I’m a Freelance Writer With Dyscalculia
This is my story.
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat.
Unfortunately, I’m not here to offer you advice on how to manage your finances as a freelancer or how to navigate tax time or how to keep your sanity as you juggle those circumstances. I wish I could, but here’s my truth:
Though I try to be super organized and I’m pretty fastidious with tasks, I have dyscalculia (a.k.a. dyslexia with numbers) — so every tax season sends me into massive anxiety, even with the support of an incredible accountant.
What’s it like to manage dyscalculia? Imagine…
…not being able to add simple numbers in your head
…not understanding basic mathematical functions
…staring at simple pie charts and graphs like they’re ancient hieroglyphics
…struggling to remember important phone numbers and dates and addresses
…feeling overwhelmed every time you look at a bank statement, a receipt, or an invoice
…constantly checking to make sure you’ve added something correctly (because you typically don’t)
…questioning your ability to manage day-to-day bills and other numerical processes
I’m 53 years old and only recently learned there’s a name for all these challenges. Until then, I thought I was slow, thick-headed, and not trying hard enough to understand numerical figures.
Recently, the term “dyscalculia” came up somewhere in my reading — a term I’d never heard before — and I got curious. Could it be? Is there an actual name for what I’m dealing with? What is dyscalculia, anyway?
I did some research and found an online dyscalculia test that confirmed what I’d known my whole life — that my brain does not work well with numbers.
When I saw my score and realized this has been a learning disability and not just a personal shortcoming…I was overcome with relief — and not a little remorse that I’m only learning this now.
When I think back to all the jobs I’ve struggled with in the past, everything makes perfect sense.
I graduated college with a bachelor of science in advertising and found work immediately in the media department of an ad agency. Despite my creative, scrappy, entrepreneurial spirit and my passions for writing and teaching, I chose to pursue a career in advertising over journalism. Right or wrong, agency life seemed to be the more practical, dependable, responsible option, especially when the large Chicago houses sent their recruiting teams to woo us on campus. Back then, in the booming late 80s, ad agencies had a lot of money to blow on green and eager whippersnappers like me who could fill their media departments. Journalism, I was warned, would likely be feast or famine, especially early on.
“Is that the life you really want?” my parents asked. They meant well. They wanted me to thrive. And, since I hadn’t yet built enough confidence to listen to my own heart, I put aside any thoughts of writing professionally, convinced that corporate America was the wiser choice. I wince as I think of my naïveté, and I wish for anyone a career crossroads to dial down others’ opinions and listen closely to your inner voice
At Leo Burnett, my primary responsibilities involved the interpretation of numerical tables, and I constantly felt confused and lost. Despite mentors and colleagues repeatedly showing me how things were done, nothing clicked.
Ever.
During the three years I worked there, my spirit all but deteriorated.
One of my lowest moments was during a car ride to visit a major client four hours away. There were five of us in a hired limo — everyone but me talking about metrics and revenue performance and key performance indicators — and I wanted to disappear. It was a frigid day, and as the window fogged up with my breath as I fought against hyperventilating, I felt trapped by my own ineptitude, wondering why I was even part of the team.
One of my lowest moments was during a car ride to visit a major client four hours away. There were five of us in a hired limo — everyone but me talking about metrics and revenue performance and key performance indicators — and I wanted to disappear. It was a frigid day, and as the window fogged up with my breath as I fought against hyperventilating, I felt trapped by my own ineptitude, wondering why I was even part of the team.
I eventually moved to another ad agency and found the work there similarly painful. By then, I’d been promoted to the client service side of the business, where I hoped I might finally flourish — but it didn’t happen. One day, I finally found the courage to ask a Human Resource manager if she knew of any classes or courses that might help me read and comprehend our business plans faster. She stared at me blankly, offering no understanding or direction. I didn’t even know what to say. I didn’t have the understanding — let alone the words — to explain that numbers stumped and terrified me. Instead, I just slinked back to my office, drenched in perspiration and humiliation.
Regularly, I’d watch my colleagues in awe, amazed at how numbers would help them tell incredible stories about sales, trends, competitors, productivity, and business success. When they couldn’t seem to get enough of talking about the numbers, I wanted to crawl inside myself and cry.
