For as long as I can remember I have avoided having to perform mathematical equations.
In primary school I would get the sister or chalk thrown at me if I didn’t answer a maths problem on the board correctly.
If I didn’t submit maths homework I would be in trouble with the teacher and my parents.
I started to notice that General addition was ok, subtraction not too bad, I was ok with timetables only because I was always getting into trouble for talking in class and my punishment was to rewrite the timetables ten times each night etc.
Hell! I even went to university and graduated with a teachers degree- I nearly died having to study primary mathematics – and only just passed . Having failed the test by one point due to a long division question I repeated the subject as an intensive and past- just.
What’s frustrating is that five years later that same long division format was removed from primary schooling and decided best for secondary level.
But, irrespective of this- in my daily life, and definitely in my budgeting- I avoid all forms of planning and working out my savings and bills. I simply get paid and pay a bill til I end up with nothing left in my account for food- or the other way around.
Now I find my brother does my budget, and manages my finances.
I see numbers in a chart on excel and they just seem to swim around- they don’t mean anything to me and I want to run for the hills- the sight of the numbers makes me nauseous. Hell! Even a footy tipping chart makes me nauseous to look at. Hence I am not comfortable reading sewing patterns, when it comes to measurements. And so forth.
So.. do I have dyscalculia or numberphobia?
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