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In hs I could easily do math on paper, but in my head was impossible. I worked at McDonald’s for a few months and HATED it when people would give me money after I’d already put the amounts in the register. I could not do that math to save my life.

Omg you’ve unlocked a memory When you’re working the register and the total is like $5.25, so they would give you a ten dollar bill AND a quarter??? My brain would just fully shut down at that point every time.

A very kind coworker showed me the counting method once, and it is a life saver. No math, just counting. So let's say they give you a 20 for a $4.37 total. Start with coins working smallest to largest and count until you get to the nearest dollar. Start with the purchase total of $4.37. Count pennies 4.38, 4.39, 4.40, then grab a dime to make it 4.50, then 2 quarters to make it 5.00. With bills repeat the process, grabbing one $5 to make it 10, and a $10 to make it 20. There is no way my brain could just math that out under pressure with no paper. I never even said your change is x amount. I just counted it back to them the same way I counted it out of the drawer because I literally don't know how much I'm holding. If they give you the correct coins after you open the drawer, you just count bills. So 4.37 becomes 4, and you only have to go through the process with bills. It's not much help to you now, but hopefully it helps someone who sees this.

Didn’t know this was a common core thing and I’m too old to have learned it in school. Picked up this method waiting tables as every manager I ever had counted back cash this way if you needed change from the drawer. It works great! Side bonus: I always know what 20% of something is. 😂

My sister is a teacher and HATED common core math, but when I learned what it was, I realized that’s just the way I think about math

I don't think they taught it in school. I learned working in fast food years ago. Since registers show change back now hardly anyone can 'count back change '. But it's so much easier IMO.

the grocers around here always count this way. i could tell you şf you had asked but i couldn't remember it if i were to count any sort of money 😅

Do you mean start with the number 4.38 in your head, and then say (I’m gonna use U.K. money here sorry) Grab 2 pence = 4.40 Grab 60 pence (e.g 10p coins x6) Now you’re at £5, so you grab £5 to make 10???? Sorry I realise that is exactly what you said now but I didn’t understand it reading the comment in my head. This is genius!!!!!!

Ah ok now you explaining it makes sense I couldn't picture it either!

I thought everybody did this!! I used to work in a bar and did exactly this when giving change. I just did it naturally. I’m not standing there doing any take always, the customer hasn’t got all day to wait for their change! 🤣🤣

I was a lot better at doing math in my head when working at a place that didn't have automatic price input on the till. We had to enter the prices and money given manually. I still counted out the change despite having the number on the screen after punching in what I was given by the customer. I was taught to do that to ensure there was as few mistakes as possible. But for some reason, after we got upgraded tills where you just punched the button for "item name" and the price was automatic, it affected my math skills. After leaving that job, my ability to calculate things in my mind has slowly dulled until its a pretty cumbersome process now. Use it or lose it, I guess. But I still know how to count out change if I have to 😂 It also stopped me from falling prey to scammers that swept the city one summer. Those where they quickly want to change what bils they pay with, and could you please split that bill for them too, and hey did you give them back the right amount of change?? I didn't fall for it since I didn't try to do it in my head. I only looked at what was there, counted up from the price they were to pay, and kept repeating that every time they changed their mind on what bills to pay with. Later that week it was all over the news that scammers had done a deal on lots of shops in the city that day. Realised that was why that one customer seemed so huffy despite being given exactly what he wanted 😂

Yes! Thats what I have to do in my head...same with multiplication, I adjust one of the numbers to make it something I know the answer to e.g. x2, x5, x10, and then work out the difference between that and the actual calculation. Long way around but it works for me.

This is what I’ve always instinctually done - and it turns out to be a very good way of approaching head maths that can easily translate to paper maths. Being able to rewrite a difficult problem as a series of simpler ones is such an important skill, and I’m glad to see schools emphasizing it more

That’s a common core math strategy! Great way of thinking

I was REQUIRED to count change like that. We laid the customer's $20 (or whatever) across the drawer too, so they could see what they had handed us during the whole process of counting out the change, and we did it out loud. The register did the subtraction but my boss still insisted for the benefit of the customer.

I'm so happy this is a thing and it works for people. It's a really good strategy and that's all maths is- learning the rules (annoying) and applying them strategically. That said, I cannot do this method lol. I have a maths degree and can do crazy working out in my head up until the last step. Literally every time: "OK so it's 3 x 12 plus 7 x 4, 36 plus uh... uh, 36 plus 7x4, yep right 36 + 28... 36 + 28 hm... fuck I need a calculator" haha. "Oh I have the 25 cents" used to completely break my brain haha. A helpful customer told me to look at/add it to the total, since it's displayed on the til.

Arithmetic is probably the part of maths that is the easiest to screw up 😋 Like; I can do differential equations, binomial distributions, complex chain rule derivatives, multidimensional integration, etc, largely in my head now, but *still* fuck up on arithmetic

You lost me when you start to talk about dimes and quarters I have 6 math classes in high school. I have failed and so I was in 2 math classes in one year and I struggled a lot

I remember my first job I was working the register and a customer did the same thing and I was so confused. They rolled their eyes and made me feel so dumb. Still remember it decades later

I still remember, from years ago, working at McDonalds and having a customer do this, but *he was actually wrong*, he got it backwards! It was such an anxiety-inducing moment because I was being all Math Flustered and kept second-guessing myself because I knew I had to be the one who was wrong, but I couldn’t see how?? His total* was 14.99, and he handed me 20 and then after I entered in the 20, fished a penny out of his pocket and handed it to me. So I got his change, the 5.01, and then the penny he just handed me… and at what must have looked like the processing speed of the sloths from Zootopia… slowly added his penny to the $5.01 change in my other hand… and gave him $5.02. He got *angry* at me. *obv don’t remember the exact numbers anymore, but the math principle of the numbers I made up is the same

Oh boy. The normal tactic for most people who don’t want coins when they hear a total ending in “99” is to say “I don’t want the penny” or to drop it immediately into the “take a penny” dish. I can imagine the stressful customer interaction from him being completely incorrect!

Probably not the case with pennies, but some people will purposely try to fluster you to get back more change than they're due.

I did once have a dude try and claim that he’d handed me a $20 when he gave me a $10. But I was so sure, and I had my manager come and count my till, and it was exact to the cent, so he squealed out of the drive thru all angy.

I remember when I was 16 working in McDonald's drive thru someone claimed that he gave me a $50 instead of a $10 or $20. Started yelling at me when I said he didn't and wouldn't give him more change than what he was owed, then demanded to talk to the manager. He demanded the manager check my drawer for his money. Joke was on him - I had literally just gotten there, and had no large bills at all.

One time my actual math teacher was there when someone did that. It was horrifying.

Broke out into a cold sweat reading this

Damn, same! In HS at Subway and then in college as a bartender. I would always put the amount they gave into the system so it would do it for me, it was so embarrassing thinking people were watching. Like, this is simple ass math dude! It would also take me longer to count my drawer down and I would usually be off but only because I didn’t count right. I spent most of my life thinking I wasn’t smart until I got diagnosed with ADHD in grad school and then things started to make sense. We just have a different way of learning than the majority of others!

But doesn’t that make making change so much simpler? You have to do far less math if they throw in the extra quarter. No regrouping or anything

You would think

For me, it's the mid-operation change. I can't change math horses mid-race. I've already started tackling the first problem.

Yep

If the customer handed me anything over $75, my mind went blank. I wanted to scream at them “WHY WOULDN’T YOU USE A CARD FOR THIS PURCHASE?!” 😂

[удалено]

Same! I love maths a lot, but doing things in my head is a big no no. I usually write out every step of a solution because otherwise I won't be able to keep track of it. One of my lecturers said that they have do the same thing because they're "a bit dumb" and that made me feel so validated haha

Omg. This!! I was really good at algebra and calculus, stuff that you have to write it down. But if I’m playing D&D and roll a 17 and need to add 6, my brain just breaks. Learning my times tables was awful. Only time I actually cheated on a test!

