I have always had a hard time with math. I don't mean to say that I have not done well in math, but I always struggle. Doing math for me is like having to train for a marathon. I have to work really hard, I can't stop, it hurts, and often makes me feel exhausted. Things just don't seem to sink in all that easily. I have always felt this wey despite knowing that when I don't try I still get C's and B's. At least in my memory the only math test I have ever failed was a long division test in a non-math class. I had been incredibly out of practice with my long division; But overall, as long as I did the homework (and sometimes even if I didn't) I generally got B's and C's. Once in while, if I worked really hard I could get an A. I still, however, tremble and cringe at the thought of having to do math. 

The problem with this visceral reaction to this subject is that I really love science. Obviously. I have a blog, site, and current career dedicated to science, and am persuing a degree in science that will hopefully lead to more degrees in science which means.... I have to take a #$%$%^ton of math. 

I was always curious why I have this discrepencey. Why am I so good with code, electronics, natural sciences, physics, etc, when I have such a hard time with math? Then I read this article.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/15616/

I do recommend reading this article before continuing. 

I had suspected that my early childhood exposure to math could have had an effect, but having research tell me so is some what vindicating. My mother was a math major. She loved math, and I think she expected that her children would take to it as easily as she did. Her mother was a librarian. My sister and I have been avid readers since a young age. I've been eating up chapter books, sleeping with books, and memorizing books for as long as I can remember, and having parents and grandparents who would read to us certainly helped. But that was my grandmother's expertise. We wanted to make our grandparents proud, but there wasn't a whole lot of pressure there. But my mother was a math major. We should have been more eager to pick it up. I remember sitting with math problems with my mother trying really hard to make my brain work and understand, but feeling like she was speaking in a different language. I couldn't make my brain understand. That was a big part of the problem. I was trying soooooo hard, because she wanted me to. There were times I got so frustrated I began crying. Those feelings began to be associated with trying to do math. 

I had been homeschool throughout my childhood. When I finally decided to go to school, I entered 8th grade. I hated being with my "peers" but I liked my teachers, and for the first time I had a math teacher who was making me feel like I could understand without breaking out in tears or banging my head against a wall. For one, she didn't expect anything from us beyond what she was teaching. I had repetitious homework that gave me a chance to practice the skills before being asked any questions. And I didn't have anything to prove, to the teacher at least. I was proving it to myself this time.

Through highschool I took as little math as possible. I was going to be an artist at this point. I didn't need math. Freshman year I was taken from a regular Algebra class where I was happily getting an A, to an excellerated math class where I got B's and C's and can't remember learning a single new thing.

I didn't do math for several years after graduating. Then I decided to go to college for science. I needed to get to AT LEAST calculus. My placement test put me into Elementary Algebra... Well at least I wasn't entirely at square one. I have seen taken a math class every semester and had an intense push forward in my math skills. Again, I have only had anything to prove to my self. My own requirements for self acheivement have trumped the fear that was generated in me by living up to a mathematicien. I don't have to be a mathematicien. I just have to be good enough to succeed in my own field. I need to know how to use math, as a tool. It's still a bit of a struggle, I still get brain cramps, but I have come a very long way from where I was. I'm so close to calculus, and I'm actually looking forward to it. That is something I never thought I would say.