Episode Five: I Matter: Discovering Self Advocacy Through My CODA Experience.

In this episode I give a glimpse of what it was like to grow up in my 1980’s CODA world. As an advocate and protector of my parents, I had to find my voice, advocate for myself and learn who I was outside of being a helper. If you are a CODA, a caregiver, or a parent, this episode will help you realize it is okay to have needs. You are heard and known. You matter. 

Transcript

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Welcome to and then it's a podcast where we look at what comes after a tough season or a struggle in life. My name is Susie Chafin. I'm a CODA, an author, a business owner and a coach. What I am most passionate about is helping people transition from struggle and striving to absolutely thriving. I'm about five episodes now and to my podcast. And as a side note, if you do enjoy today's episode or a previous one, it would mean the absolute world to me for you to leave a review, or to subscribe. That just really helps get the word out there. So I appreciate any of you who have done that already. Today, I'm going personal. I'm going to give you a window into the 1980s kodo world I grew up in. And Coda that's probably not a word you're familiar with. You're like what the heck is a coda? And it stands for a child of a deaf adult. You may have heard of the word Kota from the 2021 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie named Kota. I was much like the main character, Ruby and the movie Kota except I couldn't say I wish I could. My parents didn't work on a boat. And it was it was the 1980s We certainly did not have anywhere close to the technology that is available and accessible today. And it was a different world. We weren't living under the ADA act either. But much like Ruby, I had to learn the lessons of self protection and self advocacy. And if you're a CODA, or a caregiver, or someone who has trouble saying no a people pleaser, this episode is for you is going to help you find your voice. Learn to protect yourself and advocate for yourself. Did you know that the Deaf have a superpower? That may sound really shocking to you? Like Wait, what? How can they have a superpower? What do you mean? Before I dive into that, I'm gonna give you a little bit of history of what it looked like a little snapshot into the world that my sister and I grew up in. We grew up in the home of two profoundly deaf parents. ASL is our second or first language I'm not really sure which came first. And ASL stands for American Sign Language. And as a young child, I felt like I was growing up in a ruse. If you guys remember the show candid camera where they would play a joke on somebody and then people would jump out with the cameras and everybody would laugh and it would was such a good time. Well, that's what I thought I was living in was almost like this prolonged episode of candid care part one home small. I remember, like thinking, this is just a joke. This is just a social experiment of sorts. And someday that cameras just gonna jump out. And we'll pass the test. And we can laugh. And we can just see what a what a great joke it had been. And so I tested my theory. And I remember walking up to my dad, he would sit in his chair in front of the television, watching his sports very intensely. And I remember slowly creeping up on him and screaming his blood curdling scream as loud as I possibly could. I was sure that there was going to be some kind of reaction, but Twitch a jump. Maybe he'd even turn around and say, oh, you know, you caught me, Susie. But instead, he stared straight into the screen. And there was not even the slightest movement, or the slightest flinch. And I remember feeling in that moment like this, this isn't a joke. My parents really, really can't hear me. And for some reason, I desperately wanted to be heard. I wanted not just for them to know what I sounded like, you know, hearing my voice was really the most minimal of the that aspect. I as I grew up, really diving into all kinds of different things from, you know, acting classes to debate and cheer and public speaking different types of things. I had an aching desire for my parents to really hear me to actually know me to know who I was. And I would guess that a lot of you feel like that you feel like that. Like sometimes you just don't feel known. You don't feel heard? I knew who my parents were I heard all of their stories and what felt like and it is a very difficult life, I'm not even going to try to, to say that my experience includes to theirs in any way. They grow up in a very difficult circumstance. And they were excluded over and over, they will pass over positions for their handicap. And as a child of a deaf adult, my parents definitely knew me as someone who would help, I would always come and help when I was summoned. But I was also kind of, for their description, a pretty difficult child, I had a temper. And sometimes they found me really exhausting and challenging. And I believe that came out of my my desire, that innate desire to be known and heard. And they knew that side of me, they knew that stubborn feisty side of me, but the rest of me, like my dreams and my aspirations, what made me tick, what, what I was proud about, you know, those things were were very much largely unknown. Because they couldn't hear my sister and I were immersed into adult like roles from a very, very early age. We communicated with adults, way more than we ever communicated with peers, anything from going to a restaurant placing orders on their behalf. Any kind of issue with a bill or anything we were the ones did make the phone call, we translated the car deals. We even translated parent teacher meetings, they didn't let me tell you that that was super, super fun, especially in high school when my 10th grade teacher looks at me and expects me to tell my mother that she's just not really sure I'm honors material. I'm like, really, really, really, this is Brooks, do you think I'm going to translate that? I'm pretty sure I did. But still was like, but we navigated sales solicitors, everything from you know, the rainbow vacuum cleaners to home siding, to painting to roofing to, you know, anything that would you come by and knock on your door back on those on that day. We were quite literally Google, the internet. We were their version of the internet, quite literally. But those are topics for a different day. I'm kind of digressing from the superpower. As a hearing parent myself, wherever I am. And whatever I am