My Life As A Neurodivergent

 

I just wanted to tell you what life for me as a Neurodivergent is like along with some other things that I have. There are a lot of people like me that are misunderstood. I want to show them that they are not alone. We should support each other. Neurodivergents shouldn't put each other down.

A lot of Neurodivergents have auditory processing problems. I didn't hear words correctly. Spoken words got jumbled up, and so I heard the words incorrectly. That's why I had speech problems. People had to
slow down when they talked to me because they were speaking too fast for me. I couldn't sound out words, and so I had problems with reading. I easily forget things that I hear because I have poor short
term auditory memory.

I believe that Neurodivergents are highly sensitive. A lot of people with learning disabilities are highly sensitive. Sensory Integration Disorder is common in people with learning disabilities, ADHD/ADD, Asperger's Syndrome, and Autism. Well...I am highly sensitive. I am easily hurt by negative things that people say and do to me just as I am easily made sentimental by positive things that people say and do to me. That helps me to be a very good poet. I hurt when others are in pain too. That helps me to be easily
sympathetic, compassionate, and caring. At times, I can be too much so and be taken advantage of. I can be a sucker for women with problems. I get easily drawn to them. People's feelings profoundly effect me
like I am an emotional sponge. I am very perceptive when it comes to emotional cues like facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice. That helps me to be very good with counseling and acting. I cry
easily when it comes to things that I see or hear on television or at the movies. I cry easily when I hear things on the radio. Those things help me to be good with acting. I cry easily when I read certain things in books, magazines, and newspapers, and other reading materials. I am pretty much easily moved by emotionally related material that affects my eyes and ears.

I also have high physical sensitivity which is common in people with learning disabilities, Asperger's Syndrome, Sensory Integration, and Autism My skin is very sensitive that I am very ticklish all over. I
hated my mom brushing my hair when I was little. My face gets irritated when I shave. I am very sensitive to temperatures. I get sick when I am exposed to cold air. My eyes are very sensitive to light, and so bright and flourescent lights especially bother my eyes. I was always bothered by bright and flourescent lights that I get fidgety, dizzy, and or/ sleepy, and I believe that a lot of kids that are like that will end up being labeled ADD/ADHD. I definitely felt tired, dizzy, and overwhelmed when I read in bright and flourescent lights. I wear prescription glasses with photo gray lenses. I have a little tint in my glasses when I am inside to tolerate bright and flourescent lights. My eyes get easily irritated and watery when a light is used to examine my eyes. When I go outside, my glasses turn dark that they resemble sunglasses. My eyes are very sensitive to sunlight to the point that my eyes get watery and irritated after exposure to sunlight. My eyes are easily irritated and watery when the wind blows towards me. I am prone to eye infections because of
particles in the air. My stomach is very sensitive. Milk is very heavy on stomach. One glass full of milk will fill me up more than a plateful of food. When I eat something bad, I immediately get stomach pains. I threw up a lot when I was a little kid. I am very sensitive to medications that I take orally. SSRI's made me impotent. Even Effexor at trial dosages made me impotent. Saint John's Wort and Valerian Root has a strong effect on me. They started working for me right away after I started taking it even though I read that it takes
6 weeks for to take effect. I feel that highly sensitive people are the exception. I use Saint John's Wort for Depression and Anxiety and Valerian Root for Anxiety and Insomnia. My taste is very sensitive.
When I eat something I don't like, I get strong sensations that make me distort my face and want to spit it out. That pissed off my mother a lot when I was little. I hated being forced to eat something that I
didn't like. I have a very sensitive smell, and so I can be overpowered by strong bad smells. I have very sensitive hearing to the point that loud sounds bother me. Scraping noises bother me because I
feel that my teeth hurt. I wore ear protection when I was using sandpaper when I was on the ship, and my coworkers looked at me like I was strange. Audiologists ask me if I have to wear earplugs when I go
to bed because they told me that I have a very good set of ears. They tell me that I have excellent hearing.

I have 20/400 vision. That means that I see things that I am supposed to be seeing at 400 feet at 20 feet. Therefore, I am very Myopic(nearsighted), and so I wore glasses since I was 10 years old. I have strong astigmatism too, and so my vision is distorted. I also wonder if my eye problems have to do with oversensitivity to light. After all, vision has to do with light perception. If my eyes are overpowered by light, then it makes sense that my vision could be blurry because of oversensitivity to light. Maybe my strong myopia and strong astigmatism has to do with oversensitivity to light.

