Shadow Bear

[ShadowBear]

How old are you, were are you from?
I am 41 - will be 42 this October, from Denmark, living in Sweden the last 35 years.

When did you find out that you couldn’t do what others could?

In school, when I finished 6th grade I still struggling with the 3rd grade math books...I didn't know what was wrong other than I was stupid when it came to math.

What is/was school like?

You don't want to know

When and were did you hear about dyscalculia for the first time, and did your life change after that? How?

I was 39, when some one with dyslexia told me that it sounded like what she was suffering from, and I actually came up with the word 'dyscalculia' - and started talking about it, when a friend of mine said that there is such a thing. 'IT' had a name, not just one I had invented, but a real NAME - and I wasn't stupid after all:-)
It changed my life very much - it explained all those things I never seemed able to learn or do, like dance steps, playing sheet music on the piano, calculating time, reading maps, find a way into a pile a clutter and clean it up, and off course all those sadistic puzzle games everyone think are so 'Intelligent'...and it gave my poor wife an explantion to why it seems impossible to me to organize all those boxes of clutter, that I have aquired over the years...

It was a relief.

What irritates you the most about your disability?

My inability to play sheet music. And that nagging feeling I have when shopping that I am getting cheated on the change...And then off course people's general assumption that I am stupid with numbers...

Thanks,
Shadow Bear

[ellyodd]

Hi ;D

You mean "talblind" (numberblind), not dyscalculia, right? I think that every single dyscalculic dane I've ever talked with have called themselfes that. We are lucky to have that word, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, huh...

I looooove to dance... By myself, with the drapes down and locked doors

[ShadowBear]

No, I actually came up with the word DYSKALKYLI which is the Swedish equivalent for Dyscalculia, and yes it's 'talblind' in Swedish, but just as we don't call dyslexics 'ordblind' - as it is considered a slur, we wouldn't say 'talblind'.

SB

[ellyodd]

Cool! I never would have thought of the danish dyskalkuli...

Hope you saw my answer on ldonline

[Thanks]

haven't gotten around to that yet - many sites, many groups and not much time...:-) But I am on my way now, also I didn't the possiblity of getting notification to you mailbox when people reply on LDOnline

[ellyodd]

;D

[sparrow]

hi shadowbear!
I'm sorry about your school experiences! now, in this somewhat more enlightened age, we have information available about learning disorders... but the people back then didn't. They just had to live with being called stupid. Aahh!
I'm a musician too, and it drives me crazy when I can't sight-read music- usually the note values trip me up. What instuments do you play? I play viola and harp.

[Shadow Bear]

Piano. Just piano.

*hug*
SB

[Lucere]

Hey, I play piano, too. And a little bit guitar. I mean, I used to play guitar when I was a teenager, then stopped for a long time. Now trying to learn again.

Lucere

[ellyodd]

I'm soooo bad at playing instruments, my fingers won't do as I tell them to

[ShadowBear]

But I bet you can sing...

Oh, that has been a pain for me - I was offered private lessons from a professional pianist - the Carnigie Hall kind of pianist, and had to turn them down, because although I have no trouble creating music of my own on the piano, and this Concert Pianist heard me, trying to read the music and play at the same time...

Some says I wonder what I would have been had I not been dyscalculic..

Shadow

[ellyodd]

Well, I sing A LOT, my neighbors hate me - so obviously I'm horrible ;D

Notes look hard to read... But I have never tried.

It can be tricky not to BECOME the dyscalculia. But it is a big part of my personality, I can't run from that - But I'm 100% sure that if my learning disability just was recognized before and I had help, it wouldn’t be such a big part of me.

[Lucere]

I try to confine my singing to when I'm in the car.
Then I can sing as loud as I want.

I imagine that music must be a great comfort to a lot of dyscalculics. I also wonder if dyscalculics tend to compensate for the lack of math skills by developing our more creative, artistic or musical sides.

L.

[ellyodd]

I don't know. But that's because I really don't have artistic skills. But one thing is for sure, it has been proved that dyslexics are good at creative, artistic and musical stuff, in a large number.

So.. maybe its the same with dyscalculic people.