Deafness, Inclusivity and Me

Written by Claire

I have never had to write about my experiences of deafness before and I’m keen not to make sweeping statements about ‘all deaf or hearing-impaired people’. As with mental health, the lived experience of deafness is varied. Not every person with hearing loss wants to draw attention to it, where as some people celebrate it as a part of the person they are.

It always shocks people when I say I wasn’t born hard of hearing. I caught measles as a baby but it wasn’t until I was about 7 years old that my parents and my teachers realised I was struggling. My class teacher cried when she was told of my hearing problem – she’d been scolding me for not listening.

I had my fair share of teachers who didn’t know how to deal with it, kids that would sneer about it, and the general feeling of being ‘not like everyone else’. So, by the time I reached upper school I had started to hide it from people. It’s very easy to hide a hidden disability. I was labelled quiet and shy. No one will pick up on what I’m hiding if I don’t say anything.

This tactic doesn’t work as you get older though. You can’t be shy when you’re working in a shop, going to university or socialising. This is when I realised my refusal to wear hearing aids and tell people was really holding me back. When I went to university I met the first person of my age who was like me – she wore her hair up and didn’t hide her hearing aids. Her family was deaf too so it was a shared experience that they all celebrated. It was like a new world to me. But I was too used to hiding it by this point I didn’t know how to do anything else. I still refused to wear hearing aids and went through my entire degree without them. I would go to the lectures as necessary but would avidly read books on the topics to make up for missing half the course content in the auditorium.

In my 20’s I got a great job but I struggled to decide who I could trust to tell. With a hidden disability, I have to actually share this information. I felt, in every new situation, I should have to announce it. “Gather round everyone – I have something to say!” I stupidly wished I had something more visible.

I told a few people and, as I missed things, those people told others. This is when I experienced my first professional example of discrimination. And it was well meant. I was told I wasn’t invited to a work meeting ‘because you would probably really struggle’. Well-intentioned discrimination is something I found harder to deal with. Having someone excessively mouth their words to me in a way that made them even harder to understand was one thing. Being ‘kindly’ left out was another. I began to wear hearing aids.

Now in my 40’s I have learned to accept this part of me that I can’t change, and enjoy the things about it that are a blessing. I sleep in blissful silence, I can switch off the noise whenever I like, I can laugh at myself when I get something really wrong. I can lip read you across a room – watch your language! I work with people who go out of their way to ensure I can hear. People know to look at me and speak clearly if they want to be heard.

The pandemic reminded me just how much I lip read. Suddenly getting a prescription, being served in a shop or trying to hear a taxi driver became a nightmare. I felt awful asking people to pull down the mask but there was just no way I would hear otherwise. But I also noticed I wasn’t the only one. Everyone was struggling to understand each other as masks muffled speech and blocked that friendly smile.

I hope the pandemic taught us all, as it did with mental health, that our social interactions are so very important and without them the feeling of isolation takes over. Deaf Awareness Week this week reminds us that deafness and hearing loss can be incredibly isolating but it doesn’t have to be. It’s an incredible opportunity to think about how you communicate; are you clear, do you turn/walk away when you speak to someone, do you speak quickly, do you mumble? Do you allow for pauses so people can keep up, do you talk over other people? So, have a think about how you communicate this week and try to make small changes that might mean the world to someone who struggles to hear.

Easter

Written by Heather

Easter is my absolute favourite time of the year. Culturally, many of us celebrate the religious festivals of Christianity in this country but the focus is often on other things: Santa, presents, the Easter bunny, spending time with family and making fun for the children. My faith makes the celebrations about more than those things, although we do all those things too. At Easter, my thoughts are on the sacrifice Jesus made, the death and resurrection of Christ. It gives me opportunity to reflect and be thankful. It takes my thoughts off myself and my life and focuses me onto something bigger, something in which I put my trust and faith in. When I truly focus on God, the cares of the world dissipate and my anxieties fade.

