Now we are where we have always dreamed of being.

This is a translation, by Mom, of the original blog written by Nicolaas in Afrikaans, ” Nou is ons waar ons nog altyd gedroom het om te wees.” https://mysilentvoice.blog/2023/06/11/nou-is-ons-waar-ons-nog-altyd-gedroom-het-om-te-wees/

My voice is still silent.

My body is still frantic.

My heart still aches over the lost time we can’t get back.

But our future is now more beautiful than we could have ever dreamed of being.

It took a very long time to get to this point, but it was worth it.

To think that we had to go through so much, to be able to get together.

We had to suffer to realize that we could understand each other, even though our lives are so diverse.

To think we will never go back to a time where no one understands me,

is sometimes still unreal for me.

Thinking that my life has changed so much,

now reminds me of all the other people who are still struggling as much as I did, before we taught me to spell my words on a board. It’s something that hangs around my neck like a millstone.

Thinking that my family’s lives have changed so much,

now reminds me of the families who don’t understand so much about each other yet.

Thinking that my entire future expectation has changed so much.

makes me think of the time I was without any plans and dreams.

Thinking about my whole life, that has changed so much, makes me incredibly grateful.

My body was very frantic for quite some time now. It was so bad that our house suffered. My oversteered body broke a lot of things. My parents were very discouraged. I was disheartened. But we got through it.

We are now back where we were before my body derailed so badly. Now we can tell my friends that, even if your body gets messed up again, don’t despair.  Even if it is a struggle to stay positive, it will get better again, even if it sometimes takes a long while. We now see that we can endure it, even if it is hard to do so.

My body is more under control now, but the damage I’ve done still stands like red lights around me. It reminds me all the time that my body is responsible for the mess. It’s not fun, but it also reminds me that we won’t go back to the dark time when no one understood me.

Everyone thought I was doing it willfully when I ruined stuff like that, but now my family knows better. They understand my body is not always in control. Even if we want to forget it, things still often come up that remind us that my body doesn’t do what I want it to do. We must learn to live with these phases in my life. It’s not a nice thing. We do not like these difficult phases. But, knowing that we are not going to resent and insult each other again, makes a huge difference.

Now my body is peaceful again, because the difficult phase is over. The hard times are going to come again, of that I’m dead certain. But now I also know that we will not allow the hard times to steal our joy again. 

We have learned from our mistakes.

We have not walked an easy road to get to where we are,

We can’t say we have all the answers now.

We still must ask each other daily to understand why we want to do things a certain way.

My parents didn’t understand me before I could spell, but I didn’t understand them either. I also couldn’t ask them why they do stuff a certain way. My parents also didn’t think about explaining to me what they were doing or why they were doing it. So I didn’t understand that just about everything they do is try to help me.

We understand each other better now because we can talk to each other.

To be understood in this way, makes a huge difference in my life.

My mom and dad are doing so well, because they put in a lot of effort and ask me every time, they don’t understand what’s going on with me. Getting here, where they ask me what’s going on, was also a long and difficult road. I now understand why it was so difficult for them. I see people giving parents advice while not realizing how our non-speakers’ lives work. They tell parents to watch what is happening to try to figure out why their children behave the way they do.

We do not always get overwhelmed by the same stuff.  We are not built that way. Just like ordinary people, we can sometimes handle things well that we other times have a hard time dealing with. Sometimes things annoy me, which other times doesn’t bother me at all. Sometimes I think about stuff that upsets or makes me happy. Sometimes I’m tired from too little sleep. Because my mom and dad can’t read my mind, there’s no way they can understand what’s bothering me or making me happy.

Because my body doesn’t show if I’m happy or sad, it’s not possible for them to see if something bothers or makes me happy. Even though they are the very best parents, they cannot understand what is going on me if I do not tell them myself. To expect them to get the answers from what they see is happening around me, is not to help them, but to make them think we understand each other when we completely misunderstand each other. Because, for years, they had been taught to look rather than ask me if I was happy or sad, they thought that most of the time they knew what was going on with me by just looking at my exterior. My parents realized that they were making a mistake by making inferences from what they saw. It has made a huge difference in our lives.

Even though we are now in a better place to understand each other, we are still learning from each other every day. We learn not to make inferences simply on what we see, but to ask each other why we see certain things. Sometimes I think my parents are angry with me, but when we talk about our feelings, I find that sometimes they feel discouraged or powerless about them not being able to help me. If we don’t give each other a chance to talk about how we feel, we misunderstand each other. It’s an important thing we all had to learn. We’ve got the hang of it now.

I’m a lot better now than I was initially at figuring out why I feel the way I feel and putting it into words.

Even though it is now my best that we understand each other so beautifully, we do not forget about the non-speakers who are still trapped in their prisons of silence. My heart aches for you. We will not stop trying to tell the world that you too must be helped.