Trying to Write an Essay with NLD
We’ll discuss what it's like trying to write an essay with NLD. I was fortunate because I got help from my mom, friend Alex and brother to help me with improving my writing skills. If they hadn’t helped I wouldn’t have gotten into UC Berkeley and graduated. I also wouldn’t be the good podcast, the creative writer I am today.
I found this article, “A Life Re-Examined,” from the NVLD Project which is about an individual who has NLD and their experience with writing: “Suffice to say, law school was one of the hardest experiences of my life. By my last semester, I was placed into an extra writing course by the school. One of the writing assignments was based on a “potential client,” a parent who wanted to know whether his daughter who had an NVLD was entitled to something – I can’t recall what. As I researched the criteria for NVLD and wrote the essay, I was floored. The only thing I did not identify with was the description of writing taking twice as long for the student. I glanced at the clock and realized I had spent twice as long writing the essay than was assigned. Did I always take so long?”
I can relate to this individual even though I don’t know their name. I’ve had similar experiences with writing. When I try to write an essay it's difficult for me to get all the words out of my head onto the paper or computer screen. I can remember when it used to take me hours to just write a paragraph and I would cry because it would be so difficult for me to write that small amount. I also did that in college when it would be really difficult for me to write some my sociology essays.
Writing did become a little more fun when my mom gave me an assignment during the summer to write an essay about anything I wanted to as often as I could. They were often about making inanimate objects c I would like to share with you one of these. I always have to write several drafts to get to a perfect draft.
I remember when I was applying to college it took me from June to Thanksgiving Day to finish writing and revising my essays for college applications. Of course, I didn’t write those essays without help from my mom for countless weekends. My brother also helped me write the last one that I discovered was required last minute the day before they were all due.
I can also remember when I was in college my mom would spend countless hours with me over Facetime and Google Docs trying to help me write essays for my sociology classes. Since I was a sociology major in college every assignment I had included some form of something I had to write whether it was a paragraph or an essay.
There were many tips that my mom came up with. I'll share with you 3 of them: stairs of logic, ladybugs vs. trees, and reading out loud. My mom came up with something that we called the stairs of logic to help me know how to order sentences logically since most of the time I didn’t automatically do it that way. This not only helped the essay sound more logical it also gave more flow and sequence to it. It was also fun because then we had our inside joke if you will when we were writing essays.
Ladybugs are the details that people with NLD tend to pay more attention to and the trees represent the bigger picture that neurotypicals pay attention to. Usually, NLDers pay attention to details that tend to be pretty small and granular, not the big picture, but we can train our minds to focus more on the big picture if we want to. This was a helpful tip because it taught me to remember the big picture in my essays and the prompt when I was writing them.
My mom also taught me to read my essays out loud to make sure I wasn't missing any words because often when I would read it silently to myself my brain would fill in the missing words. I also had a graduate student instructor (i.e. GSI) named Alex, who helped me with many of my sociology papers during his office hours. He was very helpful, thoughtful, and attentive with the help he gave me. He was my favorite GSI I had at UC Berkeley. I want to thank Alex for the countless office hour sessions that we had to revise my essays.
Alex would sometimes help with commenting on the drafts I did of the essays to help improve. He helped make sure I would understand the readings so I could write the essays more easily. He was also always willing for me to record our office hours even when it was the two of us. This helped me immensely because I was able to go back over the recordings to help me study for my oral exam and essays.
I learned how to not only write better from her help but I also learned many other things: logic, determination, proofreading, and editing skills. I want to thank my mom for all those countless hours, weekends, months, and years that she helped me with writing because I wouldn’t have been able to graduate without assistance from my mom, Alex, and everyone else that went above and beyond to help me.
Whether it’s trying to learn how to write an essay better, proof-read in more efficient ways, or getting all the words out of my mind and into the essay I and others with NLD still struggle with these areas today. One thing I find helpful to use is the app called Fitbit. It automatically can tell when you’re exercising, help you keep track of your fitness goals, and remind you to walk around throughout the day. When you exercise regularly everything else in life becomes easier, especially sleeping.
In conclusion, I would like you to think about the challenges you had with writing as a NT or a ND. Also think of the ways you were able to improve because of people helping you. I know for me college felt like a 4-year nightmare but it would have been worse if my mom, Alex, and professors weren’t there to help me. It might have taken me longer to graduate without them. Thank you so much for your help for all those years.
Link for the article:
