Eulogies and tributes in general paint deceased people in an overwhelmingly flattering light. For some reason, people hold fast to “don’t speak ill of the dead”, at the expense of being honest and realistic.

As a therapist, I want to normalize that human relationships and grief can be complicated. Just because someone has died does not mean that they were saints throughout their lifetime. I believe it is important to be able to be authentic and speak our truth.

In Memoriam: Reflecting on a Complicated Father-Daughter Relationship

With a mix of emotions, I announce the passing of my father, Stephen Frederic McCullough, on January 12, 2024, at the age of 77.

Despite becoming a father to me unexpectedly at 19 years old, Dad did his best to meet his parental responsibilities. He left high school before graduating and went to work as a printer to support our family, providing us with a stable life.

One of the advantages of having a young (and sometimes immature) father was having a buddy always ready to throw a football, ride rollercoasters without becoming sick, or cruise around the neighborhood and nearby sand dunes in our blue 1970’s flower-decaled dune buggy. Dad shared the joys of camping, snow skiing, and waterskiing, an appreciation for nature, and passed on his love for boating to me.

Dad made sure that as a girl, I knew I could do anything. He taught me woodworking, how to change tires and spark plugs, and many other tasks that were considered “man’s work”. I remember spending hours with him in his immaculate garage.

One of my favorite stories: After giving me a 30-second rundown on how to operate a stick shift, Dad sent me out alone in my newly purchased Volkswagen, without a backwards glance. Needless to say, it was not a smooth ride, with the car stalling at every red light, and I found my self back home shortly. Dad imparted another 30-second lecture on proper use of the clutch when stopping. From Dad, I learned not to be afraid of anything or anyone.

In the complicated and messy way that life unfolds, the strong and principled feminist I grew up to be eventually lost patience with Dad’s constant disrespectful behaviors toward women. Through infidelity, he caused pain to all the women he shared his life with, repeating a pattern of disloyalty in both of his marriages and his other relationships.

Our relationship strained under the weight of this, leading to a 25-year estrangement. Three years ago, Dad extended a plea for reconnection, a gesture that seemed to come from a place of regret as he confronted the brevity of time while dealing with lung cancer.

During our in-person reunion at a pickleball tournament, Dad spent hours sitting next to me each day, trying to make up for lost time. We both knew there was no undoing what was already done. I found peace in understanding that his flaws came from his wounds – language deprivation in his early years, low-self-esteem, and becoming a parent before he had matured. It was bittersweet and freeing. I could see that Dad was proud to be my father and my daughter’s grandfather. He was looking forward to a road trip next fall to visit my family and enjoy a boat ride at our lake home.

Unfortunately, the visit did not happen because Dad’s health took a turn for the worse. My biological brother, who lived closer to Dad, was apparently threatened by our reconciliation. He abused his medical power of attorney by preventing me from visiting Dad in his final days. He did this despite Dad already having named me his second medical POA and expressing his desire to talk with me when I saw him briefly in the hospital last month. Although it made sense to name my brother, who lived closer, as the primary POA, Dad sadly did not understand the implications of this, nor did he realize that sibling grudges would surface, resulting in the POA being abused by my neurodivergent brother.

In honoring Dad’s memory, I choose to hold onto the blessing of our reconnection and its significance in the broader tapestry of our lives. May the warmth of this and other happy moments endure, and may they serve as a reminder that, even in the face of complexities, there is always room for healing and shared moments of connection.

References:

https://getcarefull.com/articles/how-to-prevent-power-of-attorney-abuse

https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-sibling

https://siblingestrangement.com

https://deafcounseling.com/when-narcissists-use-children

https://llcn.sdsu.edu/team/stephen-mccullough-ph-d/

The post In Memoriam: Reflecting on A Complicated Father-Daughter Relationship appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Advice for Prospective Adoptive Deaf Parents

Maureen shares her Deaf Indian adoption experience and offers two important pieces of advice for prospective adoptive parents.

