Lately I have begun to notice certain things that make me different from a lot of other people. I don’t know if some of these things are normal though, or if they could be because of an LD. During the school year I find myself crying almost every second night over Math or classess such as Chemistry. When I tell people I don’t understand, they simply tell me that I am being too hard on myself. I do expect a lot from myself though, because I study many hours and put in a lot of effort. My marks are pretty good most of the time, but I struggle. One of my main problems is that I can read something perfect outloud. The problem is that afterwards I have no idea what I just read and no matter how hard I try on a reading comprehension test I just don’t seem to understand any of the stories or poems. I also have difficulty trying to understand the messages and information some of my text books are trying to get across and often don’t remember what I just read.
When it comes to subjects such as Social, I usually get by with a pretty good mark, however each year I fail to recognize what I learned. This is because most of our marks are based on long answer tests, but they give up the questions before hand. What I usually do is write out the answer to the question then memorize it for the test. This helps me to get the marks I need, but later on I just forget what I memorized. However, this is the only way I know that I can score the marks I need to achieve. Math is another challenge and I have difficult interpreting graphs and charts. I score about average on assignments in Math, but when asked to complete a word problem I never know what method to use to solve it because I often don’t understand what the question is even asking.
Many times I forget to put my name on things and if I don’t write something down as soon as possible then I usually forget. Relationships with people are often difficult, as I am sure they are with many others. However, I am blamed for things that sometimes I don’t even think were “wrong” or once one of my friend’s got upset with me because I was apparently “ignoring” her to two weeks and she said I didn’t “notice” her half of the time in the halls. Yet, I was never purposely trying to ignore her. Even my driving is nothing to be proud of. I failed drivers ed because right-of-way confused me and could not remember different parts of the car or fluid color, which I was expected to know. I have my lisence now, but for a couple over months I drove everyday and must of practiced my parallel parking about 1000 times before I was half good. A lot of times I hear people say “driving is fun” and “I want mylicense,” but for the longest time it felt like a stressful chore. Every time after a Driver’s Ed lesson I would come home and cry because I wanted to be good at driving, I wanted to remember the parts, but the Driver Instructor just told me that if I took my drivers test I would fail. I was even signed out for MORE hours than the usually hours of driver training, and I still failed it.
My friends and I were also going to a Festival about a month ago and we got lost. I didn’t know how to find the place because I couldn’t read a map. I don’t know how common that really is though. I mean is it normal for people to be confused my maps and not understand them?? Anyways, we took three different routes and got lost three times, until by some sort of luck we found the place.
I read up a bit on Ld’s and well some of the info makes me consider that it’s pretty likely that something could be wrong. However, to have an LD do you necessarily need a discrepency of certain things?? I do know that I entend my 200% effort on about everything, and achieve average - slightly above average marks. However, I also know all the differnt things I stuggle with. My mother was born at a low birth weight, and as a kid I had sleep apnea, and at night my breathing would just stop and for about a minute there would be no noise - lack of oxygen. This doesn’t happen anymore because I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. When I was about five I cracked my head open, but only had a few stiches. Anyways, is it likely that all these could be factors contributing to some sort of problem???
Once I asked a teacher if they thought I could have an LD and they said, definely not and my marks were not that bad. How can people just tell though?? I mean just because my marks aren’t bad, doesn’t mean I have problems with A LOT of other things. The reason that I believe my marks are good is becaue when I get home I eat dinner, then for the REST of the night I sit down and study for hours, then do my homework - which by the way literally takes hours.
Is it normal to experience all these sorts of problems?? Is it normal to cry almost every second night while trying to understand homework or after driving?? Do people struggle with driving, reading maps, reading comprehension, homework, relationships, anything like that?? Is that sort of thing normal?? And if someone like me has a hard time with things like that does it necessarily mean having some sort of learning difference??
Thanks for listening and I sincerely hope you can answer my questions.
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
Short answer…no!
look, if you have LD(and most people also have ADD) then you should have quite a bit of problems..job instability(I have), relationship problems(either past or present), and all the other things that go with these disabilities. Bascially, you would know. I knew(at least the teachers did) in the 4th grade…doesn’t get much easier in the addult years, that’s for sure!
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
Short answer YES.
I didn’t know I had an LD until I was in my fourties.
Barb
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
Barb, you must have a very slight LD then…..I can’t see how you got to be in your 40s before being diagnosed! I am pretty sure I have severe LD, and everyone is different(no two LD people are the same)….I don’t know..I mean for me, LD/ADD affects me everyday! I have never had a job longer than a year, didn’t get through college, etc…I just think you would be able to spot LD in the early school years..
