Dyscalculia a barrier to success?

I took my driving test yesterday.

I failed.

If coping with the failure wasn't difficult enough then dealing with the anger of being so close to pass was harder still. I had 6 minors, 6! That's hardly anything and they were just that, minors. The odd harsh break or fumbling for a gear. Nothing which could be considered to unsafe.

No the thing that caused me to fail was going up the kerb slightly whilst going forward to correct my reverse round a corner to the left. If i'd not gone up the kerb then my maneouver would have been fine, perhaps a minor for my positioning but that wouldn't have been a problem as even 7 minors is a good pass (you can have up to 15).

The most frustrating thing is that I know that no matter how many times I practice that maneouver it will never be good. You see I have dyscalculia. It's never been professionally diagnosed but my sister has dyslexia and they're closely linked. I never had the luxury of being tested in school, nobody had heard of the disorder, they were only just coming to terms with dyslexia.

Having dyscalculia means that I have trouble with mathematical concepts as well as other not so obvious mathemathical things. For example I find it hard to tell the time on an analogue clock. I cannot rotate things which made it very difficult to telll how far I was turning the steering wheel. I also find it difficult to know left from right so I spent a number of weeks with my instructor yelling directions at me and flinging his arms out to show me which direction I should go in. I struggle to judge distance too so i'm fearful when they ask me to pull up one car length away from the car in front or stay a metre away from the kerb.

I battle with it in my job too. I'm a teaching assistant so I spend at least 5 hours a week doing maths with the children. The majority of the time they will get the answer before I do which breaks my heart because they're 9 and i'm 23. I don't know many of my multiplication tables because unlike most children I was unable to learn they by rote. Instead i'm left with the leftovers of what I can remember either because it's simple addition e.g. 2x is the number added to itself or 10x because you just add a 0 on the end of the number.

I try so hard everyday to battle my disability, yes it is a disability. It doesn't stop me from doing things but it sure as help makes them tricky. If people knew how hard it was then they probably wouldn't taunt me as much as they do or make off hand remarks about it.

So i'm sat here this afternoon feeling very angry and frustrated because I know deep down that had it not been for the fact that I have trouble judging where my car is in relation to the kerb then I wouldn't have failed. Had my dyscalculia not clouded how I see things then I could be out this afternoon feeling the wind rush though my hair as I drive round the coast roads.

I don't want to put all the blame on my disorder but i've tried so many things to stop it getting in the way. I practised for hours on the end of the bed physically going through the maneouver, how many turns of the wheel, where to look, when to move, when to stop. I practised it in the car. We made marks in the car for me to look at and still I managed to get it wrong. What else left is there for me blame but the disorder.

But I don't want to. Blaming the disorder won't do me any good whatsoever. The disorder isn't going to make me pass the next test. I am.

I've got another test booked now. 4th October. That's over 2 months away now which is so frustrating as I'm ready now. What's really annoying is that it's also the date they include something new in the test. Something the dyscalculate part of my brain won't like. Independent Driving.

Independent driving involves spending 10 mins of the test following a list of several instructions the examiner has given you rather than one instruction at a time, or following roadsigns and markings to a particular place. Apparently the examiner can give you a diagram or map of the route too. This fills me with dread. Why? you might ask, isn't this just like the driving you'll be doing when you pass? Yes it is but not under test pressure and when I pass I intend to get a Sat Nav to help me with directions as i've already said I struggle with them and the roadsigns aren't as much help as they could be as the picture doesn't match what I see in reality in my opinion. So they idea that when I next take my test i'll have even more to contend with is not really making me feel better about failing this one.

I also have the problem of organising time off as it's not in the school holidays. They're quite picky about letting you have time out of the school day. Will have to try and twist their arms.

So there you have it Dyscalculia is so much more than a word, it's like a life sentence and people who deal with it everyday should be given a medal for bravery as you non-suffers have no idea the pain we go through just to survive the day.

