Any adults out there feel like this?

Oh, you are not friendless! You got me if you want me! I like your style and yes at times i have felt the same way or somewhat similarly. You are not alone. Most don’t like to acknowledge ugly feelings. The truth is though, they are part of being a human being.

There are ways to do anything you want to do in life. To do some things requires alot of discipline. I *DID* go back to school to visit one teacher to say a not so kind kind hello how ya doing and see all my degrees? Aren’t they cooler than yours? It felt good. But, the thing about that is, one must becareful not to become the tyrant that one remembers from their childhood that once tyranized you. You must rise above that and you must be polite and friendly. And show yourself to be both socially adept as well as intellectually. You must do it too infront of their other students which is why you must be very careful of the correctness of your own behavior when you do it. Because, there is some kid in one of their classes going through exactly what you did. Showing them, it gets better it can be done, is so important. Showing them how small their teacher is once you have done it is even more important. This teacher must appear to others sooooo small to you that she barely registers and you can look back at the old days without being nasty about it. Because it doesn’t matter. It has become a non issue.

As a musician, I can tell you i have met some truly vile music teachers in my time. One that used to come in with black eyes and bad mouth her abusive husband but she would never leave him. I feel for her. That is horrible. And i understand her situation maybe better than most. All the same, there is a time and a place to air these things sometimes…. Talking to one’s students about them may not be apropriate. As a musician, one that has just arrived in Austria to continue my egyptology and to allow myself a better music education while my husband works at the technical university, i can tell you, there is 1 crucial and fundimental thing that is required for musical talent. Anyone who claims anything else, is selling something. One simply must love what one is doing when one plays their instrument. There is no sound on this earth more beautiful than the love affair of a musical instrument and a musician, no matter how uneducated they may be or half educated no matter where they are in their process of growth on their instrument. NEVER let anyone close a door for you like that! When someone slams the door in your face kick it down. Don’t you ever take that from anyone. Make it your reason if you must to continue that is *if* you love your instrument and your music or if there is something you need to express in such a fashion. Hell, come to Vienna. I will teach you to play piano myself. I am sure your playing is beautiful in every way that matters. And any musician that says otherwise is obviously missing the human depth required to be a musician.

Best of luck…
Maybe play the piano again?
Ever considered a harpsichord? I would mail you mine as i can’t relocate it to Vienna. Unfortunately my idiot father sold it soon as i left… Without asking me…. But, get a keyboard and remind yourself how much fun iit really is. Dont let others spoil things for you having LD kinda spoils enough in our lives for us to let other ppl’s bullshit spoil even more.

You want to be a professional musician? Go get it! I did.

[b]Does anyone also have problems with company parties? We have a party at our office today, but I’m in no mood to go. I hate parties. I hate socializing and the whole idea of mingling and talking. I rather be alone. But it’s sad to be alone as well. I feel so alone and I think I must have done something wrong in my past to deserve sadness. What’s a life without no friends? My grandfather also just passed away a month ago, and he was the first loved one that has died. I never attended a funeral nor been to a viewing ever. Plus a lady in our church choir died last week and her wake is tonight and her funeral tomorrow. She was only 35 and was married with a 3 year old and 6 month old girls. So life is sad especially right now with the losses. I wish I never had LD. Sometimes I wish mom got an abortion so that I wouldn’t be born and that I wouldn’t be tormented. Maybe my parents lives would be happier if I wasn’t even born. They should have had someone without LD and aspergers. A child who graduated from Harvard and is now a doctor. I’m sure parents whose children went to top colleges and are now lawyers and doctors are much happier than my parents. How I wish I was so much smarter than now. :(

Anna[/b]

Those with the roughest road to walk, those with the most difficult crap to deal with are those that leave behind a legacy of hope to others.

