Spending Time With A Surfer @theboymoana
My friend, @theboymoana is an awesome person, who I've had the privilege of talking to for quite some time through the disability support thread.
Through this interview, @theboymoana blesses us with his positive and bubbly burst of energy while reminding us to be respectful and kind to everyone. Happy reading!
Note: While some responses may be slightly edited for an easy flow and to make it easier to understand, none of the answers are altered to ensure authenticity.
Question: How does being deaf affect your learning disability?
Answer: It makes it a lot harder because it’s hard to learn things when I can’t hear but also hard to learn because have intellectual disability and learning disabilities. Lot of people do not know how to help when you have both so take me a long time to learn how to communicate and learn school things. Teachers just ignore me all day and tell my parents I can’t learn anything!
Question: How do you prefer to communicate and access information?
Answer: I communicate with sign language I learn it and my family learn it but I still have a lot to learn and have a sign language teacher come here to teach me and my family sometimes to. I can’t speak and doctors used to say is because of deaf and learning disability, but now new doctor say is because of autism.
Question : Have you had communication barriers when speaking to people who are hearing?
Answer: Yes lot of people are mean to me and look at me mean. I have ADHD and have really hard time sitting and be calm and I want to always do things so places I am supposed to be calm and quiet people always look at me. It's extra hard to stay quiet because I don’t know how loud I am. But kids say mean things to me and I am not good to stand up for myself so people do bad things sometimes and I don’t know how make them stop. Some people really nice to me though and give extra help because disabled.
My favorite library person she knows sign and always help me find books and is really nice to me even she is busy help me every time I go there. Also I get to join SURF TEAM. And they all help me a lot make sure am ok and my coach say one of my brothers or parents always have to stay with me at practice and stuff but he do a lot to help me and I am happy let me join because surfing favorite and not lot people let disable people join normal teams and that is mean because nice include people like me.
@theboymoana thanks so much for sharing your experiences. I also liked how you talked about your hobbies and showed that a disability doesn't define us. It's just one aspect of our life.
With all your personal achievements to be proud of I like to emphasize you also helped to fight the stigma around disability in general and ADHD, learning disabilities and deafness. I salute you!
@MyNameIsNicole thanks for your dedication! The posting of very nicely formatted and ready to read. If you allow me a suggestion. Maybe a footnote / explanatory note would be nice for a lot of readers unfamiliar with sign language. There's often a misconception that there's one universal sign language. There are very different ones like there is in spoken and written language. :) In Austria there is Austrian Sign Language, Germany has German Sign Language, Britain has British Sign Language, and in United States there is American Sign Language... There is also International Sign which the deaf community likes to stress it's proper name is International Sign. They don't want it to be called International Sign Language since they fear that it would fuel the misconception there is one universal sign language.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed to make this interview happen. It was great!
@kindSoul10
Thank you so much for your kind words and feedback, I value and appreciate it!
I don't think that's necessary though, as I try to include things a lot of people won't understand, for example full meaning to abbreviations.
But for sign language, I think everyone should know what it is because just like all languages, sign language is a language. And I've never seen footnotes explaining languages before.
Also, thank you so much for debunking the misconception that sign language is not international. Although I didn't ask the person interviewed what sign language they communicate with.
I'm always happy to answer questions for people that don't know though!
@MyNameIsNicole :) thanks for responding and explaining your thoughts behind not including an explanation to it. I also liked very much that you didn't specifically ask which sign language they use, if they didn't mention it themselve.
People I met are still amazed that the signs for different words are different in different countries. :) They're not part of the deaf community so they most often don't know.
@kindSoul10
Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing that explainer. 😊
@GoldenNest2727 thanks for reading. Did you know on giphy there's a guy teaching American Sign Language? They uploaded GIFs with him signing different words.
@kindSoul10
yes because sometimes people just see disability and forget see PERSON to. Is why like my two friends have here by my house they don’t treat me like just am disability they are nice and help me but also just go skate with me and go beach and stuff just I don’t know what stigma around disability means
@theboymoana friends like yours are gems. It would be nice if all people could see behind the disability and see the person instead. ❤️
what an inspiring person you are @theboymoana - and thank you so much for sharing your trials and successes. You are amazing.
@MyNameIsNicole
@soulsings
thank you !! I am happy get to share things and so much people be really nice too
@MyNameIsNicole
Absolutely loved this interview ❤️
@theboymoana
Your story is incredibly inspiring! I am in awe of how much you have had to endure and your capacity for joy in spite of your circumstances. While there are those who may treat you unfairly, please know that you will always have a friend in us :) Take care and thank you for being so open and honest about your experiences.
@JayMeditates
i am happy so many nice people are here and be nice to me thank you!
@MyNameIsNicole Thanks for the interview series. ❤️
@thebabymoana Hii Thank you for sharing with us your journey. I'm really glad that you do things other than studies and it brings you joy! Please continue exploring and have fun doing things you love ❤️
I hope Mr Cat comes home and join you again. Let's hope for the best
@hopezzy
yes! I get to do a lot fun things I am happy my parents always say want me and my brothers to be happy is most important thing to them. I hope my cat comes back home too my brother say he think some family find him and keep him ☹️ I wish they give him back if someone do that.
@theboymoana
This is so inspiring Moana 💜 you are such a wonderful friend, and I enjoy chatting with you in the rooms.
I love how this interview shows your strength, determination, and courage to be you, to keep going.
I wondered if I'd be able to use your story for this? Please don't worry if not! https://www.7cups.com/forum/GeneralSupport_28/General_2440/YourStoryACelebrationofStrengthandCourage_298246/
Boosting for visibility! Now everyone can get to know Nahoa on a deeper level <3
@theboymoana I'm glad you had the courage to share this with us, and am proud of my teenies being this brave, well done! You're a nice soul, and i hope people understand that and don't make you suffer as well. We love you, sending the nicest beams, you got this💚✨💕 *hugs*