Hello everyone. After not getting much help in r/aspergers i had a "you know you mucked up when even autistics don't know what to do" moment. Then i remembered i have my people here. I'm 2e AuDHD, though that ADHD part is not certain. Different doctors have different ideas, even though I took two adhd tests already. But we're certain on the autism part.
What do you think? Even if you don't have a solution idea i would like to know if you also experience this, and if this is common in our group? Thank you for your time, my people.
Here we go:
Hi. 22F. Do any of you also not understand anything in mathematical classes at school? I'm good at maths when i study it myself, and visualise it in my mind. I can fo anything as long as i see it, and math is often too abstract for me to see anything. What do do you mean a function? What even is a function? There's so real life function examples given to me during class. Then i come home and research, and, for example, see that we can think of functions as programmable machines. You put in an input, it goes through the machine you programmed, and you get an output.
But at school everything is too abstract. I understand nothing. I can't remember most of what i hear anyway. I have auditory processing issues, instead i have photographic memory. But it's gotten to a point where going to school feels like pointless, unnecessary. And it's dangerous because I have to get that degree for my dreams and future plans. I'm a physics major. If it's a "verbal" topic like history, education etc i will remember most of what's been taught, because i memorise the slides and lesson notes. But make it physics / maths and i fail so bad you would question my intelligence.
I know I'm good at maths when it's in my autistic language. And I'm good at physics too, i understand concepts pretty easily when I'm left alone in my natural habitat. I'm also a really good problem solver. Like there's no reason for me to fail this miserably. And yet i do.
There must be other people like me. How do you deal with this? How do you deal with it when everyone's questions your ability on a certain topic even though you know that you would ace it if it was in your conditions? I know we know ourselves really well, us autistics. So I'm kindly asking you, what do i do? What is that one thing you know you can do, you want to do it, yet still fail miserably, and that's it's causing problems?
Like is it even normal to struggle THIS MUCH with verbally taught lessons? I understand nothing, i remember nothing, i can't even focus. I get incredibly bored and start doodling or study on my own at the back of the class during lessons. But this is tiring. It's exhausting and definitely doesn't feel fair.
What do you do? What would you do? I'm recently diagnosed and i feel like a baby discovering everything for the first time. I have no idea what to do. I'm not fluent in autism yet.