When I was about seven years old, just after my folks got separated, I started getting removed from class for a portion of every school day and placed into this room with the other slow children.
It was around the time when I was supposed to be honing my multiplication skills, only instead, they had me work on addition and subtraction for the next like seven or eight years. I was in there for reading and writing as well.
I was given these tests by the school early on, sorta like IQ tests and “diagnosed” if you will, with what they told me was this thing called a learning disability.
I didn’t really know what that meant, but suddenly there was this barrage of people telling me shit like, don’t worry, you’re not stupid, your just special! You just learn differently sweetie! you’re just as good as the other children! You’re unique and we like you!
Up until then I don’t think I had a clue there was anything wrong with me. I knew, I think, that I was somewhat spacey, pretty emotional. The idea though that I had a “disability” seemed and still does seem, hard for me to grasp and maybe that in itself is just part of my disability. IDK.
I’m at a point though, where I feel like, (though I’ve worked on bettering myself and my mind some what successfully over the years) this thing, this learning disability or whatever it is has been filtering out into other areas of my life. I mean I guess it always has, but I was hopping some one else, maybe some one who’s gone through it might have something to say in this regard. this is kind of my first out reach. the first time I’ve even come close to admitting I might still have a problem at all…
I think this sort of ‘journey’ can be a really positive one… But you need a lot more information, such as the information of what learning disability you were found to have. How did your parents or your instructors refer to your disability? Were you ever given a more specific name or can you get that information? Your school could have your special education file or your family might have some of your school records, but you will have to ask people in order to track down as much as you can of your school records and/or your testing records. I have been doing this same thing for the past six months and I ended up going through cognitive testing with a neuropsychologist. Last month I received the results of the testing… But you have to give thought to what you want in your life now and what you could gain by better understanding your learning strengths and weaknesses now. For example, are you looking to change your job or looking to move forward with career goals? Are you looking to go back to school or start any educational program? Are you happy with your relationships in your life? How does the way I learn affect how I parent my children? I agree with you that the things you think have spilled over into every area of your life, have indeed spilled over because what you are talking about is You. So, yeah, YOU have spilled over into every area of your life… And every inquiry into who you are can be used to further and improve your life. My “inquiry” in this regard has brought me a tremendous amount of knowledge and has helped me understand very much about all of struggles in life, despite the fact that I have already completed school and I was not looking into this because I did have a job or because I wanted to change my job. So I can certainly understand a person wanting to know more their learning disability, even without those specific reasons in mind. I believe I was given the WAIS and Wechsler Memory Scales by the psychologist and a bunch of other tests. But if you could track down the medical record/testing results you mentioned from when you were a child, it would give you a lot of information you don’t currently have. For me, I learned that I have difficulty with attention, impulsivity, visual memory, visual-spatial learning, non-verbal skills, perception and organization, and working memory. My “verbal” skills, however, are very well developed. This explained educationally why I avoided subjects in school that required too much in the way of complex visual skills. This helped me to understand my difficulties on the job, why I had lost six different jobs. This explained difficulties I was having with cooking and parenting skills. But this also explained why I have difficulty recognizing people I don’t know extremely well, and I have difficulty recognizing things like cars and houses, and also why I have a very hard time navigating anywhere or learning much about even my most immediate surroundings and the things most familiar to me. So indeed, my cognitive dysfunction was affecting everything, but even more so because I did not understand my own disability or my own strengths, at least not as well as I could have if I had had the tests results to which you referred. Now I can say, “I’m not going to learn that just because I see it”. I’m going to need to read about it, write about it, talk about it, listen to you talk about it, keep a picture of it, keep information on a note card, touch it, and walk around, about, and over it with my own two legs, etc. Because my ‘visualization’ skills are going to be next to nothing if I don’t do those things. I can use knowing all this as a positive strength in my life.