A recent conversation with a friend made me think about what I have lost in my life, and inadvertently what I have gained... not possessions or money, but experiences... the experiences that I have both lost and gained by being raised Orally, and the impact that has had in my life. As a child and as a teen, I was never given the opportunity to be around others like me, others who couldn’t hear, let alone understand the sounds coming out of peoples mouths without straining to see what was being said... I lost that experience with people who truly understood what it was like to be me. I lost the experience to become truly fluent in a language, in a culture... it is coming to me now, as I immerse myself in My Deaf Culture, but I was always the odd ball out growing up... Yes I can speak, yes I can lipread, yes I can write (sometimes even eloquently) , but I was never given the chance to become fluent. I can not speak or understand with ease in English... even when writing, I make many mistakes, it takes effort, and I am always second guessing myself. When I sign, things are easier... even though I was denied that language growing up... but I do not try to fool myself or anyone around me... I am not a fluent signer... one day I hope to be, but as of right now, I am not.
I lost the ability to truly connect with people around me on a deep emotional level... I can look into someones eyes and see some of what they are feeling, but I could not, especially as a child, express my feelings, or understand how others were feeling... not because I didn’t want to, in fact, I wanted to badly, but I couldn’t... I didn’t understand, I couldn’t connect, I really couldn’t communicate, in the purest sense of the word. I am learning to now... but those years before... I couldn’t. The one way I had found as a teen to feel like I was “connecting” to someone else, was promiscuity. That caused many issues in my life... but that is one experience i have “gained” that of being called a slut... and of knowing it was true. I felt people only liked me if I were to “give” them something, and humans are pack animals... we need to feel liked, we need to feel as if we belong... and this was the only way I knew... when I was, honestly, being a slut... I was not the weird deaf girl, I was not the girl who couldn’t pronounce words, or who said what too many times... I was just a girl... who someone “cared” enough about to have sex with... and there... I went very wrong.
I hated myself, I was afraid of myself, I hated my deafness... and so much more about me, and what I had to do every day just to get by. I plastered a smile on my face, I always said yes to everything, but all I wanted to do every day, was to be out of this hell I called my life. I wanted to be done with speech therapy, I wanted to be done hating myself, I wanted to be this picture perfect person that my parents, and I, thought I should be... straight A student (I was close), hearing, popular, etc... I wanted to be almost everything I wasn’t... when I wasn’t day dreaming about this other person, the person who I thought should exist... but didn’t... I was contemplating the ways I could kill myself, to get me out of this hell that was my existence... I tried... and it was how I knew I was alive... because I could feel myself getting so close to death... then come back... only then did I know I was actually alive. To keep the feeling of being alive, I started to cut... because there was physical proof of my being alive... I could see the blood dripping from my wrists... from my legs, from my stomach... I could feel the pain of the razor, or what ever sharp instrument was handy, cutting into my skin, reminding me that I wasn’t a shimmer of life, but actually alive.
I realize, I lost so many experiences, I really did... and most of what I “gained” experience wise was negative... the promiscuity, the speech therapy, the ostracization, the suicide attempts, the fear of being myself... how would my life have been different if I had been allowed to know ASL from the get go? To have a community of people like me? I may never know...
My life now is very different from my life growing up... change #1... most of the time... I am actually happy... the smile on my face isn’t plastered up... most of the time it is real. I have met people just like me, who were raised to try and be as hearing as possible... but in reality... we were just deaf, and who like me, wonder what life would have been like if they had the chance to have their natural language. I have met people who have had childhoods very different from mine... and none of them regret their childhoods, or wonder what they have lost from being raised with ASL...
For other deafies... What is your story? where do you lay on the path between deaf and Deaf? When did you find your Deaf identity, or have you found it yet? It took me 22 years... but I have found mine, and my home in the Deaf Community...
For parents of deaf children... which path will you take? The oral road? maybe CI or HA? So your children will be come... “hearing”? just as my parents did? or will you take the path where your child has the chance to grow up having connections with people? Where they do not have to feel they are less because of an ability they can not control?
For hearing people... what have you learned?
