This year has been incredible. I chose to focus on the positive and the many wonderful things that have happened to me.
I can’t help but reflect on the words people have said that were designed to hurt me. I don’t spew off my professional qualifications on NLD boards for many reasons. But I have two years of grad school, many post grad courses, work and a license in social work. This does tend to make me think in a certain way.

This is going to sound so elitist and maybe it is but I do understand more than a high school grad and don’t care who hates me for saying that. Few people including doctors know much or anything about NLD in adults. So I say “this is my opinion,” or “I believe.”

People say I talk down to them. But how do they talk to me? Apparently all people with NLD are forever children who need to be talked to as if we are slow seven year olds. I resent that.

I don’t consider my accomplishments amazing. It makes me sad to realize how much more I could have accomplished had I known about NLD prior to age 56. That’s a fact.

Think about that. I navigated through life without being called “disabled,” which I’m glad about but that also meant I got no service. None at all. I graduated from college and grad school–and did exceptionally well. I should be very proud of that. Instead I feel that I didn’t live up to the potential I know is in me.

I’m told I lack humility. I thought about this a lot and if lacking humility means I’m not Mother Teresa well I’m not. But I care about people a great deal and take much pleasure in helping them. I think I succeed more than I fail.

Am I self-centered? I sort of had to be as navigating the world wasn’t easy for me. I see people in the NLD community who are obsessive and self-centered about their children. That’s considered a good thing but making your own way isn’t?

That’s called advocating. People advocating for themselves are considered wonderful but people like me who were raised to question everything and might see another solution to a problem or another problem completely are considered to be troublemakers.

Unfortunately my parents are no longer on this earth. They would have have loved to advocate for me. They did but it was hard when you don’t know exactly what the problems are.

I want to begin the New Year feeling good about myself, and damn it I will because I’m more, much more than a series of negative comments and words.

I am obsessive. I don’t think that’s a horrible trait. I need to make up for time lost. Contributing to the world is very important to me.

It’s on panic attacks in a child–me!

Once in Junior High I was supposed to give a speech.  No words came out.  I spent the rest of Junior High and all of High School waiting to lose my voice again.  Never happened in the literal sense.  But few if any people in Jericho outside of my family really knew me until Senior Year when the class intellectual/hippie girl and I began hanging out basically because we were the only girls we knew who liked to go into the city and be part of the counter-culture. Read more…

As always Thom thanks for the words. I truly love 3WW
My father would patiently teach me to cut paper dolls. I would be so excited until, of course, I cut the head off or part of the legs and arms.  The torso, forget, it would look dismembered.  I would have made a good serial killer and I was–of paper dolls or anything that required the least bit of coordination.
I still can’t open an envelope that has a perforated edge without screwing up whatever is in it, and as it’s usually a check, uh!!!!!!!!!!
“Try harder,” my father would eventually scream.  “Just try da da darn it.”