My grandmother died not long ago. In some ways we were very close. The last few years we were angry at eachother. But i always loved her. In the end i went and sat by her bed and sang to her. She actually woke up and cried she couldn’t talk but she knew who i was. We couldn’t hurt eachother anymore adn so, we forgave and she let go of life just under 48 hours later. I am the one most like her.She was an inspiration to me. She was the one who stood up when someone needed help or needed at all anything… The one who demanded we all take care of eachother as a human race. The one who went to college on scholarship before women went to college. The one who made affordable housing available in some areas in our city. She worked hard for many many many years to help those who needed it most. See her dead in that coffin seeing her burried was very hard on all of us. We all sang at her grave one of her favorite songs. I am sorry things are so hard for you right now.

But you aren’t alone. I live with LD right beside you every single day. And every day. I will always be right there when you need to reach out because i know the agony too. It is hard to be social in big social settings sometimes even hard in the real world. But we all need human companionship on some level. I understand. Many with LD do too. The world can be a cold and cruel place. Sounds especially cruel to you right now.

There is but one thing that life is though. You must understand this, and you must believe it. Life is what you make it. You want something go and get it. Make it happen. It doesn’t fall into your lap. But, you know that. It sux for us because to get along ina society like this one we must do twice the work someone else would have to do to get there and we have to take twice the bullsh*t. We survive though… Because we are strong. You are strong.

Your mom didn’t have an abortion, because she loved you from the moment she knew you were there till the moment you arrived and every moment afterwards. That is just what mothers do. They simply can not help it. I know, because, I am a mother in every way that matters. Except technically. My “child” did not go to an ivy league school. She did not make perfect grades. She did not become a doctor. She did not save human kind from suffering…. She went to a decent school graduated with a decent degree, and no one could be more proud of her than i am. Not even our actual mom. Every struggle your parents have faced with you, every difficulty you have with them… They love you. And nothing makes them happier than you do. Nothing ever could. Never doubt that no matter how bitter things can get. And it is very hard to be a child with LD parents don’t usually understand. It really does suck sometimes.

A wise man once said, “Whole world single flower.” It took me years to figure out he meant we are all and i mean all of us LD gay straight black white christian wiccan etc… we are all petals on that flower and that flower needs us all if it is to bloom. Though you may not feel your worth, though you may intend to be of worth in other ways, already you have a worth to society and something to teach it.

This same man once said, “we are all like those homeless people with shopping carts. We pick garbage up and junk and we fill our minds with it (our mind being the cart) We hold onto our carts full of garbage, and we defend it from others and we need it we tell ourselves for survival, but would a homeless person without a shopping cart be any less homeless?” The fact is, we carry things around with us some of us all our lives… We hold onto it we never let it go we call it truth we call it our essence we call it our identity. And far too often it only hinders our travels through this life and helps us not at all. You are not an LD. You are yourself. You are who ever you want to be. So go out and figure out who you are and what you want of your life.

It’s a tough lesson to learn, no one but one’s self is responsible for one’s own happiness. Your parent’s happiness is not your problem. Your own happiness is your problem and when you figure that piece out, the rest will begin to fall into place. As a parent, What brings me the most joy, is knowing the one i raised has found some measure of happiness in her life. I think most parents feel something similar. You can’t blame yourself if your parents are unhappy. It is not your fault. You can’t make another person feel anything. The only thing in this life and in this world you control is yourself. You can control how you feel. But that is as far as it goes. If you believe youa re tormented then you are. Because by believing you are tormenting yourself. And you deserve better than that. You owe yourself more. If you want to be a musician, if you wish to take classes towards that end i will help you find some. You just tell me your general area, if you drive take the subway bus and what instrument you wish to learn to be professional at. I will set it all up for you. I am afraid i am too broke right now to pay the bill though so that will be upto you as will showing up for class. But i will make the call all the way from where i am presently living a billion miles from home, Vienna Austria. Because, I know you can do whatever you put your heart into. And i know, you are worth it. And i know, that you have something to offer this world. Even if you can’t see it.

