Hello, my name is Taylor Richardson and I am 21 years old. And I have a Non-verbal Learning Disability. Wasn’t diagnosed until the 9th Grade about it. I graduated from high school in 2021 Whetstone High School. I was in school for 14 years because I started school late but the other reason was because I thought that my parents and teachers thought it was best for me to get held back a year.
I had to go to 2 different preschools. The teachers felt like I wasn’t catching on to all of the materials like I should have been at the time. I have always struggled with all subjects, Math, Reading, Science, and Social Studies but all in different ways though. Reading lets me start off comprehending what I’m reading meaning understanding what I’m reading, Math has to me too much complex problems and when given too many steps I could get confused. Couple with Communication if it is not communicated properly that’s where my anxiety comes from badly. If I feel like someone has bad intentions with me or doesn’t really want to help me I shut down and find help somewhere else. I’m schooled by my teachers I felt misunderstood a lot. And now I feel misunderstood in reality by people in society that make assumptions about people with Non-verbal learning disabilities. It’s for me my symptoms are reading facial cues, body language, if someone is joking or not, and understanding road maps, and street directions I need help. My hair I struggled with doing visual spatial I struggled with. I used to really struggle with eye contact but know gotten a lot better. My confidence level is getting better because I’m learning to love myself a lot more.
Taylor
I’m quiet but if I’m passionate about something I would speak up against like state testing I’m strongly against the school system. I don’t agree with it it’s unnecessary and it can make a student or an individual feel like they are a failure. Instead of increasing high self-esteem. I love helping people. I’m right now building up my own writing small business. Learning from a couple of people my mentors taught me I would like to in the long run learn all of the different writing g types but right now learning blogging. I have one mentor right now that is really helping me achieve this. When it comes to writing my struggle is staying on topic. And working on my writing skills. I can be very persistent and I like consistency. I’m not really fond of change but I understand things come up or you have to have a plan b depending on the situation. Huge changes stress me out at the moment but I get used to it over time like moving out or moving to another state or another place with my family in Columbus Ohio. Even though I have a team I like to advocate for myself but at the same time listen to what others are saying. But if it doesn’t make songs to me then I’m easy to shut down or if I feel pressured by someone. I get nervous and anxious about a lot of things like meeting someone new. I have to build trust with people first before I decide to let them in.
