Self inflicted deaf girlfriend?

_xShipwreckx_

_xShipwreckx_

New Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
77
Reaction score
0
Ok so here's my semi long story. I'll get to the purpose of why I'm telling it later.
So about 5 months ago my bf & I broke up because I "fail to understand what it's like to be him." I was just pretty fucking sick of his mellow dramatics, any ways a month after we broke up he hooked up with this deaf chick he met at college & it was "Love at first sign." Anyways they were together & everything was peachy keen until she dropped the big bomb on him & told him she was a (not really sure what to call it) "self-inflicted deaf" so she went on by telling him she spent 2 years of her life damaging her hearing on purpose by listening to music loudly & doing other bizare activities just so she could wear hearing aids. So they broke up, & now we're back together we got over our differences & accepted that their are parts of us that are just not meant to be understood by eachother & whatnot. Ok so more importantly the purpose of me telling this story is to say I do not understand this situation at all, are there other people like this girl? It almost seems like she had some strange deaf fetish. Is it like when people are born male but they feel they should truly be female & vice versa. Is it that she was born hearing but in actuality she felt she should be deaf?
 
I have never heard of such a thing... she sounds pretty nuts... Tell that to a deaf friend of hers, then everyone in the deaf community around her will know. (word spreads like mega wild fire) Then you'll get your answer.
 
Sounds like she has more problems then wanting to be deaf. I like the fact I can hear, cause I can slip in and out of the deaf culture. Only thing I don't like abt the culture is that a lot love to gossip. It is true. Want all deaf ppl to know something in less then a day, tell a deaf person.:eek3:
 
Ok so far no one has answered my question. I'm not going around & gossiping about her to her friends what she did is her buisness & whoever else she told. All I want to know is there's anyone else like her or if purposely disabling yourself or whatev. you want to say is like a disease or something.
 
_xShipwreckx_ said:
Ok so far no one has answered my question. I'm not going around & gossiping about her to her friends what she did is her buisness & whoever else she told. All I want to know is there's anyone else like her or if purposely disabling yourself or whatev. you want to say is like a disease or something.
Click to expand...

AD had a thread about the disease and some replies are people with the problem (not trying to lose hearing but want wheelchair or amputation) and link to a website about the disease - Something shocking and creepy, deaf wannabes, pretenders and others
.
 
_xShipwreckx_ said:
Ok so far no one has answered my question. I'm not going around & gossiping about her to her friends what she did is her buisness & whoever else she told. All I want to know is there's anyone else like her or if purposely disabling yourself or whatev. you want to say is like a disease or something.
Click to expand...

You know, I rarely ever think about various posts that people write after I read them, but you know what? I had your thread on my mind all night last night, which probably explains the deep dark circles under my eyes today! :giggle: With that said, I think what you said is true, that this girl has some fetish about *wanting* to be deaf. :roll: Why she does, I have no idea. Maybe she wants everyone to look at her or feel pity? I don't feel pity that I'm deaf, but I do feel pity when people ask dumb questions regarding my hearing dog. A man asked me today why I could have my dog in the store and he couldn't. :eek3: It took me a few seconds before answering and, I promise, I was nice when I said that the dog is my service/hearing dog. He smiled when he asked, but I almost rolled my eyes in front of him and snapped back something sarcastic, which I'm glad I didn't.

Anyway, to get back to your question, that is the only answer that you thought of and I think you hit the nail on the head on this one. Why she feels that way or did it is beyond what any of us can think of.
 
pek1 said:
You know, I rarely ever think about various posts that people write after I read them, but you know what? I had your thread on my mind all night last night, which probably explains the deep dark circles under my eyes today! :giggle: With that said, I think what you said is true, that this girl has some fetish about *wanting* to be deaf. :roll: Why she does, I have no idea. Maybe she wants everyone to look at her or feel pity? I don't feel pity that I'm deaf, but I do feel pity when people ask dumb questions regarding my hearing dog. A man asked me today why I could have my dog in the store and he couldn't. :eek3: It took me a few seconds before answering and, I promise, I was nice when I said that the dog is my service/hearing dog. He smiled when he asked, but I almost rolled my eyes in front of him and snapped back something sarcastic, which I'm glad I didn't.

Anyway, to get back to your question, that is the only answer that you thought of and I think you hit the nail on the head on this one. Why she feels that way or did it is beyond what any of us can think of.
Click to expand...


It is quite puzzling, I had the same reaction too after my boyfriend told me the whole story I was up all night thinking about it. In my opinion fetishes are strange enough...but to get off on something like deafness (or any disability) is straight up ludicrous. Wow! He really asked you something like that? I think I would of said "Because my dog is trained to assist me, unlike your dog who is trained to bark & lick it's own ass all day." Some people can be so naive, I remember when I was little & saw a dog in a store my mom always told me not to pet or bother it because it was working, which totally bummed me out. Anways I did some googling & came across Munchausen Syndrome, so I figured she has that. Who knows? Thanks for the input. :D
 
Maybe she want to be deaf, so she can get SSI or SSDI. Some people do sick things to find a way to get money.
 
