouble with numbers growing up and I only discovered this term after my therapist told me I had it alongside ADHD. I can picture numbers in my head but they don’t have any meaning (same with words), and reading clocks is really difficult. The only way I can tell time is to take a moment to sit down and visualise time as a shape and I’ve colour coded every number to give meaning to them, so midday is yellow. For the longest time I didn’t know this wasn’t normal.
Maths was traumatising growing up. In primary school I was always at the bottom set in times tables (still don’t know my 2x) and because they were assessing me for adhd I skipped a lot of class time going to educational therapy aswell. I didn’t know what that was at age 9, they just pulled me out of class and I got to jump on a trampoline for an hour.
In middle school it was the worst. They put me in the top set because despite being dyscalculic I was good at physics, but for physics you only really need to understand shapes and have acsess to a calculator. In the top set I constantly got HUMILIATED by my teacher. He would ask me to write stuff on the board knowing full well I couldn’t answer it and then everyone would laugh. When I asked him for help he would just ask another student to help me and they never did and he never did anything about it. I eventually just stopped learning in maths alltogether, I would be so anxious and stressed that I would fall asleep, so they put me in the special Ed class. The special Ed class did nothing and I continued to skip lessons passed out, and the teacher belittled me for not getting questions right.
it’s safe to say I failed maths, I was so happy to leave that school and do my 3 favourite subjects for A levels. And covid pretty much saved me, helped me re-evaluate my mental health and I realized I’ve been traumatized. Had to go to therapy for ages after that cus every time someone asked me to do mental math I would get a panic attack.