Growing up and then up until I started doing research for my blog when I was around at 26, I thought that a lot of the panicking I did from having a learning disability, and possibly from other things that has to do with my brain anatomy was from me being lazy, or lacking motivation to put effort into my schoolwork. I got one on one help with my homework in the Sixth grade, but between the work load, my learning disability, and my memory in general it would take me hours each night, and sometimes cut into my sleep if not almost always. With all the effort I put into it that year I would still mostly only get C's. That part I was fully aware that it wasn't my fault, because a big part of it had to do with my low test schools. I would cram for tests and memorize as much as I could before the test, and then purposely forget everything so I would be able to do the same thing for the next test. So I would get to the point where it would be time for midterms, or finals and be screwed. It didn't help that my circle of friends were mostly honor roll students that year, and it at least felt like since they seemed to be stressing out far less about it, so I decided that it wasn't worth putting in the effort.
When I decided to refuse help after the Sixth grade I would routinely forget to do my homework, and only remember the next morning when I got to School. I had to take a class my Freshman and Sophomore years that had to do with keeping track of homework, practicing note taking things among other things. I can't remember how much of that class included actually doing homework, but regardless it wasn't enough time. I flunked my Freshman year by half a credit, and I was flunking half of my classes at some point during my Sophomore year. A Teacher I had the next two years eventually made forced me to complete all of my homework in her class knowing that if I didn't get it done in School, that there was no way that I would be turning in those assignments, or at least not on time. Somehow she helped me get caught up, and was only half a credit short of graduating on time.
When I was confronted about missing assignments usually during my IEP meeting finding those assignments involved fishing them out of my backpack. I would panic to pack up before class and throw any assignments I had directly into my backpack. I would always intend to reorganize my backpack later on, and of course it would only had several weeks after School started during my IEP meeting while trying to find specific assignments that ended up crushed in the bottom of my backpack. The same teacher that forced me to do my homework in my class, put a end to this habit as well. Although my backpack was still very messy, and barely organized if at all. Another thing was difficulty in forming habits, specifically hygiene and doing something specific in a class each day. What comes to mind right away when it comes to trouble forming habits is a assignment in 8th Grade Social Studies where we learned about the stock market, and we had to pick stocks and keep track of them daily for several weeks. I loved the idea but after a few days I unintentionally broke the habit of doing it. Not thinking to ask for help catching up, or possibly being nervous about it I ended up dropping the ball completely, and not completing the assignment for the next several weeks.
None of these things stopped being a problem after School ended. If anything it got harder in ways because in School most teachers were aware of learning disabilities, and in a way knew how to deal with it. I had a IEP, and had 2 or 3 Special Ed classes. On a side note I ended up staying or eventually ended up in those 2 out of 3 of those classes because of my black hole of a backpack, and refusing tutoring when it came to complex math classes. Knowing and talking to very regularly to two different people that has the same neurological disorder and learning disability that I do whom actually does put in the effort, or did while in School, I've learned that I probably would have freaked out. If I would have managed to not have missing assignments, then increasing the workload would have caused me to panic, and not get my work done.
As an adult, and working my learning disability has affected me in ways that wasn't as noticeable when I was in School. The two main things is grasping concepts, and having it take forever for me to pick up speed with new concepts. This only became a problem for the most part when I started working at Kroger. The only time my learning disability showed in restaurants jobs was when I would panic, especially in kitchen jobs when I would have to juggle multiple tasks at the same time and be risking burning food or not getting my part of the order out on time.
My position for Kroger is produce clerk, and I've been in the same department for almost 10 years. I was promoted from a courtesy clerk when my division restarted their cut fruit program. They had tried it at least other time before Kroger bought my division out. It lasted for 3 and a half years before they started to source it out, and it took me around 2 years before I was fast enough to always get everything done on time. I did strictly cut fruit for almost 2 years. After that for over 7 years including occasional "manager" shifts at stores that had 2 day loads where there was no ordering required the day of my shift. For the 8 months I've been strictly in the wet rack position. Basically everything that's on the wall or aisle in produce where everything needs to be kept wet is my job, including cucumbers, squash, and peppers because it's usually in the same section.Either each specific position or in general I had, and still have problems with organizational skills (especially when I panic), and forming habits. In addition I have trouble grasping concepts, or understanding the point of things. The trouble with concepts, and finding the point in things has to do with nonverbal learning disability as well. But it's either more obvious to me now, or there just isn't any childhood examples that come to mind.
Most if not all of my managers over the last 10 years, both store and produce managers has been understanding of my learning disability and usually without me having to explain. Certain managers gave me or provided me with enough hands on training where I don't really have a problem any new concepts anymore. What was done recently to avoid me panicking really badly when corporate or store policies change is to give me more than one day to switch over to whichever way things are supposed to be done. The way that I eventually got better at organizational skills is realizing how much extra effort I have to put in to fix everything after, and remembering that. I have a backpack for personal use because I don't drive or have a roommate who does. It still gets messy quickly, so I'm not sure how realizing that solution earlier would have helped. When it comes to habits what I started to do is write every habit that I forget at work, and when I'm confident that I've learned that habit, I cross it off. No comment on how long it took to make a habit to write down my list of habits that I need to make a habit of.
One of the main reasons that I've stayed in the same department for so long is because I want to avoid a learning curve in a completely new department. There however is other departments that I've helped in that I struggled far less in. So if there's ever a problem in my department that won't resolve itself I have options that I'm not too nervous about. Just a reminder I haven't completely resolved all of these problems after almost 10 years of doing the same job. But it has gotten far easier to deal with. My point of this post was to encourage others with similar learning difficulties, trying to help those people be understood, and provide possible solutions.
