Unique

Everyone has something that makes them unique. It can be a talent, a physical trait, a personality trait, or intelligence. For me, what makes me unique, is the fact that I wear hearing aids.

My doctors diagnosed me with mild hearing loss during my sophomore year. That really felt like it added insult to injury. I had lost my grandmother, was failing classes, was accademically inelligable to participate in sports, and hadn't made it into the youth symphony group I had been trying to get into. Now, to top it off, I have to add hearing loss to the list.

I spent a long time coming to terms with the fact that I now had a specific physical trait that made me different than other people. Now, with hindsight and a few years of added experience, I don't see it as any different than wearing glasses of braces. However, at the time, it seemed like the end of the world. It made me feel different and completely alone.

My teachers my junior year were pretty good about it. In classes where I needed the teacher to wear a specific microphone that connected right to my hearing aids, they did their best to be discrete about it and not bring the awareness of my fellow students. However, sometimes it was un avoidable. My math class saw the microphone on my geometry teacher, and began questioning him. After a few minutes of watching him dance around the question, and uncomfortably look at me, I finally owned up to my hearing aids. I expected people to look at me like I was a freak, and some did. However, some though it was cool and asked what else my hearing aids could do. For the first time, suddenly it didn't seem so different. I saw that people actually accepteed me, and didn't treat me any different.

One group of people did treat me a bit differently. I had a core group of friends. We were a group of four girls (including me), and we weren't a great group. Two of the girls have becoming my absolute best friends and make up my current friend group. They do make jokes about needing to speak up so "the deaf one" can hear, but it doesn't hurt me. They act like I am no different. However, one girl in the group did treat me different. She would mock me for wearing them, and when I could't go to certain events like football games because they were too loud for my already fragile hearing, she would make fun of me and laugh about me being different. Ultimitely, she and I did not stay friends. She made me feel like a freak at a time when my emotional world was battered beyond belief, and never made me feel like I was normal.

I still have some people who treat me differently for it, but hopefully not for long.

I had my two year test done today, and it shows that my hearing is getting better. The doctors don't know why it happened in the first place, or why it's getting better now, but they (and myself) are not complaining.

You should never treat someone different for a disability or disorder. We are all people too, just in a different way that makes us unique.