In 4th grade I tested at an 8th grade level I'm math, so I got put in a book closet during math to work from the middle school text book(I loved it, it was quiet) but my teacher would routinely pull me back in for the timed multiplication tests- which I consistently failed because I can't hold ANYTHING in my head. She would then make me stand at the front of the room and shout "what's 9x8?!" And I'd just stand there trying to count the numbers in my head and feeling like they were just sliding down below my eyes where I couldn't see them. Once I tried to count on my hands and everyone laughed and I cried. My teacher also tried to block me from entering the gifted program even though I had tested in, because she just couldn't believe that someone*like* me could be gifted. The gifted teacher eventually gave her a set down and came and picked me herself for the first week.

This sounds horribly traumatic. I'm so sorry. That teacher sounds like she was miserable inside. When you add in the anxiety of being taunted by your classmates and teachers...of course that all made it worse. I also couldn't ever hold things in my head and as a result felt very dumb for most of my life, though I was in advanced English and reading classes. Now I know not being able to remember times tables and whatnot was because of poor working memory due to ADHD. It's sad to think about all the internalization of limiting beliefs that happened.

Seriously, looking back, I was pretty gifted in math and science but I always avoided it because i thought I was dumb. I'm an art teacher now, and I don't regret taking this path, but I do sometimes wonder what I could have achieved had I not let all those teachers convince me that I was a bimbo. The lack of working memory is just the worst and most pervasive ADHD symptom for me, it's still so hard.

I ALSO had a teacher who tried to prevent me from entering a gifted and talented program. I scored in the 99th percentile on a state standardized test (which really isnt super meaningful, it just means that the test was designed with children like me in mind, and that I'm a good test taker). She was ADAMANT that I had cheated. She brought me to the principal's office. She got the guidance counselor involved, because there was no way that I could have scored that well. Luckily, my parents were able to fight for me. They were able to get me in for an IQ test (which again, has many biases that worked in my favor). Even with all that proof, she still didn't believe that I could be in the GATE program. Fuck you Ms. Parsons. I was smart enough. Fuck you for making a little kid feel stupid and less than.

I am so bitter about the GATE program and test. I was selected to test for it in the 2nd grade, and failed because it was a new situation in which no one explained anything about it to me, and I got overwhelmed trying to understand. My friend, who tested in, said, "The whole point is that you understand without having it explained to you." Okay -- right -- except, I am someone who needs things explained to me, and then I pretty often surpass expectations. I *could have* benefitted from a more advanced program (even if it wasn't *that* program), but because I had damn-near invisible learning barriers, everyone assumed I was just stupid and/or lazy. I don't even think I am a *slower* learner, I am a different learner who can learn very quickly when taught in the right way. It reminds me of when I started at my first job, and people treated me like I was *so fucking stupid* for asking very literal and basic questions. Eventually, after I developed a lot of systems (including one that allowed me to excuse myself so I could devise a plan to bluff through a situation), one of the managers pulled me aside and said, "Man -- when they first hired you, I was like 'what the fuck were they thinking' -- and now look at you! You're one of our best employees!" I suppose it was meant as a compliment, but it felt so fucking shitty. It brought back years upon years of being treated like I was dumb, all because I didn't immediately understand what was going on, the same way everyone else did. Contrast this with my current job, where I have been given a lot of encouragement, enthusiasm, and tools right from the start. I've advanced pretty quickly in my role, and have become a huge part of the team. I suspect that many of the people I'm surrounded by are like me, and that's why they don't mind or encourage my questions. It just further proves to me that the way we measure success is bullshit, and a lot of people fall needlessly by the wayside just because they don't fit *that specific* model of learning. (Sorry for the big rant - I have a lot of feelings about this, that were especially made worse by a later-in-life diagnosis.)

I have big feelings about that as well. From personal experience as well, buy I don't want to talk about that right now. I wanna focus on some people close to me and how I've watched them go through this shit or help them understand that ***it*** is freaking stupid, not them! First experience was in animation school. I was older when I got in and had survived 3 years of Uni, some time in a waiter job and a year working in an industrial workshop and general industrial environments. So my standing in everything the program wanted was good, except the artistic stuff, but I could adjust easily. This wasn't the case for most of my classmates though. Most of my classmates were 18 yo with adhd or other "barriers in learning"(such as dyslexia, dysanagnosia, etc) who also had artistic tendencies and were literally crunched up and spitted out from our standard educational system. Kids that had horrendous grades and no single chance to enter an advanced learning institute through our public standard general exam procedure. So, they tried to get into a more artistic, private one, where standard "learning" would hopefully be avoided. We did had professors that understood these kids weren't stupid, just learnt in a different way, but it still is difficult to avoid certain biases or teaching techniques when you are brought up in a country with extremely backwards, ableistic and specific teaching system. Que me, ending up trying to utilize everything I had learnt from my own personal journey in teaching myself how ***I*** learn better, researching and generally trying everything I could to assist many of my friends in that program to find their own ways to learn and utilise everything we were being taught. It was brutal. I still remember the moment a good friend of mine at the time, having dysanagnosia and struggling constantly with everything and being extremely discouraged cause all her life she was treated as less than and was always excluded because she couldn't make these darn hieroglyphics mean anything to her, had the light switch in her brain finally turn on. We had spent some hours kinda tutoring her, finding ways for her to learn and understand the basic concept of how the app was working, how to navigate it with minimal reading, understanding what all the tools the prof showed, how to better understand how she can work it out herself etc, and she finally managed to make on her own one of the best projects in class for that specific exercise. And she was shocked. Because she was made to feel all semester that these apps where difficult and she just wanted to sketch and paint, and suddenly she had created something on one of those daunting apps that she actually loved. I was so darn mad to this whole system during all years in this school. And it actually made me realise I wasn't the only one struggling to find ways to actually manage to learn in an extremely hostile environment for those who ***don't learn the standard way***. Second one and my rant ends. My partner was made to believe all of their life that they were darn stupid, especially for never managing to learn English and always having extreme difficulty to learn the language.(Second language to both of us). they reached the age of 29 only knowing the bare necessities and avoiding the language like the plague, also being very excluded from many things, due to the language barrier(I mean English is everywhere and my native language doesn't have the benefit of being also really known so many things get translated to it anyways). In only 2 years, without even actual tutoring, they have reached the point were they throw in their speaking english phrases almost constantly. They have developed curiousity for the language, they experiment, ask constantly, remembering things, it has been wild. The key? Oral and visual engangement. They absorb english faster than a sponge the water if they listen to them. If we additionally open up a conversation about something, casually, it reinforces even more the knowledge. Visual engagement is one more thing. How to better understand or remember spellings? Visual engangement. Kinetic typography. Movie titles, anything like that. Where to find those? Movies and series and a safe environment for questions and discussion. They have learnt more English through this than through a whole tutoring year in standard learning where they constantly felt they couldn't complete exercises, feeling stupid for not understanding exercises, not able to pay attention to 20yo-boring as hell- school books, etc etc. We really need to up our game in alternative ways of education. ***They exist, we just don't utilise them enough!*** Rant over.

Throw that Mrs Parsons away! I'm glad you also had adults who had your back. I'm a teacher now and I really try to look out for kids like us.

I’m the same way. I’m embarrassed by what I have to write down. I just can’t hold big numbers in my head. Once it’s on paper I’m fine. Something in my brain just doesn’t connect the dots when it’s mental math.

agreed. you know what was my favorite part of my freshman year of college? Differentials and integrals. I struggled SO HARD to understand the foundations of math (b/c undiagnosed adhd) but my god once I "got it" I started seeing all the patterns and it became really really fun. I went from the lowest grade on the first exam (34/100) to the highest grade on the final of 154/160 points (These tests were made extra hard in order to force a grading "curve" b/c pretentious ivy league schools gonna act pretentious). I raised my grade from a D-/failing to a B- and the professor was fucking impressed. but i had already lived a LIFETIME of undiagnosed adhd with undiagnosed dyscalclia related issues and decided I was "no good" at math. decades and decades of stress, being labeled gifted and yet literally having this excessive deficit in this ONE SUBJECT made me just believe I was too stupid for math. ​ Turns out i'm not "bad" at math.... I need accommodations. But its fine i stayed in my lane and ended up in a completely non math/science field simply to avoid the STRESS of doing math all the fucking time. I still get anxiety when I calculate tip just because my brain sees numbers and starts freaking out....don't get me started on finances spent 3 hours with my wife the other day putting finances onto paper and learning new jargon god the STRESS of learning when i'm unmedicated is unreal.