My father was a CPA.  Accountants by profession and nature are perfectionists.  He would lose his temper.  I would scream.  A good time was had by all.  The evening would end with me dissolving into tears, and my father hugging, kissing me and apologizing.  But still I knew if I only tried harder….My father knew everything.  He must have been right.
I was a bad girl intent on making my parents life miserable.  They never told me this but I knew.  If I hadn’t thought this myself the child psychologist my parents sent me to when I was nine, beginning to bud, and throw temper tantrums.  But only at home and only to my parents.  OK my little sister too.  Never in school.  Never in public.  I was considered a model child.
My father and I would drive to the psychologist.  The car radio would be on.  One week New York had a parade for Fidel Castro.  The next week, it seemed, he was the enemy.  I asked my father why.
He turned off the radio and looked at me sort of stunned.  “You know that’s a brilliant question.  I have no idea.”
it was the first and probably only time my father didn’t have an answer to a question.  He talked whether he knew anything about the subject or not.  He could have told me that Castro had been fighting Batista who was a dictator and America was glad.  But then the American government decided to fixate on Castro being a Communist.  Or he could have said that the American government just learned that Castro was a Communist, which I believe was the official story.
But he didn’t.  He gave me a great gift that night. I think my father, then a “progressive,” later a lover of all things Nixon and then Reagan wanted me to understand that we lived in a crazy world where things didn’t always make sense.  Or maybe he just didn’t know.
The child psychologist was an ugly short man with nose hairs and tobacco stained teeth.  He was the professional and I was just a child who never yelled at adults or kids or anybody not in my immediate family.  Like my father he didn’t believe in silence.
I loved doll houses, furniture and dolls but not in his office.  Dr. Wiener would make me play with the dolls–a mother, father, sister and of course me.  The dolls didn’t look like us.  They were objects not people, and I thought it was a stupid waste of time.  I was a girl who loved dolls almost too much.  But these dolls made me sick.
It’s OK,” he would say, “this is your safe area.  You can talk to the dolls and tell them how much you don’t like being adopted.”
“But I like being adopted.  I love my family very much.”
“Pia, you have big problems and they’re caused by being adopted.  In our sessions we’re going to make you see how much being adopted hurts you.”
Even when I was nine I didn’t understand how being clumsy, not being able to learn grammar, having temper tantrums and so much more was caused by being adopted. It didn’t make any sense to me.  I didn’t remember life in a foster home.  This was my family and I loved them very much.
My father would buy us O’Henry bars, and we would eat them on the drive home.  He would play rock & roll then because I liked it.
I began to buy into the things Dr. Wiener said.  I would tell my best friend, Ava, as we lay in the grass in back of the garden apartments we lived in that being adopted was very complicated and very difficult.  I was so glad that it was me who was adopted and not my little sister because I didn’t want her life to be hard.  Then we would lie in silence looking at the blue sky until one of us had something important to say. Usually about rock & roll stars or books we were reading together or separately.
•••••••••••••
Later I would understand that many therapists and others looked at being adopted as a disease.  They were convinced that many parents only adopted to have a “complete” family, and that ADHD and other problems were considered problems of the adoptee.  All that time, money, and effort wasted on trying to solve problems that didn’t exist and not trying to solve the problems that were real!!!!!
For the record I miss my parents everyday and can’t imagine life without my sister.

I walk home from the grocery store. People always offer me rides and I refuse. Which actually isn’t nice when it’s somebody I know who really really wants to drive me. Yesterday I was carrying three bags filled with such things as a head of red cabbage, acorn squash, a bag of red onions (I’m into colorful vegetables) and much more. It was the first time I almost couldn’t make it and was too contrary to call a cab which would have been the sane thing to do.
I was a block and half away from home when a man was getting into his car. He offered me a ride and I gratefully accepted. I told him where I live–a major street, just a block….”I don’t know it. We just moved two months ago and I’m still feeling my way around.” “Oh where did you move from?” “We lived in Myrtle Beach for eighteen years.” I restrained from saying I thought he had to learn his way around The Grand Strand, and that my street abuts his. He then went into a long discourse about the differences between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle. My favorite part of the discourse was when he said “I would tell you more but you’re such a lady.”

He’s right. Not about me being a lady particularly but the differences between the two cities. North Myrtle does everything it can to make living in it a pleasurable experience. Who can’t love a city that has festivals for every occasion it can think of and some more. Nobody gets the Irish/Italian festival but the music’s good.

While shag music still reigns here there’s more rock and soul. I don’t feel comfortable talking about Myrtle Beach’s problems as I’m such a lady.
••••••••••••••

My health insurance will go up $185 a month beginning in January.. I don’t qualify for the “healthy habits” discount as I take psychotropics. I’m trying to get off them but need a doctor to help and insurance here won’t cover that. Apparently being in therapy or taking medications for bioneurological problems aren’t healthy though many people would go off the deep end without them. It’s crazy because my answers to the other questions make me a great healthy habit person.

The letter said the insurance went up so much because of the dramatic rise in health care costs in the past year. I do believe they mean the cost of lobbying. I assume the dramatic rise is because they assume some form of health care reform will pass.

