They Refused to Let Us Speak or Sign—So We Screamed in Silence

 

They Refused to Let Us Speak or Sign—So We Screamed in Silence

My earliest memories aren’t soft or warm—they’re cold, clinical, and filled with fear. The memory of the speech therapy office still haunts me. I was maybe five, maybe six, and I sat on a hard plastic chair with my twin, Callie, next to me. Our hands were tied loosely behind our backs, a cruel joke disguised as discipline, while a therapist leaned over us, pressing her fingers against our throats, trying to force sounds out of us. My lips quivered as I tried to make noises that were invisible to me, shapes in the air I couldn’t hear forming and dissolving before they existed. Callie cried beside me, quiet, muffled sobs, and I wanted to reach out, but reaching out was forbidden. Hands were for animals. Humans spoke.

Every day, eight hours a day, for years, we were forced to try and speak. Popsicle sticks shoved into our mouths to control the positioning of our tongues. Breathing exercises in front of mirrors, fogging them with our hot breath so the therapist could trace the shapes of sounds we’d never hear. I watched Callie gag, dry heaves rolling up from her stomach until she vomited, and she had to continue like nothing had happened. Our throats raw, our jaws aching, we went home only to face the same punishment. Our parents, perched in chairs with smug satisfaction, would watch us struggle, criticizing every stutter, every misformed syllable.

The first time we were punished for using our hands, I was six. I’d simply pointed at a toy I wanted. My father, furious, crossed the room in three long strides, yanked my wrist, bent it back until I screamed. “Animals use their hands,” he spat, his lips moving with precision. “Humans use words.” There was no room to explain that I couldn’t make the words. There was no room to ask for mercy. From that day on, our hands were tied during meals. Forks became impossible, knives irrelevant. Callie learned to eat with her teeth. I went hungry most nights. Rope marks bruised our wrists and had to be hidden at school, tiny trophies of our parents’ cruelty.

School was its own kind of hell. We were enrolled in regular hearing schools with the expectation that we could lipread perfectly. We couldn’t. Teachers turned their backs to write on the board. Kids whispered, laughed, and assumed we were stupid. We weren’t. We were surviving. Watching lips move like fish in water, guessing desperately at what was being said, twisting our necks, straining our eyes until it burned. Callie developed a tic—a sharp twitch from the constant effort to understand. I developed silence.

I didn’t know there was another world until I was ten. On a school field trip to the museum, I saw a group of deaf kids signing freely, laughing, communicating in a language that wasn’t punished or forbidden. I stared, mesmerized, until my mother noticed and dragged us away. That night, she made us stand facing the wall for hours as punishment, cold floor beneath our toes, tears streaming down Callie’s face. Soon after, cameras appeared in our room, watching us while we slept, while we tried to communicate. Any movement of our hands was suspect. Any gesture could mean punishment.

The first month of cameras, they caught us creating our own crude signs. Not full sign language, just desperate attempts to share thoughts, ideas, fears. My father made us watch as he deleted the footage, and then he made us touch the stove, just long enough to burn our skin slightly. Enough to remember. Enough to understand: you will obey. You will speak. You will never touch your hands unless you are silent.

By thirteen, Callie had stopped speaking entirely. Her mouth moved when forced, but no sound came. My mother hired a specialist who used electric shocks to try and stimulate her vocal cords. I sat outside the room, listening to her screams, feeling each one hammer through me, powerless. When that didn’t work, surgery was attempted. The doctor found nothing physically wrong. Our throats were fine. It was our ears that didn’t work. Cochl ear implants weren’t an option. Nothing could fix what had been broken by years of control and abuse.

I broke at fifteen. Callie had been holding her stomach for days, whining silently, trying desperately to show where it hurt. Our parents ignored her, calling it attention-seeking. She tried to draw her pain, but the paper was ripped from her hands. Finally, she collapsed during dinner. My panic didn’t stop their indifference. At the hospital, the diagnosis came too late: a burst appendix. She had been dying in plain sight, unable to communicate.

While she was wheeled into surgery, I unraveled completely. I didn’t know sign language, but I needed to be heard. I gestured frantically, pointing at my ears, shaking my head, tying my hands, pretending to cry. Anything. Every nurse who came near us watched my flailing, my desperate, silent plea to make someone understand what had been done to us, what could have been prevented if our parents hadn’t been blinded by control, by their idea of “normal.”

No one had prepared us for this world of silence, this war against our own bodies, against our instincts. No one had prepared us for the rage, the grief, the helplessness that would take root in us, turning into something we couldn’t yet name. I didn’t know if we’d ever be able to talk about it. I didn’t know if Callie would survive emotionally what our parents had inflicted. I didn’t know if I could survive watching her. And yet, in that sterile hospital room, I realized something I had never allowed myself to feel: we would not be invisible forever.

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I acted out years of abuse with my body while my parents watched in horror. A nurse who knew some sign tried to communicate with me. And when I couldn’t respond properly, she understood something was very wrong. The surgeon came out looking grim. Callie had survived, but barely. The infection had spread because she’d suffered for so long.

As they explained the months of recovery ahead, I grabbed a pen and paper from the nurse’s station and wrote, “We are deaf. Parents won’t let us sign. My sister almost died. Please help us.” The nurse’s face changed as she read it. She looked at my parents, then back at me. “How long has this been going on?” she asked, making sure I could see her mouth.

I held up 10 fingers, then five. Our whole lives. But when I turned around, my parents were already on their phones with their lawyers. Dad’s mouth was moving fast. That way it did when he was really angry. I watched them work to destroy my plea for help and wondered if Callie and I would survive long enough to escape them.

I stand frozen in the hospital hallway, watching my parents’ mouths move fast on their phones. Their panic tells me something important just happened. My desperate note actually reached someone who understood. A woman in blue scrubs appears beside me. Her name tag says Mila Cox, RN. She holds a notepad and pen in her hands. Her face looks kind but serious.

She gestures for me to follow her to a small waiting area with plastic chairs. She sits down across from me and slides the notepad toward me. She points at the paper, then at me, then makes a writing motion with her hand. I understand. She wants me to write down everything. I pick up the pen and start writing.

My hand cramps after the first 5 minutes, but I keep going. I explain the hand tying during meals. I describe the stove burns when I was six. I write about 8 hours of speech therapy every day. The popsicle sticks pressing down our tongues until Callie threw up. I explain the cameras in our bedroom watching us at night.

I write about Callie holding her stomach for days. Her face twisted in pain. How mom threw away her drawings trying to show where it hurt. The words pour out in messy handwriting. Mila reads each page as I finish it. Her expression changes from concern to something harder. Her jaw gets tight. Her eyes narrow. She squeezes my shoulder gently when I’m done writing.

She takes all the pages and clutches them in both hands. She stands up and walks quickly toward the nurse’s station. I watch her go, my hands still shaking from writing so much. My parents notice Mila leaving with the papers. Dad’s head snaps up. He says something to mom. They both start moving toward me. My father crosses the hallway in three long steps.

His mouth forms words I can read clearly. What did you tell them? I step backward. My body remembers every punishment. My wrist remembers being bent until I screamed. My hands remember the hot stove, but a security guard in a dark uniform moves between us before my father can reach me.

The guard holds up one hand toward my dad. He says something I can’t read because his back is to me. My father stops moving. He stands there with his fists clenched. For the first time in my life, someone is protecting me from him. The guard stays between us. My mother pulls my father back toward the waiting area.

They sit down but keep staring at me. I realize the hospital might actually keep me safe here. An hour passes, maybe two. I lose track of time sitting in the plastic chair. Dr. Morgan appears in the hallway. He’s the surgeon who operated on Cali. He walks toward a door marked administration. Through the glass window, I watch him talk with people in suits and white coats.

He points at papers on the desk. He gestures with his hands, making big movements. His face looks serious and angry. He keeps pointing at something on the papers. The meeting lasts a long time. Later, Mila comes back and sits beside me. She writes me a note on a fresh piece of paper. Dr. Morgan documented everything he found during Callie’s surgery, not just the burst appendix and the bad infection.

He also wrote down that Callie is way too thin for her age. He noted the rope marks on both your wrists. He recorded that neither of you could tell him about pain or medical history without writing it down. He’s making sure everyone knows what he saw. I read the note three times. Dr. Morgan saw the evidence of what our parents did to us.

He’s telling people who can help. I look up at Ma and nod. She pats my hand. A woman in a gray suit arrives. She wears an official badge that says child protective services. Her business card says Naen Thurman, caseworker. Ma brings me to a small room with a table and chairs. The room has no windows. Naen sits across from me.

Another woman stands beside her. This woman’s hands start moving. She’s making signs. Actual ASL signs. Real language flowing through the air. Her fingers form shapes I’ve never seen before. Her hands move in patterns that mean something. I start crying. I can’t help it. The signs are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But I can’t understand any of it.

I don’t know what the moving hands are saying. I’ve never learned this language. My parents made sure of that. The memory hits me hard while Naine watches my face. Suddenly, I’m 6 years old again. I’m standing in our kitchen. My wrist is bent backward in my father’s grip. The stove burner glows orange inches from my palm. I can feel the heat on my skin.

His mouth makes those big shapes. Animals use their hands. Humans use words. Then comes the brief pain, the searing feeling that taught me to keep my hands still, silent, useless. I shake my head hard to clear the flashback. I focus on Naen’s face in front of me. She looks concerned. She slides another notepad toward me.

She understands that writing is still my only way to communicate. I pick up the pen. I write that Callie is my priority. She needs someone with her when she wakes up. Someone who won’t punish her for trying to communicate. I’m scared our parents will take her away from the hospital before anyone can help us. Naen reads my words. She writes back in clear.

