Growing Up Nikki

I remember sitting in a hearing booth in kindergarten terrified. I don’t know how they managed to get me in that booth, by myself, close the door, and get me to sit through and participate in a hearing test. I failed the test in one ear. I eventually learned this. I don’t know when nor how. I do know that my bio mother knew I was hard of hearing. I don’t know if my bio father knew or anyone else with the need to know. No one talked with me about it EVER. Over many years time I would discover what being hard of hearing is. I learned of a deaf relative on the maternal side but I can’t say who. A male, much older than me. I don’t know where in the country he lived. It is the normal thing in this dysfunctional family to throw away people. Real, live, people. If anything is/was found undesirable in a member it was ignored, kept secret and held against you. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. But know this, you could hang around but you will be treated with destain. I heard of it happening and watched it first hand. Dare you ask or say anything of it, all hell would break loose. The responses would always be disproportionate to the prompt. By the time I was 7 years old damage was well underway. I had lost trust in a few adults in my family circle. I know now that it wasn’t me but my understanding that whatever the problem was with them should not be pointed out by me. I was sad and would remain sad for decades. It became part of my personality. I was in my mid/late teens before I understood that the deaf/hard of hearing had a language all their own, readily accessible to/for me to take me out of her incapable/unwilling hands and thrive. That was too much like the right/loving thing to do. Instead she needed me to abuse and my life to emotionally distort, like hers. I didn’t need my bio father like I needed my bio mother and he wasn’t aware of my broken pieces for he was also broken. So the story goes I was stuck … my formative years went on … tainted … this way was my normal and I would learn that children my age where just as mean. Today I’m calling it evil because it is nothing short of that.