Discovering the differences (Sketch: Line the noses up)

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Last year a 21 yr old boy I know told me that they had told him in school that he might be dyslectic. A few days later he told that he had changed after the death of a friend of his.
Dyslexia is a learning disability that courses people to make strange spelling mistakes. It can be a pain when you’re in school or trying to get a job, but in social situations it shouldn’t be a problem so I didn’t understand why he told me.

The story of his friend had something urgent. It seemed very important for him to talk about it only he didn’t say very much about it. Only when I asked he told me that is friend died about eight years ago but apart from that he didn’t want to talk about it.

So why did he tell me?

Line the noses up

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In the mean time I was reading about dyslexia. It seems that making a lot of mistake with writing isn’t the only problem with dyslexia. Some dyslextics also have the problem that there though proces is much more visual then is the case with other people.

Thinking visual? At first I thought that the must mean that those people have a bunch of snapshots of things in there head. But as I read on it dawned on me that they meant that these people have a three dimensional color picture of the world in there head.

I have a three dimensional color picture of the world in my head.

It seemed that thinking in picture brought on all sorts of strange problems. I have all sorts of strange problems.

Could I be dyslectic? In may 2006 I did a none official test that I had found on the internet. It told me that it was quite possible that I had a middle form of dyslexia but that I should get conformation from a psychologist.

I followed the advise and was told that I wasn’t dyslectic but that I’m autistic.
Photographic memory is a symptom of autisme. Thinking visual is also a symptom of autisme. There are a whole lot of other strange symptoms.

I don’t yet know what to make of it. I’ve known my whole life that I was different then other people, I just didn’t know what the difference was. Now I do. Being different is something I’ve always appreciated. But it can be a lot of work to figure out what all those “neuro typical” people around me are doing.

Like Data says in one of the Star Trek Generation shows “Sometimes it would be nice to have a gut feeling to confirm what you are thinking.” Is he making a joke or is he actually being mean?

Tagged as: Autism, b&w, discovery, dyslexia, Pencil, portrait, Study