chaymes
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2004
- Messages
- 10
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I grew up hearing but for at least the past 5-6 years have been going deaf. I say at least because it could have been longer before I started to notice any hearing loss. I have had one doctor even guestimate I have been losing my hearing since around 15 (I'm 26). At the moment, I have a severe to profound hearing loss which means I am borderline deaf. There is only one phone left I can use and it has super amplification and even with that phone I have to press the phone hard against my ear, strain to understand, get frustrated and confused, and hang up feeling like a truck hit me. I dread when people call because it means I have to go through that again and then I misunderstand because I really couldn't understand them that well. Other phones (pay phones, cell phones, etc) completely unintelligible. Can't hear my baby cry if I am in another room and didn't know fire alarm went off at college a few weeks ago so yeah.... I am having to make many adjustments. I do not see my progressive deafness as a bad thing.. just who I am. I am a member of RIAD and have made my first real connections to the Deaf community in my area and plan to get involved in any way possible. I am pretty good at ASL although not fluent yet but am not giving up until I am really good at signing. This is what I find. If I am around hearing people and have to rely on lipreading and speech I come across many problems. I get about 50% or less of what a person says (even less with some and impossible with others). If I am around Deaf people and have to rely on sign language, I get about 75% or more. Around hearing people, I live in a state of frustration and confusion. Around Deaf people, I can finally relax and for once not feel those all too familiar feelings. So here is where the problem begins. I want to make the switch from oral to sign - completely. However, beings I was hearing much of my life, how do I just stop talking to people? I can speak pretty well and people unless I tell them I can't hear or they find out for themselves (talk to me when I am not looking), think I am hearing. That has posed problems because if I talk to them, they talk back like tey are talking to hearing person. If I tell them i can't hear, they get confused (until they find out for themselves like when I was at the store with my sister and I come walking towards her and she sayd "didn't you hear me? i was screaming your name!". I tried an experiment yesterday... I went to town and refused to use my voice. If they didnt know sign, I wrote on paper. People immediately knew I couldn't hear and there was much less confusion. Things got done faster and people were not rude enoguh to not look straight at me. I didn't have to try to struggle to lip read and understand what they were saying. I feel that if I can make the switch to sign and stop using oral methods, my life will be much easier and less frustrating. I just don't know how to go about this... any ideas?
