![]() Oh yeah, it would be ludicrous to say anything else, yeah. Would it be fair to say it’s helped shape your character? But I was certainly aware, I’ve always been very aware that I’ve had it…yeah. but how much of this I can place down to overcompensating, or compensating for having a cleft, and how much is a result of having fairly outgoing and loving parents, I don’t know. But, you know, that was a long time ago so. and, who knows, they may be judges and lawyers now. Two of them were ‘the big boys’ in various schools I was in. I would imagine some of them are in prison. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah definitely, and much more than some of my friends, or some of my, some of the kids I knew growing up who also had a cleft palate. So would you say there have been some positive aspects? hmm I think it’s probably contributed to me being more outgoing in some ways because I had to be. It what kind of ways does it affect your confidence? Because obviously your career… Oh it affects my confidence in sort of funny areas but… I have never felt, though I said I’m self-conscious about the way I look, I have never, since I’ve come here, ever felt that anyone’s looked at me and said, “Hey, you know, that guy, he’s just a little bit too ugly for the post,” no, no not at all. very, that basically summed up what they stood for, and what I stand for is the same: don’t let them get you down. the sort of saying of ‘don’t let them get you down’ sort of was very well. Yeah I think that, I think my parents definitely helped with that, because they’re both very, very driven, very determined people anyway, and they kind of made me. OK so you fought back in your own way or? basically be the person that I am today, you know, I am very determined, and if someone says, “You can’t do this because of this, that and the other,” I try and set out to prove that I can. But that kind of spiralled spurred me on to. Of course kids can be very cruel, especially when they don’t understand what, you know, what they don’t, you know, with something different they don’t understand it and they can be very, very cruel. to come basically, all the questions and everything like that. Kids are naturally quite curious: if they see something different they want to know.Īnd my mum remembers after the first day, my first day of school coming back and I said, “Mummy, what’s wrong with my face?” And that was her first sort of experience of what was. I remember little comments from the other kids. I don’t actually recollect much about, you know, being made aware that I was different until I actually went to school. They also expressed a determination to achieve their life goals: for example, many of those we interviewed had pursued careers in the public domain such as teaching and education, healthcare and the arts. They described having strong personalities and they attributed this to being born and living with a visible and/or speech difference. (See ‘Social interaction and public awareness’ and ‘Social interaction and relationships’). They also believed that the other treatments they had received from the cleft services, including speech and language therapy and psychological support, had helped them to feel more accepted by society. Most people had positive experiences of the surgery they had received as children and teenagers and were satisfied with the outcome as far as their appearance was concerned. While they discussed experiences of bullying in their early years over time they had come to accept that they had a visible difference and, for some, that their speech sounded different to others within their social group. Some of these were also parents of children born with clefts. We spoke to 15 people aged between 17 to 65 years of age about their experiences of being born with a cleft lip and/or palate and the impact it has had on their lives.
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