My ex and I had custody of her brother for almost the entirety of our relationship. He looked outwardly like he had no problems. He is deaf and developmentally disabled. When he came to live with us he was 14 my and my youngest was four. They played together. As they each got older they were insperable and played. Really. Played. That is developmentally where his head was at. He could barely read and struggled scholastically. He improved tremendously in when he went to a specialized school for the deaf.
In our home it didn't seem strange. It sure did to everyone else at Chuck E Cheese. He was laughing and happy and playing. But because at the time he was 16 - people saw him as a freak. It was with childlike innocence, a happiness to just be with his bff at Chuck E Cheese. I overheard someone say "he must be retarded." O-M-G!
Those two get each other - still do actually. Before her, there was his nephew who was only a couple years younger. He had moved on already to girls, clothes and music. He may never get there.
How people percieve someone with special needs lies in the willingness to understand. Instead of calling him a retard, if that person at Chuck E Cheese had tried to speak to him they would have immediately known he was deaf - had they spent some time with him they would have understood that he was a little boy in a big boy body. Not stupid, not slow, not retarded, not a freak - just there instead of here.
I found that people would have this look of knowing sympathy when they found out he was deaf - as if that was so sad. That didn't limit him. He could read lips and sign. It wasn't enough to assume that they knew what is going on just because they knew someone else who is deaf. He was deaf with lots of other issues that not all deaf people have that DID actually limit him in many ways.
He would cry because people didn't like him. He would destroy things out of frustration and sadness. He didn't understand the world the same way as I understood the world. He didn't have complicated enough vocabulary or sophisticated ability to communicate with the majority of the world.
Being special needs he was spared alot of the realness of world by not being out in as much as others. Both by the people who loved him and through is own blissful ignorance. As he got older and the adult interactions became more common - so did the snide remarks and misunderstandings. The world is not always a friendly place. People do not always understand even when they think they do.
He is about to graduate from high school. It's a very big deal. He took classes to become a carpenter, something that he is actually very good at. He and my daughter are video game fanatics that is all they want to do, they talk on the phone, play facebook games and spend lots of time looking up video game cheats. It's just where they're both at...I'm really glad they have each other.
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