As I’ve grown to learn over time, opening up about any diagnosis can be a difficult task for myself and others. Whenever I do open up about my non-verbal learning disorder with my peers, I feel I can best explain NVLD when I conclude; “it’s like if someone were about to give me a high five, I would instead awkwardly go in for a fist bump”… And that’s just about as far as I ever got to opening up about this diagnosis to my peers and colleagues until now.
Beknowing NVLD is more of a social disorder, I have been rest assured of why I may altogether opt out of social engagements or rather, choose to engage in social situations from a distance. Although it wasn’t until I started college that all of a sudden, I felt socially inadequate at best. And let me tell you, pursuing a career in the music industry? An industry where engagement is everything? Needless to say, it’s been a roller coaster of emotions I wasn’t prepared to conquer had I not taken the necessary steps to hone what coping skills I’ve been able to harness over the years.
Common symptoms I’ve learned to pay most attention to when interacting in and out of the workplace vary all over the place. For example, facial expressions, tones of voice, and body posture are all quite often misconstrued one way or another. Does someone look upset? Or are they just zoned out? It doesn’t matter what the case may be, I must’ve upset them. Is someone talking extremely loud? Well, they must be mad at me… it can’t be the fact they’re trying to talk over the really loud traffic… right? Oh yeah and jokes? Right over my head! Sarcasm? Yeah, I’ll never catch on as quickly as most…
From conversing about the same things over and over again to speaking on five different subjects at once, all the while assuming what you’re saying makes sense to others, but in fact, doesn’t make sense to anyone but you. Yep, that’s NVLD for ya! The struggle to initiate relationships while being an utter chatterbox, nauseating coworkers with trivial facts, asking too many questions, disrupting the flow of a conversation, or interrupting frequently, yeah, that my friend, is called a non-verbal learning disorder, and I would be speaking quite modestly if I didn’t express the heavyweight such symptoms bear to carry.
However, at the same time, do you know what a relief it is to pinpoint these symptoms and confidently conclude, yes, these are just symptoms of my non-verbal learning disorder? Rather than going on to spend your nights tossing
