#SignLanguage and Giving Up!

Oh man! Where to even begin? Last few months have been such a turbulence for me in term of my mental health.

Those who know me, will probably understand my state.  I have been on a mission to try to get my family to learn sign language and to educate them on subjects related to it.

My hearing is getting worse. It was already bad in term of frequency range and now on right side it is practically zero. I don't wear hearing aid at right side anymore. I wear at left ear now. And my left ear is soon getting on level with my other ear. Soon enough my ears will be just an decoration for my body. Not really,I think. I wear hijab so it is not like people can see my ear or anything. It will be I guess......appendix version of external organ? I mean appendix is internal organ which become useless as human grows. Oh I am getting bit carried away. I should get back to topic.

 So after all this, I asked to them to learn sign language for communication sake. I cannot keep relying on lipreading and tiniest amount of frequencies left on my left ear forever. It is tiring. It is getting harder and harder for me to grasp the meaning of conversation and communication with my people. And lipreading take my energy out. And lipreading does not work all the time. I missed out like 90 percent of the time.I come home frustrated and tired just because of lipreading people outside all the time. I don't want to stay tired and weak in home too by lipreading again in full cycle.

The first time I asked parent to learn it, they went all on "She is complaining again mode" . they was like why are we talking about this again? Then I tried again and that too to explain from my perspective. How it is hard for me to lipread all the time and I need a break too.They did not hear me first time.

Then I tried again couple days later. they said it is not needed because I can still talk. And I asked what will happen with the communication when the time of my having two completely useless ears come?

Mother did not really cared. She always have been viewing me as little complaining girl. So whenever I talked about this she shrugged it off.

My father responded with "We can get you cochlear implant!". *Face-palm* Not that I have problem with people choosing to wear cochlear implant. If they wanted it and think it is for their best, fine! But I don't want it now. I don't know about future but definitely not now. I mean gosh, I am really tired of all the extra effort I had to put being like hearing person that I am not. I need a break.

I explained to him that I thought about it and decided that I don't want it. He asked me what will I do then? How will I handle the communication part? Since they totally ignored the first time about this very topic ;it is given that they did not remembered that I  talked about sign language. But I talked about it anyways. I told him I choose the sign language option.

He stated his opinion about it without EVEN knowing about it much. He thinks it is useless and how will I interact with world filled with talking people in that way? I was like ""But I am not asking them! I am asking YOU! I don't need many people to communicate! I mostly hang around in home and few of my friends."

 I don't think he listened or understood to me. Because for the next few days all he talked about getting me new hearing aids and cochlear implants. He even went around places in search for hearing aids, cochlear implants and researched about them. It really frustrated me because I clearly told them i don't want them now and yet he ignored my very request.

But I kept trying to get them on board with my decision.I had numerous loud fight with them on this issue. There was not any sign of them being accepting or actually listening to me. But yet I kept trying.

Then few days later I saw many sign language apps in my father smartphones(yes plural) by mistake. That gave me hope. Like finally It is getting through my father!

 I was expecting my father to come up me and "surprise" me with  few signs and tell me "I learned through the app and let practice it together". Many months passed by. There was no sign of him doing so. Yet I still keep trying to give them a few sign by doing it myself so that they can get motivated or something.

I tried that with my siblings. But they was totally uninterested. One of them even said that to me "Sign language would be cool with my friends when trying to pass information in secret" . And yes, classic "bad word" signs. One of then even commented on a deaf you-tuber with "She have a problem I think. She talked weird" even though I was right there who have same "problem" and talked "weird" too. When  ignorance times like this happened ,I had to give  up on them for my sanity sake.

But I wanted to keep trying for my parents. I mean they are my parents,right? Parent always understand their child better than anyone.

I realized this is not the case after my father got a heart attack. I know it sound dramatic and unfeeling on my part, but read on. Few week ago(two weeks ago) my father had a major heart attack.  He is better now,Alhammudillah. We are looking into good hospital for good bypass surgery.

Here is the main part. While he was recovering from the heart attack, he tried talking. Talking only led him elevated heart rate and doctor forbidden him to talk anything at all if he want to get better.
So he points around things when he want something. That is when I thought of teaching him some few basic signs so that he can communicate his need better in that way. Because when he does not mange to tell us what he want he get super angry and anger is not good for his current state. I told mother about it.

Then come the part I should have realized it long ago. She basically told me to stop being complaining girl again and to stop being selfish. How am I being selfish? All I wanted to improve the situation. He clearly was suffering from not able to talk out his need. I came up with this solution because I know it would help him. But I kept my cool. That was not time to argue as we all are dealing with this sudden occurrence of family heart attack. People will say many frustrated thing during this time. All we need to be together and be strong for my father sake.

But I lost it when my father asked me to be a  teacher in a "normal" school/university and was worrying about my hearing again. I hardly can talk two sentenced smoothly. Being a teacher in mainstream school/university is not option for me.Unless they have dhh/deaf program in it then I will consider it. But clearly my father was not talking about this.

This is when I realized so many things.  Looking back, the dynamic of my relationship with my parents was always "success" based. I was always a success story for them to tell their friends and relatives. "Like hey my daughter cannot hear but she managed  to go to "normal" school!" " My daughter can speak, surprised! Astonishing thing huh?"  "She never needed any help (aka accommodation) during school and university!" ," She is gonna be an engineer despite being hearing impaired"(I hate that word).
 

It is my fault too.I never had heart to heart conversation with them. I never revealed my struggle during my school and university to them. I always end up crying inside the bathroom or at the corner of the road alone. I always looked up to the sky  and cried "Please Allah, give me some peace".

And Allah has responded  my request. That it is high time I need to move on. From trying to getting them to "hear" me. From trying to get them "talk" to me. Because all they will me as one of their "success" story and nothing else.