New to deaf culture

[Aorora111]

It's a strange journey into the world of deaf. I am HOH, but was mainstreamed my entire life. I even work as a journalist, which I really need my hearing for, and I've always worked to overcome it, but never immersed myself in the deaf world. At 30, I'm just looking at that aspect and learning sign language. It all started when we met our now best friend in Florida who's family was deaf and they manufactured deaf products. We got interested in selling them, and do, but that's my husband's gig. For me, it's been a different experience because I've never lived in the deaf world, even though I am a part of it.

I was interviewing a deaf woman yesterday for a news story and couldn't figure out whether to read her lips (she had some hearing) or watch her hands. She was really neat to talk with and her family is deaf, but she adopts hearing foster kids who all sign.

As for mainstreaming, I imagine it helped, but I spent many years in speech therapy and recall the experiences in middle school and high school that I went through because I was "different." I remember being told I was shady because I didn't look at people's eyes (I read lips across the room). But I never really got involved in the deaf culture. I don't even think I really realized there was one until recently because I wasn't exposed to it.

Has anyone else had this experience? It's an interesting awakening to a part of myself in some ways, and definitely a journey I never expected, one I don't think I would have had unless I had moved up here to NW GA where there is a large deaf community.

 

[Dixie]

All my life I knew there was a Deaf culture out there and I never knew much about it until my HOH started sliding bad and I realized I was going to have to learn sign if I planned on being able to communicate. I have been deaf in one ear since birth, and 70%-80% loss in the other ear. For a short while I wore aids but they amplified EVERYTHING which seemed to make things worse so I quit wearing them against my parents wishes, I had to make a special appointment with my audie to prove my point to my parents. They finally let it rest but there have been times they were hateful about it like "YOU NEED TO WEAR YOUR HEARING AID!!" When they do I just cut them a nasty look back. They refuse to try and understand and they never will until they have trodded in my shoes. They tried comparing it to wearing glasses and I would say - would you wear glasses that made your blurriness worse? Of course not. Besides to me it was like gaining a new sense I did not quite understand, and it was more of an annoyance and I had to figure out new sounds and what they meant.

Then in 8th or 9th grade when I was a pretty pissy kid most of the time I remember my English teacher showing a video on ASL in class, from then on I was intrigued and wanted to learn more, but I was too ashamed to ask her about it (many years later I find out her sister is a terp for the city of Sacramento), but even after I got out of my pissyness there for a couple of years our youth ministry started signing some songs for worship and I took right to it. Even after having quit church for the 4th time and stayed away for nearly 4 years I am still able to remember those signs. Now I am back in church, learning ASL and absolutely having a blast with it. I dont parade my Deafness around, but Im not ashamed of it anymore because I have realized there is nothing shameful about it even if my parents, particularly my dad, saw it as shameful and a limiting disability and sadly they kept me from alot of things because of it and it has been very hard for me to forgive them, knowing they were only trying to do what they thought was right for me.

Where I live there is a not a large deaf community, but I hope to find them here and join them. Until then, I'll keep on learning as much sign as I can, keep watching ASL videos to work on my reception skills and hopefully I will get the opportunity to join the Deaf community to be with like-minded people.

 

[Aorora111]

I understand the amplify everything. If there's a lot of background noise, like in a club or something, I am doomed. My hearing is about 50 percent, and hasn't gotten worse since I was little - yet. I dk if it will be, though I imagine old age won't be kind to me in that regard. Have you tried any aids recently now that the technology is much different, and things can be filtered out better, even for the phone or something? I've always worn hearing aids, but I guess if you constantly had to sort sounds, that would be rough. I don't know because I'm on the fence I supposed. I'm not quite deaf enough, and not quite hearing enough, if that makes sense! Do the videos really help?

A

 

[shel90]

Born profoundly deaf, raised orally without exposure to ASL, mainstreamed as the only deaf child until high school. Started taking ASL classes while as an undergrad student because I just wanted credits for foreign language requirements. Whoa...it changed my life and now I am fully involved in the deaf community and use ASL 95% of the time. It changed my life for the better and I thank that day I decided to take ASL I instead of Spanish.

I had a hard life growing up being oral and if u read in the other threads about deaf education, oralisms, sign language, deaf culture, and CI threads, u probably would get my full story.


BTW..welcome to AD!