Though I will be paying almost $700 a month for health insurance much of my body and all of my mind isn’t covered. And as I have stated often I have never been seriously ill. It’s ironic that I was supposed to prove I haven’t been hospitalized as at the worst moments of my depression over NLD I asked to be hospitalized. I also asked to be sent to rehab. I would tell doctors it felt like an untreated brain injury. They would disagree as I’m so cognizant. Now of course it’s known to be a brain injury.

I pay as I have resources I would like to keep. This policy covered the most hospitalization and stuff like that I could find. In New York the limits were almost limitless. Not here.

While the odds of me being hit by a bus in North Myrtle are almost nil, being hit by a car is a distinct possibility. (I, being my father’s daughter, take uninsured drivers into account.)

I’m still glad I moved here. It’s a whole different world than the ones I’m used to and most of the time I love it.

I’m sick of NLD and sick of health care reform. Start or continue the party without me. There is much else I would like to focus on. And I’m a lady. I have no idea what that has to do with anything but I think it means I’m not supposed to be political. Oh can the whole lady bit.
•••••••••••

Alphabet Kidsis the first book to discuss every known, at this time, developmental, neurobiological, and psychological disorder.

It’s both easy to read and very informative. The introduction more than hooked me. It’s a wonderful read that stresses the parents journey as he attempts to learn about the spectrum.

Alphabet Kids are like snowflakes: It seems that no two are alike.

Thank you Robbie for acknowledging that.

The book covers “problems” in alphabetical order, and is an OCD’s delight, she says knowingly. The chapter begins with “terms used“, second is “sound familiar? or an individual story. (The one on page 299 is mandatory reading. Third is Did you know? Or great facts. Signs and Sypmptoms, cause, diagnosis,, treatment,prognosis, and finally sources and resources. Each section is informative and I believe very helpful.

Damn do I wish books like this had been around when I was younger. Or that any book on “problems” was written with the empathy and clarity Robbie Woliver does.

People are so damn quick to judge. Somebody said most parents will read this book simply because of ADD and ADHD. They are but two of many many disorders in the spectrum

I know parents–some incredible bloggers who are desperately searching for answers
href=”http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Kids-Developmental-Neurobiological-Psychological/dp/1843108801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229465147&sr=1-1″>Alphabet Kidsis the first book to discuss every known, at this time, developmental, neurobiological, and psychological disorder.

It’s both easy to read and very informative. The introduction more than hooked me. It’s a wonderful read that stresses the parents journey as he attempts to learn about the spectrum.

Alphabet Kids are like snowflakes: It seems that no two are alike.

Thank you Robbie for acknowledging that.

The book covers “problems” in alphabetical order, and is an OCD’s delight, she says knowingly. The chapter begins with “terms used“, second is “sound familiar? or an individual story. (The one on page 299 is mandatory reading. Third is Did you know? Or great facts. Signs and Sypmptoms, cause, diagnosis,, treatment,prognosis, and finally sources and resources. Each section is informative and I believe very helpful.
******
The story on page 299 wasn’t written by a sixteen year blogger who “got” NLD wrong. I’m not usually hurt when people get my wrong or are critical of my writing. In this case I should feel flattered as I channeled my inner sixteen year old to write that. Nowhere does it say that I’m sixteen. It says that I’m successful (yes) and a popular blogger–I would have disagreed with that but I looked at my stats for the first time since July and uh….I no longer live in New York.

Until two years ago I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Knowledge is power. It took several months to adjust and then I began trying to sell my apartment. Sometimes I think I sold the last one bedroom in Manhattan for a half decent price–maybe the last apartment. I moved to a new city by the ocean where it was in the 70′s today. I’m meeting with the contractor who is renovating my new house tomorrow and this isn’t going to be a horror story.

I try not to focus on what I could have been had I known earlier and to focus on the present. 95% of the time that works.

This is very disjointed. I have been living without my own things since the beginning of March. I got rid of most things but what I have left I love and need.

