What it's like.

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I have NVLD, which is an ASD defined by a high difference between verbal and performance IQ. It's a Non-verbal Learning Disability, so, the verbal stuff- great. The non-verbal stuff, bad. So what this means, is that while you have the verbal ability to figure out social cues- you know social cues, you understand it- you can't apply it. It's like being the giant observer for humanity. It's all theoretical, there's no practical application.

Nobody ever explains the shame. I mean, the real shame, that is part of what it is like, to live with NVLD. People romanticize autism, I find, like they imagine some kid rocking back and forth spitting out math equations and drooling on himself, but people never talk about what it's actually like. Human to human, all the little moments that make up your life and the tapestry inside your head woven from every single moment lain down in thread.

Because the thing is, no one knows what it is, and no one expects me to have it. Because I'm "normal enough" and smart enough, to pass for neurotypical. I mean, I'm sure I just seem weird and quirky, but I can function. I can hold down a job. My metrics are great, my stats are good. (I mean how could they not be? I work in a call center. They tell you exactly what they want you to do, they give you a flow chart for what is acceptable to say and what isn't. This is like, the perfect job for me.) I can talk, I understand intellectually the cues I'm supposed to be watching for. It's like knowing what you're trying to find, but being unable to find it. Remembering you left the keys in the bowl but they're gone, when you get there.

I'm really good with customers at my job, because they only interact with me for five minutes out of their lives. But after some sustained time, it's evident. It's so evident. People just know, that something is off, but they can't put a name to it so they associate it with Me. I'm off. I'm wrong. The everyday kind of stuff, when you wake up you think, it's been a while now, they've forgotten, but don't f**k up again. But you keep doing it. f*****g up, I mean.

That's what it's like, to live with NVLD. To know all the cues you're missing verbatim, but you keep dropping it in real life. It's like everyone is walking around with empty glasses, carefree, and I'm walking with a glass full and trying not to spill it. But it just spills everywhere all the time, it's messy and embarrassing and awkward.

And most of the time I am really good about being compassionate to myself. We're humans, who cares. There's nothing inherently bad about me, I just can't make my inside align with my outside the way everyone else can. But there are times when, it seems to me like people go out of their way to point it out, or when I'm confronted with it by other people, where I just have no mercy left at all inside of me for it. I know better, I need to do better, be better.

But then I think, it's not my problem. It's not my stuff. People have a hard time taking it in, they don't know how to react, well that's not my problem. If they don't understand or they don't want to show compassion, that's not my problem. That's a reflection of them, it is not a reflection of me. And I can say that, and really mean it, but deep inside it's like, well you're still a failure. You failed, you did it Wrong. What is a passing second of their life, resonates within me for days, it becomes part of my tapestry. It gets sewn in there and it stays there.

To constantly feel like people are watching you and judging you and grading you, and you always come up short. To constantly feel like who you are isn't enough. Who you are, as a person, is broken. Because you know better but you consciously choose, just because you are broken, to act the way you do. And that's not good enough, that's not OK. So sit down and shut up.

And that's what living with NVLD is like.

(Sorry for the giant essay. I just had this on my chest for a very long time. Thanks for reading.)

Very well said.