There was a time back in the late 80's when I thought I was losing it. My parents were still alive, and healthy. I thought 36 was young, and underneath the anxiety I was convinced that my life was destined for great happiness. Happiness defined as a career, husband and child.

But I felt anxious. The anxiety was so bad all I could do was walk the streets of Manhattan. I had been on a diet. Some people kept telling me how great I looked though all my ribs protruded. Others told me that I looked like hell. I was born larger than a size five, or so I told people. Now size five's were baggy.

I was convinced I was crazy. Anybody who had as much as I had, who had seen so many therapists must have some horrible resistance to becoming whole. It didn't make sense but when I counted the number of therapists I had seen and the reasons or non-reasons they had given for my problems I was left with one answer. Me. I was a horrible person. Yet my rational self knew this was wrong.

I immediately sought help. I knew I needed Xanax, which I asked the psychiatrist for and got. I felt a calmness I had never felt before.

The psychiatrist sent me to a pharmapsychiatrist who sent me to a testing psychologist. I was his first adult patient. It was lucky that I was skinny as I could fit into the child-sized desks and chairs. That in itself felt infantilizing.

The pharmapsychiatrist had strongly suspected that I had many learning disabilities and other problems the testing psychologist could discover.

When I was 10, my parents had taken me to NYU Medical Center where I was given every test known in the early ‘60s. I remember being given a verbal IQ test verbally. Apparently I knew almost every answer but one: I had no idea what Genesis was. The tester kept coming back to that question each time more and more frustrated:

"But you're so smart. You know so much. You should know what Genesis is."

Finally she told me that it's the first book in the Bible and when the test was finished I ran out to tell my parents what a bad job they had done. They hadn't taught me religion. Later I was almost surprised that my parents hadn't become fundamentalists of some kind. They would have done anything to help me. I don't remember the other tests but the results were inconclusive. Perhaps "a touch of cerebral palsy."

My parents told me that when I brought them to the pharmapsychiatrist for the initial consult. The letter had said to bring a person who knew you well. I couldn't decide between parents so I brought them both. The pharmapsychiatrist and I got along well and at the next appointment he asked why I brought my parents.
"The letter said to bring somebody who knows you well."
"That's only for psychotic patients. You would be barely be neurotic if you didn't have these strange problems."

I reread the letter after I left the appointment and nowhere did it say "only for psychotic patients." Forever after even before I learned about NLD I wondered if there was some cue I missed somewhere; a Rosetta Stone that everybody else would have picked up on. But then I was more entranced with his later statement. He was admitting I had strange problems. Nobody had said that before. I needed to hear that.

When I found myself at the testing psychologist I was psyched. We were going to get to the bottom of my problems. He would give me a test, like a puzzle, and he'd walk out of the room. Five minutes later he would walk back in, look at me and say:
"You really can't do this can you?"

Apparently I couldn't even tell a story based on a picture properly. Now I understand that I'm non-linear and have problems with order. But he didn't put things so clearly. I was horrible at everything I tried. When he was about a tenth of the way through giving me the test results I stopped him:

"You're essentially saying I shouldn't be able to take a crosstown bus by myself, tie my shoes and much more."
He became excited:
"Yes exactly."
"But why can I manage projects that call for many skills?"
"You cope when you should compensate."

I was a "good girl" who didn't stand up to doctors but I stood up and walked out of the room. I didn't need to hear this. My self-esteem was so battered I had to salvage what was left. I was also confused, as while I understood the differences between "coping" and "compensating," I thought one of the tenets of modern psychiatry was to teach patients to cope.

The pharmapsychiatrist and my regular psychiatrist were horrified when they got the results and realized the testing psychologist had just read me the results. I told them about "coping" versus "compensating." They assured me that I was doing both.

I wanted them to censure the testing psychologist or do something, anything that would make me feel less defective. The pharmapsychiatrist said he would never refer another adult to him. I had to be satisfied with that. I wanted to move past this. Yet I lived in Manhattan. I went to the priciest, "best qualified," doctors money could buy. How could I be told that every area of my brain was defective without being given some solace?

Xanax then Klonopin allowed me to function. Debating their viability and long-term effects is another article for me another day. Sadly, the drugs helped me more than therapy did.

I was able to keep the testing psychologist's evaluation away from the center of my mind for the next decade. I kept challenging myself to accomplish more and more. But after I finished grad school and my mother began rapidly aging I remembered the testing.

My brain was irrevocably damaged. It felt as if I had a brain injury that had never been through rehab. I had good insurance. I inquired about going to Rusk Institute or someplace that would give me rehab. I was told I wasn't damaged enough. But I felt like I was.

When my "friend" began telling me how worthless I was my NLD-self believed her.

I was such a disappointment.

© 2011 pia Savage