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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I failed out of a two year college.  It was like I left high school, and then it was as if there were 10 years of learning I didn't get and THEN my college. I was completely lost. I remember in my biology class there were lectures and labs, and I went to the lab and all these kids from my lecture were scarring around and I thought "How do they know what to do?" and I was so completely overwhelmed and embarrassed that I didn't even know how to say to my teacher "I don't know how to begin."  She might as well have been talking in Japanese - that's how NOTHING I understood.

I remember walking up the library stairs thinking "Don't cry yet, don't cry yet, shit you share a room you can't cry there where can I cry, where the hell do I go to cry?" and I literally walked into the woods to have privacy to cry.  Every class felt like that.  In my English class I would attempt to write the essays we'd get assigned and the teacher would tell me I missed the subject it was supposed to be about. So I'd scrap it and try again and that would be wrong too. I'd go to office hours and write down what she said to do, think I did that, and still get it wrong.

I was not someone who partied. I have never been drunk or high in my life. Just totally lost. By the second day of classes I thought "I think this is going to be a problem." By two weeks in I knew I was going to fail out.

Went home, took a year off, worked, then went to the local community college never taking more than three classes at once (and that was 1.5 too many). My parents literally went through the course catalog and picked the major for me that they thought would be easiest for me to get through that would get me a job I could support myself on.  There was no talk of "what do you WANT to be when you grow up?" but it was "What CAN you muddle your way through?"

It took me five years to get an associates degree going part time. I got D's in several classes, and they waived some requirements for me.  Before I graduated I had a job as a legal secretary. I am much better at working than learning.  But for years I would have to walk out of my office to stand outside and cry hysterically because I didn't know how to do what I'd been told to do. I got fired a lot. I cried before, during and after office trainings for new programs.

23 years after starting work in this field I probably only cry two or three times a year.  But I support myself. I have no debt. And a lot of people are shocked that I don't have a bachelor's degree because I come across as smart, competent and confident. [/quote]

Have you ever been tested for learning disabilities or ADHD?  Your story is very common among people with those diagnoses.  [/quote]

Yes, I got tested when I was 19, and was diagnosed with about a dozen, very severe learning disabilities.  They explain a LOT.[/quote]

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