YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I'm so happy to see they made a learning disabilities section. I have always felt very alone and ostracized with my learning handicaps I would love to here some stories or experiences from others i hope it could help me and others feel less alone.

Hey,
I've never been tested for learning disabilities, but have suspected something was up. I always loved reading, but could never seem to retain anything, Math drives me to tears...literally and figuratively. When I write I'll often add or leave out letters.

I was in special ed when I was younger. I always felt like I was overwhelmed and playing catch up. Fact was, I was born in December and most of the kids were older than me. I mean, for a big chunk of our early lives, many of the other kids were just, more developed. But I felt quite inferior because I wasn't doing the same things as everyone. Getting pulled out of class for my special class. Nobody ever told me that I may really be OK, but I got a late start.

I can recall getting pulled out of some classes and sent to a special room to "play" with a teacher in elementary (She was probably something along the lines of an occupational therapist. Maybe a physio therapist not sure. ). I think I must have been in 1st or 2nd grade. We would go and do puzzles and use clay. I can't recall much else just that it was this lady and myself in what I think was the 1st grade classroom. I'm guessing the kids where in gym or something.

I remember reading with my dad, a teacher himself. Every time he corrected me, I'd get more nervous. Every time I got more nervous, I'd make more mistakes. Every time he'd get more frustrated and annoyed. So I stopped telling him I had any homework already in first grade or that I had done it already. I don't know if he believed me, but it seemed to work for both of us. Obviously it meant I spent most of my time in school unprepared and always afraid of getting caught.

Once in a while I'd get caught by my parents or teachers, but nothing ever changed. I spent most of my formative years teaching myself to fly under the radar and lying.

I would love to here some stories or experiences from others i hope it could help me and others feel less alone?

I was the oldest of 4, our mother was antisocial and easily annoyed to the point we kids weren’t even allowed to laugh. When I hit school - forget the school work - I was in a social playground! Also, having been so isolated as a kid, in the years of mumps, measles, chicken pox… we’d never been exposed to anything, so the first into school - I caught everything.

Ended up way behind, in a neighborhood that expected lots of failures, then fell further and further behind as my dad played no part in my learning and my mother was overwhelmed with my siblings. Never having learned to read, yet ‘smart enough’ to move on, I dropped to lower and lower achieving groups...

In 4th grade, I was also being removed from regular classes (which only put me further behind my peers) to spend time in the ‘slow class.’ Got pegged as slow, then treated as such, and ended up getting to repeat the 6th grade, at the insistence of ‘mommy dearest,’ who’d become embarrassed by my grades and wanted to punish/ blame me… Showing up that Fall to repeat the grade my friends had just left, then ending up in my ‘sister’s grade’ remains the most humiliating and long-lasting negative experience of my life.

Pissed, I thought - fuck it, keep me here forever! Eventually, with one inspiring teacher, Mrs. Williams in 8th grade, I began to catch up ...and it seems like I’ve been catching up ever since

Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, I ended up supporting troubled and slow learners in public school … after having taught my kids to read then partially homeschooled my now straight-A college students It wasn’t me, it was my F’d-up parents and poor surroundings, which I’m sure is more often the case than we’re led to believe by the ‘powers that be.’ Strength to you all!