Dyscalculia Mental Wellness Quiz
Dyscalculia not only affects your mathematical abilities, but it can also play a huge role in your mental wellness. Not only can dyscalculia be the cause of your maths anxiety, but in the classroom and workplace, you were made to feel stupid. This has a massive impact on your self-esteem and confidence.
Help with your diagnosis.
OK. So now you’ve found a possible reason for why you’ve struggled with numbers and maths your ENTIRE life. FOR MANY, this discovery can be HELPFUL BUT ALSO very challenging.
Many adults grew up in a time when very little understanding, unlike today, was given to a child with a neurodiverse brain. Learning difficulties were barely recognised and extra tuition or help was not readily available. Nothing or very little was understood or known about dyscalculia, and many people still carry the scars of their childhoods. Constantly being told you were stupid, not only by your teachers but very often by your peers and parents too, can have an everlasting effect on your self-confidence and self-worth.
Learning about dyscalculia and that it was no fault of yours, and it wasn’t because you were stupid, lazy or idle, leaves many of us feeling angry. Wondering what “could have been” can be a hard pill to swallow. Learning about dyscalculia also creates a lot of “if only's”, not only for what you might have achieved career-wise had you been taught in a way you could understand, but also for how differently your life may have turned out if you weren’t forced to believe you were less than.
Many kids were bullied because of labels placed on them at school, sometimes even by teachers themselves. Mark Daly knows only too well what that felt like.
“I put my hand up and I start to say that I don’t really understand. So the teacher goes over to the side of the room and starts to gesticulate to bring my bag and chair and tells me to hurry up. He is getting on with the class and I am trying to get across something that I don’t really understand. Again he starts gesticulating but then I realise he wants me to move my desk around to face the wall. He says I don’t want to look at you, hear from you or speak to you for the rest of the year. That is your place for the rest of the year now turn around and face the wall.” - Mark Daly
Read his full blog here.
Many of us get on with life the best we can, but we don’t realise how much our unconscious mind holds onto experiences that happened to us in our past. Often, the traumas of our past feed our anxieties and have a negative effect on how we perceive ourselves.
Get in touch with me marni@dyscalculia.me, I can help to give you coping strategies and regain the confidence you’ve lost along the way.