When did I first hear those words?
I don’t know if I was told I made one, or if I was reading a book on learning disabilities or what we now call neurodivergence and the term was used, but those words have been in my head since childhood.
Whenever NVLD is mentioned the focus tends to be on the social side of the diagnosis. The social side is not a big part of my life. My NVLD challenges are more about employment, career, and activities of daily living (activities of daily living rely heavily on visual spatial and fine motor skills).
I am a social person. I’ve readily expressed that I don’t think I could work for a job that was 100% remote (meaning 100% in my home) because I would get depressed from being away from people for that much of my life (40 hours at home can become much more when you have no reason to leave that house after work). I am not a blunt person. I am skilled at understanding other people’s perspectives. I have consistently been able to be professional and considered appropriate. I often can tell when what someone says does not match up with the truth. I can get along with most people, and I have never worried about any type of social issue effecting my employment. The social side is not the major factor for me.
But even considering the fact that I don’t seem to struggle with a lot of the social side of NVLD I have a long history of fearing making social errors. When I have a rough interaction with someone, or can feel tension with someone I tend to believe that the issue was my fault, that I made a social error.
I don’t know why.
I don’t have memories of making a lot of social errors growing up, but did I?
I remember in high school saying once that I thought maybe whatever led to my social anxiety disorder was part of my learning disability, and I was told it wasn’t, that I had no problem with people and it was always just shyness. I expressed being worried if I stopped controlling my personality, stopped being “shy,” I would dominate conversations, and people actually laughed at me and said I could never do that.
Shortly after my full NVLD diagnosis when I was 28 I started voicing my concerns about making social errors. I had people tell me I was reading to much into the diagnosis. They thought I had started to assume I had challenges I didn’t actually have.
I had asked to be referred to a therapist or life coach who understood whatever I was about to be diagnosed with. The one the neuropsychologist referred me to was a therapist who was changing her practice over to life coaching. She was shocked by how “mild” my NVLD was when I came to her office. But it’s not mild. NVLD is not just the social side, and my NVLD has created a lot of disability in my life, especially at that time in my 20s because of the other ways NVLD effects your life. Plus, the social side for me is subtle. But that doesn’t mean it does not exist.
But do I make social errors? And if not, why do I have a fear of making them? I only started talking about it after my diagnosis, but I had assumed any imperfect experience I had with others was a social faux pas on my part for a long time.
I had been taught by my career advisor in college to network for career development. She was the first person to teach me a majority of people get work through networking over just filling out job applications. I really enjoy networking, meeting new people, learning about jobs, and making connections for my career. I excelled at networking and was considered very good at it by my college career advisor (and used those skills later on as a newspaper reporter and an evidence based supported employment specialist).
After losing my job in the recession I was working with my local vocational rehabilitation program and my employment counselor told me he thought the “only” way I would have career success was to be self employed. His thinking was if I was self employed I would not be dependent on the way the employer was willing to train me or the challenges that can arise when a new supervisor comes along who values different skills than I posses.
Plus, I will say, I liked the idea of being self employed. I found entrepreneurism to be fascinating. I love stories of passionate excited people who had an idea and made it happen. I have an interest in the movers and shakers of society, and entrepreneurs are a big part of that. I wanted to be someone who was actively the change I wanted to see in the world. In college I had interned at a children’s magazine and at that time in my life that was one of my most successful work experiences and the one I had enjoyed the most. Plus, I had most recently worked as a newspaper reporter. Perhaps starting a publication was the career direction I should pursue.
I wanted to learn about starting a a children’s magazine similar to the ones I grew up with and the one I had interned with but also a local magazine, like my experience being a small town newspaper reporter. My college career advisor had taught me the best way to learn about industries I want to enter, especially considering my talents, was to set up informational interviews with people already in the industry. I reached out to the local magazine publishers to learn more about breaking out in the industry in the region, and I included some examples of questions I would be asking to show I was educated in publishing and was serious about learning more.
I only remember hearing back from one local magazine publisher. I am not sure if I heard back from only one, or if I cannot remember the others because this one reaction stopped me from trying again. The email said I was asking for inappropriate information, and the email showed a lot of negative emotions towards me. It has been over a decade but it was clear the publisher was upset with me. I was so ashamed and humiliated that I had made such a terrible social error. I was convinced any normal person would not have reached out to her and asked for an informational interview to learn about breaking into local publishing. I remember feeling embarrassed and humiliated for a few days after that interaction. Years later I was still embarrassed that I was so inappropriate.
Nearly a decade later I was talking to a therapist about how I tend to assume the issue is me and therefore I have to make all the changes whenever I have a challenge with another person. I gave some examples, a time a close friend had ghosted me, the reaction I received when I let another friend know they had hurt me, the fact that I couldn’t put my finger on why a former coworker and I seemed to have tension between us even though it seemed like we could have been friends, and, finally, the reaction by this publisher. I was convinced I was at fault for all these interactions.
As we went through each situation my therapist pointed out that it did not appear I was making social errors as much as I was just human and all of these other people were human. There was no “wrong” person in these interactions. I was not being inept. Then we got to the issue with the publisher.
My therapist said it sounded like the publisher was the one who was reacting in an inappropriate manner. I stated this was a well respected person in local publishing at that time, and my therapist reminded me that having a position of prestige or power, or even simply being known for being intelligent, does not mean someone will not act in an explosive or inappropriate way. I did not have to hold the shame of that interaction anymore. I could look back on it and realize I did not elicit that reaction and accept that it happened and move on.
The more I learn and grow the more I feel I don’t make “social errors.” Like everyone else, I am not always the victim in every disagreement, I am just a normal participant. People have disagreements, some people do not click. It is not all on me. Or them. It just is.
I am still not sure when I first heard the term social errors and began to feel I was frequently making them. I feel we need to be cautious when teaching children that they are more likely to be the one at fault in challenging interactions. No one can read minds, and the neurodivergent child who is taught they are usually in the wrong will have trouble standing up for themselves. That’s not to say that many neurodivergent individuals will not struggle with certain social cues that are used by the majority, or may interact in ways that the majority interpret to mean certain hurtful things. Challenges in social situations are a valid and real experience. But when we teach young people that when they get in an argument, disagreement, feel tension with someone, or are mistreated by someone in power that the onus of the troubling interaction is that they make social errors we can set up these young people for harmful situations. We can also harm their self worth and ability to assert heathy boundaries.
My thought is we deal with these things in a very specific way, understanding that the neurodivergent person also has needs, a side, and a right to respect their experience in the interaction or the difficult relationship as well. We can learn to respect other people’s experiences while also validating our own.
Plus, let’s not assume the neurodivergent person even made, or even has more of a tendency to make, social errors. I wonder if maybe I never particularly had challenges with making social errors growing up, but because I was given a learning disability diagnosis I was put into a lot of spaces with adults who knew I was neurodivergent but did not read my testing paperwork made assumptions of what my challenges were. Perhaps they assumed when I reached out for help in assertiveness I must be he one at fault.
Writing Errors: This blog may have typos or errors from time to time. To keep to the goal of being honest and open with the way her LDs expresses in her life, the author has chosen to not have others proofread and chooses to leave in errors she was not able to pick up on herself at time of publishing.
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