I already contacted the hospital social worker about keeping Callie safe. I need to ask you some hard questions about your home life. Can you answer them? I nod yes. My parents appear at the door. A man in an expensive suit stands with them. He announces himself as their lawyer.

I can read his lips through the small window in the door. He’s demanding to be present for any interviews with their children. Nadine stands up calmly. She opens the door. She explains something to the lawyer. He starts talking fast. His mouth moves in words about religious freedom and parenting rights and different ways to handle disability. More people arrive.

Someone from the hospital risk management. The hallway fills with adults. Six people arguing outside the door. Their mouths move in a silent battle over my life. I sit alone in the room watching through the window. I can’t hear any of it. Naen comes back an hour later. She writes on the notepad.

I requested an emergency protective order. This would stop your parents from having contact with you without supervision. A judge will review the medical evidence and your written statement tonight. If the judge approves it, hospital security will keep your parents away from Callie’s ICU room. I read her words twice. Something unfamiliar rises in my chest.

Not quite hope, but maybe the chance of safety. The next morning, a hospital psychologist arrives. She has a folder full of papers and pictures. She sits with me for 2 hours. She shows me pictures and asks me to identify objects. I can point to a car, a house, a dog. But when she asks me to write what they do or why we use them, I struggle.

She asks me to read passages from a book. I stumble over words I’ve never heard spoken. I don’t know how they sound in my head. At the end, she lets me read her report. It says, “I have big gaps in my basic knowledge. It notes something called communication deprivation syndrome. The words consistent with language isolation are written in her notes.

I read those words and understand for the first time that what my parents did has a name. Other people know about this kind of harm. The psychologist packs up her folders and tells me someone will be in touch about next steps. I wait until she leaves, then stand up slowly. My legs feel shaky from sitting so long.

A nurse appears at the door and gestures for me to follow her down the hallway. We walk past rooms with beeping machines and people in beds. The ICU is quieter than the emergency department, but somehow more scary. Everything feels serious here. The nurse stops at a room with glass walls and points inside. I see Callie lying in a bed with tubes connected to her arms and monitors attached to her chest. Her eyes are closed.

I step into the room carefully, trying not to make noise, even though she can’t hear me anyway. The nurse leaves and I’m alone with my sister for the first time since the ambulance took her away. I move to the bedside and just stand there watching her breathe. Her face looks pale against the white pillow. There’s a big bandage on her stomach where they cut her open.

I reach out slowly and touch her hand. It feels warm. Her fingers twitch and then her eyes open. She looks confused for a second, blinking at the bright lights and strange ceiling. Then her eyes find my face and I watch recognition spread across her features. Her mouth opens like she wants to say something, but no sound comes out.

I squeeze her hand gently and she squeezes back. We stare at each other and I can read the question in her eyes without needing any words. Am I safe? Is this real? What happened? I nod slowly, trying to put everything into that one movement. Yes, you’re safe. Yes, I’m here. Yes, everything changed. She keeps squeezing my hand and I see tears forming in her eyes.

I want to tell her about the nurses, about Naen, about the protective order, but we don’t have language for any of that yet. So, I just hold her hand and let my eyes say what my mouth can’t. I’m not leaving you. We’re going to be okay. I promise. A doctor comes in to check her monitors, and we have to let go of each other’s hands.

I step back against the wall and watch him write notes on a clipboard. He leaves without trying to talk to me. I move back to Callie’s bedside, and she’s already reaching for my hand again. We stay like that for what feels like hours, just holding on to each other in the quiet room. Naen appears in the doorway, holding a folder full of papers.

She waves to get my attention, then gestures toward the hallway. I look at Callie and she nods, telling me it’s okay to go. I squeeze her hand one more time and follow Naen to a small waiting area with uncomfortable plastic chairs. She sits down and pulls out a thick stack of papers from her folder. She writes on her notepad in big, clear letters.

The judge approved the emergency protective order. I read the words twice before they make sense. Naen slides the official court document across to me and I pick it up with shaking hands. The legal language is hard to understand, but I can make out the important parts. My parents names are listed at the top. Then there are paragraphs about temporary custody and supervised visitation and restrictions on medical decisions.

I read one section three times. The judge finds credible evidence of a pattern of physical punishment for natural communication attempts and medical neglect that resulted in life-threatening injury to the minor child. The words swim in front of my eyes. Someone in power actually believed us. Nadine writes another note. Your parents can only see you and Callie with a CPS supervisor present.

They cannot make any medical choices for you right now. The hospital has copies of this order. Security knows not to let them into Callie’s room alone. I look up at Naen and feel something unfamiliar rising in my chest. Not quite hope because I’m too scared to hope yet, but maybe the smallest possibility that a piece of paper with a judge’s signature might actually protect us from 15 years of control.

I write a question on the notepad. How long does this last? Naen writes back. six months unless the judge extends it or changes it. We have a hearing in 5 days to determine longerterm custody. I read that and my stomach drops. 5 days. Then we have to face them again in court. The next morning, a woman with a hospital badge introduces herself through writing.

She’s the interpreter coordinator. She writes that she’s very sorry, but they only have three ASL interpreters on staff for the entire medical center. None of them are available for the hours we need them because they’re scheduled with other patients. She looks upset as she writes this, like she knows it’s not good enough, but can’t fix it.

I write back asking when we can get an interpreter. She writes that she’s trying to bring someone in from an outside agency, but it takes time to arrange and approve. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. I feel frustration building in my chest. How are we supposed to communicate with doctors and nurses and social workers without interpreters? The coordinator writes that she’s doing everything she can and leaves looking stressed.

Mila finds me in the hallway an hour later. She sits down beside me and writes that she knows the interpreter situation is terrible. She writes that she’ll keep helping however she can with her basic sign vocabulary and written notes. Over the next two days, that’s exactly what happens. Mila shows up during her breaks and lunch hours to help translate between me and various hospital staff.

She knows maybe 50 signs and has to finger spell a lot of words slowly. It takes forever to have even simple conversations. A doctor wants to explain Callie’s medication schedule and it takes 30 minutes with Mila writing everything down and me asking questions on paper. A nurse needs to know about my medical history and we spend an hour going through basic questions.

I start to understand something that makes me angry. Even people who want to help us are trapped by a system that wasn’t built for deaf people to use it. There aren’t enough interpreters. The ones they have are stretched too thin, and we’re supposed to make life or death medical decisions through handwritten notes and basic gestures.

Naen comes back 3 days after the protective order with a new document in her hands. Her face looks tense as she sits down across from me in the consultation room. She slides the papers over and I see it’s a legal filing from my parents lawyer. I start reading and feel my chest get tight.

The lawyer argues that my parents were using something called an oral education method. He writes that this is a recognized approach to teaching deaf children. He claims that cultural differences in how people handle disability are being turned into crimes. He uses phrases like parenting rights and religious freedom and educational choice.

I read through six pages of legal language that makes what my parents did sound almost reasonable. Like tying our hands and burning us with stove burners was just a different parenting philosophy. Naen watches my face as I read. When I finish, she writes a note that makes my stomach hurt. Some officials might agree with this argument.

Some people think your parents were trying to help you succeed in a hearing world. We need to be ready for people who see this as a parenting choice, not abuse. I stare at the note and feel ragebuilding. How can anyone think 15 years of punishment for using our hands was helping us? How can they call it a choice when we were 6 years old and had no power? But Naen’s face tells me she’s serious.

This is going to be a fight. Some people will take our parents side. I write back asking what happens next. She writes that the court scheduled an emergency shelter care hearing for 5 days from now. That hearing will decide if we stay in state custody or go back home while the investigation continues. My hands start shaking as I write my next question.

Do I have to talk at the hearing? Naen nods and writes that my written statement is powerful, but hearing directly from me will matter more to the judge. She writes that I don’t have to speak if I can’t, but it would help our case. I think about standing in a courtroom with my parents watching.

I think about using my voice, the voice they forced me to develop through years of painful therapy. The thought makes me want to throw up, but I write back that I’ll do it because Callie can’t testify yet, and someone has to tell the truth about what happened. 3 days after her surgery, Callie develops a fever. I’m sitting beside her bed when a nurse comes in to check her temperature.

The thermometer reads 101°. The nurse leaves quickly and comes back with Dr. Morgan. He examines Callie carefully, pressing on her stomach and checking the surgical site. Then he pulls out a notepad and writes that sometimes infection flares up even after the appendix is removed. He writes that this happens more often when treatment got delayed as long as Callie’s did.

The infection had time to spread before surgery. Her body is still fighting it off. She needs to stay in the hospital for at least another week, maybe longer. I read his note and feel my stomach drop. Another week means she’ll miss the shelter care hearing. She won’t be there to show the judge what happened to her. Dr.

Morgan writes another note saying he’s starting her on stronger antibiotics and they’ll monitor her closely. He leaves and I sit back down in the chair beside Callie’s bed. She’s asleep, her face flushed from the fever. I watch her breathe and feel guilt washing over me. I’m healthy enough to fight while she’s still recovering from nearly dying.

I’m the one who can testify while she’s stuck in a hospital bed. I spend the next 3 days barely leaving her room. I sleep in the chair beside her bed. Nurses bring me food and I eat without tasting it. Naen visits and updates me on hearing preparations, but I can barely focus on what she’s writing. All I can think about is Callie lying there fighting an infection that happened because neither of us could communicate that she needed help.

The fever breaks after 4 days, and Dr. Morgan writes that she’s improving, but she still can’t leave the hospital. She still can’t come to court. I’m going to have to face our parents alone. The shelter care hearing happens in a small courtroom that smells like old wood and cleaning products. Naen meets me outside and walks me through security.

I’ve never been in a courthouse before. Everything feels too formal and scary. We sit in the hallway waiting for our turn and I watch other families going in and out of different courtrooms. Some people are crying, some look angry, everyone looks stressed. Finally, a baiff calls our case number and we walk into the courtroom.

