u/calorie-clown

I'll admit it, the title sounds dramatic, right? But it's truly how dyscalculia makes me feel. Stuck with dead end jobs and no real prospects, due largely to this disability (although I do also have a super fun, chronic health condition that limits my options to some extent). I just need a moment to feel sorry for myself, if only for a few minutes. Then I'll shut up, pinky swear.

But... I did everything right, man! I was a hardworking, responsible student all through high school, with straight As in every class (except one...), above average scores in most placement tests, even a few extracurricular achievements and AP classes to boot... and completely unable to graduate, due to math. That was the one thing - no amount of tutoring or ~extra time~ could make it happen. I could NOT pass the math portion of the graduaiton test, no matter how hard I tried. Teachers tried to get me a special exception of sorts, took it to the Board and everything, trying to help (for which I am deeply grateful, even if it went nowhere), and what do I have to show for it exactly?

Oh, yeah - retail and food service experience! I am so tired of scrapping pennies together at jobs I hate, frozen and unable to move forward or upgrade my life because every skill I have, every area wherein I am above average in any way requires a GED and degree that I will never be able to get because of ONE SINGLE SUBJECT that has zero relevance to any field I would ever pursue, lol. There's nothing I can do about it, "no use crying over spilled milk", so on and so forth. But it really, really sucks.

I feel like I wasn't built for this life or society - like I'm a rotten egg and it's begging to spit me right back out. I know plenty of people have it worse, I have personally had it worse at certain times, but that doesn't ease the ache. So, forgive me for my self indulgent rant - I'll move on, I have no other choice anyway! But if only for a few minutes, please let me sit in this feeling, even if it is a bit selfish.

Who else here has lived in an area so rural that your nearest grocery store is a gas station or a Dollar General? I've found that food deserts aren't really spoken about enough in general, but particularly how common they are in rural America. The discussion tends to be more focused on food deserts in the inner city, which are obviously a huge issue as well, but many people don't seem to realize they're quite common in more rural parts of the country as well.

Personally, my closest grocery stores are a Dollar General and a convenience store (10 minute drive, 50 minute walk, uphill). My nearest REAL grocery store is an independently owned family affair (15 minute drive, 2 hour walk, uphill), owned by one of the biggest assholes in this county, who knows our mostly aging, mostly desperate population cannot realistically drive to the city every time they need something and thus inflates his prices with things like $4 loaves of bread, $5 heads of lettuce, $5 bags of onions, so on and so forth. Nearest Walmart (35 minute drive, 10 hour walk) is doable for some, but difficult for many others - anyone with a crappy car, anyone very elderly or disabled (most of my town falling into both categories). Personally, I do have a bad car situation, so I use Walmart+ to get groceries delivered as often as I can afford, which is not as often as I'd like, and can get pretty expensive once you factor in tipping.

I find most people don't even realize places like my town/county exist. It can be frustrating seeing people in food deserts ask for advice on Reddit, only to be told "Just get a Costco membership, idiot!", as if every town in the US has one, lol. My town is just one little spot of land with a food desert, but there are tons of them in my tristate area, so in these mountains, we're not really that unique! Doesn't help that the powers-that-be in charge actively fight to prevent new businesses from coming in, since they're worried it'll hurt tourism and our "small town charm" 🙄