I don’t recall having much difficulty in school. I studied a lot, took notes, and completed everything on time. I remember history being boring, math being difficult, and everything else being fairly easy. Studying after school was actually enjoyable. It gave me a reason to be alone in my room with the door shut. I would also go to the library and spend hours researching topics through encyclopedias.
Looking back, I think school worked for me because it matched the way I learn. Most of the information was written down. I could read it more than once. I could take notes. I could study at my own pace. If I didn’t understand something immediately, I had time to sit with it and figure it out.
What I struggle with is learning in real time.
It’s only very recently that I discovered that I think differently than many other people. I don’t usually learn well from vague explanations or quick verbal instructions. I need details, but I need them in small pieces. I need to know what each step means, why I’m doing it, and how it connects to the next step. If I’m only told what to do without understanding the reason behind it, the information doesn’t fully click for me.
I think this is part of what people call bottom-up processing. My brain doesn’t automatically start with the big picture and fill in the missing details. It often needs the details first, one by one, until the bigger picture finally forms.
That can make me look slow in the moment, but I don’t think it means I’m actually slow. I think my brain is trying to understand something completely instead of just copying the steps.
Basically, I don’t need less information. I need the right information, in the right order, at the right pace.
This is a small part of why getting diagnosed was important, at least for me. It gave me a different explanation for experiences I had spent years blaming on myself. What I thought was a lack of intelligence was often a mismatch between how I learn and how information was being presented.
I still ask a lot of questions. I still need time to process. I still want to understand how everything connects before I move forward. The difference is that now I don’t see those things as character flaws. They’re simply part of how my brain works.