Advocating For Yourself and Everyone Else

I’ve been wearing hearing aids since I was two and a half. I am now twenty five, closing in on twenty six. Never have I heard any complaints or attitudes about my hearing – until two days ago.

More specifically, this person said, “People with disabilities are the biggest assholes.” He didn’t say it to me. Rather, he said it to a friend of mine, who immediately got upset and has retained this information for months without telling me because it upset him so much and he didn’t want to hurt me. The individual said it in reference to my asking coworkers to help customers I couldn’t understand – whether it was because of an accent, a mustache, or a poorly enunciated mouth. His perception? I was shirking responsibility.

I knew my coworkers regularly talked about me, but I could never understand why. I do my best to stay out of their gossip, focus on engaging with customers, doing what is asked of me, and am one of the few consistent performers who regularly exceeds company goals. There was only one thing that I could think of – but it had never been an issue before, so why would it be one now?

If ever I wanted more reasons why this job is a bad fit for me, I need look no further than my daily interactions.

The thing that surprises me is that most kids experience a childhood where they get made fun of, where they fear someone, where they are once upon a time the subject of some ridicule and criticism. The most I ever experienced was not being part of the group, or the clique. And it never bothered me because I always had something else to strive for, to do, to be. Not once have I ever heard anything in regards to my hearing.

What this guy said, about people with disabilities being the biggest assholes? It doesn’t bother me. But it does make me think. Why am I an asshole for asking for help when I can’t provide a customer with the best customer service? Why am I an asshole for standing up for myself, accepting that I have limitations as much as I don’t want to acknowledge them, and doing my best to work around it? Does it make me an asshole because I advocate for myself? Would he prefer that those of us with disabilities, whether it be physical or mental, just disappear into a black hole or be sent back into institutions, unable to dictate our own lives?

The irony of the situation is the person in question? Is off to fight for America’s right to be equal, to share in the pursuit of happiness. He’s the definition of the word capitalist, of making your own opportunities. But in saying people with disabilities are the biggest assholes, which I presume is his response to us not standing in the background letting the world pass us by because we would much rather advocate for ourselves, he contradicts
everything he supposedly stands for.

I don’t typically take a stand on my hearing and how it affects my daily interaction. I never had to in the past – I still wake up and put my hearing aid on when I feel coherent enough to engage with the world. I still misunderstand things and rely on reading lips with my hearing aid doing the rest to put those sounds in context. I still ask people to repeat themselves when I need to and ask for help if I must, as much as I hate relying on others. And at the end of every day, I always take my hearing aid off at least a half hour before I go to bed to have quiet time, wind down from the world as it may be, disengage.

It doesn’t bother me that he said those things about me, because I know that I am so much more than a person with a hearing disability. What bothers me is that people like him are still out there, that they would rather us hide in the background than take our rightful places in the tapestry of life.

Because while I may be in a rut now, I won’t always be. I have more to offer, more to give. And whether or not my hearing plays a role in making me a stronger person, a more assertive and independent and ambitious person, it doesn’t matter. I am who I am. And I will never take a seat in the background and let someone else dictate who I am or who I should be.

And in all honesty? If it took twenty three years to hear my first criticism, not even of me as a person, but of my disability? I must be doing something very very right.