I feel exposed; naked; as if I said too much yet not enough. I half expect people to think that I was exaggerating, lying even. That’s left over from childhood as people thought I lied when I said I was adopted. I fit with my family too well. The adoption wasn’t mentioned in the article as it’s both extraneous and confusing.

There are some people who think I will do anything for attention. They don’t know me well and this isn’t the attention I want.

I want to be known for wit, intelligence and abilities. What sense of humor you ask? My immediate family and best friends will beat you up for even wondering.

Writing the article wasn’t difficult. Living with it being published has been strange. I understand not knowing how to respond, but some old friends haven’t been in touch at all. Talk about something else. Anything. Just let me know that I didn’t freak you past the point of wanting to know me.

If you’re from my hometown, except for my sister and JI, and you forgot all about the years before I turned into a “cool girl,” I don’t live mired in the past. Neither can I forget it.

Don’t be condescending in your emails and/or comments. I know who and what I turned into. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I know better than anybody.

Is it very important to have perfectly folded towels and the best made bed? In mysteries people are always being judged for such things. I learned to fake it because my sense of design and color is better than most peoples.

I have beaten myself up for not being able to fold perfectly. Somehow I don’t think that will come up at my funeral, memorial service or if there is such a thing, ultimate judgment.

I read a bulletin board on NLD. A woman asked questions about herself and her son. The doctor said there was “this, this and that” for her son, but for her, sorry, nada.

Made me feel like shit actually. Why do I talk about something if nothing can be done for adults? If adults are going to be considered “untreatable.” If I had a child with NLD I would try to learn everything he’s learning.

I’m not Mother Teresa. I’m the antithesis of selfless. I want everything possible out of life for me. I believe that life is supposed to be about fun not suffering. We’re not put on earth to be tested.

Maybe I’m supposed to believe in an afterlife but I can’t. It’s beyond the scope of my imagination and I do have a vivid one.

I’m determined to be a “later in life” success and I will define success.

See there’s so much more to my story. One of the reasons Lucia are closer than most relatives is because we lost two thirds of our friends before they lived to be 40.

We were party girls. We loved going out. She’s been married four times but only admits to three. I have had seven serious proposals. But we had another life going on at the same time.

The one with the Mary’s.

Direct frontal hit. My generation.

It took Patrick two years to be diagnosed. The medical form from NYU was many many pages. We all took a few. Did he ever do it with birds and if so what type?

Yes damn it we laughed at the question but I looked at the parrots that he didn’t do it with it and was scared. So little was known.

Patrick was the first to get sick and die. By the time Larry was really sick I had gone from being a true JAP to somebody who could nurse with one hand, help get affairs in order with the other and talk non stop about anything and nothing

I spent his last day with him. The next morning I had to go to Reddens for a Memorial service for somebody who actually hadn’t died of AIDS–Reddens was the funeral parlor of choice for many.

I freaked my father out before AIDS. In college so many people….he had to tell me about JohnnyB’s death. JohnnyB was the first boy I dated in school and one of my best friends. My father couldn’t help editorializing:
I grew up during the depression, lived through World War Two and you have more dead friends than I do.
What can I say daddy? I didn’t write this part of the script.
I didn’t really say that. I didn’t know what to say about drugs, suicide, death by freezing in the woods, death because the hospital gave the wrong medication (JohnnyB’s–just as his art career was taking off.)

It was the early 70′s. You survived or you died. I suppose I had interesting friends. I was a survivor. Still am.

My Dad had a lot of friends. I have his knack for befriending people. But they would die on me. I’m hoping that this part of my life makes up for the parts before.

I think I have earned the right to define success on my own terms. I wasn’t going to post this weekend. Actually I was writing fiction dialogue and found my way to my blog.

I feel as if my life is very much in a state of suspended animation. I pray my apartment will sell soon but who am I to complain? I have lost a lot recently but not anything near 70% of my net worth. Though there’s always this week.

