How America's Got Talent's Mandy Harvey Relearned to Sing After Becoming Deaf at Age 19

America’s Got Talent finalist Mandy Harvey recently astounded the crowd with her powerful voice and message — the same message of strength found in her new book, Sensing the Rhythm: Finding My Voice in a World Without Sound.

Out Tuesday, the book reveals the singular challenges she’s overcome since losing her residual hearing at age 19.

“Once again, I will sing with my amazing musicians, everything from sultry ballads to blistering jazz, without hearing a single note. Sound impossible? It does to me, too,” the 29-year-old musician writes about the challenges of performing deaf on stage. Throughout her book, she reveals how she navigated this seemingly impossible dilemma in the hopes of inspiring others.

Harvey was a freshman at Colorado State University with the dream of becoming a music teacher when, one day, she realized she couldn’t hear her psychology professor. According to the book, doctors were unable to stop the accelerated loss of her hearing (due to a connective tissue disorder) over the course of that year.

“What do you do when your dream dies?” she writes. “What do you do when life steps up and smacks you down and then waggles a finder in your face?”

Not only did Harvey lose her hearing, according to the book she also lost sleep, friends who didn’t know how to connect with her, and eventually any semblance of happiness. She was put on medication for depression.

“After I lost my hearing I gave up, but I want to do more with my life than just give up,” she explained on the same AGT episode in which she earned Simon Cowell’s highly-coveted Golden Buzzer.

Getting to the point where she could re-embrace her life was a long journey.

Shortly after she first lost her hearing she was walking from the student center to her car late at night when she had a terrifying realization — she couldn’t hear if there was someone coming up behind her.

This has truly been the most incredible experience of my life and I'm so glad I was able to share it with you ❤ https://t.co/8cGtOibE5F

— Mandy Harvey (@mandyharvey) September 20, 2017

“I stopped and spun around, squinting into the darkness, almost certain that someone was there,” she writes. Though no one was, she sprinted to her car.

“I tell you this story because it illustrates what I was experiencing as a fledgling member of the profoundly deaf community,” she adds. “I can sum it up in one word: Loss.”

While these realizations were devastating for her, she was able to recover one of the most important aspects of her former life.  One day, her father asked her to perform with him in their basement. There, she sang. Beautifully.

“I expected it to be utter crap,” Harvey told NPR. “I ended up being accurate with my notes. That kind of was a door open for me.”

She realized she could keep in tune with a visual tuner and feel the vibration of the music through her bare feet while performing with her band on stage.

In her interview with NPR, she asked to be evaluated on her talent — not her story.

“Not that I’m hiding my disability or whatever you would call it,” she said. “I don’t find it to be really a disability. It’s just I do things differently and I want people to appreciate music for what it is, and not because of a story. I’m not a story; I’m a person, and my passion is music. And I want your passion to be my music – so, judge me on my music.”

Sensing the Rhythm is on shelves now.