Communicating in the middle

J

Jadia Shadow

New Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2009
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
Hello everyone :)
I was just wondering if maybe anyone would mind sharing some thoughts with me. In the matter of my hearing or lack of it, I have always felt so much like I am in the middle of two worlds but not part of either, which has it's benefits and downsides, and I would love to hear how anyone handles this or would feel about things themselves. On one hand because of my hearing, I have enough to participate normally on a one on one situation most of the time, with no assistance, but many other situations are very difficult for me, anything with more than a few people, with any background noises, any job situations involving quick conversations, classroom situations, etc. So while i do have some wonderful hearing friends who are like my family, meeting friends and new people has never come as an easy task for me, and there are so many things that are just not possible for me to be a part of, I find myself just..tending to withdraw from social situations rather than trying to make people repeat themselves every time they open their mouth, or to have to either constantly explain myself or else have others just assume I am not smart enough to understand what is being said.

And on the other hand I do not even know any other deaf or hard of hearing folks and i've certainly never met any...is it a deaf community I think it is referred to? I've heard the term before but I've not known any since I was a child (such a long time ago). Aside from not knowing anyone, I also have never truly learned sign language, only the alphabet and a few signs, not enough to communicate with anyone. I've tried learning in a class before but it was very difficult for me to learn and keep up, and I really have no one in my life that I could communicate with anyway, so that was not an encouraging factor.

I guess the point of my worries however, is preparing for the future. As i know it's very possible that one day i will not be able to rely on hearing as the primary communication with others, and yet i have no other forms of communication other than if you count writing of course :) . I know this isn't a topic anyone can give me any good answers on, but i'd be very interested to hear any thoughts anyone can share with me on how others have handled similar feelings :)

and thank you for listening :)

ps... what is a trackback?
 
btw, are you late deaf? I've always been severe HOH but never learned sign language. I didn't have anyone to practice sign language. This morning my husband wanted to talk to me, so he took my computer and typed to me. I told him that he need to learn sign language so he doesn't have to type to me all the time. He may do it, I hope :)
 
me too

This is such a great place to learn new things. I was always alone with my difficulty now I still am but not the same way at all. This is a great group of individuals here and I am grateful to them and those that helped it to happen.
 
My boyfriend and i use block(print on palm)(see picture for more info) deafblind signing.

He is learning the asl abc(which is all i use due cerebral palsy) its taking him forever to learn.

Hope this helps
 
Hmm the block printing seems like it would be good in some cases, though not particularly useful in my situation :)

And Lighthouse, it's nice to know others go through the same things :) and no i'm not really late deaf i would say i'm not sure how the terms are defined, but i will share my information on that thread anyway so i'm not confusing everyone :) I'm good at confusing :)
 
Hey, good point being a learner of ASL myself I would say that a lot getting involved in still being a hearing person is being honest with people. As well as respecting the people you talk to their is a thread here about do's and do nots in deaf culture. All too often I see people breaking these and feeling discouraged since they will no longer want to talk to them. Also be ready for people to not want to talk to you at first or accept you. I must admit where I live we have a larger deaf population due to living in the city and such. However you may want to look into a quick internet search for events in your area. Lastly, practice ASL regularly and try forming sentences and using it to sign what you may want to say to people. Nothing worse than meeting people and having to spell every word. Hopefully this will help feel free to message me.
 
im whatever works and i have physical too and cant use my right arm

so its fingerspelling and more fingerspelling
 
I think I know what you mean. I am kind of new to the deaf community, and still have a good amount of my hearing still. I can keep up with one-one but have to think about what they are saying, often cross-checking it with what I see on their lips (I am not very good with lip reading btw). But get me into a large group or a loud area and it becomes almost impossible to follow. I tend to focus on one person in hopes that I can see his/her lips and get about 50% of what they are saying. Most of the time this leads to a headache from focusing so much or me excusing myself from the group/area and sitting alone. I have found that this does lead me to be less social, and I have skipped many of parties. The funny thing is, I have been just blowing it off and refusing to think of myself as hard of hearing, despite it runs in my family.
The people on this forum are a great resource and are really nice. I really didn’t think of myself as anything but hearing tell lately, but I really can’t ignore it now that I know what I have been and still am experiencing is the systematic loss of sound.
3 months ago, I started with the knowledge of my ABC’s in sign, and with the help of some of the members of this board, and lots of videos/websites, I have started the path of learning sign. My thought is this “If it all goes, I will still know how to communicate, if I stay in a state between hearing and deaf, I will be able to make new friends and chat with them!”
 
Back
Top