doing, I have constant clues of what my children are doing. And if you're hearing parents, it's the same for you. You hear the pitter patter of the feet going up and down the stairs, you hear when a conversation between siblings has gone from a conversation to escalating into an intense argument, possibly even some violence, right? I can hear their conversations with their friends in the laughter I can hear them kick the soccer ball outside, I'm always in tune to what's going on. And I'm so grateful for that such a gift of being able to hear it is really such a gift. The flip side is I could also hear the begging and the pleading and the inflection and the sadness and the grief and the begging and the begging and begging. And like all hearing parents like I can totally be worn down. Is that incessant? Please, Mama, please, please, you know, you guys feel me there. I have broken down I admitted I've caved I do not have the superpower of begging immunity. without hearing a parent can decide when to pop in and pop out of our worlds. They didn't have that peripheral background noise. Unless my mother had her eyes on us. We were you know out of mind just because she couldn't hear us right. And sometimes, myself more than my sister admittedly, like I mentioned can be pretty difficult. I wanted to be like my peers. I wanted to have the cool guests jeans. I wanted to have the latest video game. And high school I was I wanted so desperately a car. That was just normal. That wasn't the most embarrassing thing ever to drive. So I honed my baking skills and you're probably going well how in the world can you beg someone who can't hear? Oh boy, let me tell you we could still beg through sign. So we would or me specifically I would say mom which means pressing basically it's like a number five position with your thumb touching your chin and a very over and over and of course as I was saying it which is go faster and faster. So it was like Mom, mom, Mama Mama Mama mom, like listen to me mom. And whatever it was from like I said the guest jeans are the Whatever the Tauri it was usually met with a no. And she had no idea how much I needed those things right. So I would emphatically sign please, which is essentially taking the palm of your hand and rubbing it around in a circular counterclockwise direction on your chest. And I would say I would have the most sorrowful face ever, Please, mom. And at any given moment now, this is when the superpower would kick in, she would get the look in her eyes. And she would say, No, very emphatically sign it and say it. And then she would say, period, which essentially meant putting her index finger and thumb together and punctuating the air. So she were literally putting a period in the air, and it was very emphatic. And I would try again, but But Mom, mom, mom, mom, please. And this is when the superpower really elevated to next level, she would close her eyes, she would completely shut me out. Great for her. I mean, she no longer heard me and no longer was bothered, she had completely removed herself from my world. For me, not so great. The only way to be heard through her is from her looking at me seeing me through her eyes. And so when she closed her eyes, she couldn't hear me and I would get so frustrated. And I kind of embarrassed to admit that I would resort to things like tugging on her clothes, tapping her arm. I even daresay there was probably a time or two, I basically tried to pry her eyes open. So she would look at me. But yes, that is definitely going too far. Now thoroughly enraged, she would look at me and extra emphatically say I said, No. Period. And the discussion was over. Her superpower had fully kicked in. She was immune to begging. I'm about to bring up the topic of privilege. And yeah, I know it's kind of a hot topic right now, especially around certain types of privilege. And I'm not diving into that topic. This is not a political discussion at all. Privilege extends far beyond races and socio economic groups. Privilege can be a blessing and privilege can be a curse, and I'm sure that we've all seen the curse of too much privilege. Too much privilege can rob a person of life lessons and challenges and can rob them of the ability to learn how to find solutions and and learn what they're capable of on their own. And too little privilege usually results in two scenarios. Either somebody results as a emerges as a fighter who binds away and find solutions, or somebody emerges as a victim, and someone who is lives in that victim mindset. And really, the outcome is pretty individual. Growing up, I was acutely aware of hearing privilege, I knew I had it. And if you are listening to this, you have hearing privilege too. And I was completely aware of what a gift it was to hear how so many things were opened up to us because of my hearing. And I had a duty to my parents and I had a duty to my deaf community. And growing up as a coda is so full of so many different complexities and nuances. But today I want to address specifically what I learned from not having the privilege of hearing parents. And I'm not making a political statement with that we all benefit with some kind of privilege, whether we're hearing whether we're sighted whatever it is. And some people have the privilege of having hearing parents. I grew up navigating two worlds, the world of the hearing and the world of the deaf and I never felt at home in either and the deaf world. I was part of the culture. But I was also hearing which also came with all of the rights and privileges there up like any coda, because you can hear you become responsible for not just your deaf parents, but for any deaf anytime. You are their advocate, you are their voice you are their protector. And the flip side to that is that since you are assigned the protector role, by default, no one is your protector. And I had fantastic parents who worked extremely hard their whole lives and they offered me the best life they possibly could. They just said Didn't know certain things or how to advocate because just they weren't aware, it wasn't because they didn't choose to, while I was fortunate enough to have a grandmother and a sister who could, and did listen and advocate when they could, you know, that's a different role in the parental role, and they had their own lives as they should have had. And the role of being the parental advocate is not one to really be substituted. And I learned is, especially as my sister grew up, and moved out of the house and moved, you know, out of the country, and