Birthday week is so pressured. It never lives up to my own hype. And why am I listening to 70′s disco? Gawd, no wonder why I’m working myself into a depression. I hated it the first time around…

This was a very strange week. I had my first hang over in three years last Sunday when I had to write the factoid for this article It was probably better as I have been doing the research for a
year really and my brain remained totally focused on what I was doing. Note to self: get drunk more so you can be hungover and more productive. Note to more rational self: bad bad plan and you never actually get drunk just hungover.

My personalized horoscope actually told me not to fly on Monday. I ignored that and suffered by listening to a very fat woman who didn’t shut up from the moment she sat down across the aisle from me until I literally ran off the plane two hours later. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the horoscope meant.

I have been published under other names a lot and this blog is almost four years old but I have never been so nervous about an article as I have never written something so personal, and so easily misunderstood.

I knew what time the article was supposed to be online but I forgot to look for an hour after it went online. I’m usually so obsessive and was being obsessive over my impending breakdown.

Then I wrote the post and had no idea what I was writing or doing.

Meanwhile all “my real life friends” were crying and sad. I had to tell them I’m the same person they have known for the past 25 years plus. This was the reaction I was scared of. They thought that I was being bitchy or JAPPY or both when I acted certain ways and I let them think that as until this past year I didn’t have the language to discuss the problems properly. And frankly it’s easier to have a reputation as a bitch than as a person with problems. Actually they thought me a great but selfish person. Now they understand why I have to be at times or seem it.

My sister sent me the most beautiful email.

So Sage I’m apologizing for the comment I left the other day. I was in the midst of losing my mind

As soon as the article was out and I actually got the courage to read it I was fine.

Tonight I went to fireworks on the beach with some neighbors. I like the people in the townhouse complex but for the first time I find myself not talking when politics is discussed.

The fireworks? Well fortunately my neighbors became scared just as I was realizing wind + whatever fireworks are made of these days + people drinking while doing the fireworks could be a lethal combination–I was trying to figure out what body part I would want to lose and couldn’t think of one when we left. The pre fireworks were lovely. It was wonderful to see the beach packed at night. Another part of me, not the expendable body part, wanted to jump up and down as I was doing something Southern though I wasn’t sure exactly what. I’m trying to avoid discussing the actual fireworks as I’m spoiled and used to New York fireworks which might not have the community feel except for fireworks after the symphony in Central Park and New Years Eve in Central Park. Not the big 42nd Street show; but one that seems made for “real” New Yorkers.

I have been feeling so unsettled for so long. I own an apartment I go to look at and feel more comfortable in a house that somebody else furnished–my taste but still. I have a small one bedroom in a prime building. Even The New York Times prime cheerleaders for real estate admits that studios and one bedrooms are staying on the market longer at lower prices. Mine’s been on the market since March. I have lowered the price. It’s more than fair. I’m not asking anywhere close to a million dollars for 600 square feet. I have always thought that absurd.

Problem is people read about prices lowering and want me to lower it even more. Had I got the apartment on the market just a month or so earlier….But I didn’t and will always have to live with the knowledge I allowed the contractor to walk all over me. Those were my stupid fears based on this disability at play and I knew it. I felt as if I couldn’t do anything right when in reality who is great at renovating?

I think with this disability unless you find a job you love that calls for your skills you always feel unsettled. I was great at the “higher functioning” parts of my jobs. It was the paperwork, even the Xeroxing that got to me. I’m much better when everything can be scanned into the computer, but then I have to develop files and the like….

Becoming a recluse is another option but I would lose my mind. I need to socialize on a regular basis. I do have many friends. Please don’t think this disability stops people from liking people or being liked. I don’t know many people with NLD but I know myself and “socialization skills” haven’t been a problem since sometime in high school.

Blogging was overwhelming for me in the beginning and middle. Email knows no nuances and I need nuances. While I have superior verbal skills I also need a face to look at.

I had myself convinced for awhile I was suffering from the first case of computer induced Asperger’s. That did spill into real life for awhile. It was horrible. Then I learned about NLD.

I don’t want it to be too late for me. If a doctor prematurely retires on me or stops accepting insurance (two real life examples) I become phobic about seeing new doctors. This new world of managed care isn’t user friendly for most people. For me it’s overwhelming.

