Chapter 2- "These symptoms sound familiar"
I think it's probably best to start at my story at my diagnosis!
I've always known that math is my worst subject- at some point I even stopped trying as hard and started to accept that I'd fail every class test and exam no matter how much I study.
I was a good student throughout my school-career. Except math.
For as long as I can remember, I've only ever passed one test in my life. I remember expecting to see a 2 or a 3 (out of 7, I was an IB kid) and I cried happy tears when I saw that 5.
For context, the IB (International Baccalaureate) grading system is out of 7. The passing grade is a 4.
As mentioned, I accepted that I am just bad at math. Hearing "one day it'll click" and "maybe you should study more" sometimes gave me the motivation to sit down, watch every YouTube tutorial I could find because if people believe in me, I should too, shouldn't I?
Anyway, for 13 years of my school career (13 because I had to repeat a year when I moved back home from Dubai and they were concerned about my German grammar when their concern should have really been my mathematical ability or lack thereof), it never clicked. I never got it. When I got my final exam back, I wasn't surprised to see that I had indeed failed math. I decided to resit the exam the following year because I was down 2 points to getting into university in Zürich. I found myself a tutor, paid for all my lessons and practiced every day. A year later, I did not feel ready. I knew I probably wouldn't do as well as I wanted to but I still went for it because I had a dream. Lo and behold, I failed again with the same grade as the previous year, despite the time and energy I put into studying. I was so incredibly disappointed in myself and couldn't believe that my brain would let me down like that. All I wanted to do was to start my studies. But there I was watching my friends from the sidelines. I figured this can't be normal, so I began googling "numeric dyslexia" and came across Dyscalculia.
Luckily, at the time I was working at an association for Psychologists in Zürich. There, we organised annual trips to different psychological institutions to introduce psychologists to a field they may not be familiar with. One of those trips was to the Neuropsychological Institute of the University of Zürich. There, we were introduced to different learning disabilities and among them was Dyscalculia. As this man read out the symptoms, I realised how real they are to me and my life. Difficulty reading analog clocks, inability to plan financially, struggling to visualise numbers, inconsistent results in calculations (as in I can solve a calculation, then solve it again and I will almost certainly have a completely different answer to the first attempt), difficulty with choreographed dancing (I am a terrible dancer- anyone who knows me will tell you), difficulty with directions (as in, drop me anywhere and I will be lost forever even with google maps) among many more that I will be sure to write about.
I went home that day, feeling like I may have just solved my own mystery. Could this be my problem? I spoke to my parents about it, and they encouraged me to get diagnosed. And so I did.
I remember sitting in that room, my heart beating so fast and thinking "what if I'm just dumb". Good news is, I'm not dumb. Getting the diagnosis a couple of weeks later felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. It was a huge relief to finally have an answer to why I can't multiply 5 by 6 without using my fingers or why I have to write the number 17 eight times and add them together to multiply 17 by 8.
I was diagnosed with Dyscalculia at 19, after graduating high-school. It definitely would have been more convenient to have had someone point out that there has to be another reason besides laziness that was causing my poor math grades. But no one noticed or cared enough. It's still a mystery to me how, throughout my schooling career, not a single one of my math teachers looked at my work and thought "this isn't normal".
But I still made it. I still graduated with a good overall grade. And I found out what's wrong on my own. However, the university I wanted to go to did not want me on the basis of my math deficiency (don't worry- I'll get to that soon) and I was forced to bury that dream.
Before this gets too deep, I'll head out until the next post.
Take care of yourselves!
I've always known that math is my worst subject- at some point I even stopped trying as hard and started to accept that I'd fail every class test and exam no matter how much I study.
I was a good student throughout my school-career. Except math.
For as long as I can remember, I've only ever passed one test in my life. I remember expecting to see a 2 or a 3 (out of 7, I was an IB kid) and I cried happy tears when I saw that 5.
For context, the IB (International Baccalaureate) grading system is out of 7. The passing grade is a 4.
As mentioned, I accepted that I am just bad at math. Hearing "one day it'll click" and "maybe you should study more" sometimes gave me the motivation to sit down, watch every YouTube tutorial I could find because if people believe in me, I should too, shouldn't I?
Anyway, for 13 years of my school career (13 because I had to repeat a year when I moved back home from Dubai and they were concerned about my German grammar when their concern should have really been my mathematical ability or lack thereof), it never clicked. I never got it. When I got my final exam back, I wasn't surprised to see that I had indeed failed math. I decided to resit the exam the following year because I was down 2 points to getting into university in Zürich. I found myself a tutor, paid for all my lessons and practiced every day. A year later, I did not feel ready. I knew I probably wouldn't do as well as I wanted to but I still went for it because I had a dream. Lo and behold, I failed again with the same grade as the previous year, despite the time and energy I put into studying. I was so incredibly disappointed in myself and couldn't believe that my brain would let me down like that. All I wanted to do was to start my studies. But there I was watching my friends from the sidelines. I figured this can't be normal, so I began googling "numeric dyslexia" and came across Dyscalculia.
Luckily, at the time I was working at an association for Psychologists in Zürich. There, we organised annual trips to different psychological institutions to introduce psychologists to a field they may not be familiar with. One of those trips was to the Neuropsychological Institute of the University of Zürich. There, we were introduced to different learning disabilities and among them was Dyscalculia. As this man read out the symptoms, I realised how real they are to me and my life. Difficulty reading analog clocks, inability to plan financially, struggling to visualise numbers, inconsistent results in calculations (as in I can solve a calculation, then solve it again and I will almost certainly have a completely different answer to the first attempt), difficulty with choreographed dancing (I am a terrible dancer- anyone who knows me will tell you), difficulty with directions (as in, drop me anywhere and I will be lost forever even with google maps) among many more that I will be sure to write about.
I went home that day, feeling like I may have just solved my own mystery. Could this be my problem? I spoke to my parents about it, and they encouraged me to get diagnosed. And so I did.
I remember sitting in that room, my heart beating so fast and thinking "what if I'm just dumb". Good news is, I'm not dumb. Getting the diagnosis a couple of weeks later felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. It was a huge relief to finally have an answer to why I can't multiply 5 by 6 without using my fingers or why I have to write the number 17 eight times and add them together to multiply 17 by 8.
I was diagnosed with Dyscalculia at 19, after graduating high-school. It definitely would have been more convenient to have had someone point out that there has to be another reason besides laziness that was causing my poor math grades. But no one noticed or cared enough. It's still a mystery to me how, throughout my schooling career, not a single one of my math teachers looked at my work and thought "this isn't normal".
But I still made it. I still graduated with a good overall grade. And I found out what's wrong on my own. However, the university I wanted to go to did not want me on the basis of my math deficiency (don't worry- I'll get to that soon) and I was forced to bury that dream.
Before this gets too deep, I'll head out until the next post.
Take care of yourselves!
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