I Need Accessibility, Not A Cure
It’s not being disabled that sucks, it’s living in a world that isn’t built for us
I failed the first test I took. I was going on five years old, and about to enter kindergarten.
The doctor’s office was cold and sterile, that I remember well. A nice lady beckoned me into a cushioned room with stuffed animals.
Large headphones were placed on my head before the doctor started speaking into the microphone. I could see his lips moving through the window, and buttons being pushed, but only a few sounds reached my ears.
Sometime later, my mother brought me back to get my hearing aids fitted. She chose the color: neutral, so as not to draw attention to the foreign machinery looped around my ears.
From then on, outside of medical appointments, my family only brought up my hearing aids with a pregnant ellipse of shame before it.
My grade school peers suffered no such embarrassment in calling out my alien attachments. “What ARE those things??” was the first question asked, never followed up by asking my name.
On the other hand, the teachers played the same pretending game as all the other adults in my life. My hearing aids, and by consequence, my Deafness, was the Thing That Shall Not Be…
