When Dyscalculia Strikes

I stood at the ATM machine and fumbled. I had forgotten the numbers. There was a dude talking away on his cell phone next to the other ATM machine. I fed in the numbers and the ICICI machine showed a grumpy face. I got stressed and I had brain freeze. Numbers danced before my eyes and I felt a surge of panic drown my lungs and bank against the back of throat demanding a scream and I blinked.

My disability kicked in and I knew I had to lay off the machine. My daughter grabbed my fingers and asked why we were returning home without money and I bit back the comment that we were returning home because her mother was an idiot. Self recriminations are the side effects of my disability that I give in to once in a while.

Driving back home, I got a call someone asking for my husband's cell number and in my stressed out mode I mixed up the cell numbers. The person called back and my mind drew a blank again and panic rose again. Numbers skidded and slipped as if on thin ice before my eyes and as I shifted the gears of the car, I apologized and gave the correct number again hoping I didn't let myself down again.

The individual on the other end must have thought I was an idiot. I, too, called myself an idiot - an idiot who couldn't help herself because of her disability.

Dyscalculia is not easily accepted by people. It isn't as simple as forgetting numbers or being bad at simple maths. Its about being colour blind when it comes to maths. The brain interprets everything differently - the values of numbers seem flexible, they blend into each other like warm reds blending into the cool blues, giving you a muddy black that makes no sense. Its a vortex that sucks the person in and panic steps in, aggravating the situation further.

Dyscalculia fucks up my sense of direction. Under stress I mix up my right and my left. Put me in the driving seat and scream -right- RIGHT! and I will inadvertently take left. Stress isn't good for a person suffering from dyscalculia.

The mind shuts down, unable to process or perhaps unwilling to process. Its a disability that I have to live with and I have to live with people trying to explain to me that it isn't a disability. I then have to extricate myself from a long drawn conversation as delicately as I can since their intention is to make me feel better about myself, as if the stigma of the term disability shouldn't smudge my sense of self-worth.

But it does cause little tremors to shake my sense of well being when it strikes, and that's natural. Wouldn't a blind man feel fucked up if he found himself in the middle of speeding cars and there was no way of getting to safety? Wouldn't he rue his disability?

But I live normally despite my disability, what choice do I have? I could scream there is more to me than my disability but it isn't the world I'd crying it to but to myself in those blinding moments when helplessness gnaws my innards.

I feel like a dog bound on a short leash, knowing her potential and yet held back by what is obviously not under her control. Its a feeling I have come to accept and yet continue to rage against. Its a disability - something I have to work around, something that makes me a wee bit different from majority of people and something I have accepted but rage against once in a while.