I am a wordsmith by nature and love the written and spoken word. My brain is hard-wired to language and I am pretty useless when it comes to numbers, can’t even remember telephone numbers that I use regularly! I don’t think you should feel like a failure, like me you just don’t have a mathematical brain.

At least you have taken your childhood trauma and, as an adult, worked to dispel your phobia! My father encouraged mathematics, and I fell in love with it early in life. I did have a professor in grad school that said women should not be in positions that involved math ,and that I should probably seek a different career path other than being an accountant....of course, I took that as a challenge and pursued it much more rigorously and with success. Too be honest, basic algebra is about the most you will practically use in everyday life, but I also think people need to know basics about statistical data to understand things like the unemployment figures, polling, etc. Keep on studying...great!

Yes yes I sincerely identify with your post..in every way...

My father prided himself on his innate skills in math..he would insist on doing my homework with me ...he was and still is a distant man emotionally ...he was aggressive and a terrible bully..

I was terrified of him..he would shout at me and grab my arm ..then shake me violently until I cried..he would stop ..then the whole cycle would start again...I couldn't think through the haze of shouting..and would desperately respond with any numbers...to make it stop..but this only made things worse.

My mother would try to intervene when it got too much for her to bear..but he would swat her away like a fly..

I never really succeeded at maths...yet inexplicably excelled at other subjects...

I avoid maths based activities since my early childhood..and can still hear my father screaming at me for the correct answer over and over again..

I think it's something I need to put right...

I'd fall asleep asleep in my high school math class. And I sat in the front row.

Similar experience with my dad's comments "You don't know that?" instead of answering the questions I'd ask him to help me understand. Along with my grandmother's assessment out loud that I was the dumbest of the five of us kids. Didn't give me the confidence to go very far in school.

I don't know if those experiences kept me from excelling in math or not. Could be that numbers just aren't my thing. Maybe my brain is lazy or I just have an aversion to math for some other reason. But, you're definitely not alone disliking math. Gotta be lots of us.

I'm very maths-phobic. I got all kinds of disdain all my life at my inability to comprehend it. Most people don't know dyscalculia is a thing.

I have a strong psychotic reaction to math. It makes me want to kill myself. I'm a drummer. I only need to count to 4. A one and a two....

My mom did the same to me. Didn’t understand how I could possibly not get math. I was locked up in a room a lot to do extra math exercises. Until 4th grade. Suddenly math dawned on me and I learned it like it was the easiest thing. Started taking the more challenging classes and later in life tutored students in math and sciences. Now I love math and I find joy in math. I find joy in helping students learn math and not fear it anymore. I used to have a math teacher who’s motto was “Math is fun”. I believe it now.

I am dyslexic, with letter and numbers, yet I can sort math problems. Words on the other had and I am hopeless. I find all maths except trigonometry easy.