LD+Teachers/Professors can't relate/teach me=PTSD and Depression

What is the name of your state? Wisconsin

I could use some advice on this topic, but I was not sure what Forum to put it under. Please read the whole thing since I believe all of it is useful; I am sorry for the length. I am from Wisconsin and attended all my schooling in Wisconsin. I am currently 31 years old and have hence discovered that I have been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. It started in 1st grade when I was held back because I had problems reading due to my Learning Disability. In third grade, I had a teacher tell me that I would amount to nothing. I never had an eight grade because the school did not have anything more for me to learn, but I stated that I need to work on my social skills and that not moving me ahead grade would help in this area. They did not listen and yes I do have problems with my social skills. In college, I listened to the teachers and took their poor advice on what classes to take. I did graduate with a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in math. I went on to graduate school even though I was all ready suffering from a major depression and very increased stress level, I did not know this at the time. I made it though but it took me 5 years.

But, I am currently recovering from all the stress and depression. Also, I currently have problems doing math because of my stress and what has happened in the last couple of years. From what I can tell, I am suffering from other people’s inability to deal with my Learning Disability. I have had to argue with Professors about how to help me learn even though it would not provide me with any insight into the homework. I have had co-workers take credit for my work and ideas at school because I was only a student employee. I would like to get a job, but no one wants to hire me. I have not worked in ~2 years and I am trying to get into Network Administrator, which is what provide my funding for school, even though I have a degree in Electrical Engineering. I enjoy working with computers and enjoy the work. It might not be the best, in self actualization, but since I am still recovering it make a great fit. I can not tell prospecting employers what has happened because they might see me as a Medical Liability.

I believe that some professors did try to help out. But, how do you help someone you do not understand and can not relate too? Professors are not required to learn about the different ways people learn which might have caused my problems. So I am asking for your advice so I can move on with my life.

mlp2003 said:

What is the name of your state? Wisconsin

I could use some advice on this topic, but I was not sure what Forum to put it under. Please read the whole thing since I believe all of it is useful; I am sorry for the length. I am from Wisconsin and attended all my schooling in Wisconsin. I am currently 31 years old and have hence discovered that I have been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. It started in 1st grade when I was held back because I had problems reading due to my Learning Disability. In third grade, I had a teacher tell me that I would amount to nothing. I never had an eight grade because the school did not have anything more for me to learn, but I stated that I need to work on my social skills and that not moving me ahead grade would help in this area. They did not listen and yes I do have problems with my social skills. In college, I listened to the teachers and took their poor advice on what classes to take. I did graduate with a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in math. I went on to graduate school even though I was all ready suffering from a major depression and very increased stress level, I did not know this at the time. I made it though but it took me 5 years.

But, I am currently recovering from all the stress and depression. Also, I currently have problems doing math because of my stress and what has happened in the last couple of years. From what I can tell, I am suffering from other people’s inability to deal with my Learning Disability. I have had to argue with Professors about how to help me learn even though it would not provide me with any insight into the homework. I have had co-workers take credit for my work and ideas at school because I was only a student employee. I would like to get a job, but no one wants to hire me. I have not worked in ~2 years and I am trying to get into Network Administrator, which is what provide my funding for school, even though I have a degree in Electrical Engineering. I enjoy working with computers and enjoy the work. It might not be the best, in self actualization, but since I am still recovering it make a great fit. I can not tell prospecting employers what has happened because they might see me as a Medical Liability.

I believe that some professors did try to help out. But, how do you help someone you do not understand and can not relate too? Professors are not required to learn about the different ways people learn which might have caused my problems. So I am asking for your advice so I can move on with my life.

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Did anyone ever suggest you get evaluated for Asperger's syndrome? That may explain your difficulities. If you are still at University, contact the counseling center they can provide tests, or the department of rehabiliation. Have youe requested ADA accommodations? Computer science may be a good placement for you however appropriate treatment for your mental health issues will be key to your ability to adapt. Please seek a consultation with a psychiatrist, mention Asperger's often the normal medications don't work, while others do. You may seek a mentor to assist your job search. It's not the professors fault if you have this disorder and it is frequently misdiagnosed. This is a social and learning disorder affecting persons with normal to high IQ. In some cases you may qualify for disability or assistance from your department of developmental disabilities. Many famous people had this disorder you will find further assistance at http://www.FAAAS.org

More detail and questions and want help

Thank you for the information and I will talk to some people about it. I know I left some detail out so I will try to fill them in with you answers.

The Professors recommending me to take classes that I was not qualified to take. If I was at a different University they would not have let me take the classes out of order. This seems like poor judgment on the Professors or am I missing something?? I understand that I took their advice so I am partly to blame but it sounds like you are trying to cover for the Professors lack of judgment.

