My NVLD Story (Count Me In)
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- This animated video of a 12-year-old's experience about living with NVLD describes how the learning disability affects her in social situations.
Non-Verbal Learning Disability is a complicated and poorly understood social and spatial learning disability. People with NVLD struggle with a range of conditions but specifically have difficulty with social skills and spatial concepts.
Learn more about Non-Verbal Learning Disability at nvld.org.
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It's funny, as an adult isolation like this still occurs. People are much more accepting as I do have friends, but man does it suck being by yourself knowing that your friend was invited to hang out and you weren't. It makes me feel disgusted with myself. Those comments "you're an Idiot" or "you're weird" in particular really got to me over the years. Thank you for all you are doing.
Public Schools are supposed to teach children how to be a decent adult as well as teaching the subject at hand in class. I know from my experience in the Ann Arbor School System that once you were abused by a staff member such as a violent assistant principle that this would make you a target for bullies and gangs.
I didn't have a learning disability, but being of mixed European & Native Ancestry, I was a target for the staff and students. While I tested in the 98th percentile, if I made a mistake of any kind, it could be followed with a comment like "you are the dumbest student I ever had" by certain teachers. I was even once told that Natives have an average IQ of 80, so a "God Damned Halfbreed" like you has a 90 at best.
In high school I was berated with comments like "That's Cultural Appropriation", "You are not part Native, you are just Ugly", etc., etc. while a high school student. Because I made the mistake of telling a classmate that "No the Métis didn't trade Rum & Rifles for Furs & Feathers"...
Wow. This describes so much of what I went through as a child. I was also diagnosed with NVLD.
She a very intelligent kid. More self aware than many adults.
This is exactly what my 12yo daughter is going through. Thanks for sharing.
We don't just struggle socially though. There is so much more to it than that. I struggled socially, but not badly. Anxiety and later depression, certain school subjects, and decades of borderline emotional abuse from most authority figures and teachers were my bigger problems.
catloverKD I can relate. It happens all the time, and it hurts.
agree, public schooling made me work at getting friends much harder than I probably would have if I did not go to public school.
catloverKD I think my family situation, though unsavory, helped me be more aware of people’s body language and tone. I’m much more anxious, but I won’t say I’m to trustworthy or can’t understand body language and cues. Though I still relate to this video. I have a hard time talking in groups and am often told what I say seems random or off topic. I get flustered about a lot of these things.
To everyone out there struggling because of NVLD,
I understand your struggle, I've been there, too, and I still struggle with my disorder every day. I was diagnosed with NVLD at age 14, I had a very lonely and emotionally taxing childhood. School was always difficult, and growing up even the teachers and my family didn't believe in me. I fought hard and in high school and I managed to become relatively happy and do things people believed I couldn't, like keep nearly a 4.0 GPA. Keep believing in yourself and fight hard! You can do anything you put your mind to, and even though not everyone will be kind, you should always try to believe that you can achieve big things. Don't let those who can't see the beauty in you put you down. You have great potential, and continue to follow your dreams! Prove them wrong!
God bless you and I wish you the best in your journeys❤
I was diagnosed at age 8
As a teenager with NVLD, it is hard for me to find and keep friends because I often do not know what to say. Sometimes, I will become selectively mute, because I often do not know what is being talked about, or why people are feeling a certain way. Kids at school call me crazy and say I am ‘just a dumb special needs kid’, but I know I am really smart. It is just hard to talk.
Yes, you are really smart & you will eventually find your people. High school is filled with social anxiety & a lot of kids who are popular now will be nowhere as together as you will. Have patience and respect for yourself.
my heart goes out to this child.
Heartbreaking this was so me when I was a kid and still struggle to this day
Thank you
My daughter is 12 and was diagnosed
I feel this is her talking ... It hurts as her Mom
This made me cry so much! Im in my 30s and still feel like this, it breaks my heart to know little kids feel Ike this :( then again, I felt like this at 12 so it makes sense.
this is exactly what i’ve gone through with NVLD from elementary to high school. my attitude has not been changing but i’m trying my best. love you all and am here for you!!
