Childhood Interrupted: A Story of Loss, Separation, and Reconciliation

ABSTRACT

This essay presents a story of personal loss and childhood trauma experienced by the author in 1968. Written in autoethnographic form, the author narrates a particular time in his life when he lost his hearing and subsequently experienced “disrupted attachment”(Becker, 1997) caused by forced separation from family on the day he began life at a residential school for deaf children. Forty-six years later, the author weaves together a narrative of loss and trauma followed by his own reflections, showing how he used writing conversation as a source of healing that allowed him reconcile with his past.

KEYWORDS:

• Disrupted attachment
• family separation
• healing
• hearing loss
• trauma

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Noel Patrick O’Connell

Noel Patrick O’Connell recently graduated with a doctorate in education (sociology) from Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interest focuses on autoethnography, particularly in the area of deaf people’s lived experiences of education, ethnodrama, and narrative inquiry. He is currently working on an autoethnography of his life experiences of education and sign language.