It’s smaller than I expected from TV shows. There’s a judge sitting up high behind a big wooden desk. My parents are already there with their lawyer sitting at a table on one side. Naen leads me to a table on the other side. An interpreter stands beside the judge’s bench. I watch her hands move as she translates what the judge is saying into ASL.

I can only understand maybe one word in 10. The signs are too fast and too complex for my limited knowledge, but I can tell from everyone’s faces that official court business is happening. Papers are being filed. Lawyers are making arguments. The judge asks questions. It all happens in a language I can’t fully access even with the interpreter there.

After what feels like forever, Naen touches my arm and points to the witness stand. It’s my turn. I stand up on shaky legs and walk to the small podium beside the judge. Naen comes with me and stands next to me. The judge says something and the interpreter’s hands move. I don’t understand, but Naen taps the written statement I’ve been carrying.

I spent two days writing the statement with Naen’s help. We worked through every detail, every incident, every punishment. Now I have to read it out loud. I unfold the papers with trembling hands and start reading. My voice comes out scratchy and weird. I’m not sure I’m pronouncing all the words right. I describe the stove burn when I was six.

I describe the rope marks on our wrists from being tied during meals. I describe the cameras in our room. I describe 8 hours a day of painful speech therapy. I describe Callie’s days of silent suffering, holding her stomach, unable to tell anyone about the pain. My voice cracks on some words.

I have to stop twice to catch my breath, but I keep reading. I force myself to keep going even when I see my mother crying in the front row. Even when my father’s face turns red with anger. Even when their lawyer objects and the judge tells him to be quiet. I read every word of my statement because Callie can’t be here to tell her part.

When I finish, my hands are shaking so hard the papers rattle. Naen takes them from me gently and leads me back to our table. The judge talks for a long time after my testimony. The interpreter’s hands move constantly, but I’m too overwhelmed to follow most of it. I catch a few signs I recognize. Temporary custody supervised.

Finally, the judge bangs a wooden hammer thing on her desk and everyone stands up. Naen writes quickly on her notepad. The judge granted temporary custody to the state. Your parents can only see you during supervised visits at the CPS office. I read the note and feel my knees go weak. Naen grabs my arm to steady me.

Relief floods through me so strong I almost fall down. But mixed with the relief is this confusing grief that sits heavy in my chest. I watch my parents being led out of the courtroom by their lawyer. My mother’s face is crumpling, tears running down her cheeks. My father looks angry and defeated at the same time. I just destroyed my family.

Or maybe I finally told the truth that needed telling. I don’t know which one it is. Maybe it’s both. Naen writes another note. You were incredibly brave today. I stare at the word brave and it feels wrong. Brave is for heroes who choose to do hard things. I just asked not to be heard anymore. That shouldn’t require bravery.

That should be basic. But I don’t write any of this back to Naen. I just nod and let her lead me out of the courtroom into the bright hallway. The following week, three people from the school district show up at the hospital with rolling suitcases full of testing materials. Naen explained that federal law requires them to check any child in state custody who might need special education help.

They set up in a conference room and spend the entire day testing me. The first woman shows me pictures and asks me to read words. I stumble over half of them. The second specialist makes me read paragraphs out loud and answer questions about what I read. I get maybe 60% right. The third person tests my vocabulary by showing me objects and asking me to explain how they’re used.

I can identify things, but explaining their purpose in writing is much harder. They test my ability to follow spoken directions by having me watch their mouths and do what they say. I miss most of the instructions because I can’t lipre that well despite 15 years of forced practice. Each test reveals another gap in my knowledge.

Things other 15-year-olds know that I don’t. Words I’ve never learned. Concepts I missed because I couldn’t hear teachers explain them. By the end of the day, I feel exhausted and stupid. One of the specialists must see my face because she writes a note saying, “This isn’t about intelligence. It’s about access.

” I didn’t have access to education the way hearing kids do. That’s not my fault. But reading those words doesn’t make me feel better about how far behind I am. A week later, Naen brings me their official report. It’s 20 pages long and uses lots of big words I don’t understand. But the main points are clear.

I’m reading at maybe a sixth grade level. My vocabulary is limited. My speech is hard for strangers to understand. My ability to follow spoken language is poor. The report recommends something called an IEP, which Naen explains is a plan for special education help. They want to give me an ASL interpreter for classes. They want to bring in a deaf education expert.

They want to provide extra services to make up for years of educational neglect. I read the word neglect and feel it settle into my bones. That’s what it was. Not helping me succeed. Neglect. A different woman comes to interview me the next week. She introduces herself as a court-appointed psychologist.

She has an interpreter with her this time, someone who can actually translate everything we say. The psychologist asks questions about my feelings toward my parents. She asks what I remember about growing up. She asks what I’m afraid of now. She asks what I want for the future. The questions go on for 2 hours and I answer as honestly as I can.

I tell her I’m scared and relieved at the same time. I tell her I love my parents and hate what they did to us. I tell her I don’t know who I am without their control shaping every moment of my life. I tell her I’m angry that Callie almost died. I’m angry that we spent 15 years without real language.

I’m angry that some people think our parents were just trying to help us. The psychologist writes everything down in a notebook. She doesn’t react or judge. She just listens and writes. 2 days later, she comes back to interview Callie. I wait outside the room while they talk. After an hour, the psychologist comes out looking concerned.

She writes a note saying refused to speak or sign during the interview. She would only communicate through written notes, and even then, her answers were short. The psychologist writes that this is common for trauma survivors. Sometimes shutting down feels safer than opening up. She writes that Callie will talk when she’s ready.

We can’t force it. I think about my sister lying in that hospital bed, silent in every possible way. Not speaking, not signing, barely writing, retreating into herself the same way she did at home when things got too hard. I want to fix it, but I don’t know how. The psychologist must see my face because she writes one more note.

You can’t heal her. You can only heal yourself and be there when she’s ready to heal, too. I read those words and feel them hit something deep inside me. I’ve spent 15 years trying to protect Callie, trying to take punishments for her, trying to communicate for her. But maybe that’s not what she needs anymore. Maybe she needs space to figure out her own path to healing, even if that path is different from mine.

The first supervised visit happens 2 weeks later in a small room at the CPS office with gray walls and a table between us. Nadine sits in the corner with her notebook, her pen ready. My parents come in looking smaller than I remember, like they shrunk somehow. Mom’s hair is pulled back tight and dad’s wearing a suit like he’s going to court.

They sit across from us and Callie grabs my hand under the table, squeezing hard. Mom’s mouth starts moving in those big exaggerated shapes we were trained to read. I catch the words slowly. We only wanted you to have normal lives. Dad adds more words, his lips careful and precise. We were protecting you from being limited.

I watch them form these excuses, the same ones they’ve probably told their lawyer and themselves a hundred times. My hands stay still for a minute. Old habit keeping them frozen. Then I remember Leo’s lesson from yesterday and I lift my hands slowly. The signs are clumsy because I’m still learning, but I make the shapes clear. Number hurt us.

Three simple signs, but they land like bombs. Mom’s face crumples and dad’s jaw gets tight. Naen writes something in her notebook. The visit lasts 30 minutes, and nobody says anything real. 3 weeks after Callie’s surgery, Dr. Morgan schedules a follow-up appointment at the hospital. We sit in the exam room while he checks the surgical site, his fingers gentle on Callie’s stomach.

He writes notes on a pad and slides them across to us. The infection has cleared up completely, but there will be scarring inside that might cause digestive problems for years. You’ll need to come back every few months so we can monitor it. Any stomach pain in the future needs to be taken seriously right away. I read the words twice and feel anger building in my chest.

My sister will carry these scars forever because our parents wouldn’t let her tell anyone she was hurting. She’ll have stomach issues for the rest of her life because they threw away her drawings and called her pain attention-seeking behavior. Dr. Morgan watches my face and writes another note. This wasn’t your fault. You both did everything you could with what you had.

I nod, but the anger doesn’t go away. It just sits there hot and heavy, knowing that Callie’s body will remember this even after everything else is over. Naen drives us to the foster home the next day in her blue sedan. The Mitchell live in a two-story house with a neat lawn and flowers by the front door. Mrs.

Mitchell comes out smiling, her hands already moving in big gestures like she’s trying to communicate without words. She’s nice, patient, writing notes on a small whiteboard she keeps in her pocket. Mr. Mitchell works nights, so we mostly see him at breakfast. They have two other foster kids, both younger, both hearing.

At dinner that first night, I watch the family talk to each other in conversations I can’t follow. Their mouths move fast, comfortable, laughing at jokes I don’t understand. Mrs. Mitchell tries to include us, writing notes and showing us things, but it’s exhausting. Every single interaction requires a pen and paper.

Callie and I sit at the table eating while the world happens around us in a language we can’t access. At least at home with our parents, Callie and I had our secret gesture system. We developed it over years. Small movements that meant things only we understood. Here, we’re completely cut off. The Mitchells are kind, but we’re living in their hearing world, always on the outside looking in.

The next week, there’s a meeting about our education at the school district office. The room fills with people, specialists, and advocates, and district administrators, all talking about IEP accommodations and services we need. The interpreter is supposed to be there at 2:00. By 2:15, people start checking their phones.

By 2:30, everyone looks frustrated. They try to keep going with written notes, but it takes forever. Every question requires writing it down, waiting for me to read it, writing my answer, then writing it again so everyone understands. A simple question about math class takes 5 minutes. People keep glancing at the clock.

Then Ma shows up on her lunch break from the hospital, still wearing her scrubs. She sits next to me and starts using her basic sign vocabulary, the simple stuff she knows, bridging gaps where she can. It helps, but everyone leaves the meeting exhausted and behind schedule. We only got through half the agenda. I start understanding something sitting in that room watching adults get tired and annoyed.

