How many people know about NLD until they or their children are diagnosed with it? Not that it's usually an official diagnosis as it's not in the current DSM-1V nor will be in the DSM-V.

Yet if the activity on Facebook groups are any indicator, more and more people are being diagnosed with NLD. (In January I will have a post on how Facebook impacted my coming-to-terms with NLD. I will also introduce you to some people who are working to make NLD recognized.)

I was going to walk you through this past weekend when I got a bill for $900. The bill was a mistake. The weekend was a sad combination: of me trying to explain why the bill was a mistake to the company; forgetting to state the most important facts; copying many numbers that of course I inverted or just forgot to put in. Fortunately because I was using a computer I was able to fix my mistakes before anybody noticed. I also called the company back and did what I should have done originally--I read them the bill.

Instead of telling me I was mistaken and why was I wasting the customer reps time, I got the same customer rep who then apologized for his earlier words. But really I shouldn't have had to go through the first experience. While I thought I was prepared for the first phone call I didn't see the most important things in the bill and what I was really calling about until I hung up.

Things like that don't happen to me as much anymore but they used to happen all the time and I had no frigging idea why. I'm neither a cruel nor unkind person but I would be so defensive I would come off as both cruel and unkind. Defensive seems to be a theme today!

That's the other reason I apologize so much. I'm sure I come off as the bitch of the millennium when in actuality the service rep in the above calls told me he wished every customer was half as nice as I was.

I told him, in my mind, that if he treated all customers who might not express themselves eloquently, "um" a lot, or just make mistakes, as he treated me originally, no wonder they weren't very nice. 

In truth I said, "really you're a pleasure to talk to." I meant it as I along with many people with NLD tend to be very forgiving.

There's one thing I try to be forgiving about and can't. I really can't be forgiving that it took until I was in my 50's to find out about NLD. It's not as if I didn't try to find out what was wrong or lived my life in an isolated cave.

Having NLD isn't like having a fatal disease. It is being mentally and physically challenged in certain areas while often being precocious in other areas. Being precocious doesn't help as you're expected to do well in everything. Who cares if you were precocious at five when you're 25 or 50?

How would you feel if you spoke to a therapist who said: "if you were eight I could have helped you. But I can't help adults." Such is the state of NLD today.

NLD is a very real disorder. I will devote my life to NLD recognition. Hopefully more and more therapists, neurologists and others will devote their training and working life to helping people with NLD. Because nobody should have to suffer from something that if known about can be helped.

I believe in going on and looking toward the future but writing this is making me cry as I see how much I have changed in the four and a half years since I first heard of NLD. I can't imagine what my life would have been like had I known at a younger age.