November 1991

I have never had the money to be formally diagnosed, but I have many traits in common with nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD), a visual disorder which hampers such things as map reading, handwriting, navigation, and social skills. Some researchers consider NVLD to be on the Autism spectrum, while others consider it to not be. It does, however, have many traits in common with Autism and Asperger's, making articles necessary which specifically explain the differences between Asperger's and NVLD. Some researchers seem to think Asperger's and NVLD are two sides of the same coin, even though there are many differences between them.

I've always had trouble making eye contact and reading the various nuances of body language, which has helped make me socially inept in many situations; these are both NVLD traits. A person with NVLD can be academically gifted--especially with such things as typing, details, and proofreading--but have no clue why classmates call her weird, rude, gullible, and the like. It certainly hindered my learning of proper etiquette--though a good part of that was probably the influence of my rude brothers, around whom I did not want to seem "prissy," because they teased me enough already. For an example of something my brothers did not influence, but came from my lack of understanding social norms: Until adult family members told me so in late elementary school, I didn't realize that you're supposed to say "hello" or "good-bye" to someone who says it to you. It took even longer for me to realize that I could say it first. I wasn't trying to be rude; I just didn't understand. Apparently this is something that most people pick up on naturally.

In-depth articles explaining NVLD or NLD are at http://maapservices.org/. Go to "All About Autism, Asperger's Syndrome and related Developmental Disorders." Then go to "NLD Articles." The best ones I've found are "Nonverbal Learning Disorders: What To Look For" by Pamela B. Tanguay and "Nonverbal Learning Disorders" by Sue Thompson, M.A., C.E.T. Other excellent resources: http://www.aspires-relationships.com/articles_nvld.htm, http://www.nldline.com/ and NLD Ontario. Also see Nonverbal Learning Disorder Overview, FAQ and Non-Verbal Learning Disability Facts. Not every single thing applies to me--for examples, I don't have trouble staying in a chair, I can understand metaphors and non-literal phrases once they are explained to me, and I excelled in algebra--but so many things do that it feels like, at last, the explanation for my entire life. I think that if I do have it, it's a mild or moderate form, since it took me days, not years, to learn such things as riding a bike and tying my shoes. I learned them later than other children did, but I'm not sure if that was from lack of ability or because no one had taught me yet.

Recently, however, I sorted through a bunch of school papers that I'd never thrown out. Though I graduated high school and college with a high grade point average and honors, I discovered many F's and D's in my middle school classwork, and many harsh comments from the teachers. In 7th grade, my French and Social Studies teachers seemed to hate me, while my English teacher seemed frustrated with me. The problems I noted most: not including everything I was supposed to, not turning the work in on time, not organizing the information or the numbers correctly, no organization at all when I worked out math problems on the homework and test papers, poor legibility, incorrect answers, all things that fit this NVLD. I also struggled with maps in 7th grade Social Studies: The teacher insisted the maps be colored with colored pencils, with diagonal strokes all in the same direction, not in the round and every-which-way strokes which were easier for me to do. I had a hard time filling in the names correctly. I believe I had mastered grade school math by now, but struggled with middle school math, especially percentages and interest rates. When everyone else in high school seemed to know how to figure 10% of something (just move the decimal point over one place), I didn't. I never did master interest rates, or much of anything in middle school math. I forget if I struggled in 8th grade math; I don't even remember who my teacher was. But in 7th grade, I fought so hard to get my math problems right, only to check the answers in the back of the book and find they were all wrong. To be honest, I don't remember if I went to the teacher for help. Sometimes I wonder if NVLD is really a learning disability or just a different way of learning and looking at the world. But when I look at my old school papers, I see it truly was a learning disability, undiagnosed because it's not well-known and kids with it can be academically gifted in other ways. (That's explained in the articles I linked to, if you want to understand how that can be.) It still affects me because I cannot figure out such things as compound interest rates or why credit card interest rate charges don't match what I think they should be.

In second grade, one day I sat coloring along with the advanced reading group. I asked a question about the picture, held it up, and the other kids in the group went, "Eww!" I discovered that they all colored inside the lines, while I did not bother with that. Also, my teacher often accused me of daydreaming because I wouldn't raise my hand to answer questions while other kids did. The truth was, I didn't always know the answer. One day in the advanced reading group, she asked us a question about construction equipment. All the other kids put their hands up, but not me. She scolded me, saying, "Put your hand up, Nyssa! Put your hand up!" But I couldn't because I didn't know the answer. I knew virtually nothing about construction equipment, having little interest in it. It was a shame that she misjudged me like this, because otherwise she was a wonderful teacher, very special to me.

