My hidden disability and how I owned it
By Brittany Dodson, Penn State University, USA
My world is quiet. I don’t hear thunder until it’s right on top of me, and sometimes I can’t hear a person talking to me. When I pick up the phone, the person on the other end sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher from the Peanuts cartoons. I’ve had this hearing loss all my life. It wasn’t until graduate school that I realized I avoided situations, because I wouldn’t be able to hear well. And it started to affect my professional life as a scientist.
