Hi lovelies
First off, hello and welcome to the new people who found me through the video I made with BBCThree
‘Things Not To Say To Deaf People’
and if you haven’t seen that already I’ll add a link in the description.
Yes, those genuinely are things people have said to me or indeed say often.
In. Real. Life. Yeah
But in not so real life- is it real? Is it fake?
I don't know... the comments section of that video is king of a weird mix
between truly amazing people saying lovely things or ‘omg, this is great’
Or people who are like 'yes, this is my life'
Exactly this
and then
the same joke over and over
and over again...
'You can say anything to them, they are deaf'
and some people who just seemed a little confused
and it’s that confusion we are going to be talking about today!
A big questions seems to be
How can you be proud of having a part that is ‘wrong’?
Well...
having just been to the UK’s first Disability Pride I feel I have an answer for that.
Queue Disability Pride montage…
That's cold!
Although the Disability Pride event was part of the general Gay Pride celebratory month
Personally I really don’t like arguments that equate being gay and being disabled even tho I am both
Yes, they’re both things that are a part of you as much as your eye colour or your height.
No, you can’t change it no matter how much they isolate you from society at large.
BUT being gay (or any type of the general acronym that you find fits you)
doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you- you’re just different to the majority of people.
And if you want to come at me in the comments talk about how being gay means there's something wrong with you
and it's incredible unnatural
Be warned I did my university dissertation on the incidence of homosexual behaviour and relationships in nature so…
it’s been found in over 1500 species so… there we go.
Being disabled does, yes, mean something is wrong with you.
and is highly unlikely that you’re actually happy about that
and would not want to change to not being disabled if they could, if that was possible
I mean, I know I would
If you could wave your magic wand and take away my pain, my exhaustion
and the fact that I get absolutely ill for everything, or that I injure myself constantly
Or any or the other annoying things that come with my disability
The migraines, ohh the migraines...
I mean 100% yes sign me up, I'm there, I'm standing at the front of the que
Many deaf people don’t even consider themselves to be disabled
they’re just speaking a different language and the only thing that disables them is that other people cannot communicate with them
Also being proud to be part of deaf culture and being proud of being deaf are two completely different things.
Many deaf people, especially those born into deaf families, are Deaf with a capital D meaning they’re part of a different culture
I’m not going to go into it here but there are a variety of great video on this topic
that I’ve included links to in the description so watch those if you want to know more.
Equally there are some autistic people who I believe say they wouldn’t change
that’s because they process the world differently to others but don’t see it as a problem that needs fixing
I believe
But back to what we’re talking about…
“I highly doubt you love being deaf”
But are deaf people supposed to do?
Hate themselves? Hate their life?
Also for people who have only ever been deaf, can you really miss what they’ve never had?
Yes they would like to be able to communicate with more people but equally
I don’t think there is anyone in the world who knows every single language!
So we all have some kind of communication dificulties
Personally, I don’t have a huge amount of self pity because this is just my life, this is how i Live
I don’t know a different life and I'm incredibly proud of being a disabled person
Because to me, proud means I’m proud that you have come through, you are a survivor
It means that you have to battle trough something constantly
But you are doing it
But you are managing
That's what being proud means to me
Is talking about a strenght of character rather than saying it's excellent and you should all be the same
So yes Iam proud to be a disabled person
because that means I am proud to be a person who is still here
And how can you argue with that?