I was an A student until I was about 12 or 13 then everything started to go downhill, starting with Math, then sciences and anything involving numbers. I was always told I was smart but I stopped believing it because I couldn't grasp simple things like left and right or being able to tell time on a clock without numbers and I still needing to count on my fingers, which was super embarrassing.

To add to that, I loved guitar and piano but somehow could never retain my lessons; no matter how well I was doing, any pause wiped it all away. I also could not for the life of me do simple things like follow dance or workout instructions. I always got confused, especially if I was facing the instructor, and I could never remember routines after I learned them.

Oddly I continued to excel at English and foreign languages, so at least I had that.

By the time I started college I'd figured out that I could ace Math only if I studied for two hours every single day because I'd forget everything I learned if I stopped even for a couple days. Luckily Math was the only subject I ever needed to actually study so it wasn't a big deal - I aced everything else with minimal effort and maintained a 4.0.

By chance, a few years later I was chatting online with some random guy when I mentioned my problem with numbers and he suggested I might have dyscalculia. I thought he was making stuff up but later on I looked into it and was shocked to find I checked like 14/15 symptoms in the list. Contacted my local dyslexia center and had a nice chat with an evaluator. She was fairly confident I had dyscalculia but couldn't confirm officially without doing an in-house assessment. I didn't think it was necessary by then (she didn't either) so I just left it at that. I was happy to finally have an explanation for why I am the way I am.