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I often thought that if I ever wrote my autobiography it would be titled “Trial and Error.” Living in no man’s land, where you are hanging from the autism spectrum line, but not close enough to the Asperger net, was, and still is rough.

I can remember having meltdowns and sensory processing issues. I was very picky about the texture and feel of my clothing. I was still learning how to regulate my emotions and would have frequent meltdowns and anger outbursts. I also spent a lot of time in the hospital and felt like a lab mouse because no one knew what was wrong with me. I had fevers that would come every two weeks and sometimes the fevers would cause me to have seizures. As a child, my parents fought the battle with various teachers, while I was stuck feeling like a freak on display, both in an academic sense and in a social sense.
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I knew I was different all my life, but I thought that was a good thing, as that was the message “Dragon Tales” gave to me. I actually have traits of several disorders, but the thing that affected me most harshly was the fact that I prioritized verbal messages above all else. It was okay to “be myself” even if that meant picking my nose (a trait of repetitive behavior disorder, formerly thought of as OCD). My babysitter said it was “okay to cry” so I cried loudly in front of my classmates despite my teacher telling me I was embarrassing myself. When I was finally put in social skills training. I kept asking the speech therapists repeatedly what to do in specific situations and their answers were perennially vague. Due to my difficulties with timing and attention, I never mastered social skills in a group setting, and possibly never will.
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When I was little, the Drs thought I had A.D.H.D but could not figure out why it was so severe. Kids made fun of me, I ran into everything and I did not understand social constructs at all. Finally I was diagnosed with NVLD. It is now 20 years later, and I still struggle, but having a name for the disorder, and people who help and understand makes all the difference!
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Telling someone I’m on the spectrum is difficult, but things become even more complicated when you’re a speech-language pathologist. I knew from a small age that I was different from my peers but no clue that I had a learning disability that affected me socially, academically, physically, and emotionally.

Until recently I had never heard of Non-Verbal Learning Disability, and I have been a practicing speech-language pathologist since October of 2014. It presents very similarly to Aspergers but is different in several ways. For instance, I’m an auditory learner and struggle with fine/gross motor impairments, while many Aspies are visual learners and often do not present with as many fine and gross impairments.
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