Walking in Their Shoes
by Carly GayleEveryone feels isolated at some point in his or her life. Sometimes people feel isolated from others simply because they are different from those who surround them. At summer camp after sixth grade, I felt different and isolated from everyone else because I did not have something that all the other campers had—I did not have the ability to speak.
The day that my camp started, I arrived in the middle of the day because that morning, I had been at the orthodontist. I had a palate expander put in, which made it impossible to talk normally. My words ran together and people could not comprehend what I was saying. When I tried to enter their conversations, there would be an awkward silence as the kids tried to figure out what I was saying. I could not explain what my problem was and that it was temporary. It didn't help that I had arrived late and all the other campers had become friends by that point. All of my fellow campers had abandoned me because it was too difficult to talk with me.
Talking is something that everyone does every day, and to not have that ability was very difficult for me. It was frustrating to be unable to communicate with the other campers. It was even more frustrating to realize that many of the campers thought I had a mental disability (as was evidenced by the fact that they talked to me slowly and with simple language). I felt as though they weren't willing to take a little extra effort to understand what I was saying, and that made me angry. I felt isolated by my inability to talk, and I was very unhappy that no one could identify with me.
I felt so sorry for myself at the time. I didn't think about the millions of other people in the world with speech impairments who go through the same thing I did, every day. Thinking back on it, my speech problems went away by the end of the two-week session, during which I made friends with the rest of my camp group despite my problem. For some people, their speech problems affect them their whole lives. Some can't speak at all. After I adjusted to the palate expander, and could speak normally, I began to think about those others and felt badly that my problem was relatively minor. I used to be extremely annoyed and unable to be bothered with people who had speech impediments, but since that summer I have tried to be more understanding toward them. I am more empathetic now toward everyone I encounter who has disabilities, and towards the even broader spectrum of people who are alone and isolated.
Even though my experience with muteness was humiliating and uncomfortable, it taught me a valuable lesson. Now I can empathize with people who have speech problems. Empathy for others is a necessary tool, because at one time or another, everyone feels isolated and needs sympathy. Whether someone has already felt isolated or will in the future, the experience will help him or her reach out to others in need.
Carly Gayle is fifteen years old, and attends Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville in Rockville, MD.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