The systems failure to provide communication access isn’t just inconvenient. It’s another form of isolation. It’s another way of controlling us, making us depend on other people’s patience and time. It’s another way of saying our access needs are burdens instead of rights. My first ASL class happens at the local deaf services center in a room with big windows and posters showing the alphabet.

Leo Ford greets me at the door with signs that flow like water, his hands moving in patterns I can’t follow yet. Then he switches to simple gestures and writes on a whiteboard. Welcome. We’re going to learn together. He starts with the alphabet, showing me how to form each letter with my hands. A is a fist with the thumb on the side.

B is a flat hand with the thumb across the palm. Curves like the letter itself. I copy his movements, my fingers clumsy and uncertain. He teaches me basic greetings. Hello. Thank you, please. Then simple phrases. My name is I am deaf. I need help. For the first time in my life, my hands are creating language instead of being punished for moving.

I practice the sign for sister over and over. Both hands making fists and sliding down my jaw. Then safe, my hands crossing over my chest. Then help. One hand lifting the other. These simple hand shapes represent everything I’ve been denied for 15 years. I’m crying quietly while I practice. Tears running down my face, but I don’t stop signing.

Leo writes me a note. You’re doing great. Take your time. There’s no rush. But I want to rush. I want to learn everything right now. I want to make up for 15 years of silence. That night, I’m scrolling through my phone in bed at the Mitchell’s house when I see a local news article about child abuse cases.

Someone posted a comment asking if CPS is going too far by getting involved in how parents choose to educate disabled kids. The comment thread fills up fast. People debating whether forcing deaf children to speak is abuse or just old-fashioned parenting. Some people write that oral education is a valid choice and parents have the right to make medical decisions for their kids.

Others write that sign language should be required and oral only approaches are harmful. They’re arguing about my life like it’s a philosophical debate instead of 15 years of tied hands and stove burns. Naen shows me the article the next day with an apology written on a sticky note. I read through the comments. Strangers who’ve never had their hands tied behind their backs arguing that our parents were just trying to help us.

People who’ve never eaten with their face in a plate like a dog saying that speech therapy is important. I feel sick reading it. But I also start learning something. There will always be people who don’t understand. People who think accommodation is giving in. People who believe being normal matters more than being safe.

I can’t control what they think. I can only control how much space I give their opinions in my head. A few days later, a woman named Haley Newton visits me at the foster home. Mrs. Mitchell brings her to the living room where I’m doing homework. Haley starts signing right away, her hands moving in full conversations I can’t understand yet.

Then she sees my confused face and switches. She pulls out her phone and types a message. Hi, I’m Haley. I’m deaf, too. I was raised oral only until I was 16. I understand what you’re going through. I read the message three times. She gets it. She actually gets it because she lived it. Haley types more messages telling me about her childhood, about the grief and anger and confusion she felt when she finally learned sign language, about the community of deaf people who survived similar experiences.

She writes that there are others like us, that we’re not alone in this. She gives me her phone number and types that I can text her anytime, day or night, if I need to talk to someone who understands. For the first time, I’m meeting someone who’s been through what I’m going through and came out the other side.

Someone who’s living proof that life gets better, that there’s a future beyond the trauma. Haley hugs me before she leaves and signs something I don’t know yet. Later, I look it up. It means family. The week before depositions are scheduled, I meet with the court interpreter every afternoon to practice. Her name is Sandra, and she’s patient, professional, never rushing me.

She teaches me how to pause after signing so she has time to voice my responses. How to look at the person asking questions, not at her. How to speak clearly if I’m using my voice instead of signing. We practice over and over. She asks me sample questions and I answer. Then we review how it went.

What would you say if they ask why you didn’t speak up sooner? What would you say if they suggest your parents were just following professional advice? What would you say if they claim you’re being coached? Each practice session makes me more confident, but also more scared. I’m terrified of being cross-examined by my parents lawyer.

Terrified of having my words twisted into something that makes their abuse sound like love. Sandra writes me a note at the end of our last practice session. You’re ready. Just tell the truth. That’s all you have to do. But the truth feels so big and complicated. How do I explain 15 years in a deposition? How do I make them understand what it’s like to have no language? No way to share your thoughts.

No way to tell anyone you’re hurting. At Callie’s next therapy session, I sit in the waiting room while she meets with her therapist. After an hour, the therapist comes out looking concerned. She asks me to come into her office and shows me her notebook. Callie refused to write or gesture or engage with any of my questions today. She just sat there.

I’ve seen this before with trauma survivors. Sometimes shutting down feels safer than opening up. I walk back to the waiting room where Callie sits staring at the floor. I try using our private gesture system, the one we developed as kids, asking if she’s okay. She turns away from me. Later at the foster home, I try again.

She won’t look at me. I realize she’s angry. Angry at me for speaking up and destroying our family. Angry at the system for separating us from our parents. Angry at herself for nearly dying. Angry at everyone and everything. The therapist writes me a note before we leave. Give her space to process at her own pace. She’ll talk when she’s ready.

But patience is hard when I can see my sister drowning. When I watch her retreat into the same silent survival mode she used at home. I want to fix it to make her better to protect her like I always have. But maybe that’s not what she needs. Maybe she needs space to figure out her own path to healing. 2 days later at the CPS office, I’m walking down the crowded hallway to another meeting when people start rushing past me.

I can’t hear them coming. Can’t hear footsteps or voices warning me they’re there. Someone bumps my shoulder hard and I spin around, but they’re already gone. Another person rushes past and I feel the air move, but I didn’t see them coming. My body floods with the old fear, the memory of being grabbed from behind, of dad’s hand on my wrist, bending it back. I can’t breathe.

My chest gets tight, and my vision tunnels. I crouch against the wall, trying to make myself small, my hands shaking. Naen finds me there a few minutes later, hyperventilating against the painted concrete. She sits beside me and pulls out her notebook. She writes in clear print. Five things you can see. I look around.

Gray wall, exit sign, Naen’s shoes, door handle, clock. Four things you can touch. Wall, floor, my shirt, Naen’s hand. I work through the exercise slowly. My breathing evening out, my heart rate dropping. Nadine writes another note. I’m adding trauma-informed therapy to your service plan. You need someone who specializes in PTSD. I nod exhausted.

This is going to be a long road. The next day at the foster home, a thick envelope arrives with the hospital logo in the corner. I tear it open and my eyes go straight to the total at the bottom. $42,817. The number blurs as I read it again. Surgery, ICU stay, medications, specialist consultations, all listed in neat rows. My hands start shaking.

I think about our parents seeing this bill, using it to prove they should get us back because the state can’t afford us. I imagine them in court saying we’re too expensive, that they’ll pay it off if we come home. Mrs. Mitchell finds me frozen at the kitchen table, staring at the pages.

She reads over my shoulder and her face changes. She pulls out her phone and texts someone. 20 minutes later, Naen arrives and sits across from me. She reads the bill carefully, then pulls out her notebook. Medical costs for children in state custody are covered through Medicaid. She writes in clear block letters.

Your parents cannot use this as leverage. They have no financial responsibility for these charges. The state handles all of it. I read her words three times, but the panic doesn’t leave. I spend the next 4 days jumping every time someone knocks on the door. I check the mail obsessively, looking for more bills, more numbers that could trap us.

I imagine debt collectors showing up, police saying we have to go home to pay it off. Naen comes back twice more that week to repeat the same information, writing it out different ways until I finally start to believe her. A week later, Naen shows me her phone with an email pulled up. A reporter from the local news station wants to interview us about the deaf twins abuse case.

I read the email twice. The reporter writes about raising awareness and giving voice to the voiceless. An inspiring story of survival. My stomach twists. Part of me wants everyone to know what happened. Wants to scream the truth to all those people who think our parents were just old-fashioned.

But another part imagines our story on TV. People watching while they eat dinner. Commenting on news websites about whether we’re lying. Naen writes, “I advise against media contact while case is active. could complicate legal proceedings. I nod and watch her type a polite decline. But that night, I lie awake thinking about all the people who’ll never understand, who keep defending the oral method, who will say their parents did the same thing, and they turned out fine.

That evening, Callie and I sit on our beds in the room we share at the foster home. I show her the signs Leo taught me in our last class. The alphabet first, my fingers forming each letter slowly, then simple words. Sister, home. Safe. She watches my hands carefully, then copies the movements.

Her fingers are hesitant at first, unsure. We practice for 20 minutes. Then I pull out the old gesture system we created as kids. The tap on the shoulder that meant danger. The finger to the lips that meant parents coming. The hand on the heart that meant I love you. We combine them now, mixing Leo’s proper ASL with our survival language, creating something that’s ours.

Callie signs sister in ASL, then adds our old heart gesture. I do the same back. We sit there in the quiet room, our hands moving freely in the lamplight, choosing how we talk for the first time in our lives. Mrs. Mitchell walks past the open door and smiles but doesn’t interrupt. These evening sessions become our ritual. Every night after dinner, we practice.

Sometimes we laugh when we mess up a sign. Sometimes we cry remembering why we never learned this before. But we keep going, reclaiming what was stolen. The dependency case attorney schedules a meeting at her office downtown. She’s a woman in her 40s with graying hair and kind eyes. She sits across from me with a legal pad and writes out our options in neat columns.

Option one, focus on dependency findings. Keep you in foster care with services. Parents maintain some rights, but supervised contact only. She pauses while I read, then continues writing. Option two, pursue criminal charges for child abuse. More traumatic for you. Court, cross-examination, but could lead to professional consequences for the speech therapist. I stare at the two columns.

She adds more notes. Criminal prosecution means police investigation, possible jail time for our parents, the therapist losing her license. Dependency findings mean safety and services, but less accountability. I’m 15 years old and someone’s asking me to decide between justice and healing, between punishment and protection.