In sixth grade, after one of our holiday or vacation breaks (probably Christmas), I came back thinking of Rose Cavern. My family had just been to visit it, probably on the way back from Texas, and as an impromptu stop along the way. I loved the stalagmites and stalactites, and just the whole, romantic thought of a cave and living in one or getting lost in one. In Art class, we were to draw a picture of something that happened on our vacation. So, of course, I drew a picture of the stalagmites and the stalactites, and a flashlight shining on them. I tried it twice. The first time, it didn't look right, and the boy next to me said it looked like a spider. So I crossed it out and turned the paper over, then started again. I had some artistic ability, but my people were very cartoonish, long and narrow; trying to reproduce exactly what I saw in my head was very difficult. I tried awfully hard to get the picture to look right. I drew the stalagmites and the stalactites the best I knew how: long, pointy columns. It wasn't as good as a photograph, but I was only in sixth grade, my skills were not well developed yet, and I didn't have a photograph to copy, just my memory. I drew a circle around them to represent the beam of the flashlight; the rest of the cavern, not illuminated by the light, was black. I was finally pleased with it, as well as I could be considering the lack in ability that I couldn't help, and turned it in.

A few minutes later, the teacher held up someone's picture. "Look at this!" he cried. We all laughed, including me. Then he looked at it, realized it was the wrong side, and turned it over. I realized it was my picture, now that the proper side was facing the class, and that I had been laughing at the crossed-out picture on the reverse side of my own picture! I think he even had it upside-down before he turned it over, which may explain why I didn't recognize it. I blanched with horror. "This student didn't even try," he said, tossing it in the wastebasket.

Note that I said before, "I tried awfully hard to get the picture to look right." He didn't mention my name to the class, though anyone near me would probably have recognized my picture, but he humiliated me in front of everyone for not being a perfect artist, and accused me of not trying at all when I had tried dang hard to get that picture as good as it possibly could be. I was probably too intimidated by teachers to realize that I could have told my parents what happened, and they could have complained about how their child was judged and sentenced as lazy without even a trial.

My handwriting was extremely bad until some time in, perhaps, 8th or 9th grade, when it finally became much neater and much easier to read. Occasionally I tried a new way of writing, more drawing than writing (as NVLD students often do), but it made the clarity even worse. In third grade, I entered a MACPO school, which allowed gifted children to go at their own pace; unfortunately, since NVLD students often need structure, I did not do my work unless forced. I preferred to write stories. Various math concepts took me much longer to learn; I struggled with fractions and long division. In middle school, I still struggled with math most of all; I believe I was in the "smart" group for every basic subject, but really belonged in the smart group only for certain subjects.

In high school, I realized that I had to do my work on time. I also took classes more suited to my abilities, whenever possible. Gym was always a trial for me because the NVLD made it very hard for me to do anything athletic. Only calisthenics and other such non-athletic things went well. I sucked at baseball. The very name "kickball" made me cringe. I hated volleyball, with all its movement and confusing rules. I could not tell when a ball was headed my way, and could not hit it very well. My teammates screamed at me for missing the ball, when I had thought it was nowhere near me. Out of pent-up frustration, I lost my temper and yelled back at them, uncharacteristic behavior for me. So once the one-year obligation was completed, I no longer took gym. After failing honors biology, I took regular classes in science; in math, I took specialized subjects--algebra, geometry, algebra/trigonometry--but regular, not honors or advanced. I excelled in regular classes. (The exception was chemistry, but nobody seemed to do well with that teacher, and even the good students hated him. He made sarcastic comments to other classes, not just mine. I think he hated teaching.) I took the most advanced English course I could, and excelled in that as well. In college, I also did well, especially now that I could ditch the math courses and only needed one science course. I hated school up until high school, when I began to actually like it, for the most part. I loved college.

It's common for kids with NVLD to have trouble taking notes during class lectures. It's hard to sort out the important points from things that are merely interesting, since to an NVLD kid all the details seem important. And while you're writing, the teacher moves on to another point, which you miss. Yet taking notes is a must during class lectures. I don't know if we had miniature tape recorders in those days; maybe I never heard of them, or never thought of using one. I loved it when teachers handed out study sheets or class lecture outlines. But because this usually did not happen, as a freshman in high school, I developed my own system of shorthand symbols to help me take notes more quickly. Some symbols came from the Martian alphabets I'd invented in middle school. Some were borrowed from the various disciplines, such as the three dots used in geometry theorems for "therefore." Many were based on what image seemed to fit the word, such as a right-pointing arrow for "to" or a square (box) for "in." I'd tailor the shorthand for each class (or, after college, for each job), since each had different jargon. My sophomore English teacher caught a glimpse of my shorthand one day, asked about it, and I explained it. She was impressed. I noticed some kids around me giggling as if I were weird to invent such a thing. But it was one of the many compensations I developed for my academic survival. I still use the shorthand occasionally; it has evolved over the years. For example, the "at" symbol was taken from the Red Baron's bullet holes in Snoopy's Sopwith Camel. You know, "rat-a-tat-tat," "at." But now, I use the symbol @ which is used on the Internet and has become ubiquitous in American culture around the turn of the 21st century. I also use "u" for "you" and "ur" for "your," which kids were doing on the BBS's back in the mid-90s and kept on doing as the Internet and text messages grew in popularity. I also have to concentrate very hard to catch all the points I need to write down, whether in a sermon, dictation, documentary, or whatever.