_xShipwreckx_ said:
Oh shit amputation?! Isn't that a bit much? Thanks for the link.
Click to expand...

:ty: and yes - "a bit much"! :) but please read the people's replies in the thread. They struggle hard because of the disease. At first I think "weird!" only. Now I don't understand really but I have sympathy.

Edit: I use "want to be deaf" in Google and find a lot including Yahoo Groups - Deaf Wannabes. Even with the thread in AD I am surprised about the group - probably I am naive. :dunno2:
 
Munchausen syndrome

What the girl did to herself sounds very much like a psychiatric disorder called "Munchausen syndrome." According to a Wikipedia entry:

In Munchausen syndrome, [affected people exaggerate or create] symptoms of illnesses in themselves in order to gain investigation, treatment, attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel. In some extremes, people suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome are highly knowledgeable about the practice of medicine and are able to produce symptoms that result in multiple unnecessary operations. For example, they may inject a vein with infected material, causing widespread infection of unknown origin, and as a result cause lengthy and costly medical analyses and prolonged hospital stay. The role of "patient" [or victim] is a familiar and comforting one, and it fills a psychological need in people with Munchausen's. It is distinct from hypochondria in that patients with Munchausen syndrome are aware that they are exaggerating, while sufferers of hypochondria actually believe they have a disease.

The name derives from Baron Münchhausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, 1720-1797), to whom were ascribed a series of fantastically impossible tales written by Rudolf Raspe.

In 1950, Sir Richard Asher . . . was the first to describe a pattern of self-harm, where individuals fabricated histories, signs, and symptoms of illness. Remembering Baron Munchausen, Asher named this condition Munchausen's Syndrome. Originally, this term was used for all factitious disorders. Now, however, there is considered to be a wide range of factitious disorders, and the diagnosis of "Munchausen syndrome" is reserved for the most severe form, where the simulation of disease is the central activity of the affected person's life.
 
_xShipwreckx_ said:
Ok so here's my semi long story. I'll get to the purpose of why I'm telling it later.
So about 5 months ago my bf & I broke up because I "fail to understand what it's like to be him." I was just pretty fucking sick of his mellow dramatics, any ways a month after we broke up he hooked up with this deaf chick he met at college & it was "Love at first sign." Anyways they were together & everything was peachy keen until she dropped the big bomb on him & told him she was a (not really sure what to call it) "self-inflicted deaf" so she went on by telling him she spent 2 years of her life damaging her hearing on purpose by listening to music loudly & doing other bizare activities just so she could wear hearing aids. So they broke up, & now we're back together we got over our differences & accepted that their are parts of us that are just not meant to be understood by eachother & whatnot. Ok so more importantly the purpose of me telling this story is to say I do not understand this situation at all, are there other people like this girl? It almost seems like she had some strange deaf fetish. Is it like when people are born male but they feel they should truly be female & vice versa. Is it that she was born hearing but in actuality she felt she should be deaf?
Click to expand...

No, it isn't the same thing as Gender Identity Disorder at all. There was a lengthy thread in here a while back where some people who have desire to become amputees attempted to justify their disorder as being soemthing that can only be treated through following through on their compulsion. These are indeed sick individuals, and need intensive psychotherapy.
 
Chase said:
What the girl did to herself sounds very much like a psychiatric disorder called "Munchausen syndrome." According to a Wikipedia entry:

In Munchausen syndrome, [affected people exaggerate or create] symptoms of illnesses in themselves in order to gain investigation, treatment, attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel. In some extremes, people suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome are highly knowledgeable about the practice of medicine and are able to produce symptoms that result in multiple unnecessary operations. For example, they may inject a vein with infected material, causing widespread infection of unknown origin, and as a result cause lengthy and costly medical analyses and prolonged hospital stay. The role of "patient" [or victim] is a familiar and comforting one, and it fills a psychological need in people with Munchausen's. It is distinct from hypochondria in that patients with Munchausen syndrome are aware that they are exaggerating, while sufferers of hypochondria actually believe they have a disease.

The name derives from Baron Münchhausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, 1720-1797), to whom were ascribed a series of fantastically impossible tales written by Rudolf Raspe.

In 1950, Sir Richard Asher . . . was the first to describe a pattern of self-harm, where individuals fabricated histories, signs, and symptoms of illness. Remembering Baron Munchausen, Asher named this condition Munchausen's Syndrome. Originally, this term was used for all factitious disorders. Now, however, there is considered to be a wide range of factitious disorders, and the diagnosis of "Munchausen syndrome" is reserved for the most severe form, where the simulation of disease is the central activity of the affected person's life.
Click to expand...

It does resemble Munchausen's in much of the symptomology and motivation. This particular disorder is not related to illness, specifically, but more so to disability, and is usually diagnosed as one of the Body Dismorphic Disorders.
 
I have absolutely encountered the deaf fetishists, in person, mostly through working as an interpreter. They love Deaf culture and only want to hang out with deaf people; even more weirdly, one I'm thinking of didn't even sign. We had to have the academic equivalent of a restraining order against this one hearing kid who used to go to classes with the deaf students that the kid wasn't even in, and disrupt the interpreters' work.

