For as long as I can remember I have had an insane struggle with numbers. I can remember being in first grade and staying in from recess to work on a math sheet. We went over "easy" things like four plus four and three plus three. However, I remember looking at the sheet and nothing making sense. I understood what she was saying to me, but my brain was scrambling for a solid answer.

I always got backlash in elementary school for not knowing how to do things. Over time, I developed an anxiety of sorts that related to anything to do with math. I felt severely left behind as I got into higher grades. All of my friends had this basic understanding of something I didn't and I wanted to understand. My parents put me into tutoring and for a while, that helped me. I often would get frustrated at myself and shut down. Shutting down was my only option so I could escape from the reality of not knowing.

Middle school proved to be even harder for me, though, once we started getting into pre-algebra. The addition of number and letters really started to mess with me. I knew what to do, but systematically I couldn't solve the problems in an accurate amount of time. I started to become angrier at myself and I questioned what I did wrong.

I'm now in my third year of college, and math is still hard for me. I find it hard sometimes to even do simple times tables in my head. I blurt out wrong answers frequently and I never really had a true "name" for what was wrong with me all of these years. Not long ago in one of my classes, we were studying different types of anxiety. One of the types of anxiety that was talked about was "Math Anxiety". A basic definition of it is,

A feeling of frustration about the inability to perform mathematical functions. Students experience such anxiety in varying levels of intensity but for some, simply going to a math class can be a challenges.

Math anxiety has four "symptoms". Panic, Paranoia, Passive behavior, and Lack of self-confidence. I had all of these symptoms when it came to math. I knew then that even though this wasn't the whole picture, it was a large part of it as well. Later on in the same semester, my class talked about a branch of Dyslexia called, Dyscalculia.

Dyscalculia defines what I went through in Elementary school (and yes sometimes even now) so well. One thing that stood out to me was most children in Elementary school with Dyscalculia found it extremely hard to add simple numbers. They found it even more difficult to be able to express which number is bigger, like six or nine. People with Dyscalculia cannot tell you right off hand often times what number plus, divided, or subtracted equals to because our brains are going a million miles an hour. Not only that, but we have a hard time remembering things like pins or codes because our brains just cannot store the number for a long time.

I believe for me, I might actually have this disorder mixed in with math anxiety. Day to day life is a little harder for me, like if I have to tell the time on a regular clock if my cell phone is not near me. I sometimes have to guesstimate a time and assume it is close enough. Counting change is even harder for me, I get severe performance anxiety and I have to slow myself down long enough to be able to know I correctly counted something correctly.

The best advice I can give to educators, counselors, or parents who have kids (or even adults like myself) with dyscalculia is, be patient. Please, be patient with us because we are trying our absolute best. If I feel rushed I know I will mess up more, and that is exactly what I try to avoid doing.