Without ever being diagnosed, I grew up with a reading / learning disability. I finally found out about it this December, upon talking to a friend who diagnosis kids for a living. She unofficially diagnosed me, and told me if I were tested now, I’d surely be diagnosed.
Basically, I cannot understand / comprehend what I read without a lot of effort. That effort involves me asking OTHER PEOPLE questions about what I am reading. There are some types of writing, mostly documentary style or written for children, that I can more easily grasp on my own. That’s why I have done well with case study books and children’s books. They follow a more linear direction and recap a lot; or, the plots are just more easy to follow, and if you don’t understand something, you can live without it without ruining the story.
So, knowing this was not enough… as someone who loves psychology, spirituality, and how everything relates to one another, I wanted to know how this affected me on a deeper level.
Turns out, it was the cause of an enormous amount of stress and isolation growing up. As much as people liked me, nobody really “got” me and I always felt a bit lonely. Since high school, I have called it “alone in a crowded elevator” but I didn’t know I was talking about my disability. I thought I was talking about my feelings.
When you have a disorder, you do feel very isolated and require a lot of love and encouragement from others. You require confirmation and them telling you they understand and really do “get” you! The truth is, people don’t easily get us. Many give up on us way too easily! 🙁 I had friends in high school argue with me to the point of exhaustion. They would say things like, “you’re not living in reality,” or “how come you don’t understand what I’m talking about? You’re not stupid! You must just not care!” Man, I’ve had that one quite a few times.
The truth is, being raised by a living angel, I was taught only to love, care, support, nurture, and do it all as selflessly as possible! I always found it amazingly sad that people couldn’t see my true intention.
Over the years, I thought I got better at showing my intention, and showing people who I was and how I worked. Still, some people don’t care enough about you to expend the energy to work with you and understand you. I feel like the world is a pretty selfish place and it makes someone like me feel really isolated from it.
I think break ups are harder for people like me than most people… though we are confident in WHO we are, we need confirmation that others “get” us – which takes effort on their part. When you are abandoned / left by someone because they didn’t put in the energy to see where you are coming from, to really understand you and your intention… you truly feel “given up on.” When someone you love and trust does this to you, it’s much much worse. 🙁
The reason I blog without holding back much is because, for me, I do need to know others are listening and hopefully some of you are “getting” me and understanding me. I need to feel appreciated for who I am and what I am capable of. I basically need to feel that I am not alone – as I have felt for my whole life.
I wish I knew all this growing up. Perhaps, by now, I’d either have learned how to live with it or would have become much more “whatever” about how people think about me. Many people have that ability. To this day, it is NOT something I am even capable of wrapping my head around (about myself). I desperately want people to like me. I DO like myself. I do love myself. I do think I am a great and wonderful person who really tries very hard to go out of her way to make others happy, without sacrificing my own happiness in the process. Still, I want to feel like others like me and would do the same for me.
For people like me, it’s not unhealthy to think this way. It is a condition of a life of insecurity when it comes to communication and understanding. It has nothing to do with personal insecurity, which I do not have any issue with. I am a very confident person. It has everything to do with being understood.
So, I blog to be heard, to have the hope of being understood. As I mentioned above, I like myself plenty… blogging for myself in a private journal doesn’t do shit for me. I blog to the world so that I feel like maybe someone out there will go out of their way to really listen and try to understand me… for the hope of that intimate connection (even if they do not write back or share that they know). I blog to be heard, so that I don’t feel so lonely stuck swimming around my mind. I am not blogging for pity, nor am I blogging to change or manipulate anyone’s feelings. I blog to be understood. Period.