I blame everyone except myself

Nothing makes me feel more inadequate as an adult than my math class does. I may be taking this class as a college student, but it is not a college math class. I am taking, pretty much, a middle school math class. For the last four weeks I have been learning how to do long division, add/subtract fraction, multiply/divide fractions, turn an improper fraction into a mixed number, turn a mixed number into an improper fraction, solve for area/perimeter of a rectangle, area of a triangle, convert a decimal to a fraction, and faction to decimal. This is all shit I should have learned over 15 years ago, yet I am learning them now. I don't even know my time tables and I still use my fingers for addition and subtraction. I am almost 29 but I feel like a dumbass. I know why I never learned this stuff when I should have, and its not my fault at all. It is part my mothers fault, part my school districts fault, and part my teachers fault.

As you guys know I have a son with ADHD and ODD. As I have watched my son through the years and seen the result of his struggles in school before we knew what was going on it got me thinking. I remember acting and feeling almost exactly like my son. There are slight differences as well. My son acted out in school before we got his diagnosis, whereas I was quiet in school and out of control at home. Also, being in the 90s when your kid did bad in school it was accounted for as they just didn't care and was a lazy student. I got detention almost every single day in 5th grade because I never turned in my homework. I am positive that I had ADHD as a kid, yet I was only diagnosed with it two months ago. My mom never had me tested, my school never had me tested, and my teacher just gave up on trying to explain math (or anything else) to me. I learned early on that the majority of my teachers just didn't care about helping me. No matter how many times I asked for help they never took the time to ask me for help. I had a summer school tutor that helped a little and a neighbor tried to help but that was it. I would barely pass math class and got shuffled on to the next level every year. When I say barely I mean I had the lowest possible grade to pass the class and I think that was just to get me out of the class. I had one math teacher admit that to me in high school.

My high school math teacher had me my freshman year and I failed the entire year with an F. I would ask him for help almost every day, but he would reexplain it exactly how he did it on the board or how the book said to do it. Never once did he try to explain it a different way to see if that would help me understand. After failing it my freshman year I had to repeat and, guess what, I got the same damn teacher. I completely gave up as soon as I saw he was my teacher again. If he couldn't help me the year before why should I trust that he was going to help me at all. I was failing with an F, but he gave me the lowest possible passing grade to make sure I didn't repeat and have him again. I dropped out of high school that summer.

When I was 16 I was on probation and during one of the classes I had to go to my mom ended up talking to another probationers mom. They were talking about how the ladies son was ODD and how she had found this book to read and suggested my mom read it. That damn book became my moms bible for how to understand, handle, and deal with me. My mom swore that I had ODD because of how I acted my entire childhood. I was angry, I yelled a lot, I would throw things when I was pissed, and I treated my mom like shit. I do not believe at all that I had ODD. I was, in fact, a very pissed off kid. I was pissed off because I was doing horrible in school and couldn't get the help needed to do better. I was pissed because my moms family treated me like shit and my mom never did anything to stop it. I would beg my mom to have me tested for a learning disability and once the school said no she would stop pursuing. I was pissed at my mom. I blamed everything on my mom. My mom never protected me the way a mother did when it came to her family. My mom, however, did go off on the staff at my school multiple times when they screwed up. For instance, I failed freshman English but the school didn't notice it until three weeks into my sophomore year. They pulled me out of my class and put me in freshman English, with my brother! My mom cussed the school out and gave me permission to skip that class until the school came up with an alternate solution.

After I had myself tested, two months ago, and I was diagnosed with adult ADHD I was talking to my mom about it. I told her that I was positive I had been ADHD since I was a little kid. My mom agreed with me and said she always knew I was. When I asked her why she never had me tested for it then her response pissed me off even more, "You were ODD as well and I couldn't get you to take the medication you were already on so what was the point in wasting money on more medication?" I wanted to scream so bad when she said that. I was SIXTEEN before the thought of me being ODD ever entered her mind and it was because of that damn book she read. The book was suggested by another mom, not a freaking doctor, a MOM! There were YEARS before I was 16 that I begged for days on end to be tested for anything. I wanted to know why I could not learn, understand, remember, or concentrate on anything in school.

I do not blame myself, at all, for not knowing how to do the math I am learning now. I do not blame myself because I did all I thought I could do by asking my mom to help me and get me tested. My mother ignored my requests, the school assumed I was lazy and a bad student, and my teachers couldn't be bothered to teach me. So now, at almost 29, I only have a middle school understanding of math. It is a struggle, but I am finally starting to understand this stuff. One of these days I won't have to look at my notes and will just remember how to solve the problems.