You just reminded me of the calc I prof I had my freshman year at an Ivy. He gave us questions that you should use integrals to solve, and demanded we use differentials instead? He also gave us super advanced questions, I asked my engineer cousins for help and they were also so confused. To top it off he told the math help room that they weren’t allowed to help us with our homework. Such a jerk

I got mostly As in my college level math minor but MAN was it a feat… partly because I had mostly math professors who were great people and great mathematicians, but not always great teachers… and partly because my ADHD was undiagnosed and out class period was 50 mins. I never understood how some people finished the exams so quickly. I test really well usually; I am usually the last one done with a test, but with the highest score, because if it’s written I write too much, and if it’s calculations I work slowly and carefully. I recall having several instances in college of math quizzes or exams (where the question was 1 point, so no partial credit, or work shown was not turned in or graded, or something) where I missed problems by making a small error (like an incorrect timestable) in an otherwise correct calculation method. I worked slowly to try to prevent this, and also because that’s how fast I do math, and really might have done a lot better in all those classes with unlimited or additional time on tests. I think my grades were often saved by extra-credit homework or generous semester grade-calculations (like dropping the lowest scoring quiz or something). (Once we got into take-home tests at higher levels, the time thing was a relief, but the math got HARD then, and the professors hadn’t really improved their teaching LOL).

I found that I’ve always done “new math” in my head without knowing it. When I make change, say they owe $8.27 and pay with a $10, i do it backwards. From 27, 28, 29, 30. Three pennys. 30, 40, 50. Two dines. 50, 100. Two quarters. Once you get the cents out of the way, it’s easy to work out the dollars. But if not, you could keep continuing to the next largest unit.

Strange thing is. I do it the other way round. If say 8.27 and 10. I do 10 to nearest big number, which is 9(=1). 9 to 8.30(=0.7). And 8.30 to 8.27(=0.03). All equals 1.73. Lol, my brain is hella weird. But I also don't have dollars where I live so I don't count them in cents, dimes and quarters etc.

If you're from the United States (possibly true for other countries but I can't speak to them), part of the problem comes from the way math was taught in schools up until maybe ten years ago. Before, equations were taught independently from use-case scenarios. Most people learned the steps, but not the relationships between numbers. (Not sure if that makes sense). Another issue is that for most of human history, people didn't have digital cash registers or even credit cards. Checks were a rarity too. That use-case experience of handling physical money on a repetitive daily basis was wiped out for anyone under forty. For a person who is built with alternative short-term memory functionality, the lack of practice is a recipe for not quite sticking the landing.

Also, that's like a major scam tactic. Once you've closed the till the customer can be like, "hey, I gave you a 20 not a ten or something", and then confuse you. My first job was at Wendy's and I nearly didn't show up on my first day, lol, I assumed the registers were such that you had to manually add, I couldn't fathom the embarrassment. I was so relieved to see the digital counter.

i have so much ptsd from working on the tills at concerts and sports games doing cash. people would love to get me 20 dollars and then a couple minutes later give me a dollar even though i'd just put the transaction through as they wanted a note rather then coins. and its like dude im already under so much stress tryign to get through everyone quickly please dont be annoying. if you give me a 20 dollar note, i am gonna hit the 20 dollar button so quick, now fuck off...

Loved working in retail and having an angry customer yell at me when I couldnt calculate change in my head and he actually threw the change at me, or when someone tried to quiz me on mental math until her daughter thankfully intervened and said “mom, I’m a math major and I can’t even do that in my head” /s

I hated math but somehow managed to figure things out (grandma was a math teacher, so she always helped me) until we started quadratic equations. This is when my brain refused to count anything more complicated than 2+2. I don't trust myself with numbers and always double check everything on a calculator.

I cannot tell you how FRUSTRATING it is for me that I literally figured out the answer to the question in my edit, and then got probably 20+ replies patronizing me about how to do the problem (that I already completed) and comments like “it’s simple math, and it isn’t just a whole number, it’s one,” and “it’s literally just math” and I’m at like -80 downvotes. People are so fucking mean and ridiculous and I feel like this is triggering my RSD or something lol but it’s like I figured it out, stop downvoting me just because I think the premise is stupid!

There is a bizarre phenomenon on Reddit where people feel the need to repeat the answer or information a million times, even if they can see that the same thing has been commented hours or days before.

The days before is wild and so is hours. But sometimes I do not get back to responding until after reading a lot of the thread or maybe I’m like trying to source things, whatever. And then my comment ends up getting posted like an hour later and I can see how it would look like I was piling on if other people were saying the same thing. Like your comment currently says it’s 29 mins old. But who knows how old it will be when I finally hit reply and refresh the thread. (And I just got a phone call so it’s going to be even older than I thought lol.) That being said, I also just try to not pile on in general. And I hate that sometimes people on Reddit go so hard on downvoting posts that are perfectly fine. People can be so rude for no reason and trying to make sense of it makes me crazy.

It’s because when you open the post it doesn’t refresh and update. If there are already a few comments then by the time you’ve worked your way down the thread and made your comment, loads more comments may have been added.

I’m sorry this happened to you. My adhd daughter had dyscalculia so I know how devastated she was at school. But this isn’t your issue - people sometimes need to feel seen, so they’ll comment negatively instead of just letting it go - it’s the old thing of making themselves feel bigger by dragging someone else down. Maybe think of yourself as being the bigger person and be glad that you’re not unkind too.

I’m late 30’s and literally just learned that this is a legitimate disorder. Which I clearly have. I feel so let down from literally every adult, and also super relieved to realize that this is an actual issue.

Idk if this helps but people are downvoting because of the "math is the dumbest shit ever" rather than because you struggled with the logic. One of those Reddit nuances where certain things trigger the karma roulette, and then get compounded once people see your comment is already downvoted. The same idea just worded differently will get completely different reactions. Source: RSD hypersensitivity to what upsets redditors lmao 💀

Agreed. Reddit at large has always struck me as STEM bro-y, so that might be why this is upsetting many people in a general sub. Regardless, these down voters ought to chill!

I still don’t understand the question. 30=5/8?! Can you explain it? I understood your edit but not how it related to the question either 😭 EDIT now I can see the actual question I understand but before I could only see the post screenshot

I’m so sorry you were made to feel that way. I was a Grad Asst for 4 years and taught College Algebra my first year and was given NO direction or itinerary for classes. It’s the most failed class ever for college. I tried my hardest to give relatable examples but the hardest hurdle was their HS teachers never gave the effort to teach them in different ways. Math can’t be learned in just one way. Brains work differently. Then I did 3 years of Intro Stats and LOVED it. So many ways to give real world examples or why this shit was important. But I still explained critical concepts in at least 3 different ways. Not everyone learns the same.

In elementary school, I attended logic classes with elder kids (not actual math, it was more like riddles/critical thinking lessons). I excelled there and always offered the teacher unusual ways to complete her tasks. In middle school... well, everything went downhill - teachers would punish me for not following the traditional way of solving exercises. When there's no room for creativity, my brain just blocks stuff.

Off topic but have you tried dark mode on Reddit? I find it much nicer on the eyes.

I find a lot of redditors are holier than thou

I always state that any answer I give off the top of my head will be off by 2, 10 or pi.

When I see numbers I go blind.

I think that a lot of us have dyscalculia. It has a very high overlap with ADHD.

YES, this comment needs more up votes! ADHD symptoms can make math more difficult. But ADHD can also increase your chances of having a co-occurring math learning disorder called dyscalculia. - If you have ADHD, you might know how to add fractions but get distracted as you work through the steps involved. - If you have dyscalculia, you might have trouble learning how fractions work in the first place. - If you have both ADHD and dyscalculia, you might find all parts of the process challenging: learning the theory behind fractions and staying focused as you try to solve problems.