Here is another example; I was working on a project that was due in 4 weeks. I could not figure the problem out. So I went to the Professor and tried to get him to draw a picture with no mathematic on the diagram so I would have a picture of what is going on. (this helps me out a lot since people with LD are visual and they have a hard time with things that are not visual) A couple of days before the project was due he did what I asked and I completed the project and got an A-. From what you are telling me, it was ok for him to wait until a couple of days before the project was do before giving me a picture with out mathematical symbols on it.

Another Professor pasted me up for a full time job even though I was more qualified then the person hired. He was worried that I might drop out of graduate school.

I had another professor to say “that department is now down to accepting people like you.”

It’s all ok because you think I have Asperger Syndrome?

Instead of holding the Professor/Teacher to a higher standing so ALL PEOPLE CAN LEARN AND HAVE TO CHANGE TO PROCUE HAPPENESS, lets only teach people that fit into the education box get the chance to move ahead. And, yes I did have accommodation it still does not make me Normal or fit that education model of a student. Which currently appear to be flawed.

I would like to fix this problem. Clearly failure to fix the problem has been affecting my freedom, my ability to get a job, and my mental ability. Why would you not want to fix it? Why don’t you want to have Professors/Teach learn about the different ways people learn so they are better Teacher/Professors which makes schools better which produces smarter people and make a better Country.

Sorry about the poor spelling and choosing the wrong word even though it sound like the word I want. Its part of my LD, and yes I am getting very tired of talking about this and not seeing anything done or being able to get good paying job.

I looked up Asperger Syndrome and I do not have it since I have been diagnosed with a Learning Disability. Asperger Syndrome does not have the accompanying disabilities that I have or the ones you see in LD. Thanks though. You can see this if you read the page at http://www.faaas.org/ that talks about it.

You have what is called a non verbal learning disorder, it is also called Asperger's syndrome.

Because of the way you learn it is very important to determine exactly how you learn and for you and your professors to work with that, but you are not in that place yet, you may never be in that place were everything works for you. That is why I referred you to the counseling center so they can assess you or sent you to the rehabilitaiton department.

The problem you are having is with abstract reasoning. You learn by rote but you can't abstract, that is why you need the picture drawn for you, you cannot draw it yourself, but you can copy it and remember it, right? That isn't the professor's fault. What you need is a mentor and a collaborator to team with you on your projects. In employment you will need structure and support, especially when it comes to change.

Please learn about Asperger's that will help you learn and understand why the world is such an unfriendly and difficult place for you.

But, I do have a verbal learning disorder

I use to be able draw diagrams in Physics on my own and I even produce the diagram that some of the Quark model uses before anyone else put together a diagram. When I started out in college I was able to translate some math equation into draws just by looking at them.

I learn by understanding the hole problem not one aspect of it. For example, the diagram that I asked for was in 2-D. From that I constructed a 3-d model of the problem which then became a movie of how the physical world was operating. From that I was to relate the question to my movie and figure out what I needed to do to answer the questions. With out the above steps, I was unable to understand what was being asked or how it related.

I understand that most people can work blindly not understand the hole problem or just working on aspects of a problem and still get the answer. I do not work that way.

Second, I do have a verbal learning disorder. In second grade, I was unable to do math problem because the teacher was calling out 7 X 8. After my mother argued with the school system about my LD they tried giving me the test on paper instead and guess what happened. I would all ways get them right.

What I have described is classic Learning Disability namely Dyslexia and Dysphonetic.
Here are some websight for you to look at:

http://www.scco.edu/ecc/visiontherapy/Dyslexia.html

http://www.interdys.org/servlet/compose?section_id=5&page_id=95#What is dyslexia?


As for socializing, I do not like big groups because it’s hard for me to follow the conversation or when I do have something to say the conversation has moved on. So I stayed in smaller groups because it’s much easier for me to follow. I am very careful to let people in because I do not know how they will respond to my LD, because of the poor reception I have gotten from people. I believe that people like to view others to be like them and I am not like them. I was also one of the first person to be tested in various was to help in my LD since ~3 grade. I have had various professional examine me and I have had brain way tested to help construct a model when I was younger. From time to time, I felt much like a lab rat but people did learn a lot or so I hope. This is also why I know that I have LD, because I have been with enough Professionals, too many, that tested me and confirmed it.

Though, I will look into what you have said and talk to my consular about it. They seem very knowledge able.

Please look into testing with Asperger's in mind. You have difficulity taking what you read and understanding it, that is called, abstraction. That is the part that is called a Non-Verbal Learning disorder, it is a form of LD. How are you at problem solving with something new, such as fixing a broken object? How are you with understanding peoples emotions? Humor? Taking and/or giving directions? How are you at sports or things requiring coordination? Do people say you are intelligent, but you don't try hard enough? Are you reminded all the time that you are able to perform tasks and it appears that you are not trying? What are the ADA accommodations you have requested?