I have to say that I have an overactive imagination. When people think of overactive imagination, they think that it means that they imagine things so much that they believe in what they imagine. When I think of overactive imagination, I think of imagining things continuously and not confusing it with outer reality. What I am talking about is a mind that thinks in pictures constantly. That's how my mind works. I read that Neurodivergents think in pictures and 3-Dimensionally, and that's what I do. My imagination has helped me
to be a very good creative writer. I can make up my own movies in my head, and I can write them on paper. I use my imagination when I read too. The things that I read manifest into movie-like scenes in my
head. My imagination helps me to be a very good dancer. My imagination has helped me to choreograph and experiment with dance moves in my head before I do them. When I do my dance moves after the
creative mind process, I can do them with making few or no mistakes. I can use imagination for foreseeing consequences for certain actions before they are even carried out. I can use imagination to plan out
things before doing them. A lot of people can do things like that. I believe that there are some people who use imagination to compensate for any learning difficulties. Neurodivergents are said to do that too.
Auditory imagination - I can imagine music and songs playing in my head. That helps me to write poetry and lyrics. I used my imagination when I was acting when I did pretend play with others when I was a kid.

Neurodivergents often have problems with short term memory. I definitely have problems with short term memory when it comes to auditory processing. I also feel that I have problems with short term memory
when it comes to visual processing. I have short term memory problems when I read. I have to go over what I read to remember it. Standardized reading tests aren't accurate. You cannot test reading
comprehension by using written tests. People can go back to the reading portion when they are answering reading questions. That's what I did. I easily forgot and misplaced things. In spite of poor short term memory, I have very good long term memory. I can easily remember things that happened a long time ago including what television show that my mother and I were watching on the night that my mother was shot when I was 3 years old. Dyslexics can have poor word retrieval. They can have problems relating names to objects. Those were some of my issues as a kid. I didn't even know my last name when I was in kindergarten. I am still bad at remembering people's names at times. My absentmindedness got on my parents' nerves when it came to doing chores, coming home at a certain time, and other things.

I definitely have a very sensitive immune system. I am a sponge when it comes to viruses for I get them very easily. I am very prone to colds. I feel like I get colds because I am exposed to cold air, but
people in the medical fields assert that you cannot get a cold from cold temperature and that you only get it from a virus. My mother and I disagree with that. I do get colds when I am exposed to cold air
which includes chest congestion and stuffed up nose. My white blood cell count is low, and white blood cells have to do with the immune system. White blood cells are used to fight off foreign bodies and
infection. I have no known allergies, but it doesn't mean that I don't have any. I have sneezed when I didn't have a cold. I heard that depression, irritability, and anxiety can be caused by allergies. I read that even learning disabilities can be caused by allergies too, but I am not so sure about that. Some people believe that Dyslexics are prone to allergies and immune system disorders.

I am very prone to stress. I was told by my company commander in navy boot camp that stress was my worst enemy. I tend to worry and be anxious about things, and so I end up with stress and that includes
when I have to perform and talk in front of people. I end up with stress when I am doing things that I find difficult. Having a learning disability and feeling that I am stupid, I felt that a lot of things were difficult. I was anxious because I lacked confidence in my abilities. I usually have neck, shoulder, and back aches when I am under stress. I have irritable bowels when I am stressed too. I get so confused and disoriented when I have a lot of stress that I forget things, have visual and auditory processing problems. Of course, I
get irritable. My stress often led to depression. I read that stress lowers the immune system, and my immune system is very sensitive any way.

I can be disorganized. That is very common in Neurodivergents. I usually had one of the messiest desks in my classroom in elementary school. My parents think that I had the messiest desk in my classrooms. :op
My desk was messy at home. I would get papers mixed up. I would have my papers unproperly put in folders which would often be torn. I would have papers and other stuff disorganized in my backpack. I often left things out. I had problems planning things and sticking to them. I got in trouble a lot with my parents for being late because I lost track of time. I got in trouble in the navy for being too sloppy.

I can be easily disoriented and confused. That is common with Neurodivergents. Dyslexic/Autistic, Ronald D. Davis says that Dyslexia is caused by confusion and disorientation in his book, THE GIFT OF DYSLEXIA. When I am confused, it can be hard for me to think at times. It can affect how I process information. Like many Neurodivergents, I often have left-right confusion. I definitely have time and directional confusions like many Neurodivergents.

I feel that my problems with coordination resulted from disorientation and confusion. I was so clumsy that I was very accident prone. Coordination problems are common in Neurodivergents, and so they can
be rather clumsy. They can be caused by cerebellar dysfunction or inner ear dysfunction

I can be naive and gullible. Neurodivergents can have social misperceptiveness. People with Asperger's Syndrome have problems understanding feelings and emotional cues. They are said to be high
functioning autistics. They have social misperceptiveness. I feel that I can be naive and gullible because I am idealistic. I tend to see the good in anybody. I admit that I can be blind when it comes to
racism because I want to believe that nobody is racist. Being of multiethnic ancestry led me to believe that everybody should love each other. I felt that I was naive when I joined the navy because I was
inexperienced. I didn't get caught up in typical teenage behavior like underaged drinking and premarital sex when I was in high school. A woman dumped me because I was a "goody goody" Like I said earlier, I
am a sucker for a woman with problems. I got taken advantage of by females in the past.

