WEBVTT

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Rebecca: I knew that two of my biggest fears

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were of going deaf and of going blind.

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Our instinct is to avoid that,
to run away from that,

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whether it's just to distract ourselves
with any number of different things.

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And at some point in sort of
that inner wrestling with myself,

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I realized that if those
are my two biggest fears,

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then that actually is exactly
what I need to face head on.

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[music plays]

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Korrine. So when I first started
losing my vision, that was probably

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during the beginning of high school.

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Getting adjusted to a whole new school,
getting adjusted to making new friends,

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new classes, new environment,
that's stressful as it is.

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And then starting to lose your vision,

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which is a sense that a lot of people,
I think, take for granted.

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It was a really tough adjustment

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to try and, one process
and try to understand

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and it's also a part of trying
to go through a grief cycle as well,

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because growing up sighted
and then gradually losing this

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piece of you that you've had
your whole life up until that point.

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Also taking into consideration
the hearing loss, it gets so fatiguing.

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You had to relearn how to do a lot

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and learn how to navigate
and learn how to cope with the feelings

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of losing your vision and

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being able to handle it
in a safe and respectful way.

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Rebcca: To be going
progressively deaf and blind

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the initial feeling is that
I am being taken from my world,

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that I'm not the same,
that everybody is able to do

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all of these things that I am
progressively no longer able to do.

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And what I always felt was just
a sense of not really belonging.

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Like, I felt like there was something
fundamentally wrong with me because

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developmentally I couldn't really wrap
my head around what was happening to me.

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This was before my diagnosis,

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and then when I was officially
diagnosed with Usher syndrome.

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And what I realized along the way is that

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it's not so much the physical implications
of going deaf and blind.

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It's the emotional, it's
the social implications of losing

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two of your most vital senses.

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[music plays]

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Korrine: When I was going through that period,
I ended up losing a lot of my friends

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because everyone
kind of saw me as different.

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I think it was kind of
intimidating for them.

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I think it was scary for them.

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Of course, they didn't know what
to expect and neither did I.

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But it hurt.

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It was something that kind of
was like a turning point in my life

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I ended up having to get
taken out of public school

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because they weren't providing me
with the accommodations that I needed

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and I ended up getting
placed with a tutor one-on-one

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where I was able to have more customized

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curriculum to have that person be able

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to read to me, to be able to have a CCTV
and other assistive technology.

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Trying to take in all of that information

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and feedback and absorb it and process it

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and be able to understand
it clearly has been really difficult.

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So just kind of

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dealing with a dual sensory
loss is not an easy thing.

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Rebecca: Your needs are evolving and changing

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and so then having to ask someone
for what you need

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when you're not even comfortable
with having those needs

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or having new needs,
it can be really difficult.

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But I think this underlying very,
very common theme

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for people with disabilities
is this fear of being a burden.

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And so I think it's that underlying
theme of being a burden

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that really is pervasive
through so many of the lives of people

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I work with with disabilities.

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And the other thing is suppressed anger.

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And I think there's a lot of anger
that becomes self-imposed

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because of the way that they were treated
or the way that they were raised

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to believe they should be,
that they're not.

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Korrine: Having that thought process of,
“am I good enough to have a partner?”

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you know, “will I have friends?

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will I be successful and have a job?

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Can I graduate college?”
Just a lot of that

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was really hard to process.

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You have to feel the emotions
to move past it.

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You can't just kind of latch on
or just push it away.

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You go through acceptance,
you go through denial.

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You just need to learn how to cope.

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And learn how to move
through those phases.

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And it's not easy,
I'll be honest with that.

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It was something that I really struggled
with, especially being a young adult

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going through enough
as it is growing up and trying

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to figure out your place in the world.

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[music plays]

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Korrine: A person who has a disability,

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you're always going to assume that
this isn't someone I could ask for help.

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This is certainly not somebody
I could lean on for support.

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How can I lean on this person?
Look at all that they're dealing with.

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And that is ableism.

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That is ableism at its finest.

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Assuming that someone,
because they have a disability,

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that they are suffering,
that they are incapable,

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that they can't be burdened because
look at the burden they already carry.

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So all of those ways
in which ableism plays out

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is certainly a major part of
the world that we live in.

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Internalized ableism is when
you go out in the world...

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It's all of those years that I spend of
feeling like it was not acceptable

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for me to be anything
but sighted and hearing.

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And that to be anything but sighted
and hearing meant that I was incapable.

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Internalized ableism is that need to conform

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to being as hearing and sighted,
as able-bodied as possible

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because that's the only
socially acceptable way to be.

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And so all of these insidious
ways that it manifests itself,

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in whether it's trying to make
myself likable to somebody

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who doesn't have a disability

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so that they can feel like non-threatened
or not intimidated by me.

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And so how do we start to reframe
the way that we view ourselves

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and then reframe how other people see
people with disabilities?

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But that internalized ableism,
I think is something that

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we all have to develop a relationship with

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and an understanding of
in order to be able

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to come to terms with ourselves
as people with disabilities.

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[music ends]