Saturday, February 13, 2021

Why is saying nothing preferred? AAC at the doctors office

I do not need to ask why is it that I've had multiple doctors ask me why not everyone does this typing to them, but why?

Why are we so focused on speech as society, that even when you cannot speak because of illness you try, and won't turn to the phone you are already caring?

Why is speech so prioritized that typing is so much a failure, subhuman, thing to do, that saying nothing is preferred?

Why are these doctors, where it makes their lives easier, because I am the first patient in these scenerios, that they can easily get a picture of the situation, that treat me as something even close to human?

I know these answers. Or, at least I am not surprised by any of this. I was one of the people taught from birth how much I was a broken child because my speech wasn't like everyone else's. I am someone who has been told too many times to count how much my words don't exist, because I am typing. I am someone, with the trauma of forcing speech. I am someone with this in my body at all moments, as my body needs to remember how to respond to people, to communication.

But, at the same time. I cannot understand. I can't understand why someone would choose to be trying to talk through coughing so hard it is making you black out - and I've been directly told by a doctor I was the first patient they've ever seen that didn't try to do such a thing. It is so much easier, to not rely on the unreliable body parts which aren't working in these moments of illness.

I want to tell people, this is an option. I want to tell people, it's okay, you aren't taking it from some other people, if that's what they're afraid of. Or, if you are afraid of being like "those people" then get though this doctors appointment you need to get through and then read the words of those people. Listen. You have so much to learn.

I want to tell people that this is an option. That, they don't need to speak at all moments of time, even if they do usually. Even if they do all the time, except for illnesses like bronchitis, such as I am referencing as an example here.

You aren't wrong if you use AAC because of laringytis or bronchitis or anything of this sort. It's great! It's for everyone. Use it.

I want to tell people this is an option. And society is wrong, in saying that you need to try to speak. You don't need to force yourself. You don't need to spend energy, or oxygen, or physical pain. You don't need to try to speak when you physically can't. You simply don't need to. And there are options. You can do what works.

I want to question how people using AAC in these moments is normalized, rather than if anyone else will see these doctors with AAC. I want to question what is being done now, rather than why I was the first. I want to know, what are we doing, so that people can communicate, however they can, whenever they can.

And I want that to mean everyone.

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