I’m not making excuses for my behaviors or me. I take full responsibility for the anxiety and phobias that are secondary to NLD. The problem is that I know more than most therapists about these problems and don’t want to pay to educate. Think about it. Would you want to pay to be in a clinical trial? No you would want to be paid. In a sense my whole life has been a giant clinical trial and I get to pay.

I want to feel settled and good about myself. I did have more fun in my 20′s and 30′s than anybody has a right to have. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t operate a Xerox machine properly but I could always find somebody to do that for me. When I was a Claims Rep at SSI we would have to xerox hundreds of pages of individualized education plans for example ourselves. It was horrible. It was never the actual job that got to me but the paperwork or the feeling of immense responsibility. Make one little mistake and somebody could be kept out of pay for months. I didn’t have to make the mistake; somebody else did in inputting data etc. I was the one who the claimant dealt with–so any mistake from an input clerk to a service rep’s was my responsibility. I wish I could have taken a few claims per day and felt good about that. I knew people who took two claims a day and were fine with that. They retired after 30 years at 55 with a great pension. Oh to have that mentality.

I wish I had known about NLD earlier. It explains so much. I finally understand who I amm why I do the things I do and feel certain feelings. Most of the time I’m fine. Other times it feels like a traumatic brain injury I could benefit from rehab from. I understood that before I knew about NLD. But it took a long time to form the vocabulary necessary to think that.

I feel so weird about this article. It’s so revealing. While I did feel the shock of recognition when I read about it this past year the articles were so over the top I lost the recognition. Yet when I read what I wrote in this post….I apologize if this is too much. I can’t just journal my fears or put my blog in a site for baby boomers or “older people.”

I wanted to put a “real” voice to NLD.

I take the “somebody had to write it” defense.

I once wrote a post totally dissing Diana Ross and have been getting hundreds of hits from a Diana Ross fan site. It’s too weird. But I have always loved that post. Thanks Wombat for showing mehow to find it–and he has some incredible music–makes you feel all patriotic and sad at the same time. This has to be the year America becomes America again.

It’s sad to read the term “Rovian tactics” and know exactly what it means.

Here’s my article on life with non verbal learning disorder. It’s in my favorite newspaper The Long Island Press which was six years old in May and has won many awards. I’m very very proud to be associated with it, and to write for the incredible series Our Children’s Brains
The article’s about childhood and early adolescence.
Life became much better after high school. Senior Year in high school was the kind of year memoirs are written about, and high school summers were spent in Mexico. I will never complain about high school. Well….

I have spent the past year researching non verbal learning disorder (nld) and while I think the articles referenced in my article or the factoid are the best I do want to stress that not every person has every problem and severity is always different and maybe subjective.

I was asked today how I could write this if I have NLD. Many people will tell you I have incredibly horrible grammar. But I love books and words and do have a feel for them. I might not be able to define an adjective or an adverb but I can use them properly. Sweet mystery of life.

My problems tend toward the motoric and spatial more than executive functioning etc. Though I can make many cases for bad judgment.

Me–knew the housing market even in Manhattan was going to go down. Me–spent three years thinking about it. Me–hired, well let’s not go there–to renovate. Me–had about a month of things to do. Six weeks tops. Began renovation in November and ended in March

it is fair to say (as Helmer R. Myklebust did in 1975) that nonverbal learning disabilities “are more debilitating than verbal disabilities.” The specific central processing abilities and deficits that characterize this syndrome are now well defined. Still, nonverbal learning disorders remain predominantly misunderstood and largely go unrecognized.

I didn’t have the space to add that and think it’s important to understanding NLD. It gets no respect. Sometimes I feel like Cinderella’s unknown good sister. Though my very good sister loved this article as she’s known me virtually my whole life–she’s younger–and knows how true it is.

Something else from this article that I think is important to understand

nonverbal learning disabilities “predispose those afflicted to adolescent and adult depression and suicide risk.”

