By age four, I had hardly uttered a word. Finally, my parents had my hearing tested and learned I had a severe hearing loss. They chose to mainstream me, hoping this would offer her the most “normal” childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, I worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak, but I tried to hide my disability in order to fit in. While considered largely successful in the oral approach I paid a significant price: an absence of a sense of community; difficulties in understanding others; and perhaps worst of all, frequent isolation. I didn’t meet other hard of hearing or deaf people until I was in my mid-thirties. I was quite alone with my hearing loss. As a result, I was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated—fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture.