Living With Dyscalculia (It’s Not Just 'Number Dyslexia')

Josie was diagnosed with Dyscalculia when she was 19. Dyscalculia is often described as "number dyslexia" but it's not quite as simple as that. It can affect your maths skills, reading clocks, remembering people's names or reading maps. Dyscalculia is actually one of the most underdiagnosed learning difficulties there is.

[shaylin]

I always wondered why I literally could NOT do math how hard I tried. I broke down in tears due to failing math and all the hours I would put into math just to turn around and have NOTHING come out it it. I hated thinking I was just stupid but it wasn’t until my last year of nursing school that I realized I had Dyscalculia and I learned that I can’t do paper math but I can do hands on med math!

[MamaMia....]

After year two of primary school I stopped understanding maths. It just became a looped experience of: confusion, temporary understanding. lost recall, anxiety at not grasping it, shame for being so very stupid, quiet burning tears while the teacher stood next to me trying to explain the hell out of something 'everyone but me' understood, guilt for taking up the teachers time, pretending to understand to end the mortification of NOT understanding, not raising my hand with questions - no way, not being able to finish a worksheet, shame at being in the bottom group. THEN skipping maths class in high school, wishing for a time I could elect NOT to take maths, knowing I would never be the veterinarian I dreamed of being. Becoming something else instead.
And now in my late forties, hearing about dyscalculia.

[camisthejester]

I was diagnosed with dyscalculia last year and it upsets me so much that everybody I know with dyslexia is diagnosed as children, but I had to wait until I was 18 for my school to even consider testing their students

[sydney]

I'm currently writing a book where one of the main characters (has a point of view in the story) is very, very intelligent but struggles with Dyscalculia. She's 13, so she hasn't been diagnosed yet (and will be diagnosed in a later book, it's a trilogy that's a adventure-based story), and I found this video very insightful! Thank you!

[basedbattledroid]

It just annoys me how people don't realize it's a genuine disability, I mean most people say they're bad at maths but they don't struggle with it like I do, and my maths teachers always told me I was lazy and wasn't paying attention, instead of trying to make it easy to understand, it was like reading some crazy gibberish, and then when I was moved to the remedial maths class; the teacher there just kept calling me a retard, and said "pay attentio you stupid bitch" even though I was the only one sitting up the front trying to take notes with my textbook open while everyone else was just sitting back handballing a footy to each other. I mean if I was diagnosed with dyslexia they would've taken that seriously, but they act like dyscalculia is some made-up condition.

Literally every one of those symptoms is applicable.

[amandacamacho]

I was diagnosed at 20 years old. People don't take it seriously and for me personally is more than a struggle, specially because I'm a Science major student in Biomedical Sciences. My college sees it as a "fake diagnosis", which has taken a toll on my academic progress and my confidence. I hope someday, it can be research better.

[divyak]

I am not sure if I have Dyscalculia ( I don't want to self-diagnose) but I struggled with Maths so much. Ever since we're supposed to have learnt our multiplication tables Maths became this painful ordeal I had to go through. I couldn't remember them at all. Even as a 23 year old I only remember the simplest tables (2, 5, 10, ) so many concepts make no sense to me and my entire school life was full of teachers, friends, parents, tuition teachers getting frustrated with me. And me feeling stupid and crying. In eight standard I got the best Maths teacher I ever had, he recognised how well I did in every other subject and decided to talk to me about it. He helped me so much, he would take out extra time to explain things to me in the simplest terms and was so patient. Always reassuring me it's okay and smiling. Sadly he left my school after one year. Maybe if he had stayed I could have been better. But I will always respect him immensely for his efforts and for not making me feel stupid.

[mssummer]

I am also dyscalculic. When I was a teenager having this learning disability really impacted my self confidence. I did go to uni and graduated, but it still affected the type of jobs I could apply for.

[mastring]

dealing with my taxes, or running through my spreadsheet (yes, i have a budget written down so i know exactly what to pay who and on what paycheck...makes my life easier) paying my monthly bills and figuring out what i have left over after it all just goes out the door is hard enough with a "normal" brain.
trying to do this with a disability similar to dyslexia would cause me so much more anxiety i'd need to carry around a cart full of paper bags to breath into to calm down.

