Age, Hearing Loss, Emotional Development, and Music

In therapy yesterday I told my therapist that I never feel my age. It just doesn't make sense to me that I am in my early thirties. How can I be that old? I never expected to reach 21, let alone 10+ years beyond that with no plans of that stopping anytime soon. I look younger then my age too. Most people guess me to be in my early twenties at most. When I was in the hospital in September the other patients thought I was 19. I thought that was a bit of stretch though. I honestly think I would feel even younger then my early twenties except for the fact that I can drive and am not in school. The not being in school thing really helps with that. Part of the reason my age confuses so much is due to trauma. This is the reason why my blog is going to be hidden from people who know me. I am very open about the fact that I have PTSD and bipolar disorder. But I've also been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder which is a controversial and misunderstood disorder. I don't want people thinking I am a freak, even more then they already might. So this means I have different parts inside who are different ages. Some are much older than my chronological age and others are much younger. The youngest given age is four with a range up to seventeen. Then the older ones don't give ages. I just know they are a lot older. There is a four year old, six year old, two eight year olds, a fourteen year old, and a seventeen year old. There are three without an age attached who are all much older adults. So in a sense I am not my actual chronological age when one of the insiders is in control. But there is another component my therapist seems to think merits attention. I was born with a severe hearing loss that wasn't discovered until I was almost five years old. My therapist thinks I missed out on a lot of social and emotional development because of this. I don't know what to think. My hearing loss has affected me in many ways but I never thought it affected me in such a huge way at such a young age. My mother actually told me last night that when I was younger people thought I was gifted. I was mainstreamed my entire life. I received speech therapy at school until it became clear I needed individual sessions. I'm not a huge fan of mainstreaming. I was the only child with a physical disability in all of my schools (private schools) K-12. I felt like such a freak. I was incredibly shy because of it. For years I had to have my hair covering my hearing aids. Of course I now wear a cochlear implant on my head with pride, but as a child, being different and shy was horrible. Add in hidden sexual abuse affecting me and yeah, I was a social pariah. I wish I had been in a program for students with hearing loss. I think it would have helped me so much. (If anyone who stumbles upon this knows of any information on delayed emotional development of children with hearing loss please send me the information!) You might be curious as to what got me through all of this. The answer is music, writing, and art. That is what saved me then and what is saving me now. My high school music teacher was amazing and the four years I was involved in the music program she was a godsend. I wrote her a thank you email a year or so ago filling her in on just how much she had helped me. I believe I would have successfully killed myself back in high school without her in my life. And I don't think I was the only student she was a lifeline for. The music program was wonderful because it also gave me a social group. Music was out of my life for many years. I started lessons again on my primary instrument at the end of August. I also decided to try and finally learn guitar. I had one but couldn't figure it out for the life of me. Stringed instruments have never made sense to me. Give me a woodwind and I can quickly teach myself. I even learned basic piano on my own. But stringed instruments? Nope, totally confusing. I'm now doing fairly well at playing guitar. I just have to figure out how to sing and play at the same time while keeping the correct strumming pattern. Hey, its a work in progress. Kinda like me.