The build up to Easter starts on Ash Wednesday (the day after Shrove Tuesday), which is the first day of lent. Lent lasts 40 days and represents the 40days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, during which time He was tested by satan but did not give in. To represent this some Catholics & Christians will give up something for lent; chocolate, meat, TV; or choose to take up something new, like doing more in the community to test their self-discipline like Christ was tested.

Lent ends with Holy Week, which starts on Palm Sunday, the Sunday prior to Easter Sunday. Palm Sunday celebrates the arrival of Jesus to Jerusalem, He was cheered and celebrated. Holy Week goes on to include the Last Supper, Judas betrayal of Jesus and of course the death of Christ on the cross before His resurrection on Sunday.

Easter reminds me so much of the sacrifice Christ made, for me. The Bible tells us that He would have come for just one of us, to pay for our sins that we might be free. In a world where imposter syndrome is felt by most of us, often I can find myself feeling ‘less’ than others and not good enough.

There have been years when I have become lost in the cultural traditions and forgotten about the reason we have Easter. As the years pass, the spiritual side becomes more and more significant for me. The time of reflection on the build up to and during this Easter celebration on the sacrifice of Jesus always, without fail, makes me feel differently. I feel loved. It changes me every year for the better. It changes the way I feel about myself and my internal dialogue. I feel more at peace with myself, less critical of myself and more thankful for everything.

Ramadan, a month of mindfulness and spiritual reawakening

Written by Noreen

My earliest memory of Ramadan is as a little girl aged six or seven, watching my grandmother agonisingly pace up and down the stairs. She was anticipating the moment that she could finally break her fast and savour the sweet taste of her first sip of water since 2am that morning. If my maths serves me correctly, she would have been fasting during a British summer. Those 10pm sunsets we get in June? Yep, not so exciting during Ramadan! As a child I wondered why she would inflict such torture on herself, and I decided in that moment that fasting was definitely not for me.

Fast forward a few decades and I eagerly await this most special month, praying everyday that I make it to the next Ramadan so that I can experience the feeling all over again. There is something so special about this time, that despite the hunger pangs, the lack of sleep and lethargy, once it’s over, all you wish is that it comes around again quickly and that you’re still around to experience it.

Now as a mum myself I yearn to recreate  my childhood Ramadan for my girls. Being woken up in the middle of the night, rubbing our eyes as we attempt to take just one more bite because “You’ll regret it in the morning if you don’t”, and spending the entire day counting down the minutes to the moment we can eat. The smell of pakoras wafting through the entire house, the overworked kitchen with an array of pots and pans sizzling away over a hot stove, our ever patient mother lovingly preparing a feast for her family in the countdown to Iftaari. Ramadan food in 2022 may be consciously lighter and healthier, but we’ve created new traditions that I hope the girls will cherish as they grow up.

Ramadan is not just a test of endurance through the abstinence of food (although the hangry days are really hard!). It is a  month of mindfulness and spiritual reawakening. The hustle and bustle of everyday life is superseded by  remembering to be kinder, more charitable, maintaining discipline and reconnecting with your core beliefs. It is a physical and spiritual detox. Life is stripped bare; take food and any worldly pleasure out of the equation and Ramadan reminds you about how you use and misuse your precious time on this earth. Time stands still in the day – I feel accomplished, connected and find it to be a uniquely humbling experience. It’s an opportunity to change habits, intentionally taking time out to be reflective, and making a special effort to feel connected during prayers and the recitation of the Quran. I have better mental clarity and improved mood and memory.

Ramadan brings with it a special sense of community. Neighbours appreciate receiving copious amounts of food, all in the spirit of sharing, and families come together to break their fasts. It’s a social month with an even bigger social event to mark the end – Eid-ul-Fitr. Children and adults alike look forward to dressing up, receiving presents, eating in daylight (which feels entirely alien after 30 days) and appreciating all the simple blessings that they have in their lives.

Ramadan recipes

Prepare for Ramadan with energising suhoor recipes to set you up for the day and iftar dishes such as soups, salads and snacks that everyone will enjoy. View here via BBC Good Food.

10 Top Tips for Ramadan

View here via Islamic Relief

What is Ramadan?

View here via BBC Bitesize