Karasch 1

Michael Karasch
Learning Strategies
The Story of My Life
My story starts on a school night in late December. I was about ten and my parents had
noticed something in me that caused them concern. I, of course, was oblivious to their concern.
My parents took me to see several doctors and they asked me lots of questions and made me
do a lot of silly things. I was exhausted by the exams and wanted nothing more with their
questions. Then one night my parents came into my room and sat down on my bed.
Michael My mother began.
Yes, mom I was in the middle of an important project.
We need to talk. My fathers voice had a tone that I had never heard before. Those
words carried a weight that to this very day I will never forget. They both looked at each other
and then at me. My father sat with a packet of papers clutched in both hands. He was usually
the one who did all the talking. My mother sat with her arms in her lap and her expression was
very somber.
Michael, there is something that we have to tell you. My mind reeled. Those words, in
that order, had never meant that they had good news. In the past, it meant one of two things.
One, your aunt is dead. Two, we are moving to a foreign country and you have to leave your
friends. I never saw it coming. There was no way in the world I could be prepared for the words
that came next.

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You have ADD.
At first, I was scared. Words failed me. For a long moment I stared at my parents. Their
eyes looked back into mine beseeching. I could tell that they were as scared as I was. Then I
found my voice again.
You mean Im sick? My voice was soft and quiet. I spoke the words as if they were a
great secret that nobody else knew about.
No, honey, my moms voice was calm and soothing, then she paused a moment and I
panicked. Your brain is sick. My mom was always very blunt and to the point. My brain? What
in the world was that supposed to mean? Instinctively my hands went to my head. My mom
reached out and took my hands in hers. It is not something you can feel. Those words scared
me even more that the last. I was confused. My panic must have showed on my face because
my father exchanged a look with my mother that said in no uncertain terms, I told you this
would happen. Then my father took my arm and looked me in the eye. You are not stupid
Michael, his words were heavy, you are just different and we still love you.
I leapt up and rushed into the bathroom. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror and my
reflection looked back at me. The face in the mirror was normal. I did not look sick and I did not
feel sick. I wanted to scream. I did not understand what was wrong with me. I knew that my
parents loved me and would always love me. I felt that I was being shown my other half. I did
not like what I saw. I realized something then and there. I was the master of my fate and I was
going to choose who I was going to become. I am going to live with my new and unwelcome
reality.

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My reality is twofold. First is my ADD and that is what was diagnosed first. I was first
diagnosed in the third grade and then I began to notice patterns in my behavior. I was slower
than the rest of my class mates. I was also more prone to be distracted when a butterfly landed
on the windowsill or a fellow student whispered something to his neighbor. I was not stupid; I
understood what the teacher was saying, but the material flew by so fast that I was hard
pressed to keep up. My second reality, when I discovered it less than a year ago, is nonverbal
learning disorder or NVLD. It is a far more complex disorder that has many more obvious
symptoms. For example, a common symptom of a person with NVLD would be that persons
lack of or underdeveloped ability to read facial expressions. I am not that kind of person. It
would seem to be misunderstood as autism. I am affected in the verbal category. In other
words I have trouble explaining things out loud. I resort to images when they are available or
trying, sometimes in vain, to supplant an image into someones mind. It is a common trait of
the NVLD person to be irresponsible and impulsive which I have trouble with. I find myself
unable to remember long strings of data points or long sequences of events presented
together.
Let me share with you the story of how I came to be here writing this paper. I was a
normal baby. I walked at ten months and was talking four months later. Once I learned the
power of speech, it was like a dam had broken. Words gushed constantly from my mouth.
Maybe an exaggeration, but nevertheless I was a very vocal baby. One story that my mother
described was when I was about two years old. We were on the way to a doctors appointment.
I was in the back seat and my mother was in the front seat. We were by Kenwood and Lake
when I said something my mother would never forget. I said I dont like that Slobodan