I was that kid who always got chosen last for teams in gym class. Because of my difficulty with motor skills, I couldn’t catch a ball, throw a ball with any accuracy, or kick a ball. In elementary school, gym was usually a nightmare - except for square dancing, weirdly enough. I couldn’t do gymnastics except to vault over the horse, and even that scared me. My balance and coordination were terrible. And we had to wear gymsuits that were one-piece garments of a top and shorts, but with a skirt sewn on top of the shorts (this was a long time ago). It was a weird garment and no matter how hard I tried, it kept getting tangled up and I couldn’t figure out how to put it on. I had to ask my only friend in class or a teacher to help me. So I was almost always the last girl out of the locker room. It was so embarrassing. And the gym teachers never questioned it, never informed my parents or my regular teachers about it. This went on for years. Gym class and math made my life a nightmare. Nobody had me tested for anything (not that NVLD was recognized back then, but still). In high school, we had to pass a swimming test to graduate. It was a state law. I couldn’t swim, was afraid of the water, couldn’t coordinate my movements to do the strokes, couldn’t stand the water getting into my ears. I started to cut gym class to avoid it - and I was a good kid who never would have dreamed of cutting class. I almost didn’t graduate; finally, our family doctor agreed to write me a medical excuse because by then I’d developed asthma that got triggered when the gym teacher kept me in the pool for a few minutes to give me some extra practice. It felt like years of torture, week in and week out. Nobody helped me until things got extreme. And I had a high IQ, did well in most subjects. Unbelievable.
Man that made me emotional. I identify with this so much as an adult.
Wow I’m also diagnosed with NVLD and this is basically everything I struggle with. I walk up to people but am afraid to talk sometimes and that makes me afraid that they think I’m weird. I like to say there is an extravagant inside me trying to escape but Shes trapped in a bubble by NVLD.
It sucks
OMG, I nodded my head in agreement throughout the entire video! Lots of people say that kids with NVLD do not struggle socially, but I really do! When I want to talk with a group of students, I'll continuously follow them around, because I'm too shy to speak up. I always feel like I'm stalking them...😂 All I can really say is, for those of you with NVLD, be proud of it! 😁
Bluebelle Isabelle OMG I DO THAT TOO!!!!!! It’s like
“say something say something it will be less weird if you say something”
But even knowing that it’s still hard
When I was diagnosed with this, it seemed like I was meant to just figure the world out around me. There was never anyone anywhere, school or not, grown now or not (24yrs old) that understands not just me, but us who have NVLD. I had a friend one time who was really street smart, always getting into shit and using his sharp intuition to get out of it and yet even get to places. He used to say that it was since he's unreadable to everyone, it's easy to get what you want and where you're going, but I could read him. He wasn't mentally challenged, he just had a rough past due to unfortunate circumstance and put barriers around him to protect himself. Looking back, I guess that's another relationship with a good friend I lost due to this illness maybe. It was likely that he thought I was trying to "out blank" his persona, I guess meaning he thought I was jacking his style. The reality of it was that he acted like a blank person to protect himself, I was blank because I literally am.......blank.......
Add a verbally abusive raging parent to the mix and you'll understand how terrible my son's life was. NVLD can manifest as profound depression and at 24, deeply depressed and bullied at school and at home by his father, my son with NVLD took his life. Please, please, please don't allow yourself to turn on yourself. I plan to advocate more for others who are struggling with this learning disorder. My son did eventually make friends, get good grades and find work. But it wasn't enough. LOVE YOUR CHILD WITH NVLD!
I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you for being brave enough to share your story and continuing to advocate for those of us with NVLD.
You are not alone.
Dude I have this & I cannot stop talking. 🤣🤣
I love this-well done! Looking back...
Thank you! It’s my story from when I was 12
Now I'm confused. This video plus all the other symptoms described my childhood to a t but some other sites are saying things like
"Strengths are in the verbal domains:
Highly verbal and often very bright
§ Excel at rote verbal learning…phonetic code
§ Early readers"
So which is it? Are they painfully quiet like this video or are they "highly verbal"?
Likely this child is highly verbal but suffers from social anxiety. I understand where she's coming from. I didn't talk much in my youth during various circumstances, but when I did it was often disconnected from expected speech, excessive, and inappropriate. Essentially, she's keeping it all in.
I had selective mutism as a childhood and into early adulthood, and it phased out. Now I’m highly verbal-but sometimes to a fault-like my AA sponsor told me years ago “does it need to be said and does it need to be said now”. I love learning more about this disorder-I’m truly embracing it.
I was recently diagnosed with NVLD. Most, if not all, people that know me describe me as quiet, but whenever I do talk I tend to explain everything in detail and look for the right words. My mom often tells the story that my first intelligible words weren't "mama" or "papa", but instead a somewhat complete sentence. As a kid I enjoyed going through dictionaries, I just found it entertaining. My parents encouraged me to read and I was pretty good at it, and we had plenty of books so sometimes I would even read stuff that was too advanced to me and I couldn't care less if I didn't understand it.
What happened to this project people have this disorder and it needs to be addressed
My childhood in a nutshell
The story of my life.