As for other traits, I have always been clumsy, often forgetting how I got black and blue marks on my legs, or running into doorknobs. If I have to read and understand a complex text, such as theology, I have to read it slowly with no distractions. New situations have always scared me or made me freeze up, unable to do anything because I don't know what to do or say: job interviews, driving situations, dealing with a customer with a problem (while an agent assistant) or an agent (while an insurance clerk), or social situations. This is very similar to and probably related to selective mutism, which is, essentially, part of extreme shyness, and can be caused by anxiety over unfamiliar situations. I've always had trouble explaining why I don't want to drive; people usually think I should just be able to get in the car and drive. I had an awful time in driver's ed. One ex-boyfriend, Phil, talked down to me like I should be able to just get into the car and drive, and he'd yell at me for not doing it. He'd refuse to drive me someplace, even when I had no other way of getting there. He said he wasn't a taxicab. As Dr. Phil said on a recent show, if you try to do "therapy" by making a person "face her fear," you're really just being a bully. When I had to get my first car so I could drive from one city to another for my first job, I thought I could drive around town to do an errand, then to a fast-food restaurant for lunch, then to my old campus to get some stuff I'd left in storage....Let's just say that horrible things happened. It didn't help that I was trying to learn stick on an old car with stiff gears. By the time I got a decent car, the damage had been done. My work commute became familiar, but when I stopped working at my first job, I started driving less and less until, now, I don't drive at all. Once, I planned to drive myself to a party when hubby was out of town, but got so panicky that it affected me physically and I had to stay home. It helps to have someone with me or in the car ahead of me to help me navigate, but without that, I don�t even want to try.

My hometown was a scary city to navigate, because not only did I have to concentrate very hard just to do the driving halfway decently, but there were so many cars doing unpredictable things, and so many lanes, so many signs, so many one-way streets, so many twists and turns to get to a destination. When I moved away from home to a much smaller city in Wisconsin, there were different traffic laws, lights which would turn to blinking red or blinking yellow after 10pm--even streetlights were positioned differently over the intersections. I was confused by many things: I had an awful time parking; I did not know that it was illegal to turn left on red (I could swear the driving instructor said you could turn left on red, but you had to do it very carefully); I had the rules for four-way stops backwards (that it goes "to the right"--i.e., the person on the left goes first and then the car to the right of that car, counter-clockwise--rather than the person on the right, clockwise). The driver behind me would see an empty space for turning, where I saw a wall of cars--hence, I got honked at a lot, which startled me and upset me for hours afterwards. I often tried to use maps, but they made little sense to me, I could not retain what I saw, and I got so confused by whether to turn right or left, that I often got terribly lost. Getting lost frightened me. I had no clue why I had such a hard time driving, and could only think that I should just get off the road. But of course, even though people say bad drivers should get off the road, if one does so, they chide him for not driving when "everybody has to do it." Even before I started driving, cars scared me: I was fine as a passenger, but I always crossed the road extra carefully. One year, I had to cross a busy street to get to my bus stop--yes, I know, poor planning on the school's part. The kids would stand at the bus stop and jeer at me for not crossing, saying I had plenty of time, when all I saw were cars coming right at me very quickly. Trying to turn as a driver felt like that all over again; the honks were the jeers of my classmates.

I walked to my last job, only ten minutes away, walking in all sorts of weather despite having a car. Fear of driving is more common than you might think in this car-obsessed nation. But while many people can overcome it through baby steps and practice, I still have mine--despite driving from one county to another every week day for two and a half years. Too much happens at once, I get lost easily, I have to navigate while following road rules and trying not to run into anything, and unexpected situations cause panic. It is not a phobia, or irrational fear, if it is linked to NVLD; maybe it's better for everyone if I don't drive, at least until I find someone who can teach me how to compensate for my weaknesses while driving. The last letter here sums up my feelings quite well: "Also, when I did drive, I was always scared that something would go flat, the battery would go out, etc. etc. I was always scared when I drove and that is not good when on the road. I found that by taking myself off the road, that I am being considerate of other people and their lives." However, it is very frustrating when you "take yourself off the road" and people accuse you of immaturity or not doing what you need to do as an adult. (Maybe if they saw you drive, they'd feel differently.) Yet another time you will hear them complain about "bad drivers" and people who shouldn't have been given driver's licenses!