The attorney writes, “No rush. Think about it. We can discuss more.” But my head already hurts from the weight of it. I want someone else to make these decisions. I want to be a kid who worries about homework and friends, not whether to send her parents to jail. I leave her office exhausted. The two options spinning in my mind like a coin that won’t land.

Two days later, Nadine brings more paperwork to the foster home. Court documents, official letterhead, legal language I can barely understand. She sits with me at the kitchen table and we read together. Our parents filed a formal complaint against the hospital and CPS. Their lawyer argues that the oral method is a recognized educational approach and that the state is discriminating against approach and that the state is discriminating against.

They’re claiming freedom of belief, like 15 years of punishment was just a different opinion about how to raise deaf kids. The filing includes references to other families who used oral only approaches, expert testimony from aiologists who support speech training, arguments about parental authority.

I watch Naen’s face get tight as she reads. My hands clench into fists under the table. The paper crumples in my grip. They’re still doing it. Still trying to make their control sound like love. Still arguing they were helping us. The rage builds in my chest, hot and sharp. I want to scream that help doesn’t leave rope burns, that love doesn’t involve stove burners, but I just sit there crushing the paper while Naen writes notes about the court’s response timeline.

A month passes and Naen stops coming to our appointments. Mrs. Mitchell explains that there’s been departmental restructuring, whatever that means. Instead, a new case worker shows up, Lando. He’s younger than Naen, maybe late 20s, with nervous energy and an oversted briefcase. He sits down with me and Callie and pulls out our file.

It’s thick now, hundreds of pages. He reads through it while we wait, his eyes moving fast across the words. Then he looks up and pulls out a notebook. I need to understand your situation, he writes. Can you tell me what happened? I stare at him. Everything is in that file. The stove burns, the tied hands, the cameras. Callie nearly dying.

It’s all documented, but he needs me to explain it again because he’s new and overwhelmed and there are too many cases. I pick up the pen and start writing. The same story I’ve told five times now. My hand cramps after the first page. Lando is nice, apologetic even, but I can see he’s drowning in paperwork. He has 20 other cases.

He doesn’t know the details of our needs. Doesn’t understand why interpreter scheduling matters. Hasn’t built the relationship Naen had. I realize right there that I’m going to have to fight harder now. The systems turnover means starting over, explaining over, advocating over and over, because no one person holds all the knowledge of what we need.

3 weeks later, Lando drives us to a court hearing. We arrive 20 minutes early and wait in the hallway. The interpreter is supposed to be here at 9:00. 9:15 passes. 9:30. The judge’s clerk comes out looking annoyed. My parents lawyer stands near the courtroom door, checking his watch dramatically and complaining loudly about delays. I watch the clock on the wall, each minute ticking by while we wait for communication access.

My anxiety climbs with each passing second. 9:45. The interpreter finally rushes in, apologizing, explaining about traffic, and another appointment running late. The judge refuses to start without her, which I appreciate, but I also feel the weight of everyone’s frustration. The lawyer’s comment about accommodation delays hangs in the air.

I understand something new sitting in that hallway. Interpreter shortages aren’t just scheduling problems. They’re barriers that make my access needs feel like burdens. They’re delays that make people annoyed at me instead of at a system that doesn’t hire enough interpreters. They’re proof that the world wasn’t built for deaf people to move through it easily.

My therapy sessions continue weekly. This time, the therapist writes something new at the top of a page. Internalized abbleism. Below it, she adds a definition in careful handwriting. When disabled people absorb society’s negative messages about disability and believe they’re true, she slides the paper across to me and writes a question.

What messages did your parents give you about being deaf? I stare at the definition. Then I start writing. That signing would make me less than. That speech was the only way to be fully human. That my hands were wrong, animallike, shameful, that I needed to be fixed. that accommodation was giving up, that being deaf meant being broken.

The list grows longer. The therapist reads it and nods slowly. She writes, “You still believe some of these. I can hear it in how you talk about yourself. I feel something shift in my chest, a recognition. I do still believe it. Part of me still thinks I should try harder to speak clearly, that using ASL is easier but lesser, that needing interpreters makes me a burden.

My parents voices live in my head, telling me I’m not enough as I am.” The therapist writes one more thing. Naming the shame is the first step to releasing it. I fold the paper and put it in my pocket, carrying the words with me. A medical appointment follows. The next week, a team of doctors reviews my records, spreading papers across the exam room table.

One of them, an aiologist, writes out an explanation. You were technically eligible for colear implant evaluation as a young child. I read the sentence twice. She continues writing, “Your parents never pursued it. The evaluation process would have involved deaf education professionals who typically recommend sign language alongside or instead of implants.

I process this slowly. They could have gotten me evaluated. They chose not to probably because deaf educators would have challenged their oral only approach. The aiologist writes more. The decision about implants now or ever is yours alone. Your body your communication choices. No pressure either way.

She underlines yours alone twice. I sit with that my body. My choices, not my parents’ control, not society’s expectations, mine. I’m not ready to decide anything about implants. I don’t even fully understand what they are yet. But the fact that I have choice, that someone’s telling me I get to decide about my own body, feels revolutionary, like something fundamental has shifted in who has power over my life.

Cooper Shaw, my guardian adlidum, requests a meeting to discuss long-term planning. We sit in a conference room at his office and he spreads out information packets about different options. He writes in clear print across a legal pad. Option one, pursue emancipation at 16. More freedom, less support. You’d be legally independent.

He pauses while I read, then adds. Option two, extended foster care until 18. State support for housing, education, transition services, more stability, less autonomy. I look at the two paths laid out in front of me. Emancipation means I could make all my own choices, live independently, control my own life, but I’d lose the support system, the caseworker help, the educational services, extended foster care means rules and supervision, and someone else having authority over me, but I’d have housing security, continued therapy, help navigating the world,

Cooper writes another note. Neither option is perfect. We can discuss more as you get closer to 16. I realize I’m being asked to plan for adult independence when I’m still learning basic communication skills. When I’m still figuring out who I am without my parents’ control, when I’m still catching up on 15 years of educational neglect, the weight of these decisions presses down on me.

But I nod and take the information packets because this is my life now. Making impossible choices and hoping I pick the ones that lead somewhere better than where I’ve been. The court hearing happens 3 weeks later in a small courtroom with wood paneling and fluorescent lights that buzz overhead. I sit between Cooper and the interpreter, watching the judge review papers while my parents sit across the aisle with their lawyer.

The judge looks up and starts speaking, her mouth moving in clear shapes while the interpreter signs beside me. She extends the restraining order for another 6 months and adds new conditions requiring my parents to complete parenting classes focused specifically on deaf culture and appropriate communication access. My mother’s face crumples and tears start rolling down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking silently.

My father puts his arm around her and glares at me across the courtroom. I feel my stomach twist with this weird mix of relief and guilt, like I’m both protected and terrible at the same time. Cooper slides a notepad across the table and writes in clear print that I didn’t cause this, that my parents’ choices created these consequences, not my plea for help.

I read his words three times, but the guilt sits heavy in my chest anyway. The judge dismisses us and I walk out past my parents without looking at them, feeling their eyes on my back the whole way down the hallway. The nightmares start that same night. I wake up gasping in the dark foster home bedroom, my hands clutching the sheets because in the dream they were tied behind my back and I was screaming without sound.

Callie is asleep in the bed across from me, her face peaceful in the moonlight coming through the window. I try to go back to sleep, but every time I close my eyes, I see the stove burner getting closer, or Callie collapsed on the floor, holding her stomach or my father’s face twisted in anger. The next night, it happens again.

And the night after that, by the end of the week, I’m exhausted and jumpy, flinching at every unexpected movement. Mrs. Mitchell notices the dark circles under my eyes at breakfast and writes me a note asking if I’m sleeping okay. I shake my head and she contacts Lando who sets up appointments for a sleep study and consultation about trauma- related insomnia.

The doctor explains through an interpreter that nightmares are normal after trauma, that my brain is processing years of fear and pain. She gives me a plan with grounding exercises to do before bed, teaches me how to focus on five things I can see and four things I can touch when panic rises. The foster parents get me a weighted blanket that presses down on my chest like a gentle hug.

These tools help manage the symptoms even though the trauma itself sits unchanged inside me. Waiting. Haley texts me two weeks later inviting Callie and me to a community event at the local deaf center. We take the bus across town on a Saturday afternoon, watching the city pass by through smudged windows. The deaf center is in an old brick building with a rainbow flag outside and a sign with hands forming the ASL symbol for community.

We walk through the front door and suddenly we’re surrounded by people signing. Their hands flying through conversations we can’t follow yet but can see are full of laughter and connection. A woman at the welcome table greets us in sign, then switches to writing when she sees our confused faces. She points us toward a group of teenagers gathered near the snack table.

Three deaf kids around our age approach us and sign slowly, exaggerating their movements so we can try to follow. They finger spell their names and ask where we’re from, their faces friendly and patient when we struggle to respond. One girl shows us the signs for different foods and drinks, making jokes that involve facial expressions more than words.

For the first time, I see what belonging might look like. A community where communication access isn’t something I have to fight for, but something that just exists naturally. Callie watches everything with wide eyes, her hands twitching like she wants to join the conversations, but doesn’t know how yet. We stay for 2 hours, mostly watching and learning, and when we leave, I feel this strange lightness in my chest.

The lightness disappears 3 days later when Lando calls and asks to meet urgently. He shows up at the foster home that evening looking stressed and apologetic, his hands shaking slightly as he writes out an explanation. He accidentally emailed our confidential case file to the wrong address, sent it to someone with a similar name in his contacts list.

The breach got contained quickly when the person called to report receiving it, but Lando explains that a stranger saw the details of our abuse for several hours before the mistake was caught. I feel anger rising hot in my throat because our trauma became someone’s careless error because strangers might have read about the stove burns and the tied hands and Cali nearly dying.

