Me: "Ok detective. You caught me. Being shit at math is totally a conscious decision on my part. Case closed everybody. We can all go home now. Turns out I'm not a complete moron. I'm just lazy."

[–] python@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I genuinely wonder if that is how it works for neurotypicals. Like, is the only way they can fail if they consciously decide that they don't give a fuck about something?? Can they just be told "Apply yourself" and go "You know what, maybe I will" and then magically improve?? That sounds completely outlandish..

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

A lot of people simply do not understand what it's like to have ADHD. I remember sitting at our dining room table for hours most evenings, staring at my math homework and wondering why I couldn't wrap my brain around it when all the other kids seemed to find it so easy.

Turns out when you can't visualize things in your head it makes doing math very hard. Give me 70mg of Vyvanse and I'm all over it. Without it, I can't even recall a phone number that I literally just looked at. I have to punch the digits one at a time while constantly looking back at the number.

You can't just will your brain into getting hormones and neurotransmitters to the right places. Who knew.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

I was like that in school, and now two of my kids are dealing with the same thing. I still struggle with it today, and usually call on my mom to help with the kids math homework if I can't figure it out myself (she was a 6th grade teacher for 20 years).

These kids are incredibly smart, but having gone through what they're dealing with has helped me to be more patient with them and try to work through at least the first problem(s) together.