Nobody puts Deafinitely Girly in a deaf box

Sometimes I get so frustrated when people put me in a box labelled deaf without really checking what that means.

It’s the same as when you meet an old friend of your parents’ who you haven’t seen since your teenage years and she asks you if your bedroom is still messy and comments on how your thunder thighs have miraculously disappeared…

Some people cannot get away from putting you in a box and keeping you there.

You see, for some time now, I have strived to prove that I can work outside this box. I have fought to ensure that no finger could ever be pointed at my deafness when it came to judging me.

I mean, sure, my deafness makes me less chatty on the phone, but to my knowledge, some hearing people aren’t chatty on the phone, either.

Sometimes I wonder what I should do about this living in a box thing – should I work with it? Get it some comfy cushions, make myself right at home, play up to the illusion that I’m going nowhere fast. Or should I throw the damn box out of the window and continue the daily fight to prove that putting people in boxes – no matter who they are or what they do – is a very outmoded way of thinking?

I’ve fought for lots of changes over the years – not just when it comes to changing people's perceptions about the state of my bedroom – and I know that in order to do this, you need commitment, you need thick skin and you need to have a love of banging your head against a brick wall.

You also need a blog – because it is through writing things down that you come to realise that of course things are worth fighting for, and of course I shouldn’t make myself at home in this crappy box labelled ‘deaf and going nowhere fast’.

Nobody puts DG in a box. So look out world, here I come!