History of of Dyscalculia, and history of qutting math

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I have severe feature of Dyscalculia and some tendencies of Dyslexia.



I failed math most of the school years, but I kept relearning the same early mathematics, but still don't get it. At some point I quit doing math for some time, and felt like, it's pointless, but then I started learning math again, but with some trial and errors, but I passed at the end.



I feel bad for quitting math, because it can seem like I refuse to learn math and making up excuses, but failing early math for most school years is not normal at all, and I am way behind compared to most of my peers.



I started to try to learn math again from scratch, although I am not sure if I will be able to do complex math in the future, but I can try to do complex math in the future.

Electrical Engineer here, but I make a living as a programmer.

I never liked math. Too abstract. I had to take calculus II three times, and Calculus III twice.

On the other hand, I passed EE courses that required calculus with flying colors. It is simple: I can't stand math all by itself, but I am good at it when it applies to physics or engineering.

Math with pictures?
Many Aspies are visual thinkers. It may help if you draw pictures to help you understand math problems.

There are many different types of math. You may want to explore and see if anything seems much easier or at least much more interesting. Find something that holds your interest. Even if you can't understand it, you may at least learn about it.

It may help to learn a little each day. And switch to learning something else when you hit a wall.

I am lucky to be gifted in that I can take different approaches and still get there. This makes it very helpful when teaching someone else how to doe something. This may be a benefit of being transgender. I am familiar with both genders.

I had a lot of trouble with mathematics. The advanced-level stuff was just too much for me, and I only passed the exam by the skin of my teeth after a lot of effort. I still baulk at really advanced mathematics, but I'm fairly good at using the easier stuff, having found a lot of ways to use it in my job and for some of my special interests. It's a great help to me when I apply new learning to the solution of real problems that I'm interested in solving. That "hands on" thing, of doing something rather than trying to learn "passively" seems more or less essential to me if I'm going to get anywhere. Conversely, I find pure mathematics difficult. I can handle abstract concepts fairly well, but when they're new to me it can take me a long time to fathom them, and I'm sorely tempted to give up at the first hurdle. I have a similar attitude to philosophy, but there I can comfort myself by declaring that a lot of it is unnecessary constructs, while mathematics seems rather more useful and solid.

If it's any consolation, it's pretty normal to dislike mathematics. They did a survey that found the most common explanation pupils gave was that it was a "stupid" subject, by which I guess they meant that it's too far removed from normal experience to easily map onto what you already know, it's too esoteric to grasp easily. I know there's a stereotype of Aspies being savant mathematicians, but I don't think that happens unless there's a special interest about numbers in the first place. A book about learning said that numbers are cold, unemotional things that are hard to remember because learning is emotional, and that it's better to just write them down. That resonated well with me at the time, and I rather stopped trying to remember numbers.

Struggled with math in school. Needed a tutor. Barely got through algebra, and geometry. Trig or calculus? Forget it. Didnt even try em. Did do okay in a college "math for business and social science" class though.

So it would seem that I would be one of the math impaired, if not math ret*d.

Yet...on a particular social website I frequent...I encountered a group of posters who thought that...if a tycoon has a billion dollars then he can give a billion people a billion dollars EACH. When I tried to explain that NO... he can only give each of those billion folks ONE dollar each...they accused me of bullying folks who "dont have your great math knowledge". Like accusing Quasimodo of being "too handsome".

I still havent gotten over it.

Math isnt one thing. Its many things. I worked with a guy who had a degree in engineering and presumably could ace calculus. But he couldnt do arithmetic in his head and couldnt figure out the "each" price for something that is "three for eight dollars"...I would instantly bark "two sixty seven".

As both of the two above posters said its helps if the type of math you are studying is relevant to something you're interested in (vocation or avocation).

Math was always my weakest subject, and I struggled more as it steadily got more advanced. I did okay with Geometry though, which seems a subject thar trips a lot of people up in high school because they can't logic through the proofs. College math wrecked me, especially calculus.

I can't do math in my head; I have to write it down.

I struggle with counting, both losing track of what I have or haven't counted and losing the count in my head, sometimes even without any distraction. I usually need to do it physically, moving things from an uncounted pile to an counted pile.

Numbers don't like to stick in my head. Phone numbers especially. When I come home from vacation I struggle to remember my alarm code; I remember the digits but not the order.

A trick I used somewhat effectively was associating long numbers, like an account number, with a series of jersey numbers from my favorite sports team.

That make sense.