want to process out loud some things & don't want to share with an indvl & feel like annoying them so im gonna do it here: when i got tested for adhd (thanks to good health insurance my school made the intl. students get) the psychologist surprised me with an extra diagnosis

i was prepared for adhd as id been thinking around it for years since i first heard of it in Percy Jackson books & looked it up in 8th/9th grade, sure of it for months before the official testing. i was ready and based on how the testing went i expected the diagnosis.

it also felt like a moment of triumph and progress, the next step in getting better with life, i had taken the very hard steps in getting here - deciding to get help, finding & contacting her, travelling consistently for multiple long anxiety inducing testing sessions etc

a joyful moment bc i wasn't "careless, irresponsible, undisciplined, stupid, unfocused late latif" it wasn't me, who is a terrible person at life but it's adhd! i now had a proper weapon to fight back against my mother's voice in my head telling me i suck

then the lady is like yes you do have adhd
me: yes i knew it, i can deal with this and i am pleased
but dr. continues: you also have this thing called nonverbal learning disorder
my mind:

the dr went on and on about my evaluation and the report she had written and how it's lot of technical stuff and i shouldn't be worried bc it sounds bad than it is etc etc. i eventually went home and looked up NVLD and did some basic googling

but i ultimately subconsciously decided: i might have this or i might not bc i don't fit with EVERYTHING they say about NVLD. moreover it's not even in the DSM it's like a fringe new development thing not even that researched so im not gonna bother with one more diagnosis oof

so i pushed it to the back of my mind. this was last year. i started talking about adhd, getting meds, coping mechanisms, reading more about it etc. esp wanted to counter the idea of what adhd is by talking about living with it with friends bc most of my friends' response to my

official diagnosis after so much testing which was way way too expensive (US healthcare is so broken but bless my school for the insurance, i didn't pay a thing) was something in the realm of "but you're ... smart, you're in college, you're normal"

(i am *not* what society considers normal, been called weird too many times so i know it, one of the things people in school called me was "rare species" like i was not even in the realm of human, but mostly im good at hiding the more "severe" stuff)

so im always saying ADHD this ADHD that but even THEN while i had an idea that made me neurodivergent whenever i came across online neurotypical/atypical discourse i was always like : ugh society is so shit @ neurodivergents those "other people" i never identified. i was the ally

but with increasing neurodivergent discourse around me i was like wait am i?? isn't this me?? then only when i googled & saw like yes people with adhd are neurodivergent i was like OMG seeing it for sure when i had the question & was ready to hear it i guess it clicked.

it totally changed my perspective again? bc it's not some "disorder" but my brain is just different? the way we run things, organize society & life is not suited to how my brain works, how i think, learn, process info etc again it's not me, it's basically neurotypical society.

yes aspects of it are legit not good lol i know but just living with these difficulties that limit me would be easier if we organized society differently? so this perspective shift & yestrdy being reminded of my nvld diagnosis made me more open to nvld & learning about it

this thread was supposed to be about working through NVLD but I tweeted so much about ADHD lool ill get to NVLD later, bye for now