Communication Access and Medical-Related Issues

Hi, I’m Maureen Behrens. I’d like to share my adoption story, focusing on communication access and medical-related issues. I adopted my daughter about 10 ½ years ago, through the Holt International Adoption Agency based in Oregon. When they told me that I had been matched with my daughter, I was elated and over the moon! My heart was pounding and so full of love at that moment. I was looking forward to it with much anticipation.

Lip-reading Instead of Sign Language

Through the adoption process, I worked closely with my social worker. The Indian agency was required to send me reports every three months, covering any issues related to medical, emotional, behavioral, social, and lipreading. The reports I received would indicate things such as weight gain, height, etc. I noticed that they always mentioned lipreading, so I asked my social worker to let them know that I wanted my daughter to learn to sign because otherwise, she would have no way to communicate with me when we met. She wouldn’t know how to tell me when she needed to go to the bathroom or if she needed a drink of water, for example. Because my speech skills are nonexistent, we’d be at loss for communication.

Foster Family Refused to Teach Sign Language

The foster family, however, refused my request and continued to teach lipreading/speech skills. I argued back and forth with them through my social worker for six months, until finally, with just one week remaining before we were to meet, we got lucky. My daughter was moved to another foster family who lived closer to the building where she could learn ASL. A woman named Ida Thomas – bless her heart – had learned ASL from a Canadian pastor who had gone to India and met her at church. It was our lucky break. Ida taught my daughter for one week, covering signs for colors, plane, chair and so on.

First Encounter Between Deaf Adoptive Parent and Deaf Indian Adopted Child

From the moment when my daughter arrived and we met each other for the very first time, we had an amazingly powerful and instant bond, connecting through our both being Deaf. Interestingly, the same social worker who had advocated on my behalf for my daughter to learn sign, was totally astonished and remarked that she had never before seen such a strong first connection between a parent and adoptive child. To my great appreciation and gratitude, we made a written agreement that from that point on, any Deaf child who was placed through that agency would learn to sign. After we flew home, my daughter continued to learn and pick up more ASL.

Medical Biases Toward Deaf Indian Child/Adoption

Secondly, related to medical issues, in one of the reports I received every three months prior to my daughter’s arrival, I had noticed in one picture that her eye looked a bit out of focus. I asked the social worker to share my concerns about my daughter’s eye, but was told by the Indian agency that everything was fine. In addition to this, the doctor had written that my daughter had “growth retardation”, which meant that she would not grow anymore. Upset, I asked the social worker what that meant, but was told it was nothing. Despite my protests, she continued to say it was nothing. To my relief, right after my daughter arrived, she had a big growth spurt. My instinct about her eye, however, was correct. After seeing a doctor and undergoing a series of tests at the California School for the Blind in Fremont, it was confirmed that she had low vision and a few other diagnoses.

Importance of Asking Questions and Trust Your Instincts

My advice to anyone who may be considering adopting in the future is be sure to ask plenty of questions. Trust your instincts and speak up if you feel something isn’t right or if you notice something. Don’t let the agency do everything without considering your input. When I mentioned my concern about communication access and stood my ground, I was eventually able to get my daughter access to signing, and the same thing was true with my concerns that were related to medical issues. Thank you for watching.

Video description: Maureen is sitting in front of a light-colored all, wearing a black top, and signing her story.

Resources:

https://deafcounseling.com/adoption-a-deaf-adoptive-parent-kyms-story/

https://adoption.org/know-adopting-deaf-child

https://deafcounseling.com/deaf-adoption-unwanted-medical-advice-story/

The post Deaf Indian Adoption: Maureen’s Story appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Adoption and the Medical Community

Hi, I’m Kym Symansky. I’m the mother of three children through international adoption. I want to share my experience with adoption, particularly with the medical community. When our children came home, I felt like they were my children, 500% mine, even though they did not come from my womb. They are children who came from my heart. Every time we went to see a new doctor, a specialist, the ER, hospital, or somewhere like that, we would have to fill out the forms with our names, address, birthdays, and so on. There would be two columns for family history, one for the mother’s medical history, another for the father’s medical history, to note things like diabetes, heart conditions, and cancer. This always seemed like a little bit of a depressing reminder that I was not biologically related to my children. I had to write down “NA” – does not apply – because I didn’t know their medical backgrounds or have any information about their birth families. We always felt sad about that.

