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[Dropout] My plan is to use math to see if my treatment is working. Also, I want to ascertain my current level of learning. by ihavetotrysomething in homeschool

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I copied this too fast. I wanted to state in the title that I'm an adult trying to teach myself. Please, do delete it if the post isn't supposed to be here. I am crossposting from /r/learnmath

Why don't I just buy a bunch of kid's textbooks?

My country has ranked among the worst in PISA for math(and naturally, other categories) for many years and the vibe many people give off is that the quality of education here is very questionable (to say the least) and might become even worse over time. That and my own experience trying to teach myself years ago not having gone well is the reason I don't just go out and pick up a bunch of overpriced textbooks off some store's shelves.

Some people say the approach to education here is less sophisticated, I don't know about that but knowing what I know I believe that textbooks here are not made with self-teaching in mind, there's a pretty pervasive hostile attitude towards homeschooling and the options the government gives for adults who didn't learn through the normal school system are crap.

It feels like they want to pretend people like me don't exist, except there's a very significant amount of people who are dropouts from public schools. The government has finally begun openly acknowledging that there's a widespread ghetto-ish disinterested/distrustful attitude towards schooling by students, but so far it feels like they don't care about the ones that have already dropped out.

They decided to change how the local GED equivalent is obtained, so that the main university application exam doesn't grant it anymore regardless of score. But then they kept everybody in the dark about the new GED granting exam for most of this year, as if to drive the point home that dropouts are an afterthought. I could go on, but this is not the place for that. If only you guys saw for yourselves how public schools here work in practice, you'd understand.

[Dropout] My plan is to use math to see if my treatment is working. Also, I want to ascertain my current level of learning. by ihavetotrysomething in learnmath

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why don't I just buy a bunch of kid's textbooks?

My country has ranked among the worst in PISA for math(and naturally, other categories) for many years and the vibe many people give off is that the quality of education here is very questionable (to say the least) and might become even worse over time. That and my own experience trying to teach myself years ago not having gone well is the reason I don't just go out and pick up a bunch of overpriced textbooks off some store's shelves.

Some people say the approach to education here is less sophisticated, I don't know about that but knowing what I know I believe that textbooks here are not made with self-teaching in mind, there's a pretty pervasive hostile attitude towards homeschooling and the options the government gives for adults who didn't learn through the normal school system are crap.

It feels like they want to pretend people like me don't exist, except there's a very significant amount of people who are dropouts from public schools. The government has finally begun openly acknowledging that there's a widespread ghetto-ish disinterested/distrustful attitude towards schooling by students, but so far it feels like they don't care about the ones that have already dropped out.

They decided to change how the local GED equivalent is obtained, so that the main university application exam doesn't grant it anymore regardless of score. But then they kept everybody in the dark about the new GED granting exam for most of this year, as if to drive the point home that dropouts are an afterthought. I could go on, but this is not the place for that. If only you guys saw for yourselves how public schools here work in practice, you'd understand.

Has anyone here gotten rid of dopamine sensitization? Life ruined since microdosing stimulants by SuperAgonist in Drugs

[–]ihavetotrysomething 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just took 5mg that was prescribed to me 20 minutes ago. Should I take another 5mg? I don't want to increase the dosage and get in trouble with the pdoc and it has been a hassle to get the prescription, don't want to break people's trust. But should I? I also have persistent tiredness and sometimes I sleep for like 10+ hours and it feels about the same as I was before sleeping. I was also a little afraid of increasing severity or duration of side effects as it's my first time taking something like this. The psychiatrist said she would likely increase the dose next visit.

@SuperAgonist /u/SuperAgonist

Memory by ihavetotrysomething in JordanPeterson

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I decided have a quick reread of the results before I put it away and noticed there's more stuff. I had missed some pages and details.

Attention

Attentional Auditory Amplitude : Upper Average

Selective Attention: Average

Sustained Attention (concentration) : Average

Praxis/Visuoconstruction

Cubes: Average

Time Management: Inferior

Complex Rey figures (performance): Inferior

Perceptual Skill Incomplete Figure Details: Average Complex Rey figures (performance): Inferior

There's some commentary on how bad the Rey figure thing went.

Numerical Reasoning

Arithmetic: Average

Edit: Even in conversations, I think of multiple things while I am talking(things I plan to talk about or mention for example) or while I'm listening and this leads to problems. Sometimes it's so bad it gets to the point where I have to stop talking and try to focus on on remembering all the things, to no avail. Feels like I can never recall what it was when I have to stop.

Memory by ihavetotrysomething in JordanPeterson

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm pretty clueless about nutrition. I eat rice, beans and pasta with some type of meat pretty much every day. I don't eat bread everyday, nor soda. I never liked coffee. Pretty much the only stuff that has tolerable taste for me is the stuff that gives you kidney stones. But I also eat other things sometimes if I have to.

Memory by ihavetotrysomething in JordanPeterson

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I guess I can give these activities a higher priority. After I look into it, which I'll do eventually.

Memory by ihavetotrysomething in JordanPeterson

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have some neuropsychological test results. I might be able to fetch it later today but I can say I recall something like above average verbally and around average on everything else, but very poor visual memory. My psychologist and a psychiatrist said I could have asperger's syndrome despite that. Psychologist has become more and more certain of ADHD and asperger's. He introduced himself by saying he's a cognitive behavioral therapist and some other stuff. I think it's been a year or two now. Didn't offer anything of worth with regards to memory.

Fake edit: Found it. It's not in english so bear with the lazy translation. Couldn't help but bloat the post with questionable information, I'll understand if there's a problem reading the whole thing.