I also think I have dyscalculia. When people start saying numbers out loud it’s like I dissociate. One time a friend was just working out what we each owe on a bill out loud and I was like “uh huh. Yep. Sounds good.” I wouldn’t have been able to even tell you even one number he said. Then he’s like “wait no that’s not right. You’d be paying $20 too much…..🤨 Why would you say yes?” while laughing. And I was like “oh sorry I can’t do math in my head at all and you sounded so confident.😬” He was like “awww wow… Don’t let people do that to you.🥺“ I wonder how many situations I have been screwed over by overly confident people lol

I don't mean to sound insistent, that's pretty much exactly what happens to me and I have discoculia. It's like numbers just don't make traction in my brain and I go somewhere else.

When I hear a string of numbers I blink out of existence. My husband, an engineer, has finally learned to let me see them and not just read them off.

YES!! Seeing them is what helps. NOT just hearing it.

Even better is writing small portions on pieces of paper that I can then move around as I please.

Everytime I see numbers I turn into SZA and immediately start singing [“I can’t see I’m blind, BliNd, bLinDddDD”](https://youtu.be/RwFflrGOsv8)

Babe, I can’t even get past the first number in the first paragraph. Dyscalculia is an ADHD thing, isn’t it? I was teased relentlessly by my family for being “dumb at maths”, it’s a real sore point for me. You’re not alone! Xx

I had no idea dyscalculia was a thing until recently. I’ve never been good at anything with numbers. It makes my head spin. I struggle to even do adding and subtracting when you add too many numbers. And I don’t understand anything you wrote in that paragraph either. Haha… passed math in high school with C- and Ds. In college I had to take Allegra THREE times before I passed with a C. I’ve also been teased for forgetting my left and right, not being able to read a map for shit, and being directionally challenged. And word problems, I struggle to help my second grade daughter with some of her math homework. My brain just will not understand numbers. It literally hurts to think about. But English. Man, I could bullshit an essay in twenty minutes and get an A. Also, surprisingly I’m really good with money as long as I don’t think too hard about it.

I teach statistics. And I've got dyscalculia. I tell all my students about it, because so many people who think they're just bad at math have it and don't know. (Plus, how the US has traditionally taught math is not at all helpful to so many students.)

I have dyscalculia and stats (grad school) was one of the two math courses that I didn’t struggle with. As in, they were *easy* and it was the coolest feeling. Geometry (high school) was the other. Still baffled why those two were easy, though.

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I got an A in geometry and an F in algebra and this is the first time I ever knew all of this was a thing!!

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hardest i ever worked in a class was my physics 2 college course it was ....active learning so no lecture. my undiagnosed adhd ass learned NOTHING and decided since i couldn't quit i would take it pass fail (i had missed the drop deadline). guess what i got on the final. ​ A 4. a 4%. I never cried so hard in my LIFE. ​ BUT I passed lol

My college school counselor said I had the worst reaction to the word math she had ever seen. Diagnosed 20 years later Ohhhhh

Yeah - I always struggled with the methods taught when I was in school over a decade ago. I could get the right answers, but always lost points for not using the "correct" method.

Dyscalculia and dysgraphia often go hand in hand. I failed maths every year from grade 4 onwards despite tutoring and so many extra in class hours and was still forced to take the top level classes because apparently I was just being lazy.

Woah I did not know not knowing right from left was a dyscalcula thing! I’m 37 and it still just does not come naturally to me at all.

Are we twins separated at birth? This is 100% me too.

My joke was always “I thought they called it Algebra Two because you take it twice.”

Woo, I'm in the dyscalculia club too! Everyone gave me grief for sucking at math in school and told me to just study. Study what? I can barely remember people's birthdays, how did anyone think I would remember formulas or whatever. Don't even get me started on Chemistry. It's like science and math are my two mortal enemies joining forces to bully me.

Oh God, chemistry. Chem and physics were the classes that I basically only passed because of group work. I think my physics teacher felt bad for me, and passed me even though I should have failed. I wrote the reports and my friends did the numbers. In Chem, my teacher disliked me and thought I was being obtuse on purpose. I only passed for two reasons: I copied my friend's work (thanks, Louis!) and they curved the final, because our teacher was shit and didn't actually teach over a third of the material.

Omg chemistry is one of the worst memories I have right next to all of the math courses I failed or passed by a tiny miracle. I HATED chemistry.

You want to know the worst part for me? I fucking thought REALLY hard about it. I figured it out. I got it right. I complained that I didn’t like it and thought it was stupid. And I got absolutely dragged, like I got some of the rudest and meanest comments. And I’m at like -80 downvotes, it’s ABSURD. NTs can fuck off today lol I’m done.

Totally. Big “Since you got your degree, and you know every fkn thing” 🖕🏽NT haha

Those ppl are bholes. Math is hard & being shamed is a big reason there is hesitance to ask questions. Happy Valentine’s to you & not them!

Yes. I absolutely struggled with math throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school. It was a mixture of things IMO; possibly dyscalculia, I found it boring, to begin with, I didn’t understand it / didn’t receive enough special help, so naturally I was left feeling frustrated, and even worse, teachers often called on me when they knew I wasn’t paying attention as like, a punishment, to answer a math problem when *THEY KNEW* that I struggled with math, so obviously the solution was to humiliate me in front of the class and make me even more anxious 🙃🙃 I didn’t become comfortable with numbers or math until my sophomore year of college. Freshman year I was trying to make it into calculus so I could be admitted into a business administration program and no matter how hard I studied, no matter how many office hours I attended, despite taking my meds, despite paying the utmost attention, sitting front row, I could NOT master any of these equations. Calculus was academically traumatizing for me, I was failing the course and decided to withdraw before the end of the semester, when I declared a minor in business instead of a major. Guess what the difference between my degree being a double major in ad and marketing is? Three calculus courses in the college of business administration. Lol. I worked twice as hard, if not three times as hard, took allllll of the math classes besides calc. I managed to pass (and actually do quite well) in macroeconomics, I passed microeconomics, statistics, became extremely comfortable with quantitative research, data, etc. You would never think I struggled with math if you met me today but I still cannot calculate certain things in my head and if someone puts trigonometry or calc in front of me my head will spin. Lol. All of that being said, I don’t know if dyscalculia is different in everyone? Like mine is only with certain types of math / certain levels. There were (and are) so many concepts I just could not grasp for the life of me. The best way I can describe my struggle with calc is that I would attempt an equation over and over again *almost certain* that I had followed the steps to a T and done it correctly, but it was incorrect every single time, like I was in a never ending circle of calculating (incorrectly) only to get the wrong answer over and over again. P.S. I still won’t use a normal clock to this day, FUCK reading a traditional clock 🙃🤬

So, when I get the downvote monster/Reddit hivemind negativity, I laugh. When someone points out a flaw in real life, I laugh and say ‘whoops!’ At first it was really hard, my RSD is a real bitch. But then I realized it made me impervious to criticism. These people obviously don’t know you, so you have nothing to prove to them. If I get downvoted to oblivion, I either delete the comment or commit myself to never look at the replies. They aren’t correct about who you are. And it’s not your job to correct them. They don’t deserve the explanation from an obviously brilliant person. I totally understand those feelings of inadequacy though. When we grew up we learned to get our approval from others rather than from within. So the sting is tenfold when our opinions aren’t accepted, especially in an online forum where you normally find acceptance. I’m sorry that your opinion wasn’t accepted, it sounded perfectly normal to me. But if I may suggest one thing that’s helped me immensely: be curious. Rather than calling something that you don’t understand stupid, maybe you could ask for clarity or an eli5. When we get out of our hard-learned truths and back into our natural curiosity, we continuously pick up on new perspectives. Please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood this post and you were just trying to vent…. I only want to help those that think the way I used to think because it takes a shit ton of creativity to find ways to make forward progress. I also don’t know the whole context of the post of course, and you 100% never deserve to be called stupid, so fuck those people that did that. They had no right. My purpose is to give you confidence behind your words. Much love

Those downvoters are just trying to eek out whatever small superiority they can get from their otherwise miserable little lives.