Experience with Medical Forms

When our children grew up and became old enough to do so, we encouraged them to fill out the forms themselves. They would ask, “Do you have a family history of diabetes? Does Dad’s family have cancer?” I had to tell them that the forms were for biological medical history and those questions were not related to them. They’d look at me and be like, “oh, that’s right”. We just never think that we are not biologically related. We think of ourselves as family, period. Those medical history forms were just a constant reminder about our not being related through biology. 

Importance of Having a Good Relationship with Your Doctor

I can’t emphasize how important it is to have a good relationship with the family doctor. The family doctor I grew up with, Dr. Piron, was there for both my birth and my brother’s birth. He had taken care of my mother since she moved here from Kansas City when she was eight years old and took care of her when she gave birth as well. When I returned home after 15 years of being away for college, getting married, and living in other places, I was disappointed to find out that Dr. Piron had retired. His daughter, Dr. Kathy, had taken over the practice, so my husband and I went to see her. It was nice to keep the family connection.

Dangers of Labeling Deaf Children Too Quickly

Dr. Kathy knew that we were adopting because she had filled out forms verifying that we were in good health and capable of being parents. When we brought our first child to his first doctor’s appointment, she commented right away, “Oh, this child must have ADHD”. I couldn’t believe she had said that. Of course, my child was busy and excited, full of curiosity about this new environment and examining everything – this was totally to be expected. I told the doctor that everything was new to him – new home, new family, new food, new bed, new school, on top of many other things. So many things were new and exciting to him, of course he wanted to explore. 

Doctor’s Low Expectations

I can’t remember the doctor’s exact words about our second child, but it was probably something about ADHD again and it also made me feel resentful. With our third child, we already knew that surgery for some health issues would be needed after we brought the child home. We had signed papers and were ready for this. When we brought the child to the doctor, she commented that he was underweight and would never walk, might never be able to communicate, understand things or learn much. 

Attitude is Key

By this time, I was even more turned off by her attitude. I asked her why she had talked so negatively about all three of our children. I was so upset that I broke down in tears. I found that the doctor had had a failed adoption experience herself. It involved her wanting to adopt a baby, some controversy about payment to the birth mother, and ultimately ending with the adoption not happening. Later, she found out that two other families had also been scammed by the same birth mother, with her taking money from all three families. It ended with a court case and the doctor’s adoption efforts falling apart.

Changing Doctors

I shared my sympathies, then told her I preferred that she view my children in a positive light and act encouraging, in the same way she would with any other children. After I left the office, however, I continued to feel uncomfortable and bothered by the idea of seeing this doctor regularly through the upcoming years. We’d have to see her any time my children were sick, had a cold or cough, needed medicine or annual school physicals for sports, and other things. After considering everything and talking with my mother, I decided to cut ties with this doctor.  My parents and brother did continue to see her. 

Encounter with Former Doctor

I felt a bit upset and defensive about this, but I cut our ties and switched to our current family doctor. Everything has gone well since then. About 10 or 12 years after this happened, one of my children became sick with a high fever and we went to a walk-in clinic. By that time, Dr. Kathy had retired and was on call for different walk-in clinics. We waited for what felt like forever in the examination room, until a nurse finally came in and handed me a note. It said that Dr. Kathy felt awkward about meeting us because of the bad fallout we had in the past, and that if we preferred to see a different doctor, it would be about another 30 minute wait. I was surprised to read the note, but told the nurse to send in Dr. Kathy, as the past was in the past, and we needed medical assistance now. 

