When I explain to people that I'm HoH and that they should face towards me when talking, not cover their mouth and NOT talk while walking away, then they do it anyway. People who tell me off for interrupting when I'm trying to say 'Please stop and rewind, I missed that', or I don't get a chance to say that, then I end up knowing the end of some story but not the beginning.
When people talk while walking off, and they're giving me some instruction, like at work, then I have to chase after them and say 'I didn't hear the end of that, what were you saying?'
When they say 'Oh, you can't tell!' with great surprise like they expect me to be thanking them for saying that! And 'you sound normal'...erm...thanks, I think! Especially when they're talking to me in a quiet room- I'm fine then, but not in other situations.
When I ask what was said and have to ask several times for a repeat, they look annoyed and say 'Nevermind'. When I get told 'I wasn't talking to you'...well, I'll just sit here and not know what's going on until someone speaks to me, SHALL I?? And people say I'm too shy and need to involve myself more in conversations...I am quite shy but very much a chatterbox.
My ex-boss who said things like 'Turn your hearing aids up'/Are you wearing your hearing aids/Pay attention (though the last one was mostly cos I get distracted easily but sometimes I AM paying attention and still can't hear.
People who talk very fast after I've said I'm Hoh. People who then talk rrreeeealllllyyy slooowwwlllllyyy and enunccciiiiiattte like they're trying to give oral sex to thin air... I had some assistants at school in the special needs unit who insisted on eye contact and touching me EVERY time they spoke to me- some students needed it, but I didn't and found it invasive.
People who yell or talk really loudly, then when I say it hurts my ears they said 'I thought you were deaf/can't hear'. Same with people who don't understand why sudden loud noises physically hurt my ears (like car alarms) or make me jump.
A stupid ex who I went on a few dates with; I walked past him on campus and didn't see him or hear him say Hi, he then spoke to me online saying 'Why didn't you speak to me?'- I said I didn't hear you, and he called me 'Deafo'. He's a sarcastic witty sort of person but that hurt.
Subtitles which don't match what I can hear irritate me; vague English ones which say something like 'They talk'--well, duh! English for the HoH are much better...watching a film without subtitles is a nightmare; sometimes I miss things even if it's turned up loud, then I have to ask the other people watching, and they get annoyed because I'm making them miss what's going on...
An assistant (hearing) in the unit who was on a diet and insisted on crunching some sort of diet rice cracker snack and rustling the wrapper during an ENTIRE 2 hour exam in a quiet room- it wasn't bloody quiet anymore! Quiet, repetitive sounds irritate me no end...
When my french teacher tried to illustrate the point that some words can be mistaken by someone Hoh (me as I got the language tapes read out to me, by her, and the rest of the class wanted to know why I got 'special treatment') by making me wear headphones and her saying words then asking me to guess what they were. Then being surprised and complimenting me when I got most of them right. It was humiliating.
Seriously, that statement about people lumping everyone into one group applies to everyone, not just deafies. I don't think its fair for anyone to stereotype.let's see if he would have guts about it.
