Trapped!

I am 13 years old and have a mild form of NLD. Until this year, I had been dealing with it well. Yes it made some things like math hard, but as for the other things, it didn’t bother me at all.

But all of a sudden this year when I returned to my school, I suddenly found out what my parents and teachers mean when they always say I have trouble working out what people were really feeling, or as they put it “correctly interpreting people’s emotions.” The other day, my favorite teacher, who is also my advisor, laughed at something I told her. I freaked out and was in tears all day because I thought she was laughing at me.

In fact, it wasn’t at me at all. She was laughing at herself. It had nothing to do with me at all. When my friends make eye contact with me, I shy away and ask why they are glaring at me. I never make eye contact with anyone because whatever I see in their face I will not understand.

I feel as if I am trapped in a world that doesn’t make sense, and in a world where very few understand me. The only two people I can really talk to are my teacher, Mary, and my best friend Carol who also has NLD. No one else understands! And I don’t understand either!