There are times I feel so angry

Read my new blog. It’s funny and nothing like this. Ask for the URL. I just got a dotcom. Knowing me I will figure it out by 09.
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I don’t really care about offending other people. I do care that my life has been made unnecessarily difficult as I’m held to the same or higher standards than most people. Higher as my intelligence has always shined through. Yet just changing a server from one to another is a major technical issue for me.
Life’s not fair and nothing will ever change that. The blogosphere’s a compassionate place. I have seen that often. My problems are more spatially oriented than anything else. They led to high anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias. I have never been eligible for any services or disability.
My parents would have sued even then had I told them I was kicked out of Driver’s Ed for coming to school stoned. I never did and was too ashamed to tell them for twenty years.
I shouldn’t have had to live much of life in shame for things that weren’t my fault but were my problems. Now I’m coming to that final third of life. Though I have saved more than most people I have every reason to fear old age. I refuse to be a person society forgets or casts off with a “her, she’s different. Doesn’t count.” Nobody has said that iat least so I can hear in many decades. But I heard that too often when I was young.
I don’t like to post on this subject for two reason. It makes me depressed, and I guess I get depressed as the reaction is you’re not an autistic bi-polar transsexual with amputated legs so why are you complaining? I mean nothing against anybody with any or all of those conditions. Nor should I have to say that, but the blogosphere like popular culture reacts to sexy conditions. Preparing Brittney Spear’s obit is sexy–forget what paper or magazine is doing that. We’re such a frigging sick society.
Now that I’m in recovery mode, from the flu, I guess I’m angry. There are so many books about disabilities. So many blogs about problems. But the one I have NLD–non verbal learning disorders gets no publicity. There aren’t many blogs about. My new blog has nothing to do with it.

I don’t want this blog to be about it.

Yet it would mean so much to me if people began to discuss it. Honestly it hurts to go around the blogosphere and see every problem but this one discussed.

I know that people don’t like me to write about this. But few people are. Sometimes I have to. I do get many hits on my posts about it and sometimes even get wonderful emails.

20 years ago this coming spring I was diagnosed with severe learning disorders. The tester couldn’t understand how I got dressed by myself let alone hold a responsible job. Hey I didn’t know–so I graduated college and worked. It did take three colleges, but all were good. I worked in between, and realized later it took me four years one semester of actually attending to graduate. I saw life as a big test that I was always failing. It never occurred to me that graduating college was an accomplishment.

I liked my last university too much and did exceptionally well. So obviously being in a grad program as an undergraduate at Boston University was meaningless. Obviously being one of three girls in “the harder classes” wasn’t an achievement. When you have NLD it’s hard to tell what’s a real achievement. I understand how strange that sounds but I couldn’t even use an electric typewriter. Didn’t have the little finger control. If word processors and computers hadn’t been invented in time for me to learn to use them, I wouldn’t have this blog or anything in my life really.

I got a dot com for my new blog and hope to do everything on my own. For most of you that’s a yawn. For me that’s true excitement.

Many things do come easily to me. The high IQ thing helps. But I couldn’t work a xerox machine then, couldn’t do so many things most people take for granted. I will never learn to drive a car.

My accomplishments which were many and much more meaningful than using a xerox machine felt diminished as I couldn’t do the “little things” in life. It hurt so much.

I still didn’t really know what was wrong when I was diagnosed. I knew it was a partial diagnosis so I deprived myself getting remarried and having kids. Didn’t want to inflict myself on them without knowing what was truly wrong. Yes I made a conscious decision not to. I was at a good age to get married and have kids. I had the proposals. There’s nothing wrong with my looks, demeanor, style or any of that. I can be messy and sloppy but I was raised not to be and lived in a neighborhood where people were defined by everything about their appearance. I easily passed.

I’m not supposed to be angry. But anger is a side product of NLD for many reasons. I can’t judge space correctly though I can fake it. Most people can’t understand not being able to judge when a person is too close or too far from them. They think it’s no big deal. And if they bump into somebody, that’s life. For me it means I failed a simple life skill. I have learned to judge better. I have learned as many or more people bump into me. I have learned many things but still it makes me cry to think about it.

Knowing I have NLD helped. It’s too late for me to have kids–and yes that does hurt. Had I known about NLD earlier I could have planned my life differently. I’m not good at organizing myself or my life. Great at other people’s though. But I have an ability to micromanage things. I can’t organize; I can plan. There is a big difference.

Except I become obsessive and have to do things that moment. I buy a dotcom and then look for a hosting company instead of realizing that the dotcom will come with the host company–don’t worry Elka–I’m talking $5.99 here. I registered secretlives when I really wanted to register secretlife–bought them both–but the point is I got caught up in the moment. It’s part of my problem. I would never be this impulsive concerning other people. Concerning myself….

I couldn’t organize anything spatial. It was only with this apartment on Riverside Drive that I began to realize there were tricks–and I knew nothing about NLD. Not how to organize your space more efficiently–nothing magazines write about. That would be easy. I devour organization magazines. Please don’t give me organizing tips. I have to think of the ones that work for me. I’m becoming good at that.

I began to understand that I need things in plain sight. Not just in plain sight but in visually stimulating ways and colors. I developed an exceptional memory early in life. Couldn’t remember to use a calender and couldn’t understand my handwriting. It’s not laziness. It’s a real problem. Still even now people think….

There’s so much more. I can’t talk about it now. I would go over an edge.

I wish people would remember or think about NLD. It’s a very real disorder that screws peoples lives up and instead of getting sympathy we would get:
You can do it. Try harder.

If I had tried any harder I probably would have killed myself.
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The way the stock market is going, I’m scared for my portfolio–very scared–and scared that I won’t be able to sell my apartment. I should have stayed in bed today. It would have been a much more worthwhile day. Sometimes computers are horrible things.