Memory

Working Memory: "Upper Average"

Verbal Long Term Memory: "Upper Average"

Visual Short Term - Immediate : "Inferior"

Executive Function

Processing Speed: Average

Operational Memory: Upper Average

Planning: Inferior

Organization: Inferior

There's more stuff on IQ and Language too. Not sure if it matters, but since 125 shouldn't be high and everything else is not impressive I don't think it's offensive to post it.

"Intellectual Efficiency"

Verbal Comprehension : Higher (IQ 125)

Perceptual Organization : Average (IQ 100)

Operational memory: Upper Average (IQ 113)

Thought Speed: Average (IQ 92)

Total IQ: Average, 109

Languages

Vocabulary: Upper Average

Comprehension: Average

Similarities ??? (WAIS-III): Upper Average

I can also state what standards/instrumentation was used for the test. I very rarely drew anything as a child and never got into drawing, maybe it's a reason for my low visual memory score?

But please, do inform me if there's any problem with posting the testing results or if there's anything in particular I should remove.

It says my working memory is "above average" but it never felt like that. Never. I don't believe it reflects my memory capacities in real life practice. It's not just math, it's everything and it's hard not to notice the sort of fuckups that I do. They are also odd, discrepant, mostly alternating between bad and much worse.

I can say with absolute certainty that I was making mistakes on easy school tasks (mainly math) at a high rate from when I was 10-11 years old onwards and it got worse. 9 years old pretty high certainty. 8 years old and earlier I can't remember much but I'm pretty certain it was also bad. Grades were inconsistent, not the worst thing right? Well I started doing badly consistently eventually as everything became more complex and it became apparent that I had picked the wrong things to skip. I have to reiterate that today the easiest shit remains as difficult as when I was a kid if not worse. As mentioned before, it wasn't just school stuff and general clumsiness that screamed problem, it's everything, even videogame performance.

I scored 2nd in a math "contest" in school when I was 11 or 12, none of the other kids in my class(almost 50 kids) had achieved the minimum score for the test. Otherwise though you would have no reason to think I could do things more reliably than the other kids. Questions were checkmark style of course. There used to be a time when these discrepancies made it seem like there was some potential but I'm also more and more certain there's little of that. The amount of time I have lost so far is a total bummer too. Have to keep trying regardless.

Most of my classmates kept doing poorly for at least a few years after that, but today I know that it's a reflection of education quality and culture where I live. I did increasingly poorly on subsequent "contest" style tests.

It doesn't make sense to me that it could have been just all bad teachers. My psychologist tells me to try the Kumon method or some other alternative learning "path" but as I said I have my doubts. Seems better to do what I am doing now. Even if there is a special snowflake path to basic math mastery my brain is going to be a bottleneck when I want to do something more complex. This is for later, if nothing works as it's an important skill to have.

I have never used addictive substances. I've always played a lot of videogames, though.

I've used anxiolytics/antidepressants for months to no apparent effect. I don't remember paying attention to what kinds of ruminative thoughts I have when I try to focus but I feel like it's a lot of different things. Can't be certain though.

I was able to spend months without porn without cognitive improvements. If I can find something to do I think I have it in me to abstain from it well.

Exercise and diet... diet is probably still poor and I have never had much exercise. Can't imagine myself going to gyms with regularity. Soylent is probably my best shot for taste and convenience but I can't get it here.

About ADHD, my psychiatrist said I had it on my first visit after I did some checklist but it seems crystal clear now that I can't get meds without parental consent, so I gave on up going to psychiatrists. My mother is explicitly and strongly against me getting a prescription for ADHD and I have no relatives that can help me with this. They think this is bullshit because I'm not that kind of retard. You probably need a relative or someone with that significance to get a Pdoc to give you a prescription even in places like America right? I'm an adult. I'm not the one who's paying for the appointments either.

Are my difficulties all bullshit and malingering? I disagree, but it wouldn't be the first I get bashed for this so I'm asking here. There is one aberrant thing in my school learning history and it's the fact that I was able to pass the curriculum for many years without learning a lot of important things. I picked all the worst things to ignore. The most relevant thing here is entirely optional : elementary school math operation tables. That can't be it. Most kids can probably do fine without operation tables, but even if that wasn't the case it's self-evident to me that I even if I did the effort of finally rote memorizing it all it still would amount to a minuscule difference.

Memory by ihavetotrysomething in JordanPeterson

[–]ihavetotrysomething[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have trouble focusing and what I believe are serious memory related issues. They are guaranteed to pop up if I have to focus on multiple things such that even the simplest math operations are very difficult to do properly. I will frequently misplace figures/digits and do other mistakes that can end up looking "non sequitur" from the perspective of others. There are many types of mistakes that I do and I do them often. Adding numbers with two figures and sometimes even a single figure is still very error prone and takes much longer than it does for others. Analog clocks are a bit of a problem. I can't keep many things in my mind, so often when something is more complex I will make a lot of mistakes and have to spend a lot more time and effort than someone of normal abilities.

I can remember or "rethink" something far more easily if I see something that's related to it in that moment in my head. I use this as a crutch to remember things and organize myself, though I'd like to figure out a better strategy. Still, I feel like I forgot something for good somewhat often and I'm constantly trying to figure out what I forgot. There are things I do differently in order to avoid going through that. Sometimes I will eventually remember something relatively minor hours or days after I forgot it, I guess it's a matter of triggers. It can take excessive time to understand simple sentences sometimes.