There are times when I see how it can affect my life to not be able to drive, especially if something were to happen to hubby. But I don't feel I have a choice. Fortunately, I've discovered that trouble with and fear of driving is common with learning disorders, as is being misunderstood by "normal" people. Lots of people, men and women, are afraid of driving; I don't know how many of them have learning disorders, but I have found some of them in real life and on the Internet. It makes sense, when you think of how lethal a car can be, that some will refuse to do it despite the inconvenience of not driving. Even Barbara Walters--a wildly successful and well-respected woman--is afraid to drive. (She said this on Oprah one day when I just happened to flip on the program. The episode aired on September 16, 2004.) Quincy Jones also does not drive. Shep of the Three Stooges also was too scared to drive. It also helps to know that people with NVLD can eventually master driving, so if I must do it again, I may still be able to do it. "Some will drive, some will not" (source).

Some things I pick up quickly, such as computer skills, while some things need more practice, such as changing a baby's diaper or doing insurance policy changes. But once I master a routine task, I do it well, such as housework, filing, or figuring out a grocery list. I don't do so well when something unexpected happens, or I meet new people. You need to become familiar to me before I can talk to you easily, and even then I don't always know what to say. Some people have misunderstood me and considered me stand-offish or shifty or rude, when really I'm just quiet and shy. My husband has noted that I'm methodical: I like to know how something is going to end before I start it; if I don't, I tend to freeze up and stand still rather than risk things going wrong. I like to know what's going to happen and have a good idea of how I'm going to deal with it. I need plans, routines, schedules. If I don't know what's going to happen, if something unexpected happens, if something disrupts the routine, I panic. But I'm not totally inflexible, either.

Some things were far worse for me as a child, such as handwriting, schoolwork and social interaction. There are many things I've picked up over the years, more slowly than someone with a "normal" brain might pick them up, but I picked them up nevertheless. Many NVLD deficits can be compensated for, either through lots of practice or doing things in other ways than a "normal" brained person would do them. One way I compensate is through schedules. I had terrible organization of my desk and room growing up, but when I went off to college, I decided I would be a good roommate. I wrote in my day planner when to dust, when to do laundry, when to dustmop the floor, when to wash sheets, etc. I also forced myself to be more organized. My boyfriend Peter seemed to find it funny that I alphabetized my cassette tapes, but it kept them in order and helped me to find them easily. Nowadays, I still alphabetize my music, and as a housewife, my daily schedules are more complex. I have learned to be somewhat flexible with the schedules when necessary, though it can make me anxious when a change is forced on me: a holiday falling on a weekday and disrupting that day's normal routine and laundry, for example. My husband loves my schedules because they keep the house and the laundry clean. Some people with NLD stay messy; some become very organized. I don't like being forced to stop something I'm working on in order to do something else.

It helps a great deal to have a teacher or counselor who can tell you the normal way of doing things and teach you compensations: Many children who were diagnosed early are now excelling at life and school, while many NVLD adults who were not diagnosed until much later, still struggle. Though I remember very little about the sessions, I do remember seeing a psychologist in late elementary school; this probably helped me with social situations.

Every NVLD person is different; I do better in some deficit categories than in others. For example, I do have some artistic abilities (though my drawing is simple and focuses on people and their clothing), I have a good sense of humor, I never had trouble staying in a chair, don't have to talk my way through every single thing I do, don't have to concentrate just to walk through a room, can keep my words in my head when I do talk myself through something, and am capable of visualizing. But from what I've learned about how other people see the world, my visualization is impaired, just as my vision is very near-sighted and I must wear glasses to drive. To compare visualization with sight, some NVLD people are "blind" and can't visualize at all; I am "impaired." I can see some streets clearly in my head, but most are fuzzy, even though I've been living in the same city for 17 or 18 years. I couldn't tell you how to get to the local Home Depot, even though I've been there many times. I'm terrible at giving directions; in most cases, I need a map in front of me, or I need to actually be with you as you go down the street to find the place, even if I've been there many times. Even then, there's no guarantee I can get you there; if I can, I'm jubilant. Even if I've been taken somewhere many times, I easily get lost trying to go there by myself. I may remember a few street signs or landmarks, but not know how to get from point A to point B. When my fiancé Phil stayed with my family over the summer of 1994, he chided me with, "How could you not know your way around the city you've lived in all your life?" I shot back with, "How am I supposed to know my way around it when I haven't even been everywhere in the city?" By the end of the summer, he boasted that he knew his way around the city much better than I did.

When I read a book, unless I have pictures of the characters, or have seen them in a movie (such as the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series), they are fuzzy in my head. They are basically balls of light or white clouds, doing the actions and saying the words. In my teens and early adulthood, I liked to draw pictures of the characters in classic novels so I could visualize them, their clothing and hair. Sometimes, if the author has made a character especially vivid, such as in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels or Jean Auel's Earth's Children series, I can "see" the character very well. But the other characters are usually fuzzy. I often like to see a movie of a book after reading it, so I can "see" the characters and actions. Conversely, after seeing a movie or a TV show, I like to read the original novel or tie-in novelization to find out what the characters are thinking.

