I used to hate myself and blame myself for not being able to hear like my hearing peers could. I thought I didnt work hard enough in speech therapy and then I developed self-destructive behaviors to get the acceptance from the people in my life. I used to kiss hearing people's asses and was afraid to speak up for fear that I would be left even more isolated...the list goes on and on...
I didnt learn ASL until about 10 years ago at the age of 25. when I learned it, I was like "I could have been saved from all that misery if I was shown that being deaf wasnt something to be ashamed of!"
So many of my deaf friends went thru the same thing too being mainstreamed. They were all lost until they found the Deaf community.
