What It’s Really Like Having a Complex Learning Disability
When people hear “learning disability,” they often picture someone who struggles with one subject—maybe math, maybe reading—but still coasts through the rest. That wasn’t me.
I was diagnosed in grade 2 with a complex learning disability. Not one area of struggle—all of them. While most kids could lean into a strength when one subject was hard, I didn’t have that safety net. Reading was hard. Writing was hard. Math? A nightmare. There wasn’t one place where things clicked.
I needed support—a lot of it.
I wasn’t just in a classroom. I was pulled out constantly. Taken from “regular” classes and placed in special education rooms where everything felt different—and not in a good way. Sometimes I’d be sent off school grounds entirely for extra learning support. I still remember being picked up in a taxi, taken away from my school, my friends, my routines, to sit in a strange building that smelled like whiteboard markers and frustration.
Looking back now, I realize how little the school system actually understood about learning disabilities — especially the complex kind. In the 90s, if you struggled enough to get noticed, they slapped a label on it, called it a “learning disability,” and that was that. One label. One box. One solution — even if your struggles didn’t fit neatly into any of it.
There wasn’t talk about co-existing challenges. No one was screening for things like ADHD, anxiety, or processing disorders. If you couldn’t read well, couldn’t keep up in math, couldn’t process information the same way, it all got bundled together — no real explanation, no deeper digging.
I was even part of a research study through the Children’s Hospital — they were trying to understand kids like me. Trying to make sense of complex learning disabilities. I remember sitting in those sterile offices, being poked and prodded with questions, tests, evaluations — like I was a puzzle they couldn’t quite solve.
And even after all that, the system still didn’t really know what to do with me. Once they found a label, they stopped looking for the reason. They stopped asking the harder questions.
The system wasn’t built for complexity. It wasn’t built for kids like me.
I remember at one point, I was told I had to leave my specialized classroom — a small class of just eight of us, all with learning disabilities. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a space where at least the struggles we had were recognized. When they said I had to return to the school closest to my home — my designated zone — my parents and I thought maybe this was a good thing. Maybe it meant I was making progress.
But when we went for the tour, it quickly became clear that wasn’t the plan. They wanted to place me in the Life Skills program — the one designed for students with significant cognitive delays or complex medical needs, where the focus wasn’t on academics at all. It was about basic life skills — cooking, personal care, daily routines.
When I say people didn’t understand me or my needs, I mean they literally wanted to give up on me. They couldn’t figure me out, so their solution was to quietly lower the expectations to nothing. Not because I wasn’t capable — but because they didn’t know what else to do.
I had tutors after school, worksheets stacked higher than my confidence, and more homework than most kids in my grade. While other kids were playing outside or going to activities, I was still trying to finish the work I didn’t understand the first time around. Or the second. Or the third.
And as if the struggle itself wasn’t enough, there were the messages I got from the adults around me—the teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and specialized educators who were supposed to help.
They didn’t just lower the bar for me—they buried it.
I was told, more than once, that I’d be lucky to finish high school. That university wasn’t even worth thinking about. That I should “be realistic” and not aim too high.
They meant well, maybe. But those words stuck.
They taught me early that dreaming was dangerous. That hope came with limits. That some doors weren’t meant for kids like me.
I spent so much time trying—and even more time pretending I wasn’t drowning. That I wasn’t humiliated every time a teacher asked me to read aloud. That I didn’t feel the sting when classmates rolled their eyes because I took longer, asked more questions, or gave the wrong answer again.
The message was clear early on: I was different. And not in the cool “quirky” way that people celebrate now. I was difficult, behind, too much work. I was the kid no one knew what to do with, and I felt it.
Even as a little kid, I knew. I knew when I was being sent away. I knew I wasn’t included. I knew I had to work twice as hard just to try to keep up—and even then, I was still always behind.
People don’t see what that does to a child’s sense of self. When you grow up constantly being “helped,” you start to believe you’re incapable. You internalize it. It becomes this quiet shame you carry even on the good days.
I wasn’t lazy.
I wasn’t stupid.
But I sure as hell felt like I was.
And it’s not like I didn’t try. I tried so hard. But when your brain doesn’t process things the way school expects it to, all that effort feels invisible. I didn’t get gold stars. I didn’t get awards. I got “she needs to try harder,” even when I was already giving everything I had.
Growing up like that affects you. It doesn’t magically go away when you graduate. It lingers—in the self-doubt, in the burnout, in the fear of looking dumb, even when you’re smart in ways the system never measured.
It took me years to unlearn the idea that I had to prove I was “good enough.” Years to stop apologizing for the way my brain works. Years to realize I was never broken—I was just never supported in a way that truly made sense for me.
If this was your childhood too, I see you. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re on the outside of something you desperately want to be a part of. I know what it’s like to grow up in the gaps—between classrooms, between systems, between other people’s expectations.
And I want you to know: you are not alone in that.
You were never the problem. You were navigating a world that didn’t understand you—and you’re still here. Still learning. Still trying. Still showing up.
And that? That’s powerful.
— Tanya
Spoiler: It didn’t all stop there — the school system, the labels, the doubts — but neither did I. I’ll share the rest of the story soon
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