Lando apologizes over and over, his face red with embarrassment and guilt. He writes that the agency is implementing new security protocols to prevent this from happening again. That he’s being formally reprimanded. I want to yell at him, but I don’t have the words yet in either English or ASL. So, I just nod stiffly and leave the room.

Later that night, I lie in bed thinking about how the system that’s supposed to protect us keeps failing in small ways that add up to big violations of trust. The video statement recording happens the following week in a small office with professional lighting and a camera on a tripod.

An interpreter stands beside the camera and another sits next to me for support. The lawyer explains through the interpreter that I can take breaks whenever I need them, that I can write instead of speak when words fail, that this recording will be used in court, but I won’t have to testify in person again.

I nod and they start the camera. I look directly at the lens and start talking about the stove burn, describing how my father held my hand over the burner just long enough to teach me a lesson. My voice cracks and I have to stop, taking deep breaths while the interpreter waits patiently. I continue with watching Callie nearly die.

With 15 years of being told my hands were wrong and my deafness was something to overcome rather than accommodate. 20 minutes in, I start crying and have to take a break. Stepping outside to walk around the parking lot until I can breathe normally again. We restart and I get through more details before breaking down again. The whole recording takes 3 hours because I keep having to stop and restart, my emotions overwhelming the words.

When it’s finally done, I feel completely drained, but also like I’ve spoken my truth in a way that can’t be twisted or misinterpreted. The lawyer writes that my testimony was powerful and clear that the judge will understand exactly what happened. My new school placement starts the next Monday at a regional program for deaf and heart of hearing students.

Most of my teachers are deaf themselves or fluent in ASL. And having an interpreter in every class means I can actually follow instruction for the first time ever. But on Wednesday, a substitute teacher takes over my English class and immediately starts teaching with her back to us, turning to write on the board while giving instructions I can’t lipre from behind.

I raise my hand and try to explain that I need her to face the class when talking, but she waves me off and keeps writing. The regular interpreter isn’t available, and the substitute doesn’t understand why this matters. I feel that old frustration building, the same helpless anger from years of being told to just try harder.

After class, I go straight to the principal’s office and write out a formal complaint, explaining that facing students when speaking is a basic accommodation for deaf students, not a special favor or optional courtesy. The principal reads my complaint and apologizes immediately, explaining that the substitute wasn’t properly trained.

She promises staff training for all substitutes and sends an email that same day to every teacher in the building. I walk out of her office realizing I’m learning to advocate for myself without apologizing to demand access instead of politely requesting it. An anonymous message arrives through Haley 3 days later.

She forwards it to my phone with a note that someone wants to share their experience. I read the message slowly, my heart starting to pound. The person writes that they were a patient of the same speech therapist who worked with Cali and me when we were children. Their account describes hours of painful oral motor exercises, punishment for using hands to communicate, a rigid belief that speech was the only acceptable way for deaf children to exist in the world.

They include specific details that match my memories exactly the same popsicle sticks pressing our tongues into positions. The same mirrors to watch our breath fog, the same shame and pain when we couldn’t produce the right sounds. The message includes dates from 8 years ago, proving this therapist hurt other children long after she hurt us.

I sit on my bed reading and rereading the message, feeling less alone, but also more angry. We weren’t the only children damaged by the system by this person who believed she was helping us succeed. I meet with Cooper and the dependency attorney the following week to discuss filing a formal complaint with the state licensing board against our childhood speech therapist.

They explain that the complaint process requires detailed statements documenting specific abusive practices that went beyond legitimate therapy into coercion and punishment. I spend the next 3 weeks writing out memories I’d rather forget, describing the physical pain of having my tongue pressed down until I gagged, the fear of making mistakes, the hours of repetitive exercises that left my jaw aching.

Each memory I write down feels like picking at a wound that hasn’t healed yet. Haley stops by the foster home one evening when I’m struggling with a particularly difficult section about the cameras in our room. She writes me a note reminding me that accountability might prevent future children from experiencing what we did, that my complaint could protect other deaf kids from this therapist’s harmful approach.

I finish the statement 2 days later, print it out, and hand it to Cooper with shaking hands. The licensing board sends a letter 6 weeks later scheduling a preliminary hearing to determine whether the complaint warrants full investigation. Cooper explains through written notes that the process could take months or even years, that professional licensing investigations are deliberately slow and thorough to protect both people who file complaints and practitioners being investigated.

I feel frustrated by how slowly accountability moves, wanting immediate consequences for the harm this therapist caused. Cooper writes that justice isn’t always swift, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing, that systems have to be careful and methodical, even when that feels painfully slow. I learned to sit with the discomfort of waiting, of knowing that doing the right thing doesn’t always lead to quick satisfaction. Dr.

Morgan schedules Callie’s 3-month follow-up appointment, and we take the bus to his office on a Tuesday morning. He examines her surgical site carefully, pressing gently on her abdomen and watching her face for signs of pain. Through written notes, he explains that the site is healing well, but she’ll need ongoing monitoring for adhesions and digestive issues related to internal scarring from the burst appendix and infection.

He writes that she’s gained 12 pounds since the surgery, and her overall health has improved significantly now that she’s in a placement where she can communicate her needs and access proper nutrition. He adds a note that the medical improvement is concrete evidence that removing us from our parents control was the right decision.

I watch Callie reading his notes, her face relaxing slightly as she understands she’s getting better. We leave his office with a folder of information about managing potential long-term effects. And I feel grateful that at least the physical damage is healing, even if the emotional scars remain. The state scheduled settlement talks 3 weeks after Callie’s follow-up appointment, and Lando drove us to a conference room at the county building where our parents sat on one side of a long table with their lawyer, and we sat on the other side with Cooper and a

court interpreter. The hospital’s legal team joined by video call, their faces appearing on a screen mounted to the wall. Our parents attorney opened by arguing that the oral method was a recognized educational approach supported by decades of research, that our parents had consulted with licensed professionals who recommended this path, and that cultural differences in disability philosophy shouldn’t be criminalized by the state.

I watched my mother nodding along, her face set in that determined expression I knew so well. My father’s mouth formed careful words about wanting us to succeed in a hearing world, about protecting us from isolation and limited opportunities. The hospital’s lawyer countered with medical records documenting Kelly’s near death from burst appendix.

the rope marks on our wrists, my written testimony about punishment for using our hands. The state’s attorney added educational evaluations showing massive gaps in our learning, psychological assessments noting trauma symptoms, and expert testimony about communication deprivation syndrome. The talks went in circles for 2 hours, our parents refusing to acknowledge that their approach caused harm, their lawyer insisting they’d followed expert guidance and acted with good intentions.

Finally, the mediator called a break and wrote that settlement seemed unlikely given the fundamental disagreement about whether abuse had occurred. When we reconvened, the judge who’d been observing remotely announced she was setting a firm trial date for the dependency adjudication in 6 weeks. I felt my stomach drop because that meant testifying again, going through everything in detail in front of my parents and a courtroom full of strangers.

Lando drove us back to the foster home in silence, and I stared out the window, wondering how many more times I’d have to tell this story before someone believed it enough to keep us safe permanently. 2 days later, Lando picked us up with all our belongings packed in garbage bags and explained through written notes that he’d found a better placement for us.

We drove across town to a neighborhood with smaller houses and big trees and Lando pulled up in front of a blue house with a ramp leading to the front door. A woman stepped onto the porch and her hands moved in fluid ASL signs before she even reached us. Lando introduced her as Priscilla Doyle and she signed directly to me and Calie, her face expressive and her signs clear and slow.

I caught maybe one word in five, but watching her communicate in our language. Seeing her hands shape meaning in the air made my chest tight with something I couldn’t name. We followed her inside and I stared at everything like I’d entered another world. Deaf culture artwork hung on the walls. Paintings and photographs of hand signing of deaf performers and activists.

The doorbell was connected to lights that flashed throughout the house. Captions ran across the bottom of the television screen. Priscilla showed us to a bedroom we’d share, and she signed something I didn’t fully understand, but her face was kind and welcoming. That night at dinner, she signed slowly while also writing things down, bridging the gap between our limited ASL and her fluency.

For the first time in my life, I lived somewhere that was built for deaf people instead of forcing us to adapt to a hearing world. Callie and I lay in our beds that night, and I watched the street light patterns on the ceiling, feeling something shift inside me that I didn’t have words for yet.

Lando enrolled us in a regional program for deaf and heart of hearing students the following week. And I walked into the building, terrified that I’d be just as lost as I was in regular school. But the receptionist signed to me at the front desk, and the hallways had visual alert systems for bells and announcements. And when I entered my first classroom, the teacher signed while speaking, making sure every student could access the lesson.

The teacher assessed my skills that first day and discovered I could read at maybe a fifth grade level. My math was scattered with huge gaps, and my general knowledge had massive holes from years of missing information. But instead of making me feel stupid, she wrote out a plan that would address the gaps while building on what I did know.

She paired me with a deaf student mentor who’d help me navigate the school and practice ASL during lunch. My classes were small, maybe eight students each, and every teacher was either deaf or fluent in ASL. For the first time, I could follow instruction completely. Could ask questions and get answers I actually understood.

Could participate in class discussions through sign instead of sitting silent and confused. I came home exhausted those first weeks because learning in a language I was still acquiring took massive mental energy. But I was actually learning instead of just surviving. My confidence grew with each assignment I completed successfully.

Each test I passed, each moment I understood what was happening around me. The dependency adjudication hearing started on a cold morning in November, and Cooper met us outside the courthouse to explain what would happen. The hearing would span two full days with testimony from everyone involved in our case.

