Dyscalculia and excuse

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I had the same problem. My parents were like "You should give up on being a veterinarian when you grow up becuase you'll NEVER be able to pass the college/university math requirements!" That's when I quit trying at all in school. I was only in the 3rd or 4th grade too. I volunteered for a vet and brought up my situation and and every other vet (and several techs) said "Oh, that's no big deal. Most colleges have a disability department you can go to and they'll get you help. It's not cheating." My brother is a people doctor who found anything academic came easy to him. He was super popular too. A real life "Mary-Sue". He never believed me about my math issue and told me I was being lazy and that people who get accommodations in school are just lazy. I didn't talk to him for over a year...almost two after that. I STILL am angry over it.

Becoming a veterinarian is my special interest. My main one. Special interests are my strongest autistic trait. My mom always said to focus on being a veterinary tech/nurse but that's not my special interest and I'm pretty sure you are required to learn math in tech school too. I think she meant veterinary assistant which a lot of people get confused for techs because in some places they basically are. If my dyscalculia had been diagnosed earlier I would have had a better outcome. Whenever I hear that autistic people are oh so good at math, I want to strangle the person who says it.

I don't want to just work with animals, I want to be a vet and if that never happens I would or will probably kill myself. I can't see myself doing anything else and it offends me when people suggest it.

This right here is a giant example of why autism is disability and not a difference.

How is it an example? And I believe sucide should be a right, no questions asked and there should be suicide clinics where people can go in make out their wills and then give themselves a lethal injection. But no, we force people who want to commit sucide into mental wards and hospitals.

And if people cared so much, they would help me become a vet by helping me get tutoring in school and get some experience working in a veterinary hospital. You need so many hours of it to be accepted into veterinary school but every vet I've asked turns me down because I can't interviews if you don't ask me specific questions and they just laugh in my face at the interview.

This is an "giant example" of how their needs to be more services for higher functioning autistic people to find jobs they actually want. Every "vocational rehab" place I contact either never calls me back or tells me they only work with lower functioning people or basically put them in jobs no one else wants such as rest stop janitors or picking up trash on the side of the road.

I'm about as pro-suicide as anyone; that alone isn't the issue.

The problem is having such a rigid, narrow focus - even by autistic standards - is neither healthy nor realistic. Especially because you're ride-or-die on a job that certainly looks appealing but which you've never actually done.

I found a great career involving my special interest doing a job that I never expected to do at a place I never intended to work, especially not long term.

My sister, who is NT, always wanted to be a veterinarian. Sometime during college she changed her mind; she has a career in a different medical profession.

In veterinary medicine or any other job there will be curveballs. Not every animal is going to have a simple, textbook medical issue. Not to mention the customers, if you're not working with wildlife. If you can't handle an interview for a volunteer position why should they expect you can handle the pressures of the job?

I bet veterinarians get lots of people who gush about how much they love animals. Lots of NTs whose passion far exceeds their ability and knowledge (about a wide variety of topics). So you will need to brush up on your interview skills to be able to persuade them you're not just passionate, but serious and capable.