Dr. Kathy came in and it was a little awkward at first, but she went ahead and did her job, prescribing medicine for the fever and sore throat or whatever it was. At the end she commented that our child was very intelligent, communicated very well, and was so polite. I just sat there and smiled.

Video description: Kym is sitting in front of a curtain, signing her story.

Resources:

https://adoption.org/know-adopting-deaf-child

https://deafcounseling.com/recommended-films/

The post Adoption: A Deaf Adoptive Parent, Kym’s Story appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Transcript/Video Description: Title Slide (black with white text): Stress & Self-Care, Deaf Counseling Center, www.deafcounseling.com Sharon (Caucasian woman with black/grey hair, wearing glasses, standing in a kitchen in front of a cookie sheet with a measuring cup full of blue water and a glass one quarter filled with blue water): All of us have different types of stress in our lives. Work stress, family stress, financial stress, sickness stress and so on.

We all deal with variable amounts of stress. Imagine this is your life in the glass (picks up glass one quarter filled with blue water with left hand). The blue represents a relatively low level of stress that is pretty manageable (puts glass down). Now over here is a container full of different stressors that can show up in your life (points to full measuring cup). Let’s add them to your life (pours water into glass, filling it to the rim). Now your stress level is almost maxed out. Then one day something happens – it could be something minor or it could be a major incident (adds more water to the glass until it overflows) – It’s overwhelming and so stressful that you can’t handle it anymore. So how are we supposed to manage stress? Self-care!

This can be done through exercising, eating right, sleeping right, socializing… and even talking privately with a counselor. All of these help to reduce stress. Using self-care to manage stress looks like this (pours water from glass back into measuring cup until glass is less than half full, then puts glass down): Now with a reduced level of stress, you are able to breathe easier and manage any stress that shows up in your life.

Category

Education

The post Deaf Counseling: Stress & Self-Care appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Sheli Barber: So many of us share the common experience of cultural and language deprivation, audism and identity trauma. This all begins in the hospital. On the day we were born, our parents held us and looked at us with loving gazes. Then the doctor entered the room and announced, “I am sorry, your baby is Deaf.”

A referral to the audiologist followed. The audiologist conducted a test and confirmed, “Yes, your baby is definitely Deaf. I am sorry.” Next was the referral to the cochlear implant surgeon, who said, “Yes, your baby is Deaf. To ensure the best chance in this world for a normal life, I strongly recommend a cochlear implant or a hearing aid. I recommend using speech and simultaneous communication. I recommend your child is mainstreamed with other Deaf students, or alone. Your child needs to interact with hearing peers and hearing family members. Then your child will grow up to be normal.”

The parents believe the doctor knows what is best, so they place the child in a hearing school. The child is wearing tiny new hearing aids or implants, which many of us disliked and insisted on removing. We dreaded and rebelled against having to go to endless and pointless speech therapy sessions. We received praise at school only if we succeeded in passing and behaving exactly like hearing people. If we behaved like we were Deaf, we were criticized harshly. As Deaf children, we learned that it was better to act like we were hearing and do our best to fit into that world. We struggled many times in different social situations, outdoor recess, lunchtime, in classrooms, with our families, at Thanksgiving. We always felt left out and uncomfortable.

It was not until we became adults, that we were finally exposed for the first time to the Deaf community, ASL and Deaf culture, perhaps through college, or the community or work. We were thrilled and excited to meet other Deaf people and finally discover our identity. At the same time, we experienced feelings of resentment about all the years of audism we had experienced.

Many of us went to counseling to unpack the effects of audism, to reclaim and heal ourselves, so we could feel whole again as Deaf adults. Now, with Early Healthy Deaf Identity, we can transform the process by which medical providers approach parents at the hospital. We should celebrate the life of each child. Remember that moment when parents are holding their newborn for the first time? The doctor should come in and say, “Congratulations! Your child is healthy and Deaf! Here are all the information and resources that will help your child grow up to lead a very healthy life as a Deaf person.”