Money money money

I've just been to the bathroom to vomit up half my lunch. It's not because it tasted awful or that i'm ill. No, it's because I feel like total shit. I checked my bank balance this morning. I had several hundred pounds in it which at first I thought was great. When Christmas came and I got money from parents I felt relieved thinking it would help enormously given my severe lack of cash. I decided to move it to my savings so I didn't spend it which left me with not very much cash. Most of my pay packet had gone on putting my account back into plus figures.

Then I checked my credit card statement. To my horror I'd forgotten to pay last months bill. So I had a late fee and interest on top of that added to what is already a ridiculous amount of money. Money which I can't pay off without using the savings. OH was trying to be supportive saying he'd help which didn't really help as all it's done is make me feel more guilty. I don't want him bailing me out all the time. I want to be on an equal footing with him. Instead I just feel like I live on handouts from him and other family. He says he knows how I feel. He's been spending more than he should recently too but what he doesn't understand is he has the money in his savings and deposits to cover odd blips. I have nothing. I cannot survive on what I have. I told him this and he said not to worry and that he would help.

I don't want help I want it not to be a problem in the first place. I've worked so damn hard all my life getting an education, being consciencious and hard working, all trying to please people and it just gets me nowhere. On Thursday I watched a co-worker teaching, or rather murdering the delivery of, a lesson of a subject which I have a degree in. I could so easily have done her job ten times better and I fought for the chance to do that last september and the head turned me down in preference to loads of other people including her. She only got hours doing that because she complained that he'd promised some and didn't give her any to start off with. He was supposedly giving these hours to people who had skills they could use to help the kids. I can't see how that's worked.

Ever since the bank thing this morning I've said hardly a word to OH. Mainly because I can't think what to. What do you say to someone when you know your whole world is crumbling down again. Especially when you know they'll try to tell you otherwise and tell you how good your life is when you've known for months that really all you've felt like doing is giving up, finding a very dark corner to crawl in to and hoping no one will notice you've gone so you can slip quietly away and don't have to think or worry about anything anymore. The frustrating part is the more I don't say anything the more desperate he becomes in trying to comfort me and get me to talk and then he goes and says or does something which makes me a feel a whole lot worse.

When i'd finished eating my lunch I didn't feel much like sitting there. Polite chit chat was not on the cards certainly. I can barely keep myself from crying how can I have a conversation? Especially without the tears becoming the topic of it! So I said thanks for the meal and pottered upstairs thinking about how if I could just make it to the top I could have 5 minutes peace to myself but then I could hear OH following and all hopes of that faded.

He asked to give me a hug. I just wanted to curl up and die from all the pain inside. I hate it when he asks that question. I desperately want someone to hold me and tell me it's alright but when they ask I can't bring myself to allow it. I don't deserve the relief it brings so I hold off for as long as I can. Almost like when someone asks if you want a slice of cake and you think it looks lovely and would love a big hunk of it but think it's inpolite to say yes can I have the really huge peice. So you say no thanks, really no i'm o.k until at least 3 or 4 people have had a slice and they ask if you're really sure you don't want some and then you say o.k you've twisted my arm. You let yourself have it because you don't feel as guilty now other people have been equally bad. So I climbed on the bed a made myself into a ball secretly hoping to erase the last few seconds and for him to not feel too regected. I know I hurt him. But then it came. The thing I fear most. When he speaks and I know i've hurt him because he retorts with something that I know will hurt me because I hurt him and I know it. "Fine ignore again like you've done all morning like you always do". The words went through my body like hot daggers and I lay there curled up for a moment feeling them pierce through my core thinking you're a bitch and you deserve this. It's all your fault. Then I sloped off to the bathroom with him muttering behind me "see you later". I stuck my fingers as far down my throat as I could get them making myself gag until I threw up part of my lunch. It felt like I was purging myself of some kind of poison, like somehow if I got rid of the meal I'd just enjoyed that somehow that would help me feel better that depriving myself of it would make up for how bad a person I am. It helped for all of 2 seconds. Now I feel just as bad.