American Sign Language

Thanks to the mods for recognizing ASL Day yesterday! I am a completely deaf redditor that lost my hearing by the time I was 18 due to a "chronic ear infection" per my audiologists Michael Scott.

I have a Cochlear Implant, so I can hear near normal levels now (thank you Technology/Engineers/Scientists!). I urge everyone to take the time to learn basic sign language.

You don't realize how much it means to someone that you may come across that is deaf to be able to understand you even if its through basic hand letters. It will brighten their entire week and the effort means everything. Being deaf is one of the biggest struggles I had gone through. The bullying was relentless growing up and it made my entire year to meet people who knew ASL and wanted to practice with me. Finally, I had someone to "talk" to.

Old article but has good information regarding ASL day:

This was back when I (33f) was in 6th grade (11 years old). I don’t know why I just thought of it now but assume it would fit here. It’s a long post so tl:dr at the end.

I performed very well in school which led to me being in higher grade level classes in a few subjects. By 6th grade, I ended up being bussed to high school for half of my school day. Due to the weird scheduling, I had to ride a bus full of alternative high school students. These were students who were considered trouble makers and were expelled from or had failed regular school.

I was very noticeably an outsider: small, quiet, always reading, and at least 5 years younger than anyone else. Cue the bullying. The worst was this girl who was 17 and looked absolutely colossal to me at the time. (I was 4’9”/145cm) She and about 5 other girls would sit around me and relentlessly mock me, yell at me, try to threaten me, and just generally made my time on that bus a very frightening, nightmarish experience. I never acknowledged them nor made any eye contact.

After about 3 months of this, the main bully finally snapped. She grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me out of my seat to the bus aisle. She then screamed, “Look at me when I f*ing talk to you you stupid ct.” I was terrified and just knew she was getting ready to beat the snot out of me. I thought of any way I could deescalate the situation and played the only card I could.

(Necessary background info: a few years prior to this my cousin started losing her hearing. She and I learned ASL together and were fluent-aside from some grammar issues-by the time I was 11.)

So this girl managed to say the best phrase possible: “Look at me when I talk to you.” My brain somehow went… use sign language!!!!! I frantically started signing. She immediately backed up with her hands in the air, and every single person on the bus just stared at her.

Then 3 senior boys came up and told her something like, “Don’t pick on deaf kids,” but much more colorfully. The boys kicked all of the other bullies out of the seats around me, and one of them sat down with me and helped me calm down using ASL! (I was a crying mess once the confrontation passed.) Turns out he had a little sister who was deaf. I didn’t correct his assumption that I was also hard of hearing.

For the rest of the school year those boys would wait outside the bus for me, escort me to my seat, sit with me, and talk to me in ASL. They also made a point to loudly say (and sign along for my benefit) things similar to, “only worthless, pathetic, nobodies would resort to bullying deaf little girls” whenever any of my bullies were present.

I never told anyone on that bus I could hear them and continued to let my bullies suffer.

TL:DR— 11yo me was bullied by group of 16-18yo girls every day on bus. I always ignored them until one day it got physical. I frantically started using ASL and gained myself some 18yo protectors (one of them had a little sister who was deaf) who thought I was also deaf. They guarded me and teased my bullies the rest of the year. I never told them I could hear.