I have other blogs, but this one will be my discreet journal to help me through my hardships, problems, and even a broken heart. I will begin my story now.
My earliest memory… You could say that my brain made it up, but I don’t know for sure. I remember being born. Yes, I do remember being born. I recall coming out of a dark tunnel and then seeing a bright light. A woman smiled at me and held me into her arms. I still remember her face. Turned out that she was a good friend of my mom’s. Her name was Diane. She died when I was 12 due to cancer, my first experience of death.
My mom took care of me for a while. When I was about 18 months old, mom realized that I’m deaf. We were at a parade one day and I was sleeping in the stroller. A firetruck drove by blaring its siren at the highest volume. I didn’t even budge from my nap. That’s how my parents found out and they had to prepare themselves for the hardships they would experience in raising me. I was born stone deaf. I never had any bit of hearing at all. I don’t even know what sound sounds like at all even to this day.
After that, I don’t have any memories til I hit three year old. I had no idea that I am disabled. I always thought that I was normal. I watched my mom talk on the phone and I would do the same, but in childish gibberish. I was an innocent child. My mom put hearing aids on me, but they did not work at all. I couldn’t hear anything. My ears weren’t “working” at all. I always took them out because it was pointless.
One of my earliest memories… In preschool, a girl came up to me crying. I asked her what was wrong. She pointed at a boy who stole her tricycle. I didn’t like it one bit, boys being dicks even at such a young age. I stomped over to the boy and pointed at the tricycle and said “No, no!” I ended up dragging him off the tricycle and actually tried to spank him. I got in big trouble for that one and I find it funny now. After that, I was the “tough” girl who stood up for others. I stood up for myself as well. Adults didn’t seem to appreciate that.
I hit five year old. I was put in a lousy deaf program at a public elementary school. The education there was lower than the regular setting. It bothered me and I always seemed smarter than others. I rarely got in trouble. I was a good kid even though I was sneaky about it. My teacher used to do an audiology test with my class. She put a thick paper in front of her mouth and said a kid’s name. The kid had to raise her/his hand if recognized. I always sat right next to the teacher and I could slightly see her mouth behind the paper. I craned my neck few times to see what she’s saying. Remember, my hearing aids did nothing to help me, I had to rely on lipreading. I thought it was all a fun game. Thankfully, my name was really easy to lipread so I usually got my name right. I was a model student basically. I constantly went to speech therapy and audiology to improve my skills, even four times a week.
My class usually took weird field trips to fill our heads with rubbish. For example, they took us to a newspaper place. They took us to the very back where all the deaf people were working. They were working running the press and they all seemed happy about it. I wasn’t impressed, I had better dreams than to run a freaking printer. One day, a cop woman came to my class to talk about her job. I was so excited because I always wanted to be a cop. I asked her a lot of questions and she seemed pleased. When the end was nearing, I had one final question, “Can I be a cop?” Guess what she told me? “No because you’re deaf.” That absolutely broke my heart and dreams. I was only five at that time! I went home crying to my parents. They were absolutely furious. That did it for them and they started to push me to do better, to have better dreams.
My parents began to contemplate getting me a Cochlear Implant around that age. I had no idea what that was all about, but I knew that I was different from others at that age. I started noticing the facial expressions whenever I tried to speak to someone. It was all gibberish to them and they must have thought that I was retarded. I couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone who could speak. My speaking skills were crap. At least, I was insistent and tried. Maybe they thought I was a cute retarded little girl. I just wanted to hear like everyone else. I wanted to be like my parents who could talk on the phone. I was very willing to get a Cochlear Implant. I just wanted to fit in.
I got it. Intensive audiology/speech therapy for few years and then my parents decided to mainstream me in 3rd grade. I had to repeat 3rd grade because of the crappy education I received in deaf program. Eventually I moved to a new public school. I was the only deaf student there and none of the staff were experienced with someone like me. I seemed to do well though. I made plenty of friends. They were all curious about me, my implant, and my sign language. My speech improved significantly. I was becoming somewhat understandable. I had an accent though and I still do to this day, but it’s a miracle that I can even speak. It takes just few weeks to get used to my accent. If someone asks about my accent, I just say “Oh, I’m from Sweden!” And they always fall for it.
I continued my life journey through elementary school, middle school, and high school being a typical teenager. I graduated from high school with a good GPA and got into a college. I have accomplished a lot of which I will list eventually.
Break time for me. I’ll explain more later about my life.