Karasch 4
Milosevic. My mother nearly got into an accident. She turned around and looked at me. What
was that honey? her voice was shaky. I just dont like that Slobodan Milosevic, I just dont like
him. My mother recalls that I pronounced the name of the Serbian dictator perfectly. My
mother recalls that I was always a vocal child. I listened to my parents and the radio. My
parents loved to listen to talk radio. NPR dominated my early years. It may have been where I
first heard of the Slobodan Milosevic. In my early years, the signs of ADD were not very
prevalent; in fact it was not until K4 that my parents got a wake-up call. My parents went to
parent teacher conferences with the expectation that their son, me, was a star student. I had
never shown them any reason to think any other way. My parents arrived at the classroom and
sat down with my teacher. After the pleasantries, the discussion moved to behavior. My
parents asked how I was doing. My teacher Mrs. Rutherford did not have the answer they were
expecting. She told my parents that I was a slow kid. She said that I was always the last one to
get in line. My teacher would have to repeat instructions multiple times before I got the
message. My parents were, of course, astounded, but they did not rush to the psychologist
right away.
It was not until first grade that my parents finally took me to get tested. They had begun
to notice that besides being slow and inattentive, I was having a lot of trouble reading. The first
testing was fun but after a while I began to get sick of it. There were so many doctors and
therapists that I felt ready to blow up. One appointment that I remember was in late December
of my third grade. I had gone through testing in the U.S, but we had moved to Belgium because
my parents thought it was a great idea to get jobs at the International School of Brussels, ISB.
Unfortunately, my first teacher was the worst thing that could have happened. She was strict

Karasch 5
and not very understanding. For a new kid and having trouble reading, I was always behind. My
parents took me to a behavioral optometrist. I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit DisorderInattentive type. I was given Ritalin and that helped. I was put in a writers workshop group to
improve my writing skills. At that time I was a terrible writer. It was unfortunate because it
prevented me from learning French. For the two years I was in Belgium, I made it through this
way. Then I came back to the United States and I was in for a big surprise.
Middle school; again, I was taken off guard. I had something different this time though. I
had a place I could go to get help - real help - academic help. It was amazing the difference it
made. My grades began to improve. For the most part I tried to forget that I had a learning
disability. Now I do not want you running away with the idea that I was over my disability.
Nothing would be further from the truth. I needed the help as much as I needed the medicine.
It was difficult at the very beginning. Things began to improve. My grades went up and I made
friends. Math was always a challenge though. Every night I would slave over my math
homework, it was very frustrating. My mother, bless her soul, helped me at the kitchen table.
There were a few episodes where she lost her patience with me. As the years progressed, I
became better. Every year my grades improved. I became involved in the band playing the
trombone. Then my parents, at the request of my band teacher, found a private teacher. The
help I received became better too. In the eighth grade it was one class period a day. We would
look over the daily schedule and review what needed to be done that night. It was very helpful.
Eventually it came time to choose where I was going to high school. The choice was clear. I was
going to Marquette university high school. My parents were scared for me because MUHS had

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no support program. When I was accepted, I was so happy. My dad worked at MUHS so I
would be getting a private education for free.
High school was made much easier when I learned that I was going to be getting help,
but it was not much, to be honest. It was really one guy sitting in a chair making sure we did our
work and had everything in order. Despite the simplicity of the help, I managed my best GPA
that year: a 2.9. After that, I was on my own. The only help I got was a math tutor. She was very
kind and helped me tremendously.
Marquette high was the place that helped me the most. I was the master of myself.
Nobody was going to hold my hand and carry me along. It was my time. This more than
anything made me who I am today. At MUHS I was a normal guy. People did not treat me as an
outsider at all, even though my disability was not common knowledge. I was determined to be
the best student and not let my disability affect me. It was a challenge and I worked hard to get
where I am today.
During my junior year my parents and I took a trip to a school I had never heard of, but
my father said that it was a great school and it had a great support program. It was Loras
College. I set foot on the campus and there was no feeling of elation I liked the campus but it
was November and the campus was deserted. Life went on and I looked at other schools. I had
ideas and my parents had ideas. There were certain schools that were top on my list. The first
was St. Norbert. My uncle had gone there and my father new that it was a good school,
however it was a private school and very expensive. My parents were looking a little lower, in
price not quality. My parents wanted me to look at UW Whitewater. The place that I really