When given multi-step directions, I try to remember all the steps verbally, but this is too much at once. So I don't remember them, and have to watch other people first to see what they do. (This is very similar to selective mutism, in which a person watches others do an activity before feeling comfortable enough to join in.) Until very recently, I had no idea that other people remember such directions by visualizing themselves doing each step. I don't do that. Maybe now I will, now that I know about it. I don't like wearing jeans or twill or dockers because they are too stiff. I don't like the feel of the collar or wristbands of sweatshirts. I don't wear sweaters because I don't like the feel of the knits or the itch of wool and acrylic. I can't stand turtlenecks or tight clothing. I like soft, loose-fitting clothes and flat shoes. I don't like food that is too spicy or hot. Since so many people consider jeans, sweatshirts, sweaters, etc. to be very comfortable, and so many people love Mexican food and the like, I can only conclude that I am sensitive to how things feel and taste.

Instead of playing games with the other children on the playground, I usually played by myself, acting out fantastical stories I invented. Sometimes my friends joined in, but I often preferred to be alone because they didn't do or say the things I wanted my characters to do or say. This happened up until maybe 5th or 6th grade, when I finally got tired of strange looks from the other kids. I also made puppets with my hands until about 5th grade, when I got tired of being made fun of by the other kids, and of my teacher saying I was too old to do that. Neighborhood adults and kids made fun of me for "talking to trees," though I was actually just acting out the different speaking parts of my stories, not talking to trees. I have recently learned that such behaviors are common for NVLD children, that it wasn't just me. Of course, when I did them, they seemed normal to me, not bizarre at all. Writing became my way to play out my stories in a socially acceptable way.

There were always a few nice kids in school who didn't care about my "weirdness" and befriended me. Many were older or younger; many were boys; many were minorities. Maybe my NVLD and its resulting difficulty in making friends, is why I don't care about race, ethnic group, religion, age or gender when making friends. As long as you're a sweet and/or pleasant person who does not cut me down for being different from you, you can be my friend. I still had problems dealing with people in the early years of my adulthood. But some time in my mid-twenties, I discovered that most people smiled when I came around. The people at my new job called me sweet, and when one woman made a snide comment about me, the other women were angry with her.

I always had trouble following the fashions. I just didn't know what they were. For example, in junior high, I loved wearing a certain pair of pants which were very comfortable; my mom had just bought them for me at a yard sale. I did not understand why all the kids kept pointing to me and laughing about "bellbottoms." I looked it up, and thought it meant that the rear part of my pants was bell-shaped, but that made no sense to me. It was 1985, not long after bellbottoms fell out of fashion, but I did not know what they were. All during middle school, I drew pictures of Martians and other civilizations I had dreamed up. In 9th grade, a girl saw a picture of two young people from one of these outer space civilizations, and said, "Oh my gosh, are those bellbottoms?" When I drew the pants, the pantleg bottoms reminded me of pants I had seen as a child, but I didn't know they were called bellbottoms or that they were now considered ridiculous. Eventually, I finally found out what bellbottoms were, and agreed that they looked ridiculous. When bellbottoms started coming back into fashion in 1991, I was shocked, and refused to wear them. Nowadays, people even talk like tapered legs are silly, while bellbottoms or boot-cuts are flattering. But I refuse to wear bellbottoms because I still think they look ridiculous. (Of course, that has nothing to do with NVLD, but with personal taste. There are others who refuse to wear bellbottoms or low-risers and don't have NVLD.) Also, I thought certain colors went just fine together, but other kids/teenagers would chide me for not matching my colors.

And now for more detail about what you may call "selective mutism" in me, which is just a fancy clinical term for extreme quietness because of extreme shyness. (I use the term only grudgingly because I don't think a common personality trait should be labeled like a disorder.) Many NVLD children are shy and quiet, or become that way after repeated rejection, while others are far too talkative or forward. I'm shy and quiet around strangers and people I don't feel comfortable around. I'm also usually quiet in groups of people; they do most of the talking while I just watch and listen, and I even forget I'm there or that people might want to hear from me. I've been told that I blend into the furniture. A blind man once noted that he could tell when other people were around him though they were silent, because they made various noises: movement, coughs, and the like. I, however, became invisible. I did not do this deliberately; I was just behaving in my natural manner. My mom always used to say, "She's quiet until she warms up to you. Then she talks your ear off." When asked if I was quiet at home, she'd give an emphatic, "No!" If I'm alone with a person and "click" with him or her, I can become very talkative, and conversational give-and-take becomes easy because I always have something to say. But if I don't click with that person, or if I'm with more than one person, my brain often goes blank and I don't know what to say. They may try to start a conversation with me, but I don't respond because my brain freezes, or because I don't even realize they're trying to start a conversation. Then later on I discover that they think I don't like them, or was snubbing them. I've always struggled with talking with strangers; I was once told that at parties, I "cling" to the people I know. Once, I was even suspected of being untrustworthy when I was just being my usual shy and quiet self. I've also been accused of being stand-offish or snobbish. But none of these things are true: I was just acting the way which is natural to me. Some people may consider a shy person to be shifty because they have nervous tics and are afraid to make eye contact, when it's really just from shyness.