I can definitely see that someone like this, probably a young person, might take this obsession to an extreme and try to gain the one thing from the community she never can as a hearing person: acceptance as a physiologically AND culturally Deaf person.

Mentally healthy hearing people with the right attitude and skill in ASL can have fulfilling lives as part of the deaf community, and even rise to prominence in it. But those people also keep their identity as hearing people. They are comfortable in both worlds and with the full range of hearing and deaf people. The desire to change one's identity by harming oneself (not as in transgendered people who are monitored and worked on by doctors) is extraordinarily creepy to me. The same would go for someone who intentionally injured her spine so she could truly be part of the wheelchair community, or something like that.

On a less violent note, I also knew an adult woman, a capable and intelligent parent, who went on these endless crusades on behalf of deaf people. She was in my ITP and her child went to either a bi-bi program or at least a school with a lot of deaf kids. She would just go on these rants in class about things like parents who didn't want their kids to sign and so forth...nothing that most of us didn't agree with, but her attitude of swooping in so she could save the poor deaf community really grated on at least some of us. No idea how the deaf people she dealt with took it.

Just saying, some hearing people have unhealthy attachments to deafness or Deaf culture. We had an interesting lecture in my ITP I've always remembered, especially when encountering people like this, about how some hearing people are not comfortable in their own culture; they don't fit in, so they latch onto Deaf culture because they see it as more open and accepting. Which it may be, but our teacher's point is that these people do not make good interpreters, because interpreters have to be comfortable with both cultures between which they mediate, otherwise there will always be bias in their work. I absolutely believe that, and I think if a hearing person becomes too identified with Deaf culture, she should be involved with it only on a social level and not in a position where neutrality is required.

(I mean "identified with" as one of those examples, of the girl who harmed herself or the ones who feel the need to "save" the community single-handed. Extreme examples. I am not talking about people who have a lot of deaf friends or socialize in the deaf community or anything healthy like that.)
 
Interesting post, Interpreter. I thought this was a "one in a million" problem but you meet several people......Do you talk with them, Interpreter? If so, how were they? In the old thread some with this problem said (I think) the problem is a mental disease but they should do what they want (lose hearing, cut off leg) because they have no cure. I can't understand this really. I think about the problem and then just :confused:
 
My elder sister has been deaf since birth. I'm not up on the initials for her means of communications, but she cannot hear at all, is able to vocalize but only essays an occasional word now and then, and isn't sure of her ability to speech read, which I think is pretty good. She signs ASL and writes on tablets and a Side Kick in the same words and word-order.

She has always had lots of close hearing friends, but is very wary of what she calls "deaf groupies," wannabees who attach themselves to her crowd in more or less creepy ways.
 
Kaitin said:
Do you talk with them, Interpreter? If so, how were they?
Click to expand...

I haven't encountered any of the self-mutilators, at least not that I know of. But as an interpreter I definitely talked with the "deaf groupies" as Chase's sister calls them (which is what we interpreters called them as well). The one I remember that couldn't sign would just LATCH onto the interpreters. I was always sure to bring a book in that class for any moments of downtime.

And then there was the one I mentioned who went to classes with deaf students. I found out about the "restraining order" (not police, but school-wide) when I complained to my boss about this student, who would take advantage of my lag time during a lecture and start interpreting for the student a couple of sentences ahead of me. It was so disruptive and this particular student was highly susceptible to distractions. But this person felt they had to explain things to the deaf student and make sure the deaf student understood everything. In that case I don't know if it was a groupie thing or a case of extreme paternalism. Either way: weird.

As interpreters we were sometimes bugged by the deaf groupies but for the most part left them alone as the deaf students were obviously capable of deciding how they wanted to handle it. The only reason I brought it up with my office that one time was because it was interfering with my work and I needed to know how to handle it.
 
:ty:! So interesting! I was naive about this.

Interpretrator said:
And then there was the one I mentioned who went to classes with deaf students. I found out about the "restraining order" (not police, but school-wide) when I complained to my boss about this student, who would take advantage of my lag time during a lecture and start interpreting for the student a couple of sentences ahead of me. It was so disruptive and this particular student was highly susceptible to distractions. But this person felt they had to explain things to the deaf student and make sure the deaf student understood everything. In that case I don't know if it was a groupie thing or a case of extreme paternalism. Either way: weird.
Click to expand...
I read this several times because I was confused. So weird! I would not be happy with the "helpful" person signing ahead of a interpreter........just weird........

Interpretrator said:
As interpreters we were sometimes bugged by the deaf groupies but for the most part left them alone as the deaf students were obviously capable of deciding how they wanted to handle it. The only reason I brought it up with my office that one time was because it was interfering with my work and I needed to know how to handle it.
Click to expand...

So are "deaf groupies" and "deaf wannabes" the same and are different than the people who try to damage hearing and become deaf? Or do the groupies not want deafness and want.........no idea - what do they want? I am :confused:.
 
Back
Top