Rebecca Withey

Flashback.   It’s the early 1990s and I’m at a get together with distant relatives on Christmas Eve. Everyone’s mid conversation but all I can think about is how watery the cauliflower is on my plate. I push it around and wonder to myself how long it’s been boiled for.   I’m wearing a velour …

I am currently working on a project that involves me learning a lot more about the intricacies of mental health. I am discovering that mental illnesses are occurring in the deaf community at a much higher rate compared to our hearing counterparts, yet a stigma around mental health in general still remains. I want to …

My Hearing Aids and I  My hearing aids and I have a funny old relationship. I love them and I’m grateful I have them, but boy has it taken me a long time to really accept them. For those of you who don’t wear hearing aids, let me firstly just say that hearing aids are …

Earlier this month I embarked on my first ever online BSL yoga class. I had been feeling restless in my body after a busy summer and I felt the call to get back on the yoga mat. Bearing in mind that I hadn’t really practised the yoga asanas formally for quite a few years, I …

A friend of mine was at a gathering with deaf friends using BSL when a deaf person who she had never met before suddenly stopped her mid-sentence. “Where are you from?” The newcomer demanded to know. “London,” my friend replied, baffled at the sudden question.  The stranger went on to scold her, “you just used …

If someone told my ten-year-old self that I would grow up to perform sign songs and teach them, I would probably have laughed in disbelief. “Sign song, what’s that?” I would ask. Despite being able to converse in BSL from a young age – due to my exposure to deaf youth clubs and the like …

I recently hosted a birthday party for my son. He had invited 9 of his friends to a local sports centre for a laser tag and dodgeball afternoon, and I had the task of ensuring everything ran smoothly throughout. I liaised with the sports centre staff, lipread them and used gestures to clarify certain things. …

Despite going to a mainstream secondary school with a deaf unit, nobody there once asked me or told me about the idea of a ‘deaf identity.’ It’s only now when I’m questioned on how I identify, I can pinpoint exactly how I feel and be proud of all the different parts that make up me.

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like the last 12 months have been extremely stressful. A year ago we were in the first month of a national lockdown and I was naively hopeful that things would ‘all be better by the summer.’ Ha, if only I knew! 

Last month it was Sign Language Awareness Week, as organised by the British Deaf Association. During this particular week I shared tips and images of signs on my personal Facebook page, spreading awareness of my love for sign language and encouraging my contacts to give signing a go if they hadn’t already had the chance.