I built unDEAFeated from a foundation of my own experiences with hearing loss. I wanted to take the lessons I learnt, and my own life journey of how I got to where I am today, to show other people that no matter if you are Hard of Hearing, or Deaf, you can truly do anything you want in this life!
That’s where unDEAFeated started from. I wanted to share with you my Hearing Loss journey, to show you that you can do the same thing.
I was born with perforations on my ear drums. Although at the time when I was really young, my parents didn’t know that. It wasn’t until I was around 8 or 9 years old that they realised I was struggling with my hearing. It was then that my parents discovered that I had perforations which hadn’t healed over.
From here, the next step to try and help my hearing was to have grommets (or tubes) placed in my ear drums. The first set of grommets fell out early and did not work. Then, I had a second set of grommets in my ears, which also fell out early, causing a LOT of pain which I vividly remember. I clearly remember looking at my pillow and finding the grommet on top of it, with an extremely sharp pain in my ear drum.
Because of this, the next step when I was around 12 years old, was to get my first set of hearing aids! Now, for anyone who knows my story about what happened with my hearing aids in school, will know that these didn’t last long.
I was bullied a lot for wearing my hearing aids, and as an anxious, timid kid growing up, even into my early teenage years, I was worried about what my hearing aids looked like, and how they made me look.
One day I was sitting in class, minding my own business, when suddenly the teacher told me to REMOVE my hearing aids. The reason? In his mind, they were distracting other students. How? I have no idea. Now, as a kid in high school, you just do what you are told to do, but there’s no doubt it had an effect on me in my teenage years.
In fact, this one event is the reason I stopped wearing my hearing aids all the way up until I was 21 years old. I was worried about what people would think of me wearing them. I was worried I was going to get told off by another teacher for wearing my hearing aids.
Still to this day I don’t why the teacher took that approach, by demoralising a student. Hearing aids are medical devices, and a student should never be told to remove their hearing aids. In fact, no one should, ever!
Because of this, I fell back on school, and I had to take after school classes when it was time to start studying for my finals to make sure I would actually pass them. I still managed to pass all of my exams, but I could have passed with higher grades if I wore my aids. There needs to be so much more education about hearing loss, especially in schools as you can count on there being at least one kid in every school having a hearing loss and wearing aids.
After this happened, I had to decide whether or not I was going to let this decide my future. Was I really going to let this one teacher, who I honestly hardly knew, decide if I was going to chase my dreams or not?
I had to tell myself no, I’m not going to let his opinion decide the rest of my life. And you know what I did? I set a dream, I set a goal, and I chased it.
After this happened was when I really started to focus on my racing. I realised that when I was in the car racing around the track, it was truly a release for me. I didn’t have to worry about what people thought of me, because we are all out there, wearing helmets, and we all look the same. I felt like I could fit in, like I was part of something.
I also didn’t really have to worry about hearing people that much or trying to communicate with people. I could throw my helmet on, and forget about the world for a little bit. It really turned into the one thing I truly looked forward to every single week. I could not wait for that 30 minutes every week, where I could just be me, and no one said anything about it. No bullies. Just friends, and my racing family.
I knew that I had to keep pushing and chasing my dreams, and that’s what I did, with numerous race wins, top 3 and top 5 finishes, an offer to race overseas in the US, and more!
I recently took my latest leap in chasing my dreams to become a full-time NASCAR driver 1.5 years ago when I moved from the UK at the age of 21, all by myself, to the NASCAR hub in the US, Charlotte, North Carolina. I plan on progressing my racing career and chasing my dreams even further.
I wanted to share this with everyone to show you that, I too had those days where I considered just letting this person live rent free in my head, and decide how the rest of my life was going to look. I wanted to show you that there is always an option. You shouldn’t let your hearing loss decide your future.
If you have a dream, chase it! Go for it! You have nothing to lose. You really don’t. I had to make a change. I had to decide, and put my foot down, and chase it. It’s because I chased my dreams that I am here today to share with you my story.
I want to share my story with the whole HoH/Deaf community to show that you can do anything you put your mind to.
Be you. Be unDEAFeated. Chase your dreams, and don’t apologise to anyone for doing so.