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I got my GED a year before my class and started college about 7 years ago. I bombed out 3 semesters in, but not before I failed remedial math twice and got myself under state legislation requiring anyone who fails state mandated classes to be in them until passed. The problem is that my history shows me if I take math during the summer I have a chance of squeaking by while if I take it with anything else I fail everything.

Five years, a 12 step program later and 300 lbs lighter, I'm back in school. And still under state regulation. They let me slide for this Fall semester and put off math until I could gather documentation of my disorder. So I got tested through DARS. And to my shock they told me yesterday that I don't have a math disorder. But when I went to Students with Disabilities she told me there's a 20-something point gap between my IQ and my math score so unless they're scoring it differently that I do have a mathemathics disorder.

I was floored when DARS said I didn't. Throughout my childhood testing told me I did. Reading about Dyscalculia makes me cry with a "it's not my fault, I'm not bad, I'm not stupid, it has a name" sensation of overwhelm and relief. It's like a description of me. And it goes so far beyond inverting numbers and signs. It explains geography, memory, remembering names, my issues with right/left, directions and freaking clocks!! It freaking explains me at Zumba when the steps get too difficult for me. I know I have it. But how do I handle the professional saying I don't?

Because it seems to me that what I'm being told is "waste money, be frustrated beyond reason and imagination, weep openly in class and get physically ill (dizzy & nauseated) and we will put a road block between you and a degree AND tell you you need the degree to function in society." I literally just cried in some woman's office because I just tested at 8th grade math (which is why DARS told me I don't have a learning disorder) and the exam to get me out of the state disciplinary regulations tests to 9th grade.

She gave me the Spring semester off from math with the thought of doing it over the Summer as my only course. But I still feel like I'm going to get hit.

I'm smart, damn it, and I can do amazing things! I just feel totally blocked. How do I circumvent bad legislation, ignorance and administration with tied hands?