Lisa Kelly: There should be no stigma in talking about deafness

This autumn is going to be a busy time for exploring deafness on a personal and societal level. It will also be a time of learning and discovery.

I am starting my pre-level 3 in BSL in October at City Lit. I am looking forward to it but realise it will not be easy. I am not naturally gifted at learning languages. Ask my old French teacher!

Passing level 2 in BSL has demanded practice, focus and some perseverance after the disappointment of a failed exam. I know that fluency is a long way off. 

This October, I am also taking part in d/Deaf Republic: Poets on d/Deafness, part of Poetry International at the Southbank Centre. I will be reading from my new poetry collection from Carcanet, A Map Towards Fluency, which includes poems that explore aspects of my single-sided deafness due to childhood mumps.

I am excited about reading along with poets Raymond Antrobus and Ilya Kaminksy and looking at how d/Deaf communities have been marginalised and what the future holds.

The d/Deaf community is as diverse as any other community. No two experiences of deafness are the same. However, there are two things that I am convinced about.

The first is that learning BSL should be made much more accessible for everyone, whether they are hearing or deaf; and the second is that we need to talk more about feelings associated with deafness if real progress to made for d/Deaf communities.

When I was growing up, learning BSL at school or outside the classroom was not an option. My deafness was something to be dismissed as unimportant, because I could hear in one ear. The attitude – which I think persists today – is it is better to try and disguise deafness as much as possible and blend in with or adapt to the hearing world.

Obviously, this was not possible. Accusations of being rude or thought stupid because I couldn’t hear what was said; and the need for my own quiet space where I could escape from the chaos and noise of the hearing world, which was often too exhausting to negotiate, set me apart. I didn’t know anyone who had my disability, and anyway I was encouraged to ‘not make a thing about it.’ 

This pressure to underplay a disability continues in society and is a cause of unnecessary shame. We are encouraged not to make a fuss and not to assert our individual needs.

An event I always found excruciating as a teenager was a visit to the hairdresser. I didn’t admit to being deaf and inevitably the hairdryer would blow into my hearing ear, cutting out all other sound, while I tried desperately to lipread what the hairdresser was saying by looking at their reflection in the mirror. I’d watch my face blush red with deep shame because I knew I was nodding inanely or answering inappropriately. However, I’d rather be thought weird than deaf.

Today, I make sure people know I am deaf very early on, but this feeling of ‘deaf shame’ still exists, and it exists because we are not talking enough and are not open enough about how deafness impacts our lives. 

Recently, a friend told me about how she’d been picked up by a headteacher in her car, and she immediately turned the music on full blast. My friend found this strange and not a little rude. It was only at dinner, when the teacher’s mother confided that her daughter was deaf in her right ear and needed to sit at the end of the table with no-one on her right side in order to hear and participate in any conversation, that my friend realised the reason for the loud music in the car. She was sitting in the passenger seat on the teacher’s right side, and it was an excuse not to have to talk and admit to being deaf. You would have thought that a headteacher would be confident enough to discuss her deafness, but apparently not.

Being able to talk about deafness and how it affects you is essential for successful interactions and progress in how deafness is perceived, but still this stigma and sense of shame exists. I am always annoyed with hearing aid adverts that bang on about how discreet they are. Wearing hearing aids should not be something to be disguised.

The fact is hearing loss comes with age. If we all learned BSL and were given lessons at school as part of the curriculum, there would be a much happier outcome for society. I run a poetry workshop attended by a woman in her 80s and she is extremely deaf. She does not get on well with her hearing aids and within a group situation, she finds it very hard to participate. She talks of her feelings of isolation and loneliness. I also know the grandmother of a friend of mine who I met at BSL lessons. She is also in her 80s and fluent in BSL. She is confident, happy and always out with friends from Deaf Club and in no danger of feeling lonely. I know who I would rather be in the future.

There needs to be a willingness to make BSL accessible to everyone. For sure, everyone I know who learns sign language enjoys it immensely; and BSL could be invaluable in establishing new connections, support and communities to prevent isolation and poor mental health as many of us face age-related hearing loss.

I think the two – BSL fluency and a sense of pride in d/Deaf culture – are inextricably linked. The better our ability to communicate in BSL, the less likely we are to feel any sense of shame in deafness; and the more likely we are to feel connected rather than cut-off.

Lisa Kelly’s first collection, A Map Towards Fluency, was published by Carcanet in June. Poems have appeared in Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press) and Carcanet’s New Poetries VII. Her pamphlets are Philip Levine’s Good Ear (Stonewood Press) and Bloodhound (Hearing Eye). She is Chair of Magma Poetry and runs poetry workshops at the Torriano Meeting House, Kentish Town. Lisa has single-sided deafness and is also half Danish.

More info:

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784108403

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/138231-ddeaf-republic-poets-ddeafness-2019