Karasch 7
wanted to go was UW Stevens Point. They had the best environmental program in the Midwest.
I was keen on becoming a DNR warden or some similar profession. I applied to other schools
and was accepted to all except UW Stevens Point. I was devastated. I was torn. I knew that I
would do whatever it took not to go to UW Whitewater. I was very keen on this point. My
parents told me that I had to have a 3.0 at the end of my last semester of senior year in order to
go where I wanted. Otherwise, it was off to Whitewater. I worked very hard and managed to
get better than a 3.0 for a while but then my grades dipped and I was looking seriously at UW
Whitewater. Then just before spring break I went and shadowed at St. Norbert. I loved it there.
I was very happy and when my dad came to pick me up I was set on going there.
Then on the car trip to Bismarck I had an epiphany of sorts. We stopped at a hotel for
the night somewhere along the way. I was unable to sleep. I kept thinking about what made me
choose St. Norbert. I could not shake the idea that I was giving the answer that my parents
wanted to hear. I kept weighing the schools I had on my plate. Loras was not initially on the list.
I had sent it to the far corner of my brain. I even remember telling my mom, not long before
spring break, that Loras was a non-option. One thing to remember though is that throughout all
of this I was still in school, still dealing with my disability. On that note, I was diagnosed with
nonverbal learning disorder in the last semester of my senior year of high school. It was thanks
to Loras that I got diagnosed. The school needed updated tests on my disability for their
records. So I went to the nearest testing center at Marquette U. and there I went through more
tests. It was not a new experience in the sense that I had undergone testing before. It was
different in that it opened my eyes to a new disability. I am still trying to understand what
nonverbal learning disorder is.

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Some of my strengths over the years have been my patience and my ability to maintain
calm in the face of great stress. I have always been told that there was something wrong with
me. I have never really seen any truth in that statement. I am musician and have discovered
that I love to write. I was given something that not many of my peers can best; the chance to
rise above my disability and become my own person. I have always tried to act as if my
disability is nothing. I dont share with many people that I have ADD and even less that I have
nonverbal learning disorder. I find that it is in not recognizing my disability that I am able to
overcome it. Having a positive attitude has always been something that I admire in others. I am
a very positive person who happens to have a secret. I tell the proper authorities the truth and
they are able to help me out. My parents have always stood at my back, supporting me.
They, my parents, have made great sacrifices so that I can have the best life possible. I
have made it difficult for them at times and I will never stop loving them for enduring me. The
extended family may or may not know about my learning disability. The subject never comes
up. As far as my friends, I tell them that I have ADD and that is the end of the discussion. They
do not make fun of me for it. One of my best friends from my childhood has OCD and ADD. We
were tied together by that common bond.
At present we are still in contact and she is doing well in college. I am also doing well in
college. I have had to struggle with many things since I came to Loras. I was an irresponsible
person who never cleaned his room. I was a very good at hiding my illicit actions from my
parents. In college, however, I am unable to keep up said illicit activities because they interfere
with my studies. I am not talking about drugs. I am talking about video games. Video games are

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the, were the bane of my existence. I was always playing for hours just before I sat down and
did my homework. It was bad because it made me fail to do the work that was less important,
reading and studying, and focus on the short term stuff like math homework and worksheets. I
have recently moved on from that and I am a better man for it. I have chosen a major that I
love, creative writing English, and plan to write a New York Times best seller; a lofty goal, but
nonetheless attainable. I have discovered that I love to write. I never used to be a good writer
until the second last semester of my senior year of high school. I took a creative writing class
and my teacher told me that I write action well. I was inspired. For the final story, it was
supposed to be a short story, I wrote a chapter. I saw this as a sign that I am going places. I
believe that in order to overcome a disability we must act like we dont have it. We have to live
our lives as if it does not exist. I know that this is clich, but it is no less true: attitude is
everything. If we let our disabilities take over our lives then they become the masters and we
the subjects, it is not to be.