My relationship with math is one of both love and hatred. It fills me with rage the likes of which I seldom experience in non-math settings; yet during my summer breaks, I find myself longing for the mental burn until I begrudgingly open Khan Academy to indulge again. Each problem is a hurdle, yes, but one I love to jump.

By nature, I am not an especially assertive person. This, combined with my reluctance to admit my struggles, means that I often found it difficult to go to office hours for help; better to suffer, it seemed to me, than to confess my shortcomings.

However, when I got a B in calculus—a class I loved, despite the aggravation it caused me nightly—I knew that my strategy wasn’t sustainable. Though I did my best to help myself, poring over the textbook and online resources, my sole perspective wasn’t enough. As someone who had so long taken pride in being an academic lone wolf, an independent A-getter who nailed every English essay without so much as asking my teacher to proofread, I scarcely recognized the ailing math student I’d become. Yet now, I had to make a choice: to swallow my dissatisfaction at my grade and retain my (perhaps erroneous) sense of pride, or to seek the help I needed and preserve my love for learning—something that was rapidly being sapped by my silent struggles.

The prospect of talking to my teacher about my weaknesses terrified me until the minute the words “so, I had some questions…” emerged from my mouth, but his reassuring smile evaporated my anxieties. My grades improved with similar rapidity: I finished the year with an A and got a 5 on the AP Calculus exam.

For the price of a few minutes of vulnerability per week, I no longer spend hours angsting over a single problem. As a bonus, I have infinitely more energy with which to savor the “love” side of math instead of the “hatred” aspect. By acknowledging my imperfections, I’ve connected more deeply with both my math teachers and those in other fields, having applied what I’ve learned about the value of office hours to even my strongest subjects.

Deep down, I know that I am capable of, and find great joy in, difficult things. However, unlocking my abilities often requires throwing myself into the deep end to prove it: I needed to learn self-advocacy, and I did. Today, I continue to reap the benefits of that first moment of need, openly asking for help and becoming more confident—and mathematically savvy—each time.