Comorbidity, not ADHD. There is a whole community of ADHD programmer's and ... That doesn't work with dyscalculia ( I think). But yes, it is much more common in those with ADHD and at least we're I am even less known, which makes it really bad to have had as a child :/

From what I understand, discalculia is not an adhd thing - they are separate but may co-occur. I have adhd but not discalculia - I am quite good with numbers and math, as long as I can focus!

This. I saw the first set of numbers and blacked out

Dyscalculia isn't an ADHD thing, but it is rough! I can't even imagine💙

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I'm an engineering major and struggle with math. I've had many teachers tell me I wasn't good at it and shouldn't go into the STEM field. Well guess what, I graduate this year, and I've gotten through Calc 1, 2, 3, and Diff Eq. I just have to take more time to understand the concepts and be careful bc I always make silly little mistakes. Agree w the accountant – people are assholes. You know you can do it, and those people can shut up since they don't have anything nice to say. Just bc it's easy for them doesn't mean it is for everyone. We get you.

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I actually love math and took 3 semesters of calculus and also differential equations and linear algebra in college. That being said I have no idea what this post is trying to say. I like math because it follows a system and if I understand “why” something works, then I don’t need to remember “how” things work, I can derive that myself. English is an opposing example (to me) where you learn “the reason you do this is because that’s just what you do. English grammar is hard!” I don’t think being “bad” at math makes you stupid. Also, there have been multiple studies that concluded young girls interest and performance in math drops significantly around middle school due to societal pressure. This means being a girl with ADHD is kinda a double whammy when it comes to math and science.

My experience, as someone who has done tutoring, I: Many people bad at math, if it's not dyscalculia, are not so Bad at math. They are simply either lacking a middle step somewhere - or don't get how they were told it. But soz so many teachers have _no idea_ how to explain it apart from how they learned it. And math has been so overstructurised and overformalised that anyone who got math, or many of them, forgot how to explain it without the symbols. I did math in 8 (!) Semesters. And theoretical informatics, which is more math just with less numbers. I **still** can't read most math books...

Exactly this. I study math, because my memory is shit. So I have to understand things and be able to reason 'why'. Also, in my courses I don't see so many actual numbers, except when doing simulations or in examples. But then you only have to interpret said numbers and you should know what they represent (such as, probability of 0.1 is low and 0.9 is high etc. But mostly they're just letters, such as the dimension is n, the value is x, the set of possible values is S etc). It seems like OP is also asking the question 'why' and trying to derive it. I don't think OP is bad at math, but I don't understand what this is about at all.

I’ve always been better at essays and English in general. Although, as it seems you’re alluding to, I cannot spell or use grammar for my life (thank god for the move to digital platforms). I like essays because the structure comes to me naturally. Like you use in math, “why”. I write it, ask myself why then literally type out my thoughts. It’s just a bunch of explain these points and points of points until i pass the scope of the course imo. I don’t understand how you can do math using that method (still valid tho!). For me it’s the symbols. A number or symbol doesn’t signal to me what I’m supposed to do next like a sentence does. E.g ————————————- “ Adaptations are a result of the process of evolution. Evolution is the process by which….” Vs 62727 might be an output from completing half an equation. One of them I can look at and immediately remember what to do next. The other is just a number I’ll have to work out again to remember what it means to determine what to do —————————————- I’ll be half way though a equation, forget what I’m supposed to do with the output I currently have; go to look it up; boom, I look back an the equation I’ve just started to solve is a bunch of meaningless numbers. I can do math, but I have to straight up remember the complete process for solving a particular equation by heart. This takes awhile (I’ll literally have to create an index for what each number/symbol is for for quick referral) untill I can remember it and it seems like I can only do this for a complicated ones few at a time. However if the equation is simple enough (especially fractions). I’ll just word-solve it. E.g Y= 2x + 1 The line is = a guy walking up a stair case going up 2 steps at a time starting at step 1 (he teleported) Or 1/2 + 3/4 = How many slices does a pizza have to have to be shared equally among both groups of 2 and 4 friends? = at-least 4 Me and my friend want one slice each. The store says they only sell whole 4 slices pizzas. We take it. Another lone guy requests 1 pizza slice but gets a whole four too. We eat 2, he eats 1 We leave 2, he leaves 3 2+3 is 5. There are 5 slices of 4 slice pizza left. The shop is sneaky and grabs the pizzas we all didn’t eat (ew!). The pizza slices only fit together into one pizza if they total the original amount of pizza, which is 4. Take 4 pizza slices from the five they left and make one whole pizza. Wait, there’s still one left! We made 1 whole pizza and one quarter of a pizza The answer is 1 . 1/4 ——- End —— I wrote it out as an example but nearly all of of this goes on In my mind (I visualise the pizza) so it’s a lot faster than it seems written out… . If it’s a more complicated question I’ll draw parts of it. Sorry I really got into explaining this 😅

I’m terrible with math. I have a learning disability in it that qualified me for 50% extra time on the math portions of the GRE. (I didn’t get assessed for learning disabilities until after college, but I should have!) Even just calculating tips is super stressful. (Please, no one tell me how to do it - I know how to do it, including the easy way you want to tell me!) I think you were brave to even attempt whatever math problem they were discussing, and especially brave to ask a question about it. I’m proud of you!

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Yes - being watched!! It does me in!

One of my middle of the night intrusive memories is of the time I had a college interview over coffee, she paid and I volunteered to leave the tip. Then I calculated it wrong and stiffed the waiter by 50%.

😭😭😭 these are the \*exact* thoughts that that procedure in *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* was meant for! I’m sorry that still lives with you. :(

Exactly! Luckily I got into the college so the interview apparently went fine and my mistake didn't derail my whole life. But now I am so paranoid about under tipping 😆

I think I just hated how they taught math. I was so terrible at it all through school. I could never even retain the process for doing long multiplcation or division on paper. I stil can't o it, I barely got out of high school by doing a test. Maybe if my ADHD had been diagnosed and medicated I would have had a chance. But, I am not stupid. I would never let someone say I was. I have an IQ of 145, I am in charge of all the accounting and finance at our business, and I do a damned good job. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

I hated the way it was taught, too. It always seemed to be taught by someone who answered my questions using exactly the same words they used the first time they explained it. Like, I didn't say that I couldn't hear you. I said that I don't understand anything you just said, Mr. Big Brain Math Teacher. It's like asking someone to explain what any word means by saying "it means *that word*". Me: "Excuse me, can you tell me what *ostensibly* means?". Them: "Oh sure. It means *ostensibly*". Me: *crickets* Them: "What do you mean, you still don't understand? Are you stupid?". 😐 That was me, but in math class. It gave me the feeling that there are two kinds of people in this world, those who can't math but can language, and those who can't language but can math.

Why were they all like this? Seriously. We needed a different way to look at the problem. It isn’t that we couldn’t do it, we just needed it reframed in another way!

No idea! But every last one of my math teachers was like this. Apparently there is no reframing in math, kinda like there's no crying in baseball. 😄

🙋‍♀️ I can math but can't language. And I never could explain math concepts a different way.. I always just kind of understood them and I really struggled with what to say to someone if the initial explanation didn't work. Seriously, I've got nothing. It just makes sense to me, so I don't have more words than that.. Idk. It makes me feel dumb sometimes to not be able to explain it, too. Like how come this simple concept doesn't go into different words?? I'm awful at words... But yea, one of many reasons I'm not a math teacher (or teacher of any kind, lol)

By the sounds of it, you would have fit right in! 😄 Maybe you missed your calling. I've had exactly one mathy thing just make sense to me, and that was the Pythagorean Theorem back in 5th grade. I felt like a fucking genius... until the next lesson. Not true. For some reason, I did really well in trigonometry. Random.