The stress definitely impacted my health and my relationships, causing me to lose sleep and pull away from friends. Beyond frustrated, I worked with a sleep specialist and a psychiatrist and began taking a *newish* anti-depressant called Prozac (which ultimately only made me feel worse…much worse).
I left my second agency job after 2 years and worked for an interesting woman who’d left agency life to run a marketing business out of her home. She had a huge heart and high expectations that I could manage her office while she traveled and closed deals. It’s there — where I had no distractions and no one else to talk to — that I realized the depth of my avoidance of numbers. I tried to reconcile her bank statements and cried. I tried to balance her books and felt like I was staring at a foreign language. It didn’t make any sense to me, and the more I avoided the work, the more I’d hate myself.
The most confusing thing was that — while I was a natural on the phone with clients and an incredibly fast typist on the keyboard and extremely comfortable with writing briefs and summaries — my fear of numbers bled into almost everything I did. When my boss asked when we’d last talked to a prospective client, my jaw locked up as I tried to remember the date. When she’d ask for a general sense of our outstanding invoices, my mind went blank and I froze. When she asked, offhandedly, how long I’d been working for her, I couldn’t remember if it was 8 or 18 months. I felt like I was losing my mind. Something felt wrong, yet I had no language to express what it was.
Eventually, my boss took note of the skills I DID have, and asked me to help her son work on his college entrance essays. I’d like to think this is when I finally tuned into my journalistic skills, asking him tons of questions and guiding him to paint a picture with words about his life experience. He was accepted into several outstanding programs.
My next job was as an MBA recruiting coordinator for a consulting firm, and it was there that my interpersonal and organizational skills had a chance to shine. Yet, when it came time to run reports about my productivity or processing expense reimbursements, I’d find every excuse to put those tasks aside. This was 1996. I couldn’t Google “math struggles” or “number avoidance”. I didn’t know how to talk about this fear with anyone. I berated myself for being lazy and avoidant. And I looked at everyone else as more capable and responsible than me.
It’s at this point, I decided I’d go back to school and earn a Master’s in Teaching. I’d had enough of feeling empty in my career, and I wanted a fresh start. Balancing my classes with new motherhood wasn’t easy, but I did my best with both, and eventually earned my advanced degree. Finally, I thought, I’ve figured out how to be a grownup.
For nearly 10 years, I worked as an early childhood educator and loved it. During that time, I had two more kids and found incredible satisfaction with my life. And when I wasn’t working or managing our household, I’d try to steal moments in which to write — something that came as easily to me as breathing.
I loved how easy it was to express myself in writing. I never had to stumble over a letter or a word, and I always had something more to say. Processing life through letters was the easiest, most satisfying thing I’d ever known. It never felt like work to write. In fact, there never seemed to be enough time to write everything I had in my heart. I journaled, scribbled, blogged, edited textbooks — anything that might keep my focus and gaze on the page.
And then, just before I turned 40, I decided I’d try to write a children’s book. A memoir was actually what I REALLY wanted to write (something that touched upon the anxiety and depression and insecurity I’d tried to keep secret for years), but I didn’t have the confidence to try that just yet. I figured a children’s book would be much easier than a book for adults (oh, how wrong I was).
While working on the manuscript, I landed a job as an opinion columnist without even trying. Wait, WHAT?? Someone wants to pay me for writing words? Is this a joke?
I finished my manuscript, landed an interview with Barack Obama (that’s a story in itself), then landed a big-time literary agent in New York. Things were clicking, and I finally felt like I’d found my voice. I was also craving the community of other writers, so I launched a writing space for women out of my home…
And then, my life literally fell apart.
Shattered, I stopped everything I was doing to focus entirely on a series of family crises brewing in my nuclear and extended family. During that time, I grew horribly depressed, lost 40 pounds, and longed for the satisfying life I’d only recently embraced.
When the dust settled, I emerged from that time a changed woman. During my time “away”, among other things, I’d lost a sister, finalized my own divorce, and completed intensive treatment for severe anxiety and depression triggered by trauma. Still grieving, I now had a completely reconfigured family — and no job. I was about to start my life over, completely from scratch, and I was scared to death.
