The phrases that should never be said to a deaf person

What should never be said to a deaf person? I’ll tell you in this video:

I’m Chiara and I am 27 years old. When I want to tell my story, I always say that the best thing is to be spontaneous, without any filters, without space and time. I was born deaf and no one knows why.

My mother didn’t have rubella in pregnancy, or anything like that. I did not have a serious illness in the early years of childhood. So when I was born I already had a mystery on me, something big that could not be explained. As if deafness were predestined for me. My parents found out late, I was 1 year old, that I was a child with profound deafness, neurovegetative sensorineural hearing loss. Until one day, my mother went to the otorino and instinctively told him: “check my daughter.” From there he found confirmation: “your daughter is deaf as a bell!” He went home, got under the sheets with me and sang his favorite songs in my ear, crying. He thought to himself: “My daughter can’t help but hear the music!” Then, finished the outburst, he rolled up his sleeves and together we began a wonderful, difficult and tiring journey.

From the first year of life I was prosthetic, started doing speech therapy, also did music therapy, and for two years I have had a cochlear implant. This is not to say that it has always been a bed of roses. Indeed, once I hit rock bottom, but often, only there is the strength to go back up. My parents, especially my mother to whom I owe a lot if not everything, from the first moment made me experience this situation not as a disease, a pain. Rather as a challenge to be grasped and experienced, an untapped road to take. For all this I am and I feel different, because it is thanks to my “unfortunate” deafness that I can see the world with different eyes that allow me to distinguish “toxic and harmful” people from simple and positive ones and I prefer to have people who do not feel “normal” by my side because what would be normal? Nobody knows and it really is, but certainly few know that being different is a form of wealth. For those who own it but also for those who respect it. Those are the best people. And this is my life so far. Where will it take me? What will it make me discover? I’ll only find out by living.

I decided to open up a lot on social media making self-irony, hoping to make people understand that my disability should not create discomfort or compassion, the difficulties are many, every day, but they are mine and I face them every day, I only ask others for normal behavior. I did it because at the moment social networks are the fastest and fastest way, I knew I was ready for any reaction there was on the network, but I didn’t think I would receive so many positive and supportive messages. I did it for me, it was a challenge with myself, without worrying about sharing or criticism.

My message is: open yourself to diversity because they are part of life, every diversity is unique, we are all different, this is the magic of life.

Live carefree because with irony I will break down prejudices.

Text and video by Chiara Bucello.