The Onion Project: Week 4 ~ The Space Where We Breathe

Week 4  The Layer of Belonging: The Space Where We Breathe

The next layer we reach is the social one, the profoundly human need to belong.

To be Deaf, to be autistic, to live with ADHD, often means standing at the edge of conversations that move in unfamiliar rhythms. It can mean being the only one signing in a sea of spoken words, the only one pausing to process while others rush ahead, the only one whose timing and energy seem out of sync with everyone else’s. That difference, though invisible to many, can carve deep grooves of loneliness into daily life.

Isolation does not always announce itself with silence or sadness. Sometimes it hides in plain sight. It can look like sitting at a family table where laughter rings loud and stories tumble over each other too quickly to follow. It can look like nodding and smiling at the right times, hoping your responses land close enough to the meaning. It can look like a classroom lesson that races forward before captions catch up, or before the interpreter finishes a sentence. It can look like the workplace small talk that skips lightly across the surface while you stand outside the circle, waiting for an entry that never comes.

These moments don’t always break hearts dramatically; they simply wear them down through repetition. Bit by bit, the effort of pretending to keep up replaces the joy of participation. You start to calculate which gatherings are worth the strain, which spaces are safe to show confusion, and which ones you endure quietly until you can retreat. This is the quiet architecture of isolation built not from cruelty, but from inattention.

And then, there is belonging. Belonging is the shift in the air when you walk into a room where ASL flows freely, where hands move like conversation itself, where every pause carries meaning and no explanation is needed. It is the warmth of shared rhythm, the relief of being understood without translation. Belonging is the quiet comfort of sitting among people who understand your pauses, who accept your stims, your eye movements, your scattered focus, your need for time. They do not interpret these as distance or distraction but as part of the beautiful texture of how you move through the world. They see not the surface, but the whole.

Belonging is oxygen. Without it, life shrinks into survival mode: constant vigilance, constant effort, the exhausting work of appearing “normal.” With belonging, life expands. Energy that once went into self-monitoring is released for laughter, creativity, curiosity, and rest. The mind unclenches; the heart exhale feels like home. Belonging doesn’t erase struggle, but it transforms it, turning isolation into connection, and endurance into participation.

This layer of the onion shows us why community matters so deeply. Deaf clubs, Deaf schools, signing meet-ups, and online spaces for Deaf and neurodivergent people are not luxuries; they are lifelines. In these places, language flows without apology, and difference is not a problem to fix but a rhythm to join. For someone used to fighting to be understood, that shift can be life-changing. It is here that identity stops being a burden and starts being a source of pride.

Belonging also teaches us how communities interconnect. Deaf culture, with its visual richness and collective identity, and neurodivergent communities, with their emphasis on acceptance and alternative ways of thinking, share an unspoken understanding: that thriving begins where translation ends. Both know the relief of spaces where you no longer have to justify your way of being. Both understand the danger of being flattened into one acceptable version of self.

To peel this layer is to recognize a simple truth: we cannot thrive in isolation. We can survive alone, many of us have learned to do so but survival is not the same as life. To be fully ourselves, we must be reflected in others who honor our whole selves, not just the pieces that are easiest to digest. We need mirrors that show us as we are, not filters that simplify us for someone else’s comfort.

Belonging is not created by sameness; it is created by understanding. A Deaf space does not exclude hearing people, it invites them to see differently. A neurodivergent-friendly space does not close its doors to the neurotypical, it asks them to slow down, to listen beyond their usual pace. True belonging does not demand uniformity; it welcomes difference as an essential part of the circle.

As we move deeper into this journey, we carry this truth: belonging is not a privilege granted by others; it is a collective act of recognition. Every time we choose to include, to adapt, to make room, we build a world where more people can breathe freely.

Next week, we peel into the educational layer, the place where belonging is often first tested. There, we’ll explore how early misunderstandings can close doors or, with care and openness, can become gateways to futures filled with language, confidence, and possibility.

~ A. Bret Cummens, M.Ed.