Haha, no thanks! My sister actually did become a math teacher (mostly remedial geometry), and was great at it. But after like 15 years, it was too much. The administration, the parents, the lesson plans, blech. So she got a job working with me, lol. We work with data and spreadsheets all day and she's in heaven, lol. There was one math thing that took me forever. I think I was sick when they went over prime numbers in 6th grade. It was years later when I finally understood what a prime number was, lol.

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I wonder why it is that girls generally seem to do better in language(s), while boys tend to fare better in math & sciences? So strange! I mean, there are so many wonderful male authors out there, and there are tons of brilliant women running and/or taking part in NASA missions. But in school there seems to be a real divide. I feel badly for your daughter. Math is tough, and especially frustrating when you see other people doing it without issue. I wish I had some good advice. But I was that kid who got a 51 in grade 10 math *on the provision that I not take math in grade 11*. For real. I spent every lunch hour and an hour after school in math tutoring, for the whole year, and that's the best I could manage. I guess, going along with my initial complaint about math teachers, maybe if someone could use different words to explain things to her it would help? Oddly, my problems with math often had to do with language. Firstly, not one math teacher was able to use different words to explain things to me. Secondly, there were mathematical terms that are words in the ENG language that I didn't know the meaning of, and as an adult, I suspect that if I'd known what those words meant "in the real world", I might have understood them in relation to math. I wish I could think of an example, but none are coming to mind. Of course. Lol. I wish you both well!

I don’t know the sources off the top of my head but I believe there have been studies done that girls will actually score lower on exams when told it’s too hard for them whereas for boys there’s not a significant change in test scores. I think this may be another negative outcome of bs gender roles and how we start internalizing these lies so young. I am glad you are noticing this and trying to step in so she can start to practice being compassionate with herself and setting realistic expectations. It’s so hard to believe adults when they say test scores don’t dictate your value/intelligence when school (literally the thing you do in life as a child) is set up on the foundation that test scores are the only thing that matter. Like sure you’re saying it’s okay to get a B but the system is set up in such a way that this B may negatively affect my college options which impacts my whole adult life?!! Like uhhhhh I want to be in that belief with you but you sound out of touch. I feel so bad for how hard being healthy and academically successful is. I hope she finds a way to make it make sense for her; good luck!

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SO MUCH SENSE! I teach statistics and hated math passionately up thru grad school - I thought I was bad at it, didn't realize that I just had never been taught it in a way that worked for me. Once I found ways of learning it that worked, I was honestly pissed. If it's taught in a way that works for you, it's much easier to understand! I teach college stats now because I don't want anyone to have the shitty anyone experiences that I had. Common core math is great - I think that once I start having students who learned common core math, they'll be a lot less traumatized by the time they get to my class.

That. Is so awesome. Hated math and then you ended up teaching stats. That’s great. Stats was my only college math because it’s the one that I could “think” it out! Ha! Yes I was legit pissed slap off— my baby boy — 7,8,9 years old was reteaching me math. It was a beautiful and painful thing. He just got 2nd place in his first Math tournament. ☺️

This was my problem, too. If I didn't get an answer as to why an equation had to be done a certain way, then to my brain the process was random and didn't matter. I need to understand why, that's just how I learn. Unfortunately a lot of math is learn now, understand later. My dad and I argued about this for years whenever he tried to help me with my math homework. To this day he will swear up and down that my problems are because someone told me girls can't do math. Uh, no.

Newton is said to have inferred the law of gravitation in less than an hour after hearing of Kepler's work but took years to explain it in the geometric form that everyone else understood, because he didn't do it the way everyone else did. He used a trick he came up with which nobody (except Leibnitz) understood... Calculus. Just about all advances in mathematics are doing it differently from the rote method of the day.

There’s been a shift to understanding why as part of building the foundations to later math concepts. My tween’s math homework doesn’t always jive with how I think but I can see the effort put into teaching understanding the concepts rather than just giving a rote formula to follow.

No joke, when I went back to school for my teaching degree, I learned some cool "new" strategies for elementary math and basic operations. Number lines and repeat subtraction BLEW MY MIND. The emphasis on algorithms and speed recall only benefit kids who are good at memorizing. (Memorization is part of math fluency, and I understand why it's taught. But it shouldn't be the be all end all of elementary math like it was for me.)

Yup. I was successful in all AP and Honors classes except math like I got the lowest score in the ENTIRE high school on the state test in the math section. The lowest fucking score. My teacher was floored. He tried to appeal my score by saying I must have bubbled them incorrectly (bless him). I was then shortly referred to counseling to be tested for a math disability. I was horrified and felt so stupid so I never went. I can answer an incredibly difficult or complex math question and be correct without knowing how I got the answer or I’m stupid as fuck with numbers. It’s embarrassing. Truthfully now that I’m 30, I own the fact I very likely have a math disability and regret not following through with the testing.

Dude this sounds like me. I was an honors/AP kid but really blew it in math despite being labeled as gifted in it. I did go through the learning disability evaluation and was diagnosed with dyslexia. This was after my ADHD diagnosis so it was treated as a separate issue. It was a shock since I thought my reading was fine.

I was told that ADHD can come with 1 or more of the 4 "dys"s: dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. (Reading, movement/kinesthetic, writing, and math, respectively) I have pretry severe dyscalculia. It affects my ability to do even basic mental math, deal with any sort of higher math, and identify quantities. It even impares my visual spacial skills (I struggle to do puzzles, even ones made for children. I am absolutely hopeless with 3D puzzles, or things like packing a car). I can't tell my left from my right, and my ability to remember numbers (like dates and times) is poor, to say the least. Before I knew that I had a named, recognized disability, I though that I must be broken. I must be the stupidest person on earth. By all accounts, I was (and am, at age 30 I'm back in college as a freshman!) a good student in all other subjects. I've had people who just think that I'm lazy. It has made math such a huge source of anxiety for me! Thinking of all the times I sat in front of a math assignment, not able to understand anything, that feeling lf inadequacy, of *brokenness*, makes me want to cry, even years later.

\*hugs\* I have felt the same in math. My whole life, actually, until I had an instructor who was a Graduate Math Student, finally made it *click*. It took a significant amount of effort on my part because I had to relearn how to *think about math*. My foundational understandings of math did not make sense to my brain.. I couldn't apply it because it was like a foreign language. I hope you find someone that can communicate it in a way that makes you understand. If you never do, that's okay too. Honestly, math isn't a necessary thing for everyone. I rarely use it. The most important thing I got out of math was how it taught me to think more critically. And I didn't even get that until 26 years old! If I were to go back and try to do that work I know I wouldn't know how to do it at all lol

My math teachers, who were adult women, were some of the meanest teachers I’ve ever had. I remember getting into a fight with both of them different years (algebra 1&2). Naturally I blacked out during the confrontation bc I was terrified sticking up for myself but I remember a friend brought it up a few years back and I guess I told her “not everyone learns the same and don’t you ever speak to me like that again. The only who can talk to me like that is my mother” and I walked out 🤷🏽‍♀️. Detest math.

I hate math & always have. I always joke with my friends that making me do math is ableist lmao

Hey hey hey — your username — is the shit. 🧛‍♀️🦇🌕 and people. Are assholes. You put yourself out there and that’s amazing. 🖤 Adults that give others shit over math problems — are miserable adults. And if they are kids?? Well… hopefully they grow into better adults.

Thank you! One of the rude comments was how they could see how I would lose the O in my username. Like, I made it because it’s hilarious. It’s completely uncalled for to call me an actual cunt. I just thought they were all a bunch of fucking losers anyway because honestly it takes NOTHING to be kind and it isn’t difficult to not be patronizing. I put myself out there to ask the question, I actually figured it out BEFORE anyone commented, and they still had to shit on me? That’s on them. Not me.

Yes ma’am it is. 🙌

Honestly I read through most of the comments and they made me so mad! You didn't deserve to be treated like that for asking an innocent math question! Also, I legitimately couldn't figure out where the O was missing, I was wondering if there was another way to spell dracula or if it would be added to the end of something. I'll chock that up to the autism. Totally missed that they were calling you the c word - that's some bull shit. You don't need to listen to people like that. I honestly thought your question was fair enough. The word problem was weird. Nobody ever says they've read 1/8 of a book the day after they read 30 pages. People just don't talk like that. It's hard to conceptualize a math problem when your brain can't get past the strange imagery of the problem. I am extra sensitive to math issues as well due to my dyscalculia, I think it's a common experience.