Naturally, the first thing I had to do was wrap my head around finances.
Growing up, I’d left my finances to my stepfather. During my marriage, perhaps not surprisingly, I’d been grateful that my then-husband handled our money. But now, on my own, there were bills to manage, loans to oversee, savings to build, and numbers I could no longer hide from or avoid.
Soon after my divorce, I remember sitting at my dining room table with the revolving door of supportive friends who’d watch me shuffling statements and folders and files and papers filled with numbers. I’d just look at them with a silent plea for understanding yet knowing they couldn’t comprehend why even some of the basic tasks seemed insurmountable for me.
One day, my stepfather offered to help me with my finances. He’s a computer science engineer and a whiz with numbers, someone who loves statistics as much as I love words. When I asked him to explain something for the fiftieth time, his expression said everything: I’ve explained this over and over. Why in God’s name aren’t you getting this?
By then, I was in my late 40s and still unable to say, “I’ve tried, and I still just don’t get it — and I don’t know why.” Instead, I got defensive.
“You can’t begin to understand how hard this is for me!” I shot back. I’m sure he thought I was having a pity party, but in truth, I was utterly humiliated.
My stepfather’s reply, though reasonable, nearly broke me. “Life’s hard, and we still have to do these things.”
If only I could! If only they made sense! If only I knew why this felt like climbing an invisible mountain!
He left that day clearly frustrated with me, walking quickly down the steps of my front porch with barely a goodbye. I felt so ashamed to be a grown-ass woman who couldn’t seem to manage her money. And I remember thinking to myself that, if anyone deserved to be left here alone, it was me.
Slowly, painstakingly, I forced myself to read and learn and create simple systems to help me manage and stay on top of my money. Each step forward drained — yet exhilarated — me. Eventually, when I found a CPA and a financial advisor, the first thing I told both of them was the truth.
“I’m terrified of numbers, and not in a normal way. They don’t make sense to me, and I’ll likely need things explained repeatedly.”
Neither one of them batted an eye.
Over the last ten years, I’ve built my own rudimentary set of processes that helps me understand my bills, my budgets, and the financial aspects of the writing coaching business I’ve built from the ground up.
I’m still working on how to make it more efficient, but I’m proud of the fact that I can open a spreadsheet and answer almost any question about my income, my expenses, and the stories behind both. I can now create bar charts and graphs that illustrate my journey, one that includes getting qualified for a small business account at a major U.S. bank. It’s hard work, and I never look forward to it, but I don’t feel as helpless as I have in the past. In no way have I mastered mathematical equations; in no way do I calculate figures in my head. But, increasingly, I feel more and more like a partner with all the numbers in my life.
As an entrepreneur, I get to do what I love, playing with words and talking to fascinating people every day about their remarkable stories. This work feels like a dream come true. I also manage the practical aspects of being a sole proprietor, including balancing the books, planning for my future, and tracking my income and expenses.
And that’s where this whole piece started.
I’m sitting at my dining room table again, with statements and folders and files and papers filled with numbers spread out before me. I’ve been here before, and I’d be lying if I said it isn’t triggering — but you know what else it is?
It’s a victory that I have the ability to write about what I’m experiencing.
It’s a victory that I have a thriving, independent, woman-owned business to manage.
It’s a victory that I’ve gotten through far worse and lived to tell the tale.
And, it’s a victory that I’m able to tell YOU that, if you’re struggling with numbers in a way that feels indescribable or shameful or embarrassing or humiliating, I hope you’ll consider looking into something called dyscalculia, and that you’re absolutely not alone.
As far as my original question goes — Can freelance writing, itemized taxes, dyscalculia, and sanity co-exist? — I’m here to tell you with 100% certainty that they absolutely can.
Cheers,
Christine
www.christinewolf.com
Dyscalculia Resources:
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Christine Wolf is an award-winning writer and memoir coach. Her writing gravitates toward resilience beyond trauma, emotional wellness, and the multi-faceted human condition. She owns Writers’ Haven LLC, a cooperative workspace for women writers. Check out more of her writing on Medium:
