Auditory Processing Stuff

This morning on Twitter I've been talking about what its like to have an auditory processing disorder. I wanted to saving my explanation somewhere more permanent and findable. Also I though people who missed it there might like to read it here.

I started by taking about the book I'm reading now. (Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade)

I'm reading a book where one view point character is dyslexic and it's making me sad about how little rep of learning disabilities there is and how I'm never going to read about a character with an auditory processing disorder like mine.

Other things that are true of me and many people I know but I've never seen be true of a fictional character with a learning disability: I have been an avid reader form a very young age. I had trouble learning to read but once I learned I read everything. Also I am academically successful with too many degrees

It's not that I think this book is doing it wrong! It's just that there's very little rep and a wide diversity of experiences

Then people asked me to write a bit more about how I experience my auditory processing difficulties. So I did a thread:

People have asked me to talk more about my experience having an auditory processing disorder. So a thread! Feel free to ask questions at any point.

Some background: When had trouble learning to read at age six or so my mom took me to get tested. So I was diagnosed with a learning disablity fairly early. Though not with specifically auditory processing disorder until I was 16. Anyway because this stuff was framed as a learning disabity, I didn't really start to notice how it affects my life outside of academics until I was in my 20s.

It terms of academics I struggle with phonetics -- my spelling and grammar are bad. I can't listen to a lecture and take notes, if I pay enough attention to the notes to write them I don't have enough left over for the lecture. I have very good memory of facts as basically a coping strategy for this. (I've had note taking services too, but I honestly didn't find them super helpful)

n terms of listening to stuff I'm generally ok if there's only one thing to listen to, situations with multiple conversations in the same room are hard, as is a lot of background noise. For lectures or like convention panels I need to sit near the front. Back when restaurants where I think I would always try to sit with my back to the wall to reduce noise behind me.

I'm very unmusical because I have trouble "getting music" and also because I don't like any kind of extra background noise