During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Chris Rock revealed that he was recently diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder, or NVLD. Rock explained that he underwent cognitive testing after a friend suggested that he may have Asperger's.
Through the testing, it was revealed that Rock has tremendous difficulty with nonverbal signals, which he admits leads him to take things too seriously or have an all-or-nothing way of thinking. Rock explained, "By the way, all of those things are really great for writing jokes — they’re just not great for one-on-one relationships."
He added, "And I’d always just chalked it up to being famous. Any time someone would respond to me in a negative way, I’d think, 'Whatever, they’re responding to something that has to do with who they think I am.' Now, I’m realizing it was me. A lot of it was me."
Rock went on to speak about going to therapy seven hours a week and working on the childhood trauma he experienced from being tormented as the only Black kid in a school full of white kids. He explained, "I thought I was actually dealing with it, and the reality is I never dealt with it. The reality was the pain and the fear that that brought me, I was experiencing it every day."
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