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
<<Barb, you must have a very slight LD then…..I can’t see how you got to be in your 40s before being diagnosed! I am pretty sure I have severe LD, and everyone is different(no two LD people are the same)….I don’t know..I mean for me, LD/ADD affects me everyday! I have never had a job longer than a year, didn’t get through college, etc…I just think you would be able to spot LD in the early school years..>>
Hi Cameron,
I wasn’t diagnosed with LD/ADHD until 40 with the NLD diagnosis coming 3 years later. Alot of people my age weren’t diagnosed in school.
Just because we weren’t diagnosed until later doesn’t mean our problems are minor. You have to remember that LD/ADHD wasn’t as well known and NLD was not even on the horizon. We probably simply knew how to compensate although I can tell you personally that many times, I was exhausted from working so much harder than other people but getting half the results.
So even though I didn’t have the dx. until 40, LD/ADHD still affected me everyday.
PT
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
Yeah, like he said. LOL!
It does effect me everyday.
I have had the same job 17 years not becuase I love it but because I am afriad I’d never get another. I almost lost this one when we changed computers three years ago. All the short cuts I learned to get though no longer worked. Luckily, since I’d been here so long, they were pretty understanding. Also, I need to work many weekends (not paid) to stay up with my co-workers.
Barb
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
I sill don’t really understand..you say you have had the same job for 17 years! I would NEVER want that, BUT I also would love to find a job that fits me that I can stay at 3-5years! just so I wouldn’t have to constantly lie on my damm resume :roll: you seem to be doing some things right Barbara(all I can say is you must have a GREAT job fit, and be really good at what you do! amazing)..I guess I get jealous sometimes reading how some of you don’t have much job problems, have a healthy realtionships, etc..because I am SO weak in these area’s..I guess I just find it hard to believe that some people with LD/ADD do suceed and don’t have as a difficult time as myself… I also tend to quit a lot of stuff(ESPECIALLY when I dislike things, like boring jobs)…I have noticed a lot of people who come on these boards really try at various things in there life…I want to follow this type of philosphy…I probably wouldn’t be at where I am in my life right now, if I didn’t have a ‘giving up’ type of attitude…
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
Its such a fine line sometimes.
I don’t have ADD or ADHD but my ex- and my older child do. I look at the ex- who has never held a job more than two years. I don’t think it looks fun to always be wondering what comes next and to not become a master at any one thing. Yet I wish I was more willing to take the risks that he does when he is bored.
How much of the unwillingness to take risks is due to my LD? I don’t know but my very LD younger child (also no ADHD) is also very risk adversive. Personity or LD? Or does it matter?
Barb
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
PS–I am DAMN good at what a do but am lucky I got into it long ago. It takes me so long to learn new things. Seventeen years ago jobs were much simplier. Its been eaiser for me to learn the incremental things as they come. Getting a new job would be almost impossible unless they used most of the same programs.
Re: It is possible to have LD and not know it?
The best thing to do is if you are going to college right now get tested at the disabled assistance center or other facility like this. What the academic counseler did with me is give me an evaluation which consisted of questions about childhood injuries, illnesses, birth difficulties, birth defects, etc. They figured out because I was a bit premature and was born c-section I had suffered a bit of anoxia ( lack of oxygen) at birth so my brain was a bit damaged resulting in ADD and LD. Also the conseler had noticed that my reading, vocabulary, and other verbal skills were way above average but my math was only 4th to 6th grade level, so they took that into account that I had a possilbe learning disability. So what they might do with you is give you an evaluation of all childhood illnesses and injuries then give you an I.Q. to see your strengths and weaknesses.
If you’re not attending school I think a psychologist that tests for LD might be able to help you.
Short answers:
Yes, lots of other people struggle with many of these things.
You might be surprised what people struggle with — in my case I’m good at a lot of things but have real trouble telling left from right or figuring out time; I’m always late and only know the date if I specifically check it. And you should see the mess my papers are in. You are definitely not alone in having various difficulties.
These MAY be symptoms of LD.
You would have to go to a qualified neuropsychologist to be evaluated formally, if you think the “label” would help you.
On the other hand, a lot of what you describe I see very, very commonly in my teaching, and a lot of it MAY come from previous bad teaching and bad habits.
I meet a lot of students who have poor comprehension, can’t remember what they read, and take forever to do work; some are LD, but the majority are just inefficient readers. If you are trying to read by visual memory alone and every word you look at has to be compared to two thousand in your memory banks, of course this is tremendously slow and it uses up so much of the mental processing space in just the function of reading that there is no memory or processing space left to deal with the message being read. In nine cases out of ten, making reading more efficient by learning *effective* decoding skills frees up the time and space to get the comprehension and speed and memory working. In the tenth case there is some real LD. Then of course effective approaches to comprehension — critical reading and self-monitoring and self-questioning — have to be learned if they were missed. Reading visual material such as graphs and diagrams is a separate skill that also needs teaching and practice.