I’m thinking back to when I figured out what communication could be. I was already isolated and pretty much on my own. Before then, I was nothing. Well, I was not nothing, I was a little skinny thing with long wavy brown hair, lanky knobby legs speckled with bruises and scars, and big colorful eyes that saw everything, yet didn’t see anything. I was a lot of things. A punching bag. A sex toy. An amusing thing. I kept people from wallowing in boredom, but I also made them mad, sad, and happy. I existed for the benefit of others. I had no say in what happened to me. When I was left alone, I gratefully kept to myself. I believe my childhood laid the groundwork for the way I self sacrifice without a thought to what I want or would like to do. I hadn’t even stopped to dream of what I may be someday. I truly had a solid belief that I was not a “me”, but I was just a thing. An “it.” I did not crave communication because I had no concept of such a thing existing.
I did not understand that people could talk and share things. I did not understand that there was a way to tell others that I am hurting and that there were some people that would have listened if I had been persistent enough. I did not understand that people could make each other laugh and cry with just words. I would watch others move their mouths and seeing the other’s facial expression twist in pain, in my mind they somehow shot invisible darts into the other person and when the other laughed, I believed that they somehow shot invisible tickling feather puffs into the other person’s ribs. I am trying to explain that I had absolutely no concept of words and the power they carried. I did not understand what jokes are and that kind of thing. Because I am deaf, I did not understand the reason why everyone was moving their mouths and why I am supposed to move mine too. I did not make the association of the words in books with the mouth movements until late elementary age.
When I understood that I could share my thoughts by using words, my world became much bigger and full of potential. I was excited to share my feelings. I devoured poetry and wrote my own. I greedily read short story after short story where there’s a moral and I tried to write my own moral stories to show what I have been through without actually describing anything. At that age, I finally grasped the concept that not everything is to be taken literally. I understood Aesop’s Fables. I understood the parables in the bible. I understood the allegories in poetry. It was a very exciting time of my life- when I was given the tools to explore what goes on inside my head and inside others’ heads.
How many of you deaf had the same realizations that I have?
