Something leora said prompted this.

[conuly]

I have problems. Seriously, I do.

But I don't ever like mentioning them, ever, because I always feel like I'm whining or exaggerating.

Take the idea of faceblindess. I don't think I'm faceblind. I don't consider myself faceblind. And yet, there's a number of incidents which only make sense if I say I'm faceblind. Most notoriously, there's the time I was about to tell a man with a cute baby "my niece has that same outfit" when I realized that it *was* my niece and brother-in-law, but trust me when I say this incident is not alone in my memory.

Or there's my hearing. I have very good hearing. My hearing is probably better than yours. I can hear the train doors close from several blocks away. But I can't be in a crowded room and follow a conversation. I never used to mention this to people, and just sat through "group work" where I either did nothing or did everything because it was easier than trying to listen to people talking. I still don't like mentioning it to people, because it's just "Well, my hearing isn't bad, exactly, but it's hard for me sometimes, but not all the time, and... um...."

Riiiiight.

Well, this has been my melodramatic post for the day. Djusk' a!

Comments

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Huh. I do some of that. I have to deliberately concentrate on individual, physical features to be able to tell people apart -- I won't confuse, say, a tall black man with a small Asian woman, but I have a hell of a time telling who's who when presented with two blond women I both know, or similar situations. I sometimes can't pick my sister out of a crowd, and I spent my childhood running up to various women, having mistaken them for my mother.

I was terrified of loud noises as a child -- still get panic attacks from them, but I think I've gone somewhat deaf, so the problem's taken care of itself to some extent. I can hear a great many things that people miss, but I spend a lot of time going "Huh?" when people talk to me, because I often can't make out words that are being said, especially when there are other sounds around. I can hear the voices just fine, but telling what they're saying takes concentration.

I always just thought it was me being weird. Nice to know that other people do the same thing.

Now that I type that, it sounds kind of rude, like I'm happy that you have those problems. That's not what I mean. Yanno.

[leora.livejournal.com]

These are all processing disorders. The sensory input is fine, the processing is a little shakier. Everyone is somewhere on a spectrum for how well they process different things. I'm probably just slightly faceblind, not enough for it to have been an issue before I went blind. But every now and then I completely didn't recognize someone. And I was always afraid about meeting people at airports, train stations, etc. because I was never sure whether I'd recognize the person. I also didn't make many friends throughtout most of grade school, in part because I could never tell who anyone was.

But I can consistently recognize people I deal with daily (a bit lesso now with blindness, but that is a different issue).

The auditory issues sound a lot like Central Auditory Processing Disorder, which you can learn more about at capd. I'm fairly sure I have that, and apparently was unconsciously using lip reading to increase my understanding. Since becoming blind, one of the hardest things was realizing I couldn't understand what people were saying nearly as well as I used to. It was really the deafness that was the more frustrating part of blindness.

But again, I only have mild CAPD. It causes a handful of problems, but not nearly as many as it can for some people.

Anyway, processing disorders aren't unusual. They're just poorly understood. And the terms aren't in the general public's awareness enough for someone to be able to just say, "I'm faceblind." and people to go, "oh, okay. I'll keep that in mind." People have enough trouble knowing how to help people with very clear disabilities like blindness, being in a wheelchair, etc. that as soon as you get to something tricky like faceblindness, fatigue, social anxiety, etc. they just become totally lost.

Ahwell... I'll keep dreaming of a world willing and able to help accomodate such things.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Wow.

This page here: http://pcs.mgh.harvard.edu/heal_lang_art3.htm The section labelled "What are some characteristics of processing disorders?"?

Me.

Not all of it. I did exceptionally well in school: my problems with academics came from being too good at them while being completely incompetent with any kind of social interaction. I'm high-I.Q.; the tests say "genius," albeit the low end of that scale, but see Rahaeli's recent rant on that subject for what is basically my opinion phrased more eloquently than I could ever put it. I've never had problems with reading and am a thoroughly average speller, and when I put my mind to it I have a fairly elegant writing style, too. I'm very prone to daydreams when I'm trying to listen to instructions or lectures, but I can't say how much of that is a problem with processing and how much is a problem with becoming bored and irritable being told things too slowly. I get very, very cranky when I have to learn something with people who pick up more slowly than I do, and I'm a complete arrogant ass if I don't wander off.

I had problems with fine motor control as a child and had to have several years of speech therapy to slow my speech down, unslur my words, and teach me to say sounds that I just couldn't produce without a lot of practice. (Mostly I tolerated the lessons because the instructors had some really cool word games that I could play on paper or the computer, and while I think the idea was that I'd be speaking the words aloud while I played, I really ended up just sitting there and going through them with enjoyment for the written exercises.) I'm still not very good at speaking. I have to stop frequently and sort out my syllables, and I go too fast when I'm not paying attention. I loathe and fear phones.

The problem with this is that I'm prone to diagnose myself with all kinds of whacked-out things if I see a list of symptoms and pick up some similarities to myself, so I have no way of telling if this is sounding right because it's right or if it's sounding right because it's what's on my mind at the moment.

[leora.livejournal.com]

It is hard to say. I'd much rather have a formal diagnosis of CAPD. But I just fit it so well. I always had problems understanding speech, but my hearing always tested out as fine. I did well in school, except I got totally lost in Spanish when it became full-immersion. The teacher stopped writing the assignments on the board and just told us, and I had enough problem getting that information spoken in English.

I've always had to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times. And have the little personal rule of I have someone repeat something twice, if I still don't get it, I smile and nod. But I've gotten much better results since I've taught people to repeat what they have to say, but with more spacing between their words. I also can often sort something out, now that I specifically replay the sounds and think about how I can move the sound breaks to try to come up with alternate meanings. That and the massive increase of hearing problems when I went blind just seem to really fit a picture of CAPD.

I do know the dangers of self-diagnosis... I majored in psychology and they give you really big warnings about it. It's very easy to start to think you have every problem in the book. But then, you look at something and lots of people look at it and go, wow that'd be weird to have, and you go, wow, that's been my whole life... and it just feels like a good diagnosis.

[codeman38.livejournal.com]

I'm still not very good at speaking. I have to stop frequently and sort out my syllables, and I go too fast when I'm not paying attention. I loathe and fear phones.

Yay, another telephonophobe. :) I'm surprised there are so many of us out there; I ought to create an LJ community for telephonophobia...