I tend to have a false view of myself. That is typical with Dyslexics too. I grew up thinking that I was stupid that I was afraid to take any type of tests. I was often convinced that I failed a test and I ended up passing it. I even did exceptionally well on the test. One example was when I took the assessment test at Western Career College. The admissions advisor had to talk me into taking the test because I was very hesitant about doing it. I wanted to wait until the following day before doing it because I was afraid that I would fail. I did the test, and I was stressed when I did it. I felt confused with all the words that I was reading while taking the test. I thought I failed the test. The instructor told me that he wanted to test me right away
because he suspected that I was very intelligent because of how I expressed myself in written words. He told me that he was right because I had scored 190 out of 210. He told me that I only needed 130
to pass the test. I took the basic skills test for Veteran Administration Vocational Rehab. I was so stressed when I did the test that I couldn't think straight. Like I said before, when I get stressed, I get confused and disoriented. I felt that I had a hard time understanding words that I saw and heard. I wanted to just give
up because the test was too hard for me, but the tester pushed me. After I finished the test, I left and referred to myself as moron, idiot, and retard. I really felt like I proved how stupid that I really am. I was surprised when I got my test results from the contracting psychologist. He told me that my reading skills are
superior, my writing skills are very superior, and my math skills are average. I felt some pride afterwards. Not bad for somebody who thought he failed the basic skills test. My problem has always been feeling that I was a lot more stupid than I really am. My feelings of intellectual inadequacy kept me from continuing my education. I felt that I was too stupid to go to college. I was afraid of failure. I grew up feeling that I was ugly too, and so I was very shy growing up to the point that I never dated until after I joined the navy. I was
afraid that I didn't look good enough to be with anybody. The attractive girls really intimidated me. I still feel that with women. I wanted a nosejob when I was in high school. I even wore my hair longer and higher on top to draw attention from my nose. I hated my problems with acne and crooked teeth too. There were a lot of females in my life that told me that I was goodlooking, handsome, cute and that I had pretty long eyelashes, but I still felt very ugly inside. It hurt when guys told me that I was ugly. I hated being told that I
looked like a fag. I am still a bit shy, and I don't like to pick up women. It was a lot easier for me to pick up women in nightclubs because I could just ask them to dance and converse with them while dancing. Being a very good dancer helped me to attract women in the nightclubs. I deepened my voice because I was insecure of my very soft voice that led many people to mistake me for being gay. I often feel that I am not good enough to be with anybody, and I end up pushing people away.

I am prone to phobias. That is how I am. When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark and dogs. When I was a kid, I was afraid of nightmares because I had nightmares that really scared me like a bear that attacked me and cover my mouth. I was always afraid of bugs, and so you won't see me camping. I also got stung by a bee, and that hurt. I am afraid of critters like snakes and iguanas. I am claustrophobic, and so I didn't like to wear things that cover my face like the gasmasks that I wore in the navy for defense purposes. During the
cross the equator initiation on the ship in the navy, I panicked when I was crawling through a tube with people behind me and front of me. Something collapsed right in front of me, and I ended up screaming and
kicking. I ended up kicking people out. I didn't have to go back through that tube even though I didn't finish crawling through it. I am afraid of flying because my ears hurt at high altitudes. I am afraid of swimming at beaches because I fear of sharks ever since watching the JAWS movies. I am afraid of driving, and so I never had a driver's license. I was also afraid of being evaluated on performance driver's tests. I like to walk and use public transportation, and I get around just fine by doing that. I am afraid to ride a skateboard because I fall down easily. I have lousy balance when I ride skateboards. I have a fear of public speaking because of my past speech problems. When I speak in front of a lot of people, I tend to shake a lot and have some problems stuttering at times. I have a fear of being in health facilities to the point that I get nervous and I end up with high blood pressure readings. I kicked and screamed when I got my shots when I was 2 years old. When I was 3, I had to take valium for anxiety whenever I went to see the dentist because I was so anxious that I shook badly and wouldn't open my mouth. I have fears of mental health professionals because I feel that they think I am stupid and even crazy, and they did misdiagnose me. Being misdiagnosed has strengthened my fear of mental health professionals. Dr Levinson believes that Neurodivergents are prone to having phobias including especially motion-related phobias.

That's all I want to say. Not every Neurodivergent is alike. We all differ in our abilities, weaknesses ,feelings, thoughts, etc. Let us not put each other down. We should respect the diversity of Neurodivergents.