Imagine the world without a sound. You don’t hear traffic, your favourite music, announcements on public transport or conversations with your friends. Sounds terrifying? This is what Zanna Messenger – Jones faces every day but deafness didn’t stop her to live her life to the fullest.
Jones, 22, from Cumbria is a third-year student at Central Saint Martins studying Fashion Design with a specialism in knitting. She has been interested in fashion since a very young age and used to raid through her parent’s wardrobes to try on new outfits.
“My Gran used to sew and always dreamt of having a dressmaking shop so her love for this was passed onto me. We would spend hours on Sundays tearing up my old dresses and making them into something new,” says Jones.
Jones’ fell in love with knitting when she went to Texas to visit her distant family at the age of 15. “It was the height of summer; it was too hot to go outside a lot of the time and we’d spend our days in the loving embrace of the air conditioning… knitting”.
Jones finds knitting very therapeutic and relaxing. It became a way to distract herself while still being creative. “It’s a way for me to explore my imagination,” she adds.
“But I’ve become more interested in the idea of performance lately. I think there’s something really powerful in the way in which movement and bring something to life. Perhaps this is my visual side speaking. Maybe I wouldn’t have such a visual brain if I wasn’t deaf?”
When Jones was just 15 months old, she had chemotherapy to treat severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) that lead to deafness and was diagnosed at the age of 3. She has bilateral sensorineural profound hearing loss which means she has profound deafness in both ears.
She hears around 30% of all conversations with her hearing aid and cochlear implant but mostly relies on lip reading, facial expressions and body language. Jones started learning British Sign Language (BSL) is trying to embrace her deaf identity further.
“I’ve often felt like I didn’t belong in either the hearing or the deaf worlds but I’m getting a lot closer now to find my place between the two.”
Growing up Jones felt isolated and removed from her hearing peers as she didn’t know anyone deaf and found it hard to make friends. But she feels less of an outsider now as she is mostly surrounded my older and more mature people who have a deeper understanding of her disability.
“Deafness is an invisible disability and can affect people in different ways,” says Zara Ali, an audiologist at Whittington Hospital.
“It can be very isolating and takes a toll on a person’s mental health. Deafness can affect employment as certain jobs require a lot of communication as well as social life – some people with hearing loss are not willing to communicate and leave social interactions.”
Jones explains that even a small chat can be fatiguing and requires a lot of concentration as she needs to lip-read, understand body language, listen intensely and process the information. “Often this means that deaf people leave social situations early, or don’t go at all,” she adds.
As a teenager, Jones wasn’t confident and felt awkward asking people to repeat or ask for help in a lesson. “I was embarrassed to have a note-taker sat next to me all day, I didn’t want to be seen as different.” But now Jones is different. She is confident and embraces her disability.
“I deserve this as much as anyone else. I deserve to have friends the same way that other people do, I deserve access to education and I deserve to reach my full potential.” Now she is surrounded by friends and family who understands and supports her.
“Zanna is a little sunshine. She is always positive and will always make you laugh,” says Abigail Green, 23, Jones’ friend from London.
“Before I met her, I didn’t know many deaf people and found it a bit tricky to communicate with her. But after a while, you get used to it and you talk with her as you would with anyone else.”
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