I’d have to testify again, but this time with more preparation and with Cooper beside me for support. We entered the courtroom, and I saw my parents sitting with their lawyer, my mother’s face pale, and my father’s jaw set hard. The judge called the hearing to order, and the state’s attorney began presenting evidence. Felix Morgan testified first, describing Callie’s medical condition when she arrived at the hospital.

the burst appendix and dangerous infection, the signs of neglect he’d observed beyond the immediate medical emergency. He explained that the delay in treatment had caused internal scarring that would affect Cali for years, possibly her whole life. Mila Cox testified next about her attempts to communicate with me, about the desperation in my gestures, and the written note that revealed years of abuse.

Naen took the stand and walked through her investigation, the interviews she’d conducted, the evidence she’d gathered. A psychologist testified about communication deprivation syndrome, explaining how denying a deaf child access to language causes measurable cognitive and emotional harm. Educational specialist presented our test results and evaluations, documenting the massive gaps in our learning that resulted from years in inaccessible classrooms.

The first day ended with testimony from the speech therapist who’d worked with us as children, and I watched her defend the oral method as legitimate, while the state’s attorney pressed her on specific techniques she’d used that crossed into punishment and coercion. The second day started with my testimony and I took the stand with the interpreter beside me.

Cooper had helped me prepare for days, practicing staying calm under cross-examination, focusing on facts rather than emotions. I described 15 years of communication deprivation in clear, specific detail. The rope marks on our wrists from having our hands tied during meals. The stove burn when I was six that taught me to keep my hands still.

The cameras installed in our room to catch us trying to communicate. The hours of painful speech therapy that left our jaws aching and throats raw. Callie’s days of suffering with appendicitis because she had no way to tell anyone what was wrong. I watched the judge’s face as I testified and I saw her expression shift from neutral to concerned to openly angry.

My parents attorney cross-examined me, trying to frame their actions as misguided love rather than abuse. But I held firm to the facts of what happened. When I stepped down, I felt rung out, but also stronger somehow, like I’d finally been heard completely. The judge took a brief recess to review her notes, and when she returned, she issued her ruling from the bench without hesitation.

She found our parents responsible for medical neglect that nearly killed Cali, for educational neglect that left us years behind academically, and for emotional abuse through systematic denial of communication access. She ordered them to complete extensive parenting classes focused specifically on deaf culture and appropriate accommodations, to attend therapy to address their beliefs about disability, and ruled that we would remain in state custody with only supervised visitation until further review in 6 months. My mother started

crying and my father’s face went hard and cold. But I felt relief washed through me so strong my knees went weak. Our parents attorney filed an appeal within days and also filed a counter suit claiming the state had violated their constitutional rights to raise their children according to their religious and philosophical beliefs.

Cooper explained the legal filings to me through written notes and the interpreter at our next meeting. The appeal would take months to work through the system and most of the countersuit claims had been dismissed by the judge as lacking merit, but a narrow appeal about parental rights would proceed. He emphasized that none of this would affect our current placement or safety, that we’d stay with Priscilla regardless of how the appeals played out.

I asked if we’d have to testify again, and he wrote that probably not, that the appeal would focus on legal questions rather than factual disputes. I felt frustrated that the legal process kept dragging on, that there wasn’t one clean moment where everything got resolved and we could move forward.

Cooper wrote that I needed to learn to live with uncertainty, that legal systems move slowly and messily, and that healing couldn’t wait for perfect closure. I read his note three times and tried to accept that justice doesn’t always look like what you imagine that sometimes you have to keep living and healing even while the official processes grind forward at their own pace.

My therapy sessions with the trauma counselor started shifting focus around this time, moving from crisis management to deeper identity work. She asked me to think about who I was beyond being a survivor of abuse to consider what interests and dreams I might have if I wasn’t constantly in survival mode. The question stumped me because I’d never thought about myself that way.

My entire identity had been built around surviving my parents’ control, around protecting Cali, around trying to be normal enough to avoid punishment. I started writing between sessions about things I’d never let myself explore. I liked art and drawing, but had never pursued it because my parents said it was frivolous. I was curious about science, but had missed so much school that I didn’t know where to start.

I wondered what it would be like to have friends, real friends, who I could talk to freely, instead of the careful surface relationships I’d maintained to hide our home life. The therapist asked me to write about the person I wanted to become now that I had access to language and education. And I spent hours staring at blank paper because the possibilities felt overwhelming.

The narrative was slowly reframing in my head from what was done to me to who I’m choosing to become. And that shift felt both liberating and terrifying. One evening after dinner at Priscilla’s house, Callie and I were sitting in the living room practicing ASL signs from our classes when she suddenly looked at me and her hands moved in careful, precise shapes.

I watched her sign each word slowly and clearly, forming a complete sentence in ASL for the first time since we’d started learning. Her hands shaped, “I love you, sister.” And I felt tears spring to my eyes because she was choosing to communicate this way, choosing to embrace the language our parents had forbidden for 15 years.

I signed back, “I love you, too.” And we sat together in comfortable silence that felt nothing like the isolated silence of our childhood. This silence was full of understanding and connection of two people who could communicate whenever they wanted without fear of punishment. Priscilla walked past and smiled at us, signing something about being proud of our progress, and I realized this was what family could look like when it wasn’t built on control and fear.

Cooper scheduled a meeting to discuss long-term planning, and he spread papers across Priscilla’s dining room table explaining our options. I could pursue emancipation when I turned 16 in a few months, which would give me legal independence, but cut off most state support. or I could stay in extended foster care until I turned 18, which would provide housing stability, continued educational support, and transition services to help me prepare for adult independence.

He wrote that extended foster care would let me finish high school in my current program, would provide therapy and medical care, would help me learn life skills and financial management. The trade-off was less autonomy, more rules and oversight, but also more security and support during a critical time when I was still learning language and catching up academically.

I thought about trying to survive on my own at 16 with limited education and no support system, and I knew I wasn’t ready for that. I agreed to the extended foster care plan. Relieved to have structure and support while I continued healing and learning. Cooper wrote that this didn’t mean I was weak or dependent. That choosing help when you need it is actually a sign of strength and self-awareness.

The licensing board investigation into our childhood speech therapist expanded when three additional former patients came forward with similar accounts. Lando showed me the board’s preliminary findings, which documented a pattern of coercive and punishing practices that went beyond legitimate therapy into abuse. The board issued a statement that the complaint warranted full disciplinary proceedings, which could take months or even years to complete, but represented serious concern about the therapist’s methods.

I felt less alone knowing that other people had experienced similar harm and had chosen to speak up, that we weren’t the only ones who recognized these practices as abusive rather than helpful. The final decision about her license was still far away, but the investigation moving forward felt like validation that what happened to us mattered and deserved accountability.

Our next supervised visit with our parents happened at the CPS office 3 weeks later, and they followed all the rules carefully this time. They didn’t try to touch us without permission. They communicated through the interpreter present instead of expecting us to lipre. They didn’t minimize what had happened or make excuses for their choices.

The conversation felt stilted and formal. my mother asking generic questions about school and my father commenting on the weather like we were acquaintances making small talk. I answered politely but distantly and I realized the easy closeness we once had was gone completely. They were strangers now who happened to share my DNA. People I’d once loved who’d hurt me so deeply that love had transformed into something else entirely.

I felt detachment instead of the yearning I’d expected. And that detachment felt like its own kind of freedom. The next week, Haley came to Priscilla’s house with a laptop and a stack of papers, ready to help me create something I’d never had before. A plan for making sure people actually gave me the communication access I needed.

We sat at the kitchen table and she opened a document she’d started. A checklist that listed every type of appointment I might have and what accommodations each one required. Medical appointments needed interpreters scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance, she explained, typing as she talked, because hospital systems moved slowly and last minute requests usually failed.

Legal meetings required certified legal interpreters, not just anyone who knew some signs, because the technical language mattered in court settings. Educational settings needed both interpreters and written materials provided ahead of time so I could review content before class discussions. Therapy sessions worked best with the same interpreter each time so I didn’t have to rebuild trust with someone new every week.

We went through scenario after scenario, Haley asking me questions about what had worked and what hadn’t in my appointment so far. and I realized I’d been accepting whatever scraps of access people offered instead of knowing I could ask for specific things. She showed me how to email ahead of any appointment with my accommodation needs clearly listed.

How to follow up if they didn’t confirm the interpreter was scheduled. How to reschedule if they showed up without proper access instead of trying to muddle through. Priscilla joined us after a while and we practiced together with me signing my needs and Priscilla pretending to be a doctor’s receptionist who didn’t understand why I needed an interpreter.

The first few practice rounds, I apologized constantly, adding, “If it’s not too much trouble, and I know it’s hard to arrange to every request, my hands forming the signs small and hesitant.” Priscilla stopped me gently and signed that I needed to state my needs as facts, not requests for favors, because communication access wasn’t a kindness someone did for me, but a right I had under the law.

We practiced again, and I signed more firmly. I need a certified ASL interpreter for my appointment on Tuesday at 2:00. Please confirm by Friday that one is scheduled. My hands moved with more confidence each time, and Priscilla smiled and signed that I was getting stronger at advocating for myself. Over the next several days, I used the checklist for real appointments, emailing the school counselor about next week’s meeting, calling the doctor’s office through the video relay service to confirm my checkup had an interpreter arranged,

texting Lando to make sure he’d have an interpreter at our next CPS meeting. Each time I clearly stated what I needed, each time someone confirmed they’d provide it, I felt a little more solid in myself, like I was building something I could stand on. But then everything fell apart during one terrible week in late October when Callie got sick with a bad cold and I completely lost my mind with worry.

She started coughing on a Monday and by Tuesday I was checking on her every hour feeling her forehead for fever making her write down every symptom even though it was obviously just a regular cold. I wouldn’t let her go to the school even though she felt well enough. Wouldn’t let her go anywhere without me.