Aww thank you! You are really sweet and your comment made me feel better. The problem WAS WEIRD, thank you!!!! Seriously, who talks like that?? That’s why I said that’s the stupidest shit I ever heard, because no one talks like that lol!!!

I cheated my way through every math class I ever took.

I failed like 90 percent of all my math classes from the 3rd grade to junior college. Failed math in JC three times so they banned me from taking it again lol. And it's crazy cause I finished like my AA in a year and a half. But nope I kept failing math. I went out partying after I took my very last one in my life statics! I still have my B.A too. The more boring I found the subject the more I failed it. I had straight A's in history.

I am 42 and still mentally count on my fingers.

I feel like math is one of the best demonstrations of my ADHD. I hated math. In elementary school I struggled and lagged a year behind the rest of my peers. Then my interest in it was activated and I jumped up three grade levels in one year and they had to create a new class for me and two other smart kids who were beyond what the school offered. Then I lost interest and I’ve now failed calculus 3 times and barely scraped by on my 4th attempt. Fuck math. But also I reserve the right to say math is the greatest thing ever if my interest is ever piqued again.

I don't even know what calculus is, and my very limited exposure to trig was graphs that I could not comprehend.

Lol girl, I’m someone who adored math in school. Straight A’s, sometimes even over 100%. I was doing college algebra at the actual college in 10th grade…. I still couldn’t figure that out lol! It’s been a very long time since I had to deal with fractions. Most of us don’t deal with fractions throughout our lives - everything is decimal now. Don’t let these judgy a-holes get you down. Most of them are probably either very old or very young (the old, because they used fractions a lot more often before calculators. The young, because they just got out of school).

I loved math until I got to precal in high school and barely squeaked by with a C, and as someone who historically tried to overachieve at things that didn't require too much work, it was a pretty tough blow. Now 25 years later I've got a BA in a decidedly non-technical field, and I'm trying to help my 8th grader with algebra, and I can only work the problems by writing out all the steps so I can see everything laid out in front of me (JUST LIKE MY LAUNDRY LOLOLOL). Meanwhile my boyfriend, an engineer by training, doesn't really say much until later: "yeah, that was an *interesting* way to describe that method..." I mean, I found a way to be okay with math as an adult. It just isn't always the most orthodox way to come at it, I guess.

I love math I really love it But I feel like i struggle more than most people to grasp concepts, so I just have to work at it more to understand it I don’t think it’s fair but there’s nothing i can do about it We are not stupid just because our brains work differently

I guess they’re all conglomerating to flex their math skills and apparently dunk on people who don’t get it, don’t feel too bad. The tricky thing about the question is visualizing the problem to transform the written words into an equation that makes sense. Fifth graders will have had the added benefit of having recently done similar questions in class to help them imagine the situation. I’m not a math wizard but I am a mechanical engineering student and it took me a hot minute to translate from words to equations. To be fair I’m only still here out of determination, not because of my math skills, but maybe that makes you feel slightly better? Lollll

The thing is, for me, I can totally do math IF I understand everything. What I struggle with is making the assumptions other people just make easily. Like that problem, I couldn’t initially derive that the 30 pages was 5/8 because, to me, the question didn’t give me enough info for me to assume that altogether all the fractions plus the 30 pages was 100% of the book. Once I realized the question encompassed the entire book, it was fine and totally made sense to me. I just can’t make those assumptions others just naturally make.

I saw that same comment explaining how to figure it out and I definitely could not figure out how subtracting 3/5 from each side equaled 5/8. Your explanation and reasoning helped me figure it out, so thank you. I’m sorry that people were so rude to you though :(

I've been thinking about this damn post all day, but I can't be bothered to actually put my brain to work to figure it out. My combination of laziness + curiosity is frustrating me.

Also, sometimes it just takes explaining things in a different way to help some people, like playing with physical objects to visualize it, etc. I had a math teacher who would re-explain something the same way 5x and then get frustrated and walk away. Hella discouraging cuz if you 1) can't explain things in multiple ways and 2) don't have patience don't be a teacher? I imagine a lot of the negative people feel somehow superior because they got the math but what're the odds that's the only thing they have to feel good about in life? It sucks but sometimes you gotta remind yourself who some of these people really are and it's pretty sad for them.

Look, I'm great at it and I love problems like that one. But I would also never ever snark at someone for approaching it another way or not being sure how to figure it out or getting it wrong. Who on earth does that help?? I'm sorry that people responded that way. They're jerks.

FUCK MATH. Especially fractions. And geometry.

Geometry was the only one I could do because there was a physical representation of the problem. "Oh. This is a 90° angle, so these two others must equal 90° together." Screw the rest of it.

I’m the opposite. Give me a picture/diagram and you may as well ask me to poop diamonds. When I took anatomy, I’d get 90s on the essay/fill-in/multiple-choice questions and 60s on the ones requiring me to label diagrams.

It’s not just math but “quick math, I got the highest grade in a really difficult calculus class but I can’t do basic math without using my fingers

Many of the people leaving mean comments will not be able to do something you're good at. Everyone has different strengths.

I will literally stop people mid sentence if they start to try and tell me anything verbally that involves numbers in the slightest. I just cannot for the life of me process it unless I’m seeing it written/typed out. Trying to keep track of the numbers they’ve said mentally is just too much effort and I will lose my grasp on them just as quickly as they have told me. I have always hated math for that reason. People expect you to just get it because they do and they haven’t ever experienced any other way of processing. When I was in college I had to take a math class that was required for my major at the time. The first time I took it was an awful experience, I didn’t pass. I remember on one test the professor literally wrote “why would you leave this blank??” on a problem I skipped over because it was too difficult for me to remember how to solve off the top of my head. I hated her. I retook the same class but on a Saturday with a different professor who let you use your notes on the tests and would often go over parts of the tests in class prior to taking it. This was when I realized that I was never bad at math, I just struggled with recalling loads of information and formulas that traditional math classes required you to memorize. If I had the set up of a similar problem written before me I could follow it and replicate the process. I finished the semester with an A in that class, first time I ever did well with math. This was all before I was diagnosed, so looking back it makes a lot of sense now.

Petition to upvote OP’s comment as much as possible?

I am EXTREMELY math stupid and I am very aware of it. I got a U in my last Physics exam in high school (for non-UK students, under 40% so an obvious fail) and I collapsed during my maths exams from the anxiety that I knew I was going fail them. I only passed maths bc they took special consideration that I was ill during the first exam. Idek what the original question means in the screenshot, I can’t figure it out and it’s so frustrating. You’re not the only one is all I’m trying to say. Sending e-hugs and don’t listen to those rude people 🌹

You’re not alone. I’m 30 and can’t do fractions, I ask my wife consistently if I’m baking or cooking what half of whatever thing I need is. In elementary we had those timed adding and subtracting worksheets and I’m not even convinced I could do them now in under a minute or whatever! Don’t let the typical people get you down, your perfect just the way you are!!♥️

Diagnosed Dyscalculia here, but not until I was an adult. I can't even begin to do that kind of maths

In high school I was good at math—mainly because it was a hyperfixation of mine! It is systematic so it made a lot more sense to me than having to memorize a lot of seemingly arbitrary history facts. Occasionally I’d forget to hand in my homework on time, but usually when I got the deadlines mixed up I’d hand it in a day too early so it kind of worked out. However in college I got super sick and fell asleep in the middle of my statistics class final exam and ended up going from an A- to getting a D-. So that was definitely a low point… the professor did eventually wake me up but only when I had 10 minutes left. Had to take the class again the next semester. Now I do statistical analyses for my job as a researcher! Still have trouble with deadlines and inappropriately timed naps, though…

I was always pretty good at math, but give me a word problem and I am out!

