Hey, New Here

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Hello Everyone,

My name is BluePaladin, I am new here. I am not really sure what I am looking for. I am a 27 year old male. I was diagnosed as having Non Verbal Learning Disorder (NVLD) at age 26. I have always felt different, and have never been interested in socialization or have been an emotional person.

I do not wish to talk to much about personal aspects because I am trying to remain anonymous, but I am essentially looking for a place to connect with people who possibly think in a similar way as me. It is hard to find NVLD resources.

I have always been very successful academically, working, and overall with getting through life. However, I have always been terrible with social skills, non-verbal cues, and relationships (romantic and platonic).

I work full-time, go to school full time, and am in the military reserves. I would expand upon some of those, but as I said, I am trying to be intentionally vague for the time being to preserve my anonymity.

I am in a relationship (we have been together over 2 years), and she is the reason that I eventually got tested and diagnosed, because she understood that there is something different about how I socially interact and think. I have always been (and I do not mean to brag or sound vulgar) very sexually successful throughout my life, but this is the longest relationship I have been in (again I am 27), but I struggle with emotional connections, and generally lack empathy so I do not stay interested in people very long. I have always had very small circles of friends, and never deviated out of my circle often.

As far as interests, I love the outdoors, reading, history, science, and video games.

I came across this forum by chance while looking for resources on NVLD.

I suppose that is a good starting summary of me, I look forward to meeting some new people.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to you. I hope you find the resources you are looking for.

Hello

There's some cross-over with the spectrum and some differences, from your description. You sound like you can multi-task well for example. I'm Aspie so not a hope

Why anonymous? not judging, just curious. Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Welcome. Not sure I can say that as I've only been posted 1 day so far myself, but hey.

I'm 33 and have a partner of 3.5 years, and we're married now. I used to be terrible at relationships, until around age 27 when I had a partner who really forced me to work at understanding and communicating about emotions. It was really brutal actually, as she was borderline abusive, but now I'm pretty good at it. I can perceive the emotional states and patterns of my partner better than most, and understand what they want/expect out of relationships at an emotional level. I've also had to figure those things out in myself.

The way I've learned these skills is through relationships where honesty and openness in communication is made a clear, stated value, and encouraged on both sides. Not every conversation has to be completely honest and open, but when there are disagreements and tensions (and there always will be), you need to be able to engage in long, open, honest conversations. This is a learned skill for most people, those on the spectrum and NTs alike. Those on the spectrum who often have a hard time seeing their own feelings, much less the feelings of others. But NTs also struggle with this stuff too, because they get confident and comfortable on relying on their habits and feelings for communication, when they need to really think and analyze their own thoughts and patterns and communication style (something I think those on the spectrum are more use to).

Anyway, just a thought, wanted to share from my experience that connecting and communicating emotionally are skills that can be learned with persistence by both parties. Best of luck man, recognizing a weakness in yourself is the first step toward getting better at something.