[mxinne]

I was diagnosed at 17 which felt like a huge relief! So glad it gets more and more known nowadays.

[beccasmmr]

my little sister was recently diagnosed and to my family it was quite a relief! she now gets proper support at school and my parents have become a lot more understanding and patient with her (consequently my sister is less stressed out). thanks for your video, i found this very helpful too :)

[dante]

The worst part of it is that it's such an unknown disability that when I try to explain it to someone, they just don't get it.

[JosieDuncanSong]

Thank you for the lovely comments & thank you to BBC The Social for having me!
I've loved reading the responses.
Josie xx

[lordhampton-wick]

I'm 72 years old and have never been diagnosed with Dyscalculia, but I know that it applies to me and it has been a constant embarrassment all my life. I have never applied for jobs that required entrance exams, or intelligence tests, because I knew I would fail. So I've done rubbish jobs my whole life. At school, which I hated with a vengeance they made me wear a dunce cap and stand in the corner of the classroom. I was ridiculed and made to feel absolutely wretched. I have always hated everything to do with school or formal education, because I felt so stupid. If you think you are suffering from Dyscalculia do something about it, otherwise there is a danger you too could waste your life like I, and no doubt others have.

[sammiisdead]

I have always struggled in math since time tables, division, decimals and everything after that.
last year I told my school counselor about how hard math is for me and she basically told me that I'm only bad at math because I tell myself I'm bad at math😐
that *obviously* didn't help with the fact that when I look at numbers and word problems in class it just looks like a bunch of jumbled nonsense and my brain can't wrap around the concepts or make sense of what I'm looking at. I dread assignments that include statistics and clocks and percentages.
It's like being handed a piece of paper w/ a whole other language you've never seen before written on it. Most of my math teachers just assumed I remembered concepts from the year prior when in reality I've been lost since 5th grade math and I'm a junior in high school still confused abt concepts I'm expected to have memorized years ago..

[LindseyLister]

I've just been diagnosed with Dyscalculia through the Dyscalculia Centre. I'm fifty-one years old and I've always had difficulty with maths. Numbers are like a foreign language. Mine is not as severe as Josie's. I feel validated by being diagnosed. I want to be a therapist and so a learning disability like this is not going to stop me. I will just need help with my accounts. I didn't realise that an inability to read maps and remembering names are included in the symptoms. Thank you for sharing this video Josie, I'm grateful to you.

[Victoria-_]

I’ve been thinking about this for MONTHS but my parents don’t believe me. They think I just need to “Try harder”. I’m definitely sending both of them this video!

[ClaireGarrard]

Dyscalculia has blighted my life. I have no sense of direction and become disoriented easily. I get lost all the time and don't underatand directions beyond the first step. I also hate most board games, because if I manage to grasp the rules, I have no sense of strategy. The confusion I feel when it is explained makes me feel physically sick. It is as if my brain has seized up and won't operate.

[dereksewkumar]

"I'am in my 60's ..I was beaten every single day as a very small child ..And called and made to feel a lot less as a human..
The good thing is those people are now passed away ..I look after my disabled brother we live together ..and look in on my disabled sister too ..she is in her late 50's and so is my bro-

d 🤕🗺🇪🇺💜

[crownedbee]

I was diagnosed with dyscalculia when I was 7 years old. This is pretty early and my teacher didn't think I had dyscalculia, but luckily my mom knew that it was more than just trouble with math. People never believed me before AND after my diagnosis. I've had people tell me I didn't have dyscalculia because I was "too young to know" and I just had "a little trouble with math", even though I told them I was officially diagnosed. Due to people shaming me i've always felt dumb or stupid when I couldn't do something that was simple to another person. After reading these comments, i'm glad that i'm not the only one who feels/felt like this. I just hate to see how no one knows what it is, or underestimates dyscalculia. Even a math teacher didn't know what it was. So many people tell me to just study hard and it'll get easier for me, but they don't understand that's not how it works. People just don't understand that it's a genuine disability and it makes my life so much harder. Thank you for making this video to help educate people.