Still more evidence of NVLD

I may have written about these things already, but I’m not sure, because my main page on NVLD is so big.  But here are some comments I’ve just been posting on this blog.  It occurred to me that my NVLD/Asperger’s readers over here may also be interested:

My comment on Dealing with household chores:

I’ve been working off daily/weekly/monthly chore lists for years now.  It’s been very helpful.

Of course, in the early years, if there was a vacation or some other thing which threw off the cleaning/laundry schedule, that was tough to deal with.  Others asked why I didn’t just do the chores/laundry a different day.

“But if I do the jeans a day early, the clean ones will run out a day before they’re supposed to be washed, and there will be no clean jeans!  Why doesn’t anybody see that?”

I remember feeling distressed because our hotel didn’t have laundry, and my husband had to wear the same jeans two days in a row–but he didn’t mind a bit….

Over the years, it’s gotten much easier to “go with the flow” and adapt where needed.  But it didn’t even occur to me how to do so at first.

There was also a time, many years ago, before my husband and I got engaged, when we both worked and split the household chores.  His job was to wash dishes.

He went on a business trip, and couldn’t wash dishes.  I didn’t do them because it wasn’t my job, it was his.  He came back and got furious with me, basically assuming I was being thoughtless, selfish, etc.

But that wasn’t it at all: There was an established order of things, and he was supposed to do the dishes, not me.  It never even occurred to me that I should do them.  When he complained, I thought he was being unjust, and couldn’t understand why he was so upset.

Over the years, I’ve gotten much better at dealing with these things, as I realized that I was supposed to “cover” his daily chores when he was away.  But I couldn’t explain to him then that this was probably an NLD thing, because I’d never heard of NLD.

From NLD and art:

I can draw, but it’s never been to the level of professional artists.  I don’t do it so much now, but in my youth, I would usually draw characters I invented, such as roleplaying game characters, comic strips or science fiction characters.  Or characters from a book so I could visualize them while reading.

When I have a model, such as a magazine picture, I can do decently well.  But normally, my drawings are fairly simple, without “smile lines” or various facial features or other things that artists normally put in to make a drawing more realistic.

I tried those in elementary school during an Art class lesson, and the other kids said the face I drew, looked like it was on drugs.  I also have trouble drawing men, who usually end up looking rather feminine.

My brothers seem to have most of the artistic ability: They can draw very detailed and realistic pictures, while mine are more idealized, like medieval art compared to modern art.  I can make very pretty pictures at times, but of people, not backgrounds.

But I was always a writer more than an artist, anyway.

From Job Hunting:

I do best with clerical jobs.  Working in Food Service in college, sucked.  But I worked in the library for two years, and have successfully held down two jobs after college.  (I got praise for my work at the first job, but got downsized; the second job, I left to raise a family.)

Anything social is a weakness, but I had to do it because I worked in insurance.  What frustrated me was my second boss telling me I could get a better raise if I improved the social part of the job–but I just could not.  It wasn’t stubbornness; I just plain couldn’t do it.

If a client came in with a complicated problem, to which I did not have an already-established “script” to deal with it, that was extremely difficult.  But I was excellent at organizing files for A+ audits, filing, and doing the various changes, applications, etc.

From Ignorant Intolerance:

I’ve had the same trouble [ignorance and intolerance when Wolf Feather tells someone about NLD: see the blog post for details].

I haven’t been officially diagnosed because I’ve been out of school for years, and don’t have that kind of money, so getting tested is impossible.  But it explains everything I’ve struggled with over the years (along with an introversion overlap, as you mentioned elsewhere).

I also had a wide difference in math and English: In high school, I took Regular math and science classes, but Advanced English. That’s how I kept a decent GPA.

I’ve been severely bullied over this by people I thought were friends, because I tried to explain where my “quirks” and social difficulties came from, but they just dismissed it all as BS.  I blogged about it, then they found it and blog-stalked me for a year in retaliation.

It’s also frustrating because I want to keep up with my friendships, but it seems like when I take a more active role, I get treated like a pest.  So I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do, usually wait for the other person, and they seem to forget about me.

(Some of Wolf Feather’s own quotes from that post:)

I found out in recent years from my sister, who had taken an ECE course, that a drastic difference in marks such as the ones I had between math and English, is often an indication of a learning disability.

……

Recently, I posted an article on Suite101 about NLD and some tips on how to help a person struggling with the disorder. I had posted a link to the article on my Facebook because that’s what I had been doing with my articles up to that point, and because I wanted to spread a little more awareness on my learning disability.

Unfortunately, I had to take drastic action when a former classmate of mine posted a rather rude comment about the article:

“This sounds like another one of those bullshit psychiatric disorders that everyone gets diagnosed with so that doctors can make profit off of new medications that they pump into these people every day.

“Seriously, if you have some of these “symptoms” and want to blame it on a disorder, that’s fine. You’re just stripping yourself of responsibility.” –Disclaimer: actual comment is paraphrased.

Understandably, I did feel a little bit of anger upon reading this message, but after careful consideration I decided to delete the comment and block the poster.

This hasn’t been the first time he had commented on something of mine negatively and would ONLY post negative things on my page anyway, so I figured I’d just end it.

Not only was his comment rude and extremely hurtful, it was also very unnecessary.

The message made me wonder if my former classmate had even read the article in full, since I do also mention that those with NLD can function relatively “normal” in society, they just need a little assistance in some things.

Moreover, as far as I’m aware, people with NLD do not need to be medicated, so I’m not sure where that comment came about.

Unfortunately, this level of ignorance is very common with any psychiatric disorder, or just anything people can’t physically “see”.