Comedian's hearing loss led her to a dark place, improv and comedy brought her back out

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- When she was a girl, Jessica Flores was among a group of children singing holiday songs at a church in San Francisco. In the video her father recorded, you can see as she struggles to keep up with the singing, but couldn't understand why.

Sometime later, a teacher told her parents Jessica might need to be held back a grade because she wasn't doing well in school. Eventually, they realized she was losing her hearing.

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For her parents, there was no context for what was happening to Jessica. No one in their family had struggled with hearing loss. Resources for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children were scarce in San Francisco at the time, and for Jessica, repeatedly being told she could not do something due to her hearing loss led her to dark places as a teen.

Her mother enrolled her in improv classes. She loved the challenge of making people laugh but her hearing quickly declined to the point of frustration, so she quit.

Years later, Jessica decided to take American Sign Language classes, which gave her confidence she lacked.

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Seizing on the momentum, she again decided to go back to something she cherished as a teen, improv. "I loved it because it was so much fun just playing pretend. And I don't have to be a deaf person. I do that every day. Improv gives me a break, I can be whatever the heck I want."

This is the inspiring story of artist, improviser, comedian, YouTuber and deaf awareness/rights advocate, Jessica Flores.

You can watch in the video player above.

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