She wrote, "I�m glad we are rooming together this year. You are so different than you seemed all these years. I�m really glad that you talk a lot more now. Before it was hard to tell what you were thinking or feeling....For a long time you were very quiet and never said anything. You sat with all of us at meals but you never joined in the conversations. We didn�t really know you. You were a part of the group, but you were a stranger for a long time. I asked you to room with me this year for a reason. I didn�t know you and I could tell there was an extremely interesting person in that shy, reserved exterior. And I was right. You talk so much more than you used to. You are a completely different person than I had once thought. I love the �you� that I have gotten to know this past year. Meeting the real �you� has been one of the highlights of my year :) "

I recently discovered (in 2008) that a family member has always thought I was sexually abused as a child, because of my behavior while staying with her one week around age 10. A friend asked if I was always very quiet, speaking only when spoken to; I said yes; he said that was probably why. But no, I was not sexually abused as a child. In fact, it is noted in literature that there is no evidence that selective mutism is caused by trauma, but is basically extreme shyness (Bruce Black, MD, Information on Selective Mutism). Note that unfamiliar situations can cause it, much as in NVLD, unfamiliar situations cause a person to "freeze up."

Outgoing people often don't seem to understand just what a struggle it is for a shy, quiet person to do what they do, and they'll make comments that I should talk to people I don't know, talk more to the people I do know, etc.--not realizing that they might as well ask a cat to become a dog. In fact, literature on selective mutism states that: "Attempts to pressure, demand, or force the child to speak, to trick the child into speaking, or to punish or shame the child for not speaking are most often counter-productive" (Bruce Black, MD, Information on Selective Mutism). These comments assume the shy person is just being stubborn, when it is far more effective to accept the person and help her feel more comfortable. It would help for the outgoing person to ask the shy person to come over, or for the talkative person to ask a series of questions until one finally inspires the quiet person to speak. Telling the shy and quiet person how to act may be kindly meant, may seem like "helping" to the outgoing person. But to the shy person, it feels like unwelcome criticism--and may end up pushing her farther into her shell. It is that way to me. It also does not help for Type-A and/or outgoing people to tell a shy person or a learning disabled person to just "push through it." There is far more going on in the shy or LD brain to hamper "pushing through it" than a simple lack of will.

Of course, the trouble with a name like "selective mutism" is that it takes a common trait--shyness/quietness--and makes it into a "disorder." As if shy people didn't already feel marginalized enough. It amazes me that we have to have clinical terms and details of how terrible this disorder is and how to "fix" it. Couldn't we just accept that a lot of people don't fit in with the predominant American outgoing/extrovert culture? Why do we have to have research to tell us that it's counter-productive to keep harping on a shy/quiet person's lack of words? Any shy or quiet person could tell you how annoying it is to constantly hear "smile!" or "you're so quiet" or "just go talk to people."

(I've learned many things about body language and other social skills, but had to pick them up through articles and becoming aware that such things existed, not intuitively. So I do much better these days, and can understand much of the more subtle body language I observe in movies. However, I still miss many things. For example, I now know that an NVLD person has trouble picking up that someone wants to start a conversation. It helps to know this, but I have recently discovered that I am still woefully bad at picking up that someone wants to start a conversation with me. Even if I do pick this up, my brain often freezes, so I don't know what to say. The person becomes offended, thinks I don't like them, etc. So knowledge helps, but doesn't always fix the problem.)

"If a child is constantly admonished with the words, 'I shouldn't have to tell you this!,' this should alert everyone that something is awry because you do have to tell them (everything). The child's verbal processing may be proficient, but it can be impossible for her to receive and comprehend nonverbal information. Such a child will cope by relying upon language as her principal means of social relating, information gathering, and relief from anxiety. As a result, she is constantly being told, 'You talk too much!'

"The child with NLD often develops an exceptional memory for rote material; a coping skill he has had to hone in order to survive. Since the nonverbal processing area of his brain is not giving him the needed automatic feedback, he relies solely upon his memory of past experiences, each of which he has labeled verbally, to guide him in future situations. This, of course, is less effective and less reliable than being able to sense and interpret another person's social cues (because of the vast array of differences in human nature).

"Owing to visual-spatial disturbances, it is difficult for this child to change from one activity to another and/or to move from one place to another. A child with NLD uses all of her concentration and attention to merely get through a room. Imagine the frustration produced when attempting to function in a complicated and/or new social situation. Owing to her inability to 'handle' such informational processing demands, she will instinctively avoid any kind of novelty.