You have classical language usage seen in Asperger's, I would point it out, but that would make you defensive, it would also interfere with you if you were tested. There are many things that are the same on the surface between Dyslexia and Asperger's, that often leads to misdiagnosis and the fact that you were tested as a child and found to had Dyslexia, would be true because Asperger's was not in the DSM-IV then. It first appeared in 1994, so you would have received a diagnosis of Dyslexia. You might take three different tests that appear to you to test the same thing, yet perform differently because they test different functions. The type of test given will influence how a PET scan appears.

You describe classical social difficulities found with Asperger's, that is why, even though you have known for many years that you had a LD that you still feel very different and have difficulitiy with audio processing and application. Persons with Dyslexia don't usually have social problems, they are often quite social, becasue that doesn't rely on reading.

The way in which you describe how you overcame your initial LD and caught up or even excelled, only to be having difficulity again comes full circle to the problem with abstraction. Abstraction, is a right hemishphere dysfunction, not a left hemisphere dysfunction as seen in dyslexia. This comes back to learning by rote, you have learned to do this by much hard work. That is why, your course of study suits you, because so much of it based on this style of learning, but where you have difficulity, is when you must once again learn something new, especially whithout someone to help you and there is not enough time to do it. That is why I suggested a mentor and/or colaborater. You might know all the rules but not know how to apply it or know when to apply the rules, that is why someone needs to help you with that aspect of the processing. When someone tells you that you are wrong or not doing it correctly, you become defensive rather than learning from your mistakes, so you are not able to learn from them. This is a matter of pragmatics.

There are many things you can do very well, better than others, it often takes many tests to discover exactly what that is. I have seen people you are in middle age who were finally correctly diagnosed.

There is another possibility since you have had a change in functioning. Have you had a head injury, accident ot illness, headaches? Any of these or a series of minor ones may affect you.

Your professors are trained in their field, they are not trained to give neuropsychological tests to determine your functioning on a pragmatic level.

thanks?!?

I will be seeing my consular on the 25th.

Yes, I am good at fixing thing that broke. I do ok in small conversations. I still have headaches from time to time which started sometime before graduating in 2003. I am slow at trying new things. I quickly learning things that have few steps, but anything that requires a lot of steps takes me a long time to learn and can be very frustrating depending on the stimulation around me or how quickly I have to learn the steps. After learning the steps I am very good and after learning the rules, for example in Math, I am very good at using them. I have been known to use the math rules in very creative ways to solve very difficult problems. It’s in the initial stages when I am trying to learn the rules that I have problems or are not sure how to use them.

Again, I thank you for your advice. I will look into it further. I am sorry we do not agree on what my problem is though you have some good points and I hope you will look at my counter points. I will not be posting anymore because I do not think anything more can be learned from it.

Again thanks for your advice. I will also try to contacting the first Lawyer I talked to see why he thought there might have been a case. Though, I think he said it pasted the statue of limitation. But, maybe he can clear up what he was talking about.

mlp2003 said:

I will be seeing my consular on the 25th.

Yes, I am good at fixing thing that broke. I do ok in small conversations. I still have headaches from time to time which started sometime before graduating in 2003. I am slow at trying new things. I quickly learning things that have few steps, but anything that requires a lot of steps takes me a long time to learn and can be very frustrating depending on the stimulation around me or how quickly I have to learn the steps. After learning the steps I am very good and after learning the rules, for example in Math, I am very good at using them. I have been known to use the math rules in very creative ways to solve very difficult problems. It’s in the initial stages when I am trying to learn the rules that I have problems or are not sure how to use them.

Again, I thank you for your advice. I will look into it further. I am sorry we do not agree on what my problem is though you have some good points and I hope you will look at my counter points. I will not be posting anymore because I do not think anything more can be learned from it.

Again thanks for your advice. I will also try to contacting the first Lawyer I talked to see why he thought there might have been a case. Though, I think he said it pasted the statue of limitation. But, maybe he can clear up what he was talking about.

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Your last post futher makes the case for Asperger's, the fact that you can't integrate what I observe and choose not to post anymore but want more input is showing that you can not learn from your mistakes, it is a lack of pragmatics and a lack of flexibility, something that is frustrating to everyone you encounter.

Unless there is something you haven't presented here, you have no case against the school, you might against the professionals who have RECENTLY diagnosed you, but not those who initially diagnosed you. Please ask your counselor for testing and also go to that link I provided in my first response, it will be difficult for you to understand, you will only understand when it is put in a concrete manner for you. That is why it is difficult once you exceed a few steps or encounter new rules. That is called rote learning. Some persons with Asperger's appear to be creative and many inventions such as the telephone and computers are attributed to them. Einstein had Asperger's.