Misconceptions Of Being Deaf

About two out of a thousand children in the United States are born deaf, and I happen to be one of them. Being deaf is not what people think. People treat me different because of their misconceptions of my disability, and it is time for them to stop. I constantly have to prove that I am not as physically or mentally limited as people think I am. If I believe in myself enough, I can be just like everyone else. I was born deaf. When people find out, they assume that I am cursed. For the record, that is not how I see myself. It all started when I was two years old when my mom put me to sleep one night. That same night my teenage sister arrived at the house making loud noises. My mom woke up and rushed to tell her that I was sleeping. It did not matter how loud the sounds were, I would not wake up. This was the first time my mom suspected something was wrong. The next morning, she took me to the hospital run some tests, and the doctor confirmed that I was deaf.
Almost every day at school, someone would comment on my disability. I could feel their pity for me even though I was like everyone else. Teachers would yell at me, because they thought I could not hear a thing, like if the whole world was muted. Which would have been, if I did not put my hearing device on every time I woke up in the morning. People would make jokes about how my hearing aid would stick out of my ear. They would talk to me making strange, exaggerated gestures with their hand as if I did not have the mental ability to understand them. It seemed like they thought I was “slow”. They asked me if I could drive and do other every day activities. Their ignorance was offensive! I had to go to therapy in middle school because even my own family thought that I felt “different”. If I made a mistake, they would blame it on me being deaf. People really think I am ashamed of who I