You say “child.” You have no children? Are you around the same age as me? Just wondering. I know someone who is a surgeon who is 30 just like me. Her dad is a dermatologist. She went to Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and now Stanford. So naturally her parents are thrilled, so happy for her. To be a woman married to a doctor, and a daughter a doctor as well, this woman has got to be the luckiest woman in the world. The father and daughter dont have to worry about money or anything. They are smart. My parents must feel so sad that I was never a doctor nor a lawyer. I don’t make much money at all. I’m just a low life. ALL of my mom’s friends have grandchildren. None of mom’s friends children have LD or autism like I do. They are all successful, living on their own, married, have children, etc. All part of being a NORMAL human. I’m just so sad.

Money is not a measure of greatness. Neither is a degree. Who one is can not be measured. Ther is simply no way. You fight the good fight every day to keep your head above water. The fact is you overcome more than anyone who has it easy. If that isn’t the measure of greatness then i can’t begin to say what is.

I am sure your family would be happy if you were a doctor. i am sure as more or less a mother myself, that they would be happier if you made your peace with yourself and if you learned to find some happiness in your own life. No one is going to find it for you. No one can. But trust me that is the greatest joy any parent can ever have. Why not ask that girl’s parents if they are happy because of her carreer, or if they are happy that she is happy. The answer is they are happy because she is happy. It takes more work for you to acheive something like success measurable by societal standards, then get up and do something that can be measured. You see you can cry your heart into the ground but it won’t make happiness or a tree grow. First, you must dig the hole, hard labor, and bury the seed.

My family was a mess. My father took pleasure in hitting me when i was a child. Not a very kind man. When i was 6 my sister cut her hand open on his watch. I got hit by a car a year before i couldn’t even walk a year later when my sister sliced herself open. he wouldn’t take her to the doctor and as great a mother as our mother was she was never home. She workded from 6 am till 10 pm. Still does. She has a damn well paying job too. So does my dad. Anyway, i ended up having to sew up her hand because he wouldn’t take my kid sister who was right around 2 to the hospital. He didn’t want to get in trouble. I took more physical abuse so that she wouldn’t have to until i finally moved out after my parent’s divorce when she was living with my mother and was safe. But, the day she was born, my mother was doing paper work 2 hours later int he bed she gave birth in. Someone had to take care of the baby. I don’t know why some people have children. Happiness doesn’t come froma piece of paper like a degree. It doesn’t come from personal acheivement. Happiness, ccomes from somewhere inside of yourself. If you can’t find it, no one can. If you want something out of your life though it is a great deal harder for us, we must get up and do what it takes go the extra distance and get it done for ourselves. Because to the rest of the world we are throw away people. We have a duty, to those who come after us. We have a duty to make their road easier than ours has been. And so, it is all the more critical that we do what we have to9 to get where we want to be so they can never dismiss one of us again as a throw away person. Because that right there will make our road and those who walk it in the future easier.

I am 28. I just got married to a man i have been with now for about 5 years. He is a PHD. He earns jelly beans working post docs all over the world but we do ok. I study egyptology and am an epigrapher. I am also a hardcore dyslexic. I couldn’t write my own first name till i was 10. Today i read ancient languages that very few people in the world can read. I am fairly fluent in 6 languages and i read and write music in normal modern music notation as well as that of the ancient greeks. But it has taken me a lifetime to get here. It has taken sooooo long and it has been a hard road to walk. There are days i am so exhausted frrom it all on occasion that i can’t even get out of bed. But nearly always i get up and i drag myself through it. And i do the extra work and the exttra extra work to get ahead with LD. I don’t let it stop me. The only thing that can mess you up is that which you allow to mess you up. Your life is in your hands. It is yours. There is nothing about yourself or your life that isn’t totally under your control to change if you so choose. If you want something badly enough. You will find a way, or you will make one. But you won’t give up till you have. You won’t allow self pity or lethargy based in depression you simply won’t let it destroy you. You can do this. Being sad, will not solve your problems. I am sorry you are sad though. But your sorrow is yours i can’t change it. But you can. So go get what you want. You are responsible for your own happiness in life, go make yourself happy. Because you can.

It’s a bit of a cold cruel world for everyone. That may be of little comfort but that is how it is. You may be more normal than you realize.

BINGO!