WEBVTT

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Rebecca: People will come into my office

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and say, “well, you know, I just googled
you and I want to be honest...

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and now I feel like I can't believe
I've been coming in here

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and bitching about all the things
that I'm talking about,

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knowing that you're going deaf and blind.”

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So then we have to process that.

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I have to say to them,
“What does that mean that I'm going

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deaf and blind and that you
don't have DeafBlindness?

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Does it mean that I'm worse off than you are?”

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First and foremost, I'm a psychotherapist.

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That's my job but it's something that
I really love, I'm passionate about,

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and I also have a disability.

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As opposed to, “I'm a woman with a disability

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who is a psychotherapist.”

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[music plays]

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I was raised in a very
community oriented family.

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My grandmother was one of the first
educators in the civil rights movement.

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She did so much with

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trying to help people
who were disadvantaged.

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Growing up in a family who were very,

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very focused on being an
active part of the community,

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that really influenced my ability
to be able to go out in the world

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and maybe stick out like
a sore thumb at times.

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Mental health is so stigmatized,

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even more so than disability in many ways.

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For so many reasons,
whether it's societal,

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whether it's cultural,
whether it's religious reasons,

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that it is unacceptable to struggle.

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When we have mental health issues,
we oftentimes fight ourselves.

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We have this tremendous internal battle.

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With trying to make ourselves think
right or to if I was just strong enough,

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if I just had more willpower.
All of these different reasons

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or excuses that we make
for not being able to do something

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and we don't allow ourselves to sit with,
what if I have mental illness?

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(music plays)

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So when you work with someone
who is low vision or DeafBlind,

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and let's say your office is

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a beautiful office filled with windows

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and that you sit in a chair
with windows behind you,

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and the person that you're meeting with,
your client, is sitting in a

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on a couch across from you.

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They won't be able to potentially
see your face.

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Your face will be shadowed
because of their vision.

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So even being able
to create an environment,

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set up an environment
where they can comfortably

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be able to see you with the vision
that they still have

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so that that person is not having to adapt
to whatever your space is

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that's based on a sighted person's,

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you know, comfort or world.

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Anything from whether it's someone
navigating and having to find your office.

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You know, if you give someone an address
like my office is at 555 5th Avenue.

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Okay, well, it would be more helpful:

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my office is at 555 5th Avenue.

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You can take the 6 train to 51st Street.

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When you walk into the door,

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there will be a doorman's station to your right.

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Like those specifics to provide
context and guidelines

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for them to be able to access your elevator
or the stairs to your building.

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If you need to grab someone's arm
to help them find the seat.

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There are a lot of things
that maybe traditionally

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would not be comfortable
or appropriate in a hearing sighted

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therapeutic setting
that you may have to completely bypass

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when you're working with someone
who has vision or hearing loss or both.

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I address it right away
because it's something that's important

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for us to talk about and to continue
to process in our therapeutic process.

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[music plays]

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Some of the core issues that I really
had to face and deal with are grief and loss.

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And I think as I've gone
through transitions

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throughout my own process of losing
both my vision and my hearing

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is needing to grieve and mourn and be able

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to just have someone there with me.

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Not to try to make me feel better, but
just to be present and to validate that.

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And I think oftentimes when we
think about therapists and therapy

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and all of these different modalities
we use, first and foremost,

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someone just needs to know
that you're validating how they feel.

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Because how we feel is not
something that we can control.

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We can control how we respond.

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We can be mindful
about not being as impulsive

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or compulsive, but you
can't control how you feel.

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And when you have a disability,
there's so much anger that you feel

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towards yourself because of your own
internalized ableism towards other people

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who maybe weren't able to meet
your needs or recognize your needs.

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How society doesn't accommodate you,
how society and the world is not accessible.

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And so this anger,
I think, can build and develop

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and just percolate inside of people.

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And I think that as someone
with a disability,

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it’s something that's so important
to be able to develop again a relationship with,

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to allow yourself to feel, to allow
yourself to express, to communicate,

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to get out.

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Because when you live in that anger,
it means that you're operating

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and engaging with the world
from a place of resentment.

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What I found is that when
you don't speak your needs,

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when you don't communicate
how this could be an easier

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conversation for you, it means
that we're both struggling.

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I'm struggling to be able to get
the information to you

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and you're struggling to receive
the information from me.

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Oftentimes, it's just being
able to teach people

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from an advocacy standpoint
as their therapist.

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And another part of it is when
someone share something with me

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because I've experienced it firsthand,
I often find that people who have vision loss

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for instance, will say,

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“I've never had anybody give me
feedback like that before.”

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Or, “I've never had anyone
describe what I'm feeling so aptly.”

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And so I think that there is
this understanding based on experience.

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I think the best therapists are the ones
who have been through things themselves.

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And so I think there is this
feeling of being,

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no pun intended, seen or being heard
in a way that they never have before

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with someone who doesn't
live with the same challenges.

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[music plays]