started her own life. And as my grandmother began to age, that whatever life I was gonna have, I was responsible for it 100%, and I needed to stand up for myself, and I needed to make decisions that were for me. And I am so grateful for my unique code of life. Because without this journey that I had, I would never be the person I am today. And I'll be, at times, my struggles, didn't quite feel I guess, you probably have some of those too, right? Where you're like, This really made me better, but it was not fun going through it. Those were the types of gifts that shaped me into the person I am today. So what's the lesson of all that I shared? And what's the Andean moment here? The lesson I'm going to dive into today is really about that gift of self protection and self advocacy and finding your voice. I made a lot of errors. And I did not stand up for myself in many ways over the years. So here's some shortcuts. If especially if you're a CODA, or especially if you find yourself in a caregiver role. Of course, there is an alternative to not advocating for yourself, you can choose to live in an other centered world and not put yourself first, and you're going to end up like the person who on the airplane, puts the oxygen masks on the passenger before they put them on themselves, great for the passenger, it's not great if you don't have the sustenance to make it yourself. If you don't learn to self advocate and self protect, you're gonna burn out, you're gonna find yourself depressed, you're find yourself not knowing who you are, and not knowing what it is that you want. And you're going to lose that very unique contribution to this world that only you can give. So there, here's some three simple takeaways for self advocacy and to making sure you were advocating for yourself. The first is to know your needs. I know it seems counter intuitive is if you've been in a role where you're serving other people, it's like wait, their needs are so much more important than my needs. And for me, my needs were always secondary to my parents needs. And it took me years to understand that it was not only normal to have needs, but it was healthy to have needs. And knowing that I could have a yes and a no, wow, that was huge. I have a trigger phrase from childhood. From anywhere in the house, my parents would holler, Susie, I need you to. And that meant I was immediately to report to duty, I was summoned. Regardless of what I was doing in the moment, it didn't matter if I was doing homework. If I was reading a book, if I was on the phone, I didn't matter what I was doing. As soon as my parents would holler at me and summon me, I had to drop whatever I was doing and immediately report to duty. And that phrase, I need you to that's the trigger phrase for me. Like when somebody says that, to me, I'm like, you know, it took me a long term time to learn to say, like, Okay, I will help you when I can. But first, I need. And I did have needs, and you have needs, and it's okay to have needs. It's okay to have needs that come first, before you help other people with their needs, your help, and your physical mental needs should always be the priority. If you're not in tune with your needs, you're not going to be able to voice them, much less put them first. And if you are in a role where you are constantly putting other people's needs ahead of yourself, whether it's a parent, a caregiver, a quota, whatever it is, it's going to take some figuring out, it's going to take some time to intentionally list your needs to see what those are. And we're maybe it might take us a meditation to see what it is that you exactly want out of life. What do you want outside of serving other people all the time. And at first, it's going to feel really selfish, and it's going to feel really self absorbed. And it's going to feel completely unnatural to think of yourself first. But with some practice, and when you're focused on what it is that you need. It's going to be harder and harder for you to put yourself on the backburner and it's more than that. You have needs, it's okay to have those needs. The second takeaway, you are not an extension of someone else. Let me say that again, you are not an extension of someone else. And when you're in a role of caregiver or parent even or whatever it is, sometimes it just feels like you're part you're an extension of someone else, and that you don't really have your own identity. And I want to tell you, you are you, you may have children, and you may have parents, and you may have loved ones or somebody who's sick, who depends on you. But you are not connected. And you can't control their actions. They can't control your actions, and you are not responsible for them. Yes, you can help. Yes, you can provide assistance. But you are not required to it's a choice. Choosing to help. And doing something out of obligation, feeling like you have no choice in the matter are two entirely different ways to live, realize that you have a choice, and that you're not responsible for their outcomes. Last, I want to tell you, to the person who feels unheard, and unknown, that you are known, you are known, and you are worthy. And you are not about just supplying other people's needs, you have gifts and abilities. And in my own personal case, because of this complex relationship with my parents, and I felt like my parents, a protector and advocate, I yearned for a person, a parent, to advocate for me to know me to know my gifts to encourage me to hear me do something and say, you know, great job. And I don't know what your hurts are. But we all have them places and people that have fallen short expectations that weren't met. But I want you to know that you have a creator who knows you, who created you, Who knew every hard and beautiful thing you would encounter and prepared you and prepared the path for it. And I know that that path can be bumpy and it can be hard but it can also be so beautiful at the same time. And Psalms 139 It says you have searched me Lord, and you know me, you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down? You're familiar with all my ways. Before word is on my tongue you Lord know it completely. You him me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. It's that beautiful, so beautiful. You are known, you are loved, and you matter immensely. If today's episode resonated with you, I would love to hear your takeaways or comments. Please drop a comment or leave a review. And please follow to stay up to date with the latest episodes. We'll see you next time.