I have read other places that the rate of suicide is higher. I can and can’t imagine it. In many ways I have lived a charmed life. There have been many mazes, rabbit holes, and dead men’s curves, I have encountered but I truly believe life is a wonderful thing and I’m so glad to be here.

Yet I understand the despair that drives people to suicide. These problems aren’t going to be overcome with normal therapy, drive or coaching.

I was able to compensate for much but I need more time alone than most people. I have learned what works for me through never giving up and I have first my parents then my sister and friends to thank for that.

Many people with NLD become crazed from traveling. I become crazed if I don’t. I can’t drive. That and not becoming a rock star at eighteen sadden me more than anything.

No, it’s knowing that I have so much potential but because brain cells are immature or not there or something that makes me crazed.

I have read about parents who don’t believe in NLD and have their children do eye exercises. I believe they’re right to an extent but only where certain spatial things are concerned.

I’m beginning to see my organizational problems in a whole different light–as mistakes in judging sequence and ultimately judgement. That would explain why I could get rid of a lifetime’s worth of stuff so easily and not feel “lighter” or however people feel after disposing themselves of clutter. However my apartment itself wasn’t cluttered. Just the storage cage and I read that if you allow yourself to have a cluttered storage cage and no place else you’re doing great.

The point to this is that ridding myself of all clutter didn’t open my brain for new info as it’s supposed to. I’m babbling. Something I tend to do when nervous.

I have spent most of my life solving other people’s problems either professionally or because that’s one of my roles in life. It’s much easier for me to read other people than it is for me to read me.

I hope I’m not confusing you too much and just thought of about 20 relatives I should send this to.

I wrote about childhood and early adolescence as the series is called “Our Children’s Brains.” I’m not a person who spends their life thinking about Junior High or High School. Those years were over a long long time ago.

If you have any questions please ask. I will even moderate comments. The article misidentified me. I once was a very popular blogger who literally lacked the time and the mental energy to keep it up. But I thank them anyway and can’t wait to have two Long Island Press covers on my sidebar.

I put this song in every July 4th as to me it’s the ultimate American song and song of hope. The only thing specifically about Independence Day in it is that Louis claimed it as his birthday.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc&hl=en&fs=1]

Have a wonderful July 4th!!!! People here talk about the beach crowds for the fireworks and I’m sure they’re right. But my sister and I stood in a crowd of two million to see fireworks once so…..

In the past several years I turned into a fireworks snob and only go if they’re on the Hudson (rarely), if I get invited to someplace where they can be seen easily and it’s not hard to get to or if I’m somewhere not in New York.

As I’m somewhere not in New York….

I feel as if I’m on a high wire trying to remain balanced while having a panic attack. Today two one bedrooms in my building that went on the market at the same time as mine or after closed. One is smaller, the living room, bedroom and bath not as nice but the kitchen is much nicer and it has river and park views. It’s maintenance is lower too which really angers me as apartments on that line command top dollar for the view. The other is much nicer.

I think I’m allowed to sulk about this. If the damn contractor had only listened to me and did only the renovations I told him to do in a timely manner I would have at least been in contract by now. But no he had to express his artistic side and then go into a major depression while he had my money.

It’s cost me a lot to have a valueless apartment and until the apartment goes into contract I believe its value to be zilch. Actually it costs me over $1200 each month so until I sell it has a negative value.

Excuse me for not appreciating my surroundings today. This is a big chunk of my future I’m focused on. For reasons that will be explained in my article that will be published in July I don’t have the greatest work record.

Which makes me laugh half the time as I have coordinated more projects for well known progressive agencies for free or minimal money always because the person they hired for mucho money couldn’t do the job. The “great” jobs promised me never came through. Still I believed. I am an absurd optimist and have no idea why.

It’s the reason I don’t do volunteer work anymore. I was always so nice, so smart, so able to do the work, so willing to work extra hours, so good, such a great trainer and motivator, and just a tenth of a beat off. I’m not even sure that I appeared that but I must have had a sign “take advantage of me, please.”

I could afford to do this in the late 90′s and early 00′s, but now I have a reached a point where my future is important to me. I was never poor in youth and don’t want to be in older age.

