Lisa Rossignol

I don't remember the exact moment that I discovered that I heard different than everyone else but I think that it was some time around 12 years old. I do remember that when I sat next to my father when he ate iceberg lettuce I was blinded by panic and rage. A physical response came over me and I stared at him with a look of sheer anger and disgust. The same thing happened whenever my mother would swallow her food or my nieces would slurp soda from a can. It would be many, many years before I would have a name for what I was experiencing. I started to eat most of my meals alone or with people I knew to not be noisy eaters. Desperate for answers and realizing that something was awry with me my mother took my to councilors who prescribed medications or performed hypnosis to no avail. I could never really articulate what I felt or what the problem was but I knew that an absolute problem was most people chewing gum. When I see people chewing gum, even if I can't hear them, I can f...

This morning I read a post by my favorite blogger, Phoebe Holmes , about the emotional landscape that surrounds having a child with a disability. Then, I went to class and heard one of my classmates, who has an adult child with autism, talking about all the things she is in addition to being the mother of a person with disabilities. A light bulb went off in my head.  "That's right!", I thought and decided to share my stroke of insight with you: The Woman You Lose Just like the dreams I had for my child before she had half of her brain removed, I had dreams for myself as a mother and a woman. I longed for the day when my baby would say "Mama" and would walk. I literally had dreams of conversations with Lily while I was pregnant with her and living with a daily dread that this baby was so sick, despite the doctors encouragement that she was fine. I planned to return to work in advertising and looked forward to finding a good day care where she could make frie...