breaking free

Like most people, I have had many struggles in my life. Trying to graduate from high school and getting a divorce were my 2 biggest challenges. I never really understood why life for me was so hard when it came so easily for everyone else. And right know, what’s running threw my head as I write this is the song by Queen “I want to break free”. I have been so set in my ways for so long, I always ask myself how I need to change. I get the same response, huh?
I had gotten a lot of help from a great support system when I was going through my divorce. The one thing I learned is that I needed to let go and start thinking about myself. I spent a good 2 years really struggling to figure this out. I had a job come my way that I had taken. This was my way of getting out of the grave yard shift. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. As scared as I was, I knew it would all work out. Because of this job loss, I went to go see my therapist that helped me threw my divorce. The first thing she told me was if I had asked her opinion first, she would of told me that I couldn’t handle it. WHAT! But in a way she was right. She suggests I get tested for a learning disability. I always thought I was border line having one, but never thought it was worth the trouble. Boy was I wrong.
I had found out that I have a nonverbal learning disorder. I had done some research and everything made sense. People with NLD have a week visual processing skill. This means that I struggle with visual, special, organization, evaluation and intuitive functions. Math, motor skills, reading comprehension and handwriting are difficult. Along with this, most people with NLD suffer with social settings. Many problems that come up because of all of this is anxiety, depression, visual-spatial issues but usually picks up on auditory perception and memory for simple verbal materials. (http://www.nldontheweb.org/home.html)
Know that I am armed with all this information, I am scared shitless and want to crawl back in bed. I am making a lot of progress with it though but wish I was farther along. What I have been working on the last few months is telling people how I feel without our whole conversation being about me or demanding people’s time. Let me tell you that this is extremely difficult for me. I am hoping that threw this blog, I not only tell people about this disorder, that it is a way of telling my close friends what’s going on.

There are some programs I hope to get involved in, or do myself, that will help with visual-spatial issues and being able to multitask. This, I think, will open up more doors for me. I really feel that life should be about experiencing it to the fullest.