"The importance of identifying and servicing children with nonverbal learning disorders is especially acute. Overestimates of the child's abilities and unrealistic demands made by parents and teachers can lead to ongoing emotional problems. A favorable prognosis seems to depend upon early identification and accommodation. The child with NLD is particularly inclined toward seriously debilitating forms of internalizing psychopathology, such as depression, withdrawal, anxiety, and in some cases, suicide.

"Dr. Byron P. Rourke of the University of Windsor and his associates have found that nonverbal learning disabilities 'predispose those afflicted to adolescent and adult depression and suicide risk.' The child with NLD is regularly punished and picked on for circumstances he cannot help, without ever really understanding why, and he is in turn often left with little hope that his situation will ever improve. After amassing years of embarrassing and misconceived unintentional social blunders, it is not too difficult to comprehend how a person with nonverbal learning disorders could come to the conclusion that his environment is not structured to accommodate him."

Though I myself haven't been accused of harassment or stalking or racist remarks, people with NVLD are sometimes accused of obsessive behavior because they don't understand limits. They're not psychotic or stalkers or evil; they're just learning disabled, the same as a person with dyslexia or autism or ADD. This is especially a danger if the NVLD person is lonely and someone pays attention to him/her. Common workplace behavior is described here: http://www.nldline.com/ "Adults with NLD" section, then "Employment Information for Adults With NLD," then "Kelli Bond--Nonverbal Learning Disabilities from 9 to 5."

This article on eye contact explains not only my trouble with making eye contact, but my difficulty in understanding or being understood through the use of eye contact. While my eye contact has greatly improved over the years, and the article is from the point of view of an autistic person (which is at the extreme other end of the spectrum), eye contact still gives me many of the problems described in this article, and can be tiring. So often I'll just look away while speaking, or even while listening, if I'm having trouble focusing on the words.

The NLD ties in quite well with ISFJ, or the Protector Guardian on the Keirsey Personality Test. ISFJs are attentive to detail, prefer schedules, like to have things laid out ahead of time, and are not very intuitive. ISFJs are also often misunderstood. On the one hand, I used to have lots of, and still have some, trouble understanding people and social norms--the NLD side. On the other hand, I am an extreme introvert (100% on the Keirsey Test). I do not easily open up to people until I consider them trustworthy and "safe." With most people, this never happens and it's hard to get beyond "hello" with me; with a few special ones, it happens either immediately, or in a short period of time. If I consider you a close friend, my introversion vanishes. With ISFJ, "families are the centers of their lives"; they "are extremely warm and demonstrative within the family circle"(ISFJ)--which means if you become one of the very few whom I adopt into my little family circle, I will easily hug you, maybe even cuddle up to you. But I keep most people at a safe physical distance. "They are not as outgoing and talkative as the Providers, except with close friends and relatives. With these they can chat tirelessly about the ups and downs in their lives, moving (like all the Guardians) from topic to topic as they talk over their everyday concerns. However, their shyness with strangers is often misjudged as stiffness, even coldness, when in truth these Protectors are warm-hearted and sympathetic, giving happily of themselves to those in need. Their quietness ought really to be seen as an expression, not of coldness, but of their sincerity and seriousness of purpose" (About the 4 Temperaments) So I've been hit on both sides with the potential for misunderstanding, while the people closest to me usually know better.

On November 1 in my 1991 day planner, I wrote that it was three years and six months until graduation, which was the earliest Peter and I could get married. I have written that he and I were already talking about this. We felt that we were meant for each other, and planned to make it official shortly after graduation. We even discussed what we'd do at our wedding. I was accustomed to Nazarene weddings, with a reception in the church basement or fellowship hall with people sitting around, eating cake and drinking delicious, non-alcoholic punch, and chatting away. Rarely, there might even be a meal. This is what I expected, even wanted, at my wedding. But Peter said that in his family, weddings were huge affairs, with dancing and all the family members gathered together. I wasn't so sure I wanted a big wedding, but probably figured I had to go along with it. Peter dreamed of me wearing a wedding dress in the turn-of-the-century style with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a heart-shaped neckline. When he told me, I said this was the kind of dress I always wanted to wear! We saw this as another sign that we were meant to be together. (The funny thing is, when I did get married, my dress was in the Jane Austen style. But for years, I wanted the turn-of-the-century style often seen at 80s weddings.)

Peter and I also discussed where we would live. He, a computer major, said it was his dream to live in Silicon Valley, which was in California. I had never heard of it and couldn't find it on the map; he assured me it was there, and he knew where it was. He said it wasn't dry like Southern California; it was warm, well-watered and beautiful. (I have since discovered that it's the area around San Francisco, not marked on a map because it's a nickname for a region, not a city.) He made it sound like a paradise in which we both would be happy. So every day when I watched The Weather Channel for the local forecast and South Bend's weather (usually 10 degrees warmer), I also kept an eye on California, my future home. Candice said she did the same thing: She kept an eye on the weather in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where Jeff went to school, since she sometimes drove up there to visit him.