Please know that for more information, you can contact Deaf Counseling Center: www.deafcounseling.com.

The post Early Healthy Deaf Identity vs. Early Hearing Detection & Intervention appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

Addiction Treatment Options for Deaf People: For Deaf people who are dealing with addiction (alcohol, meth, opioid, cocaine, etc.), the biggest and most common challenge, aside from asking for help, is the struggle to find accessible treatment programs where staff are fluent in ASL and knowledgeable about Deaf people and Deaf culture. With only a handful of inpatient and residential substance abuse programs available nationally, that are specifically focused on working with Deaf clients, the majority of Deaf people seeking support with addiction end up in hearing-centered programs where access is provided via interpreters.

Challenges in Treatment: In addition to Deaf patients having to deal with the mental, emotional and physical stresses that are typical aspects of the treatment and rehabilitation process, they must also deal with invisible stressors related to audism and oppression. The list of barriers to treatment for Deaf people is long and overwhelming. It can include the treatment program’s initial resistance to providing ASL interpreters; the energy and time expended on fighting for communication accessibility; having to work with counselors, social workers, psychologists and medical staff who are unfamiliar with Deaf people and who may exhibit audist behaviors toward the Deaf patient, whether intentional or not; having to live with, socialize with, and participate in group therapy and other activities with hearing patients who, like the staff, usually have no knowledge of or experience with interacting with Deaf people; constantly having to explain Deaf culture and norms to hearing clinicians, staff, and fellow patients (i.e., appropriate and inappropriate ways to get the Deaf patient’s attention, refraining from asking the Deaf patient to speak with voice); having to advocate for accommodations, including captions on videos and television and light flasher for room door; and limited options for rehabilitation support in the Deaf patient’s home community following discharge from inpatient treatment.

Ongoing Support with Recovery: Each of the challenges listed above adds additional stress to the already difficult and complicated recovery process. Dealing with the isolation of treatment can be traumatic for Deaf people whose lives may have been characterized by constant isolation if they were the only Deaf member of a non-signing hearing family or even if they came from a Deaf family but attended mainstream school programs without Deaf peers. Rehabilitation programs, while essential to recovery, can also trigger emotional wounds, making the recovery process even more complicated. To provide support, Deaf Counseling Center offers outpatient individual and family counseling with Deaf counselors and therapists who are fluent in ASL and experienced in working with Deaf clients. Please feel free to contact us at info@deafcounseling.com for more information.

The post The Leaf: ASL Poem by John Maucere about Addiction appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.

How Stress Affects Us: Our bodies, minds, and emotions all experience the impact of stress that occurs in our daily lives. According to the American Institute of Stress, the number one health problem in our country is actually stress, not heart-related conditions, cancer, obesity, or any of the common health issues that typically headline news reports. When stress happens, whether it is caused by traffic jams, relationship problems, work deadlines, lousy interpreters, or audism, our heart rates, blood pressure, and blood sugar all increase. The more this happens, the more risk we face of developing high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and chronic pain. Stress-related headaches, insomnia, and fatigue can also affect mental health in the form of anger, anxiety, and depression. Self-medication of stress with alcohol or drugs is very common and can easily spiral out of control.

Counseling to Deal with Stress: In addition to the tips in the video, meeting regularly with a Deaf counselor or coach is an another productive way of coping with stress. Whether or not you are experiencing serious mental health issues, counseling can help you improve your work-life balance, learn stress reduction techniques, and identify and change unhealthy thought patterns that contribute to stress. If you are dealing with one or more of the stressful life events on the Holems-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale (click here), consider counseling for support in managing stress in the best way possible.

The post Deaf-Friendly Stress Tips in ASL appeared first on Deaf Counseling Center.