Disability and Regret

The following post is a bit of a confession. I’m still on my journey of accepting my disability and have learned by now that progress is not linear. That there are good and bad days and my thoughts and strength vary accordingly.

Despite going to therapy and working on accepting my disability, grieving the loss, living with it for most of my life, the thought of “what if“ crawls sometimes into my mind. What if I didn’t develop a hearing loss? What if I was “normal”? 

What would my life look like? What would my job look like? My partner, my home? My friends? My mental health? My bank account? 

These questions generally appear in moments of doubt, loneliness, or dissatisfaction. The answer I give to myself in those moments is mostly: everything would’ve been better and easier with normal hearing. 

On the days I feel optimistic I am grateful for my struggle. For what it has taught me. For my resilience and strength. For how it humbled me. For what I’ve achieved despite it. The longer I live, the more I understand that there is no life without struggle. Some are bigger, some are smaller and they are not necessarily fairly distributed. 

I know that if it wouldn’t have been the hearing I would've probably had other issues that would make me struggle with my confidence or mental health. However, being born “normal”, and losing this “privilege” has transformed me. I would’ve definitely been another person with normal hearing. Or so I imagine. 

I love learning and was always good in school. With good hearing, I was excellent, and with bad hearing I was just good. I have managed to achieve higher education far from my family, from what was familiar to me. I speak several languages, I have a job, a beautiful home, amazing friends that I am the most grateful for. I have conquered almost everything that I have set my mind on. The problem is, since hearing has substantially carved my confidence and self esteem, transformed them into anxiety and fear, my goals have become smaller. I stopped dreaming big. Instead of my own, I adopted the dreams of other people, prioritising security over adventure, social acceptance over freedom. That’s what I tell myself in my darkest hours. 

I imagine I would’ve been a marketing executive, or a journalist, or an academic. Maybe a film director. People often say that you can become whoever you want despite of everything. I know this can be true. I also know that everything is possible once you believe in yourself. The problem is, that once you feel “cheated” by life and misadjusted to the world you live in, you stop believing in yourself. To me, this didn’t happen abruptly. It was a long process in which I went from a mentality of “nothing is impossible”, to telling myself that I won’t make it, “why even bother?”.

The more shame I felt because of my lack, the more I hid, the more I pushed people and opportunities away. I became afraid to dare, afraid to be loud, to stand out, afraid to not ask too many times “What?”, afraid to appear stupid. Despite of looking “normal” from the outside, I was miserable. Even worse, I didn’t even want to admit this to myself.

Instead, I was blaming outside factors, picking up fights, blaming others for different things, building even higher walls between me and the world. Of course, this ended in depression. I couldn’t recognize myself anymore and was feeling I am leading the life of someone else, that I’m not myself anymore. Because I wasn’t. I have lost the spark and excitement for life. My depression was very functional, and of course, just like with my hearing, I was in denial about being depressed as well. Only when I admitted to myself that I need to do something about it, because living like this isn't worth it, I started getting better.

Again, it didn’t happen overnight and I still am in the process of rediscovering joy and light. Sports and therapy, but also distancing myself from the pressure I felt from society to be someone I am not helped the most. Therapy has taught me to be kinder to myself. To speak with compassion. I didn’t understand how much I was loathing myself before. Now my self talk is way more encouraging and I finally started believing in myself again. Sports and self care through nutrition have taught me to be grateful for my body. I might not be “perfect”, but I am healthy and this is the greatest gift of life.

Finally, learning that the goals of other people are not mine and we all have our own paths to walk on gave me the freedom I was lacking in the last years. My horizon is way broader now because I finally believe in myself again. Having surfaced from the pit I have fallen into makes me proud of every small thing that I achieved and will achieve. I still sometimes wonder “what if?”, but I don’t dwell on it too much because I am ready to take the world and I know greater things are coming.