Georgie St-Claire: Reclaiming my deafness (BSL)

‘You’re too pretty to be deaf’.

It wasn’t right the first time a stranger said it, it somehow became something I heard regularly.

I’m new and not new to hearing loss. I’m not new in that I lost my hearing age three to meningitis. I’m new at being vocal about it. I’m forty seven and I’m furious.

Like so many others I navigated my way through a hearing school, through university and different workplaces trying to function exactly the same everyone else, in other words, as a hearing person.

As I child I was told to fit in, be nice, and not too challenging for my teachers. Despite that, every so often someone would visit the school to ‘support me’ (every time we would have a little chat, I don’t recall any educational or emotional support offered).

What I wish I’d had support on though, was an adult saying – no you can’t hear in assemblies and they shouldn’t be making you participate, no you don’t have to sit at the front and listen, we can provide a text copy of what the teacher is saying, yes this educational video that the whole class will watch has subtitles for you, yes you hear better in a small room with a person facing you. Yes, we will teach you BSL so there’s a whole deaf community you are not isolated from.

After graduating I worked in a series of open place spaces, handling a telephone call was part of the role. Used to not understanding my limitations by now, it was always one more ‘push’ forward until things were better – one more interview for the next step up and work will be better, one more application because I didn’t get the promotion, one more day and I’ll speak up that I’m struggling, one more week until I have annual leave booked. There was always ‘one more’ step where I believed it would get easier afterwards, because books tell us it does, there’s always a happier ending than a start.

This isn’t to knock any of the amazing colleagues I’ve had. There were times when I truly had to admit defeat and ask them to take over the call because the client wasn’t talking in the context of my expectations of the call. I realise now that I trained myself in each job to listen for keywords that indicated the point of the conversation so I could answer their queries and move the conversation along. I adopted this approach in meetings too, never admitting that I heard less than a third of what was said.

When this became mixed with sleepless nights of a newborn, then a newborn and a still sleepless toddler, juggling everything became too much. Into that mix, my sister and I started to accept that mum needed more and more help and assistance. I can’t say when the burnout began, maybe it was way back in primary school when I struggled, and no-one realised how much hearing I’d lost until my dad demanded a new doctor. Perhaps it was my fault, because I hadn’t asked the right questions about my hearing so I didn’t know what environments worked well for me and what I should avoid. I should have slowed down, instead I picked up volunteer positions to prove my worth as a person thinking that new environments would teach new coping mechanisms.

Up until this point, reading was something that got me through a lot. Reading was one of my escapes. When I stopped enjoying reading, I knew that something was seriously wrong. Then a few years later my mum died at the same time my children had started to flourish and become more independent. I picked up a project that I started in quiet moments of the covid lockdown.

I had always written as an outlet. I knew at six years old I wanted to write stories for a living, so with my newfound time, I worked on an idea, a story that I wanted to read but couldn’t find. I gave myself everything that I hadn’t allowed myself until now, forgiveness, time, patience, a variety of working places to see which I functioned best in (alone, in silence).

My first novel was submitted through open submissions early 2024. ‘In Silence and Shadows’ was published September 2024. I write the White Rose Witches series, about a group of seven friends, once close, now scattered over the world. All with their own secrets. All are their own worst enemies and their own best friends. Mostly because I do feel that I have been (with encouragement) my own worst enemy by trying to function as a hearing person in a hearing world, and my own best friend for finally standing up and saying that I can’t do it anymore. I have profound hearing loss in one ear, severe hearing loss in another, and I am done trying to fit in. That’s where being furious fits in. I’m slowly learning to forgive myself for hiding behind a mask I was told other people wanted to see.

I’m Georgie St-Claire, an author that loves to write, thinks editing is ok until it’s the fifteenth round, a mood reader, an introvert, and a deaf person.

Within my planned series, the third book will be about Tess, an artist who lost her hearing through childhood meningitis, and the seventh book will cover Genevieve who experiences sudden mild to moderate hearing loss as the result of an accident. These two characters will be pretty AND deaf/hard of hearing.