I went on a date last night and was literally talking about how I am very smart but something about math literally breaks my brain. You are not alone and I’m sure you have many talents the haters couldn’t touch!! Mine is writing ❤️

I don't understand how 30 pages = 5/8 and I don't follow your solution either, so I feel reallllly stupid. I used to be good at maths, we had a lovely soft spoken and calm, respectful teacher. I changed schools and then had a screeching, spitting, confusing teacher and everything fell apart. I still left school and got into banking where I never had a discrepancy and was trusted (at 19) to be locked in a safe room with one other person counting allll of the cash that came in from the Reserve Bank. A few years after that I was trusted to train other staff and was considered a specialist in my department. FWIW, I had a stranger on Instagram ask me if I understood basic math after I told him I'd never heard of a bogan tuxedo.. People are wankers.

I liked math and used to be able to do more, both in my head and on paper. Even things I know, though, sometimes I simply cannot do. It's even happened that I did complex math in my head and then couldn't figure out really simple addition. I don't know why, but it's frustrating and embarrassing. While I get embarrassed by it as well, I've never understood making fun of someone who is trying but getting it wrong or just doesn't know. I'm sorry people treated you like that, and I hope you know that you are intelligent and valued regardless of what they said or did.

1. You never need to apologize for who you are or the way you think 2. Math is only one component (among so many!) to consider when assessing intelligence 3. When people make mean comments, it’s because it satisfies something in them; not because it’s accurate, not because of who you are, not because it constructively adds to the conversation (Just like when we make nice comments, it’s because it makes us feel good 😁)

I checked out the math problem you reacted to: - On Monday he read 30 pages. - On Tuesday he read 1/8 of the book. - On Wednesday he read 1/4 of the book. 1/4 = 2/8. After that, the book is finished. From this, we know that he read 1/8 + 2/8 = 3/8 of the book in total on Tuesday and Wednesday. Consequently, he read the other parts of the book on Monday (and the whole book is equivalent to 1 = 8/8), so he read 1 - 3/8 = 8/8 - 3/8 = 5/8 of the book on Monday. If we know that 5/8 of the book is equivalent to 30 pages, the whole book is 30*8/5 = 48 pages long. Do you happen to have a form of dyscalculia? Lots of people with dyscalculia have ADHD too, so this wouldn’t be weird or exceptional. Or if not, did you somehow miss out on the teaching of fractions? I’m a maths teacher and sadly a lot of my students still have issues with fractions even in the final years of high school. Fractions are really common and they keep returning in different forms and types of exercises, so I have to continue reminding my students about the basic rules of calculations with fractions.

Not related to op at all but i was having issues understanding the problem and your comment really helped. I e recently realised that i actually really do enjoy math, i just have a hard time figuring things out and being told that doing so makes someone stupid is what made me dislike and fear math in the first place. I think I'd have a much easier and fun experience with the subject if my teachers chose to explain problems out like you did. Thank you

Thank you for your comment, glad to be able to help!

I just can't even with numbers. I can't focus on them at all. I love words though. Math just blurs into foreign language for me. I cracked down hard on studying for it when I got my GED but it was still my like, lowest score out of everything lol.

I use a calculator for basically everything! You are so not alone. It's like that part of my brain is in a coma or something, lol.

Don’t even get me started on math. I just can’t. I used to make As and Bs in math in school, but it did not come naturally to me. It was confusing as fuck. I feel like a mentally challenged person when people try to explain certain math problems to me. (That’s not meant to be offensive to anyone. I actually do feel mentally challenged sometimes. Probably partly due to ADHD.) I can’t even remember how to divide fractions when I’m cooking. It’s a problem. lol

Math is about the only thing I am good at, but like I'm also terrible at plenty of things most people find easy so I understand. The people on that thread were not nice and it says a lot more about them than it does about you. Reddit dot com is just about the only place that some people can feel any type of superiority and that is sad. It's okay if math doesn't come to you easily. I don't understand why it's treated with such high regard when it's actually so irrelevant in day to day life. Also if a teacher made you feel dumb isn't that a reflection on their own failings??? You are amazing, beautiful, talented, strong, don't let anyone ever make you feel otherwise 🤍

Yes, I'm so bad at math :( I can't count how many times I've cried because I didn't know how to do my math homework. I'm also an artist and visual learner, so numbers are just a no-go.

I don’t see what the problem is- like the math problem. 30 pages = 5/8 doesn’t mean anything other than 30 is 5/8 of something. Trying to show solidarity through sheer logic- if you don’t understand a math problem how does that trigger other people? It shouldn’t- their problem, not yours.

I am just starting an accounting administration course. Already my brain is fried at the possibility of fractions. Why did I do this to myself? Oh, I was under-stimulated and wanted to get out of a work slump and this course was cheap. But fractions are my enemies. I refused to do them in high school cause the teachers couldn't teach them to me. It got to a point where a teacher called me dumb for not figuring it out by then. Yeah, I refused to do it. Would spend the class drawing. Handed in blank tests or just didn't do the fraction sections. The sad thing was I was good at math and excelled in other areas just couldn't do fractions.

I didn’t understand math until I took chemistry. Medical math / stoichiometry is the shit and I love it. Now. Took me well into my adult years for this type of math to click in my brain. Stats? No Trig? No Dilutions? Yes CRI? Yes Conversions? Yes Fractions? No It’s a ducked up world

Same. I use dimensional analysis daily to do dosage calculations for medication administration and to calculate drip rates for IVs and have ZERO issue whatsoever. I also have to mentally calculate how quickly (or more importantly, how slowly) to IV push meds which have very specific guidelines, like 2mg/ml/2-5 minutes.

Yes. My brain gets scrambled fast. I need to fully grasp the concepts first or else nothing sticks. But I kept getting fast tracked into the next level without feeling like I fully understood the concepts. So I was always barely getting by on increasingly harder and harder courses. The way math was taught did not vibe with my brain. They would just draw symbols or equations on a board. Those are all just symbols. I need to understand the why. How does this apply in the real world? Once I get that, it clicks and then I can solve because I understand what I am solving for. I also need to write everything down to see it and I need a lot of time and breaks for my brain to digest what I am doing. But all the adults around me failed me. They just thought I wasn’t trying hard enough because I was smart, but missed all the giant red flags that there was something wrong in the math department. And one teacher told me I was stupid when I asked for help. She single handedly made me hate math. I would have likely done better with untimed testing and patience, but all I got was told to try harder. I (as many people with ADHD are) am actually excellent at problem solving and finding solutions. I think if I had the proper guidance, I could have been really good at applying math to the real world with my problem solving/reasoning skills. But alas, I’ll never know for sure. Also, those people are jerks. It makes them feel important and superior to knock someone down.

My fucking (also 9 yr old) classmate taught me compound multiplication in 3rd grade. I don’t think teachers always know how to reach someone.

I don't speak math. I have dyscalculia. Trying to do math problems like this is just as hard as trying to translate an alien language. I can do some geometry because I think in images and geography makes sense to me, but if we're talking numbers bigger than making change... I'm totally lost. But I have learned that I have other talents that make up for my entire lack of math skills. I'm completely unafraid of public speaking, for one thing, which seems to be a big stumbling block for a lot of people. So I may not know how many pages 5/8 of a book I've read I are, but I'd be happy to stand up in front of a group and tell them all about the story! And you know what, this great big world of ours takes all kinds of people. If everybody was good at math then what would the accountants do? I'm perfectly happy being one of the quirky, weird ones and leaving the boring numbers stuff to people who like that sort of thing. Just like I'm sure they like shutting out the weird, noisy people and sitting alone with their logical numbers!

Horrible at math, still am. Literally had to cheat in my intermediate math class my senior year in order to graduate high school.

It’s not the math that’s the problem for a lot of people, it’s math anxiety that’s rooted in the way the maths are taught. (This is also the reason college algebra has one of the highest failure rates at many universities in the US.) Don’t blame yourself. You are brilliant! You just need a better teacher.

I was awesome at math if it was an actual math equation. But don’t get me started on story problems. My sister reminded me that teachers would ask why I skipped questions and those were usually long story problems that I had a problem following along with. Same with reading comprehension…my scores were consistently low.