Kept texting Priscilla during the day to make sure Callie was okay even though Priscilla had already confirmed she was fine. On Wednesday, Callie wanted to go to the deaf center for the youth social night, but I told her she needed to stay home and rest, and she got angry and signed that I wasn’t her mother and couldn’t tell her what to do.

I signed back that I was trying to keep her safe, that she didn’t understand how dangerous it was when she couldn’t communicate if something went wrong, and she threw a pillow at me and locked herself in the bathroom. Priscilla found me sitting outside the bathroom door crying, and she sat down beside me, waiting until I looked at her to start signing.

She asked me what I was really afraid of and I signed that Callie almost died last time she was sick because she couldn’t tell anyone what was wrong and I couldn’t let that happen again. Priscilla’s face softened and she signed that she understood my fear but that I was trying to control Callie the same way our parents controlled us even though my reasons were different.

That hit me like cold water and I sat there staring at her hands realizing she was right. I was so scared of losing Callie that I was recreating the same suffocating control we’d just escaped, deciding what she could and couldn’t do based on my fear instead of her actual needs. In my therapy session the next day, I talked about it with my therapist and she wrote that trauma makes us repeat patterns sometimes, that I’d learned from our parents that control equals safety, even though that wasn’t true. She wrote that healing wasn’t a

straight line, that I’d probably catch myself doing harmful things sometimes before I learned better ways. I apologized to Callie that night, signing that I was sorry for trying to control her choices, that she had the right to make her own decisions about her body and her health. She signed back that she understood I was scared, but that she needed me to trust her.

And we sat together on the couch working out a compromise where she’d tell me if she felt worse, and I’d trust her to know her own body. It was hard letting go of that protective fear. But I knew I had to learn it. My report card arrived in early November, and I opened the envelope with shaking hands, afraid to look at the grades inside.

But when I unfolded the paper, I saw passing grades in every single subject, C’s and B’s where I’d never gotten anything but Fs before. My English teacher had written a note saying I’d made significant progress in reading comprehension now that I could actually understand the class discussions, and my math teacher commented that I was catching up quickly with the right support.

I was still behind where other kids my age were supposed to be. The report noted that clearly, but the trajectory was pointing up instead of down for the first time ever. The special education coordinator scheduled a meeting to discuss my options going forward, explaining through the interpreter that I could either work toward a traditional diploma if I kept making progress at this rate, or I could pursue a GED if that felt like a better fit for my learning style and goals.

She showed me charts comparing the two paths, talking about how many credits I’d need for a diploma versus the subjects covered on the GED test, and asked me what I wanted to work toward. I realized I’d never been asked what I wanted for my education before, had never been given choices about my own learning.

I told her I wanted to try for the traditional diploma, that I wanted to prove I could do what other students did if I had the right access and support. She smiled and signed that we’d make a plan together, adjusting as we went based on how things progressed. Walking out of that meeting with my passing report card in my backpack, I felt something I’d never experienced before.

Earned pride and academic achievement that came from actual learning instead of just surviving. The following week, Haley texted me about a peer support group she was starting for deaf teenagers who’d experienced educational neglect or family rejection, asking if Cali and I wanted to participate. I was nervous about sharing our story with strangers, but Haley assured me that everyone in the group had been through similar things, that we’d all understand each other in ways hearing people couldn’t.

The group met at the deaf center on a Thursday evening. Six teenagers sitting in a circle with Haley facilitating. She started by having everyone introduce themselves and share a little about why they were there. and I watched the other kids’ hands as they signed their stories. One girl’s parents had forced her to use hearing aids that caused her physical pain because they refused to accept she was deaf.

A boy’s school had put him in a mainstream classroom with no interpreter for 3 years, and he’d failed everything until his grandmother fought for services. Another girl had been kept isolated at home with no language access at all until CPS removed her at age 12. Their stories were different from ours in the details, but the same in the fundamental ways.

Parents who saw deafness as something to fix instead of just a different way of being. systems that failed to provide basic communication access, years of struggling alone without the language we needed. When it was my turn, I signed about the speech therapy and the tied hands and Callie almost dying and everyone in the circle nodded with recognition because they understood that specific kind of pain.

Callie signed too, more than I’d seen her sign in front of others, talking about the electric shocks and the surgery and how angry she still was about all of it. After the group ended, several kids came up to us and signed that they were glad we’d shared, that hearing our story made them feel less alone. Walking back to Priscilla’s car, Callie signed to me that she’d never realized other people had gone through things like we did, and I signed back that neither had I.

The isolation we’d carried for so long felt a little lighter, knowing we were part of something bigger than just our individual pain. Saturday morning, Priscilla drove us to a park across town, parking near a playground where families were scattered around enjoying the warm weather. Callie and I walked to a bench under a big tree and sat down and she started signing to me about her math homework, complaining about how hard fractions were.

I signed back, teasing her about always hating math, and she laughed and signed about a funny video she’d watched the night before. We went back and forth like that for a while, our hands moving freely in the open air, having a completely normal conversation about completely normal things. People walked past us on the path, and nobody stared or stopped or commented on our signing.

Parents pushed strollers by and kids ran around playing and we were just two teenagers sitting on a bench talking to each other. After 15 years of hiding our hands, of communicating in secret, of being punished for natural language, this simple moment of normalized deaf communication felt like reclaiming something fundamental.

The sun was warm on my face and Callie was signing about wanting to try out for the deaf schools volleyball team. And everything felt ordinary in the most extraordinary way. I signed to her that I loved her and she signed back that she loved me too. and we sat there together in comfortable silence, watching the world move around us without fear.

The final supervised visit before our six-month review happened on a cold Monday afternoon at the CPS office. Lando sat in his usual corner chair while the interpreter stood near the table where my parents and I faced each other. I’d practiced what I wanted to say with Priscilla and my therapist, working out exactly how to set boundaries that felt right for me.

When everyone was settled, I signed clearly through the interpreter that I was willing to maintain limited contact with my parents if they continued respecting our communication needs and stopped trying to minimize what had happened to us. I signed that I needed them to acknowledge the harm they’d caused, not keep making excuses about trying to help us be normal.

My father’s face hardened, and his mouth started moving in that angry way. But before he could say anything, my mother put her hand on his arm. She looked at me and then her hands moved slowly, carefully forming signs I recognized from my ASL classes. We understand,” she signed, the movements hesitant, but deliberate.

I stared at her hands, processing that she’d been learning ASL in her court-ordered classes, that she was trying to communicate with me in my language. It wasn’t forgiveness, and it didn’t erase 15 years of abuse, but it was something different from I’d expected, a foundation, maybe for whatever relationship might be possible going forward.

My father sat silent and angry beside her, not signing, and I understood that their journey toward accepting our deafness was happening at different speeds. The visit ended after 30 minutes and I walked out feeling lighter than I’d expected, like I’d successfully drawn a line that protected me while leaving space for possibility. Lando called me the following week with news about the licensing board investigation.

The board had issued interim measures against our childhood speech therapist, suspending her license temporarily while the full investigation continued. She couldn’t work with any clients, especially not deaf children, until the board completed its review and made a final decision. Lando explained that the final ruling could take another year or more because these processes moved slowly through bureaucracy, but the immediate suspension meant she couldn’t hurt any other kids while they investigated.

I felt relief mixed with frustration when I heard the news. Glad that she was stopped, but angry that justice took so long. Cooper texted me later saying the suspension was a significant step, that licensing boards didn’t take interim action unless they found serious concerns. I saved his message and read it several times, letting myself feel that bittersweet sense of incomplete justice happening in slow motion.

Haley contacted me in December about writing something for the deaf community newsletter, explaining that they wanted to publish first-person accounts from deaf young people about their experiences. She said I could write about whatever felt right to share, that the goal was both testimony and resource for others going through similar situations.

I spent two weeks working on it, writing and rewriting until I had something that felt true. I focused on survival strategies and I had developed, the small ways we’d created communication in impossible circumstances, and what the healing process looked like now that we had access and safety. I wrote about the accommodation checklist and learning to advocate and the peer support group.

Practical things that might help someone else. Haley edited it with me, helping me frame the story as both witness to harm and guide for moving forward. When the newsletter came out in January, I held the printed copy in my hands and stared at my words on the page. My story told in my own voice, not filtered through lawyers or caseworkers or therapists.

Seeing it there felt like claiming agency over a narrative that had been controlled by others for my entire life. 6 months into living with Priscilla, I took stock of where Callie and I were compared to where we’d started. We had stable housing in a home where communication access wasn’t a daily battle. We had full access at the school with ASL fluent teachers and deaf peers.

We had regular therapy helping us work through trauma. We had educational supports closing the gaps in our learning. We had legal protections keeping us safe from unsupervised contact with our parents. The licensing investigation was still grinding through its process and the legal appeals were moving forward slowly through the courts.

Supervised visits happened once a month with careful boundaries in place. I was learning ASL fluently now, having real conversations instead of just basic signs. Callie was signing full sentences and laughing with friends and trying out for volleyball. >> We were both building identities beyond just being survivors, figuring out who we were when we weren’t in constant survival mode.

Life wasn’t perfect or completely resolved. My parents hadn’t fundamentally changed their beliefs about disability and deafness. Professional accountability was incomplete and slow. I still woke up from nightmares sometimes. my hands tied behind my back in dreams, but I was safe. I had language flowing through my hands.

I was surrounded by people who saw my deafness as difference rather than deficit. The story didn’t end with everything magically fixed, with my parents transformed into perfect allies, with all the systems suddenly working right. It ended with me standing in a place where healing was possible, where I could build a future instead of just surviving each day.

Where my hands were finally free to speak the language they’d always wanted to form. That is how it played out for me. Now, I want to hear how you would have handled it. Share your thoughts in the comments. I love reading all the different perspectives.