When I learned about non verbal learning disorders (NLD) so many things began to make sense. Honestly I don’t feel as if I truly suffer from most of these problems anymore as I learned to compensate years ago but never quite trusted my “compensation” techniques. I was told I hadn’t learned to compensate but to cope yet when I thought about it or discussed it with other doctors it was the same thing.

Still I let the testing psychologist play a too large role in my life. I decided not to see him as there would be no satisfaction in that. When I Googled him nothing came up and I know people with his job love to be published or have publicity or….

What could I say? I’m Pia Savage and you’re not? My blog was a monster for almost two years until I decided to tame the wild courting as I was truly seeking my destiny? I have had over 50 article published under another name, and am beginning to be published under Pia?

Ultimately I would have just satisfied my thirst for revenge and to show him how wrong he was when he pronounced me profoundly learning disabled.

That’s different than being given a mental illness diagnosis as it’s basically saying I’m unable to learn; to be a productive member of society. i have something that can’t be cured with medication and therapy.

I should have understood how wrong he was when I went to grad school and graduated with a 3.84 cum and outstanding field placement evaluation but grades feel worthless when you hear students tell professors they will only settle for “A”s and don’t feel they have to work for them. It was social work school and the height of political correctness and I feel so gypped of a chance to have really excelled in a difficult program. That was my neurotic need, and I realize it’s partially absurd and partially reality based. Grad school should be intellectually challenging. Not just the full year research course, ego object and self, and my independent study on elder abuse.

One big measure of my life is thin, average, a bit heavy, etc., and those were average, thin years. Age hadn’t caught up with me and my fellow students thought of me as younger than I was, brighter than thou or the one who would be chosen to lead presentations as I would know everybody’s part (if it didn’t pay I was brilliant at it) and selfish as I said I wouldn’t have kids. I never gave my age or the reasons why.

Given my history–and I haven’t told much of it though this blog seems endless–I think I deserve to be paid for many things. I don’t believe in unpaid internships or field placements. I know I was exploited. And if you’re going to have a volunteer “save” a project, you better find money in the budget to pay her.

I can’t believe how I undervalued myself and let myself be used and tossed. I won’t say the names of the agencies as they’re good ones with new staffs. I always feel that I should be apologizing for not doing volunteer work but I promised myself I won’t until I’m paid well for something or am old and need something to do.

I was reading a board where people with NLD were talking about the hard time they had getting jobs. I never did. My father would scream at me to work for the phone company when I would work for a company that worked for the phone company and the managers would tell me to apply. I didn’t understand that if they told me to apply they would serve as my references, get me the job, be my rabbis so to speak.

Clueless, I’m so clueless when it comes to myself and so insightful when it comes to other people. But that’s hard to understand and I’m sure most people, who don’t know me personally, think I’m clueless when it comes to other people.

I am different than many people with NLD as I work well by myself but equally well or better with people–large groups of people. I’m not reclusive nor a solitary person though I have always required a day or a night of alone time

I decided to devote the next three months to writing a book that tries to explain NLD by telling my story. The whole story from childhood to now. I know three months isn’t enough but it would just be a first draft and I’m told that one of my problems is I never mastered the necessary shitty first draft.

It’s easier to work on this outside New York and now that W–the male half of my landlord/friends–installed a router I can work from the patio. I bought ergonomically correct beach chairs as the first possession for my new home I hope to buy in the fall or winter. And I might buy a house as long as it’s in a condo community or has pebbles instead of grass and the community has a pool.

Please hope that my apartment sells. I deserve that. And I deserve to go into the later part of my 50′s knowing that my older age will be secure. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking money or the things that it brings.

When you have the scattered work record I have you have to worry about the cost of health insurance and getting sick. When I’m eligible for Medicare I expect to have pay a lot for a supplement. I have never believed this is an easy country or that you get something for nothing. I have never lived off the “system” and never want to

Damn I wish that quarters spent doing meaningful internships, field placements and volunteer work counted for Social Security. More than that I wish I hadn’t undervalued myself.