Living in a world without numbers

When things were different

Before middle school started, in 5th grade and the years before that, I didn't learn about my diagnosis yet,
So things were different.
Of course I had a lot of trouble with math but I just figured that I was normal, everyone had trouble with math on new concepts and old ones.
Right?
In first grade when we first started math I was way behind,
When I came home with homework,
My twin brother always finished first, he was done in about 45 minutes, meanwhile I was stuck sitting at the kitchen table for hours as the sun set and the clock ticked.
My mom got really frustrated when we had to stay up late trying to do this homework with me.
Sometimes she yelled, but I can't blame her,
If I had to help a 2nd grader do math for 3 hours I would get pretty upset too.
She realized something was wrong with me ever since I was little, so to solve this she brought me to a summer program called "Linda mood bell". It was an intense tutoring program that was an hour away, I had to put my summer on pause as I sat in the family Toyota, day dreaming and imagining me riding a tiger just outside the moving car window.
That was what I liked to do best on car rides, where I could escape into my mind, relying on pure imagination, which I had a lot of.
This tutoring program actually..for a while, made math fun for me.
I got prizes and I made friends with the instructors, we played games and I actually thought that I was doing..better.
But then the school year rolled around, the topics grew harder and harder with each week, I didn't know what was wrong with me.
Every other student was getting the material just fine, but I was trapped.

In 3rd grade we had these tests on multiplication every week. I dreaded these tests, we had 5 minutes to do 15 multiplication problems. I was able to do the 1's, and barely the 2's. That's all I could handle, above those numbers was out of my safe zone. And whenever I tried the bigger numbers, I always got them drastically wrong.  I looked at the classmates next to me, their pencils hitting the page and their answers spilling out of the lead by the second. My mind went blank and before I knew it. The timer went off. When I came home that day, my mom asked me "How did it go?". I broke down crying right then and there, my sobs echoing through the house as I choked on my words. After that incident, my mom confronted the teacher and the school principal about the test, saying it wasn't logical. Ever since then, they don't have those tests anymore. 

She always went above and beyond for me, she even bought all of these math helpers recommended by tutors and teachers, blocks and counters and multiplication flash cards.
She drilled me through flash cards every night, right before I went to bed.  When she flipped through the thick paper,
something happened to me.
Something I didn't understand and didn't want to.
My brain clicked, and then just as fast as the flash card flipped to the next, my life was turned upside down. Literally.
The numbers were mixed in different places..
Like an alphabet soup but with endless numbers filling the card. 6's were upside down and 3's were sideways.
Everything..distorted.
And then, as soon as it happened..it was gone.
I was stunned.
I didn't say anything, because..what in the world was I supposed to say.

By the 4th grade, everyone moved on to dividing and fractions..and I was, still trying to add and subtract without using my fingers. And I still can't to this day. I tried to distract everyone, my teachers my family, my friends, distracting them with my smart girl stereotype. Reading, and writing. That's what I could do. I came home with amazing grades in English and the rest of my subjects in elementary..except for math. And math effects Science, so I couldn't do science too even though I truly wanted to.
I kept distracting people..because that's all I could do to keep them from thinking that I wasn't smart.
I told myself I was smart, nothing less, in fact I was more than smart. I was intelligent and bright, and I could rub it in people's faces that I was.
More than anything, I wanted to impress people. In everything.
School included, I tried and tried in school and it payed off. I impressed my mom and dad in English. And they were happy for me, but my dad, he always pointed out Math.

 I didn't try to fail, I wasn't some "delinquent". I followed all the rules and listened to the steps and tried and tried and tried. I wanted to be like everyone else.
Except, my grades never showed that.