Monday, December 15, 2008
Am I deaf or hard of hearing?
The other night I went to a deaf Christmas party with my 2 deaf friends that I knew from school. I had a great time. For the first time in my life, I felt accepted and like I belonged. Everyone was warm and welcomed me. There were a couple of times where I felt a little out of my league because I do not know ASL well. There were some times where I thought "What are they saying?". But I still felt accepted and felt like I belonged, even though I do not always understand what is being said. I want to feel like I belong somewhere and I have found that in the deaf community. I've never felt like I belonged anywhere my whole life. Now I found where I belong. What is the definition of deaf? Some people feel that I am hard of hearing and other people define me as deaf. I don't know what category I belong in. I feel as if I'm deaf because if I'm not wearing my hearing aids, I have a real problem when people are trying to get my attention. I would love any feedback from you. I would like to know if there are others like me out there. We could help each other and encourage each other as we grow in our identity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
What an amazing life story you have. I grew up in a hearing home as hard-of-hearing. I can function with hearing people fairly well with my hearing aids, and I can function in the hearing world without my aids. I now consider myself to be Deaf/HOH.
As HOH, people think aids make you hearing. But there is so much unseen, hard work to function as hearing.
Welcome home! Yes, there are many like you, who had some hearing and an oral or hearing school background, who learned ASL late in youth and become involved in the Deaf community. Never too late!
Although the Deaf Community is changing to less clubs, more electronic contacts, and more nationwide or region-wide gatherings, changing to include more transitional people such as CI wearers and people interested in sign language, you will still find your place.
I look forward to your blogging about your experiences in exploring this new aspect of the world and your thoughts. All the best wishes!
Hi. I am poufoundly deaf in my left ear, moderate in my right. As of this moment, I do NOT wear hearing aids, but that is going to change the beginning of the year.
I don't know how to label myself either. I don't like labels really, but if I had too...I'd I'm kind of middle of the road.
I am just Kym, and the fact that I cannot hear is part of who I am.
I think you can call yourself whatever you are most comfortable with.
Good luck.
~kym~
you are deaf.
like many other things it be really accepted in a group of people you like, ie: deaf people (not Deaf - thats a different thing)
acceptance - I view it like a person dying, they refuse to accept they are dying, they have struggles
those who accept - "yes I will die" usually have a good outlook for the next few months, years before they die
those who dont, struggle - are angry at the world, etc - i pity those, same for deaf people screaming, I m not deaf - I am hard of hearing, I can hear, I have cochlear implant, ASL stupid, Deaf people stupid
they're stupid themselves.
Oops, I forgot the "word verification" to post this comment.
This may be repeated so delete the first or second one.
Thanks,
John
Victoria,
I have been through reality like yours. My biggest problem was communication with another human being.
I was brought up in the hearing world and the difficulty that I went through, I assumed that it was part of life as a hard of hearing person.
But I realize that I was a Deaf person that needed to be in a culture that we can communicate normally. And that was visual language.
Any time you have a hearing problem, you will be visualized rather than auditorized.
Victoria, please do also try to get into the visualized reality, learn sign language as I did and I realize that I am really a whole human being.
Please read my article that I wrote,
Are you Between a Rock and a Hard Place?
Meaning:
(1) In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options.
(2) Faced with two equally difficult choices or circumstances
My perspective of “Between a rock and a hard place” has to do with how I was put there in the first place. It has to do with reality, in everyday usage, means “the state of things as they actually exist”. For my first 19 years, hearing culture played a not so easy role in my life.
I was born Deaf with a 75 db to hearing parents. At that time, I was one of the 95% of Deaf babies born into the hearing culture. I grew up in the hearing culture reality because of the persuasions from the Alexander Graham Bell Association and its influence on my parents and their choices for me. They convinced my parents that I should not learn any sign language or know about Deaf culture and so my fate was decided. I was to be raised exclusively oral.
My brother was born Deaf too, but he along with most of our Deaf classmates, was not able to have good speech. I was the so-called “fortunate” one compared to my peers. I had the talent to speak well and the ability to blend into the hearing culture. Nonetheless, I had to put a lot of effort on a daily basis to understand what was being said in the reality of the hearing culture. It seemed we “oralists” simply accepted that we didn’t understand everything being communicated and that was our reality in the hearing culture. That is all I knew and accepted it as part of my life.
This is how I lived between a rock and a hard place. Despite my good speech and having hearing friends, I still never felt a real connection to the hearing culture and its reality.
Not until I went to Gallaudet and learned American Sign Language, did I really understand the depth of being between a rock and a hard place. It was there that I began to realize my reality was not forever locked into an exclusive hearing culture. I was now free to explore who I was as a Deaf person. Finding ASL and Deaf culture gave me the opportunity to become the “normal” person I knew myself to be.
To be able to interact with another human being without any effort to understand was normal! Through American Sign Language there were no barriers to the rate of data that flowed fluently through conversation. There were no auditory mispronunciations or broken signs.
Today over 95% of Deaf babies are born to hearing parents. AGBell has successfully misinformed a vast majority of parents that exclusive monolingulism is the proper way to raise Deaf children in the American society. With the advent of the cochlear implant, more parents are being lead into the exclusive oral only approach, listening and speaking without the use of sign language or lipreading now called Auditory Verbal Therapy, with their Deaf babies and children. Today the reality of many unknowing Deaf babies and children will be the path of no visual language through ASL. The will not have the opportunity to know Deaf culture until they may or may not find it on their own.
Thank God my path lead me to American Sign Language and I am now able to be “normal” in a fully functional communicative language. I grieve for those who still find themselves culturalized into the hearing reality that they cannot find their way out. I feel fortunate to be able to identify myself not as a person between a rock and a hard place anymore but as a Deaf man with a place in this reality of life.
John Egbert
Victoria,
I would suggest you check this site out. It is a process of identifying "D-E-A-F"
http://www.mosinternational.com/synopsis.html
I hope it will be a good benefit for us to work together to educate the consensus in identifying the word "Deaf" to everyone else.
-Sean
Post a Comment