Let me begin by say that I will not let my learning disability define me, my worth, or what I want to do with my life. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), anywhere between 15 to 20 percent of Americans suffer from a learning disability or disorder. Many people believe that learning disabilities aren’t real or that they’re made up or that it’s all in the person’s head. Many people I know, including myself, my little sister, and some of my closest friends suffer from learning disabilities. There are different types of learning disorders and a spectrum on how severe they can get. I am one of the 15-20 percent of Americans that live and function in society with a learning disorder, and I will not let it define me.
Many people think that learning disorders don’t exist.
A lot of people I have come across will call me a liar or tell me that learning disorders do not exist. This statement angers me far more than anyone will ever know. I understand that learning disorders aren’t as severe as physical disabilities or diseases such as cancer, MS, cerebral palsy, etc. but it is still a disorder that affects an individual’s life and function in society. Before you go on to tell someone with a learning disorder that they’re “lying” or that “it doesn’t exist” or it’s “all in our heads,” please be considerate and think before you speak.
The hardships…
For me personally, I suffer from a mathematical learning disorder. My brain does not process math the way it should. As a child, in high school and even today as a college student, I have to work 10 times as hard as someone without a learning disability. That means countless hours of studying, countless hours put into going to tutoring, the many breakdowns that come along when you can’t figure out a math problem and you’ve been trying to figure it out for over an hour. No matter how many hours of studying and tutoring I put in I still cannot process math. I am on the more severe end of my learning disorder than a lot of other people but I have to deal with it and work a lot harder than most people.
The way society portrays us.
Society portrays people with learning disorders as someone who is faking, wants attention or just wants to get out of a hard class. That is by far not the case. What society doesn’t know is all the countless extra work we have to put in to even achieve a passing grade in a subject that we have a learning disorder in. Society portrays us as stupid or just plain lazy. This stigma that society puts on us needs to stop. We are people just like everyone else. Society treats people with physical disabilities with respect, why can’t they do the same for us? After all we are all just people just trying to live our lives.
The struggle of being a college student who can’t pass a math class because of her disability…
I purposely choose a major that I thought wouldn’t involve a lot of math… Boy, did I pick the wrong major. As someone who is majoring in exercise science and wishes to go on to become a physician’s assistant, math is involved and always will be. This past spring semester, I had to take a sports nutrition class with a project that involved numerous calculations. Needless to say, I had many breakdowns; I would be in the middle of trying to do a calculation, struggle to figure it out, and I would just cry for an hour. Math was never my strong suit in general—but add a learning disorder to it and you have a recipe for disaster.
I can continue to go on and on about learning disorders/disabilities and telling you all about my experiences with living with a learning disorder, but that was not the point of this article. I chose to write on this topic because many people believe that learning disorders/disabilities do not exist; society believes that we are either making this up, it’s all in our head, or that we’re faking. This article is dedicated to the people who suffer from a learning disorder and will not let it define them. Enough is enough. I will not let my learning disability define my worth or future.
