When I Felt Disabled

I have a cousin who is deaf. I've only ever known her as deaf and when I was a younger I actually understood ASL. I've since forgot because I'm completely out of practice and only know a few signs. But this one time when she had a party at her home. I think it was around the time she got married, but my memories are blurry.

My cousin wasn't born deaf. From what I was told, it was an accident during a surgery years before I was born - tonsil removal (I'll let you figure out what happened).  Her husband, though, was born deaf as is most of his family (some are not deaf). I remember being around them and not being able to tell what they were saying. I knew ASL, but since I didn't "need" it I was a bit slow. So it was exactly like speaking a foreign language that you're not quite comfortable with yet. Some of the kids tried signing to me and it was so fast that I couldn't understand so I felt stupid. In a way my ability to speak and hear made it more difficult for me to communicate with everyone else - making it my disability.

I think the tendency to think of disability as a "death sentence" is the biggest trap. And to some people, it is a death sentence. My parents hate the idea of me riding motorcycles. They say that it would be tragic if I died, but it would be hell on Earth if I was paralyzed or deformed in anyway. Think about that. My own parents thought of a scenario where my death would be preferable to me living. 

So, I remember just thinking about this scenario. How would I live life if I was paralyzed from the waist down? I didn't imagine anything good, to be honest. I could only think of everything I'd miss out on. But that is because I wasn't born like that. A person who is born with a certain disability only knows a life with disability (so to them it just life, to a certain extent because people still treat them differently). But to people who are "able" bodied, this seems like a nightmare because they'd have to adjust all the effortless things they used to do. I would like to point out that it's still not easy to be disabled in a society where the majority favors people who are able bodied. What I'm saying is that it would be more traumatizing to people who went from being able to walk to being in wheelchair forever. Then again, many people rise to the occasion and still live full and fulfilling lives. Your attitude is a big deciding factor with what happens in these cases. 


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