With the approach of winter, our room began to freeze. We didn�t know at the time that it was because Candice had pillows lining the bed which were shoved right up against the heater, blocking it. We thought it was because the school had an inefficient heating system. Well, it did, but that was only part of the reason. I was so glad I brought my flag afghan, which my grandma McCanmore had made; I often wrapped myself in it. When I crawled into bed at night, the afghan lying over the sheets, I would spend several minutes shivering before patches of warmth began to crawl up around my legs and body. This was an awful time, especially when the days got colder and the room began to freeze even more. I believe that at some point, I brought another blanket to school so I wouldn�t be so cold.

Some time soon after I arrived at Roanoke, I began reading one of the books I�d brought with me. It was Wideacre by Phillippa Gregory. My mom�s sister had given her this and the sequel, The Favored Child, for Christmas or her birthday (which were the same day). They looked interesting, and Mom didn�t show much interest in them, so I took them with me to school for something to do when I had spare time (which did happen a lot). (Unfortunately, the third book in the series, Meridon, wasn�t with them. I don�t know if it had come out yet when Mom got them. It took me at least four or five years to find it, and that was by ordering it through Waldenbooks.) I had no idea when I started Wideacre that this strange book had a heroine, Beatrice Lacey, who slept with her brother and did all sorts of unscrupulous things just so she could secure the estate for her own. (This was in the days of entailments, when women weren�t supposed to inherit property when there was a man in line for it.) I had to skim over the sex scenes, just as I did with the Earth�s Children (Valley of Horses, Mammoth Hunters) books. They made me uncomfortable, and I felt they weren�t appropriate for a single person to read. It surprised me that Beatrice went and slept with a boy at fourteen, when she hadn�t really done anything else with him before. How can you just jump into bed with someone before you've even gotten to second base? Don't you have to build up a level of comfort and lust first? I wasn�t sure what to think of the book, but it did hold my attention until the very end. I believe I finished it over Christmas Break. I told Peter about it, and he teased me about the racy book I was reading.

During late fall or early winter, I saw my first-ever shooting star. Actually, I only saw it out of the corner of my eye. Peter and I were standing outside his car in the gravel driveway to his parents' farmhouse. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shooting white light. Before I could turn to see it, it was gone. It was beautiful and seemed almost supernatural. Peter faced me, not the star. He sensed it, and knew it was there because he read my mind, but he missed it.

At 7:30 on November 19, Dave Wopat (brother to Tom Wopat, Luke on Dukes of Hazzard) played some good and funny songs on his keyboard. From what I gather from a Google search, he's still doing the college circuit to this day. The concert was in the Muskie. There weren�t a lot of people there, but there were enough. One of his songs is "I'm in Love With a McDonald's Girl." Our favorite was about sadomasochism; it went, �Hurt me, hurt me, whip me, chain me,� and he moved his arms as if he were being chained up. This became a popular catchphrase between Peter and me, even though we weren�t into that stuff.

As they did for every break, Peter's parents invited me over for Thanksgiving Break, which was November 23 to December 1. After class on Friday afternoon, the 22nd, Peter drove over in his mom's black Volkswagen bus rather than his Mercury Lynx, because it could hold my valuables (word processor, TV, etc.) as well as my luggage. This thing was from the 60s or 70s, and looked it. It had few amenities, no tape deck and maybe even no radio, and I think the seats only had lap belts. I laughed, and when we drove out, I put my jam box on my lap to play a Newsboys song. This song, "One Heart," was from a 70s-themed album released in July of 1991, Boyz Will Be Boyz.

I put my Brother word processor on a table next to the computer table in Peter's room. One afternoon we sat there working, Peter on a word processor program for the Coco 2 and me on my desert island novel Jerisland. I had already written the manuscript by hand, and was now typing it up, so I was typing away fast and loud, probably at least 50 words per minute. (In 1995 I was clocked at about 70 words per minute.) Peter�s mom came in with an astonished smile and exclaimed about �all that pounding!�

Peter and his parents told me that when they moved into their house, it held a ghost. They figured he was the man who built the house, so they called him John. Occasionally things would turn up missing; they would call out, "Okay, John, put it back," and then find them again. Once, they had been sitting around complaining about the way the house was built (for one thing, the spigots in the bathroom were backwards). Soon after, they discovered a big hole in the wall of the stairwell down to the basement. Peter's parents thought Peter did it in a fit of rage, but he insisted it was John, not him. They knew a family with a ghost named Elizabeth. One evening, the two families went to a restaurant together, and left two extra seats for the ghosts to sit in. They told people that their ghosts John and Elizabeth were sitting in those seats. Finally, Peter's family fixed the roof, which involved taking off parts of it; I think they may have replaced the whole thing. After that, they had no more trouble with John. Peter's mom figured that raising the roof released his spirit at last.