Somewhat Silent

just something that happened…

17 Responses to “just something that happened…”

1. Sara (User Verified) :
   May 11th, 2006 at 5:01 pm

   I’ve had many such moments. Mostly I notice the habits and the source of the habits after they irritate someone.

   For example- When I walk more heavily, the sound is lower– so I can’t hear it. (I hear high frequencies better) So when I want to walk quietly, I tend to end up stomping. (I’ve learned how not to do this as I’ve gotten older. But the first-reaction tendency is still there).

   I’m also virtually unable to speak to someone unless they’re looking at me. I’ll tap someone before I try to get their attention through sound. Or move my hand in front of them.

   etc.

2. katie (User Verified) :
   May 11th, 2006 at 7:17 pm

   Oh! I may have already posted something about it here, but here goes anyway:

   “I’ll tap someone before I try to get their attention through sound. Or move my hand in front of them.”

   …That happens when I try to wake people up! I always poke people or tickle their feet when I want to wake them up. It *never* occurs to me to say “DUDE, rise and shine!”

3. alli :
   May 12th, 2006 at 10:46 pm

   My anecodotes aren’t deaf-related but I always annoy my sighted friends because I touch everything. I trail the walls when I walk. Things like that.

   Oh and when we go shopping since I can’t see colors well (black, brown and purple all look the same) I always either ask what something is or I find something I know and look at it then. It took one of my friends like half an hour to figure out what I was doing, she just looked at me like I was crazy. Heh…

4. barakta (User Verified) :
   May 13th, 2006 at 7:20 pm

   My mum has always understood that some of my ‘quirks’ are related to my deafness. I had no idea that I was ‘weird’ until I spent significant time away from home - and people started to criticise me for them. My mum says she only noticed my ‘weirdness’ when I had lived away from home for a while and that I would come back and be ‘me’.

   Sara: I am stompy too, I can’t hear the noises which I think that annoy hearies the most. I can only compensate for the noises which I can hear at the expense of added clumsiness. I find that I concentrate so carefully on being quiet (and usually fail apparently) that I don’t see things that I end up knocking/tripping over. At my mum’s this is not helped by my mum keeping things on the stairs, and two stupid cats being ever present hazards.

   Sara & Katie: I also hate talking to people who are not facing me, or at least side-on and paying attention. I will stop talking if the other person looks away, which annoys people immensely. I know that if the person isn’t facing me they aren’t giving me their full attention. In the Deaf signing community in the UK if you look away from the signer (eyes or head) without signalling [HOLD ON] that that is incredibly rude. One only looks away when the conversation is over.

   I have a profoundly deaf signing native friend who used to think hearies were bored of him and was really upset about it. I then got the other side of events from one of the hearies involved and realised that he probably didn’t even realise - but that he would have been flicking his eyes away for a split-second in response to background sounds. I suggested that said friend explain whenever he looked away just as a quick comment “Sorry, thought that was our doorbell” or “Boiler just made a horrible noise”. I also explained the auditory input automatic eye flick response of the hearie to my deaf friend - who reluctantly accepted this as a possible explanation.

   Hearing people really don’t grok the not-looking-away thing at all. In my job last year as a librarian, the first task of each day was spent by all staff members checking the shelves, refiling the books. This was usually accompanied by relaxed chatter about what people had done over the weekend and whatnot. I couldn’t file and follow the conversation, and found that I was filing too slow when I attempted to do so. I eventually explained to my colleagues that I was going to ‘ignore’ their chatter and file - that I wasn’t being rude or uninterested. This meant I lost out on useful information about colleagues’ lives like the time with one lady’s baby got ill overnight and was rushed to the hospital and fortunately pronounced ‘okay’ by the doctors. She was understandably still upset, and I didn’t know - fortunately someone cornered me and got my attention so I at knew what had happened so I knew.

   Conversely at a convention that in 2004, one of my friends a hearing guy from Holland said that he really missed the direct-eye-contact that most people employed at the con. Back at home he found people were uncomfortable when he looked them in the eye. This convention happens has a number of deaf/HOH and other people who find auditory-information hard to process attendees each year. The sign language workshop which I have foolishly agreed to run always has 30-50 people trying to cram into one tiny room.

   I suspect that I do the tapping/waving thing more than most hearies, although I’d never really thought that might be weird before. I’m also never convinced “Hello! WAKE UP” will work, it always seems kinder to tap or shake someone lightly. This isn’t helped by the fact that any noise in the ‘morning’ tends to make my partner kim refuse to get out of bed. Shaking VERY carefully and being persuasive is the only successful method. She says the buzzy deaf alarm clock is much better than evil loud noise - although I do believe it beeps as well. If it doesn’t wake me I get hit or squashed as she tries to turn off the evil bleeping thing.

   Alli: That makes a lot of sense, the tactile thing. I wonder why people find that annoying… Does it slow you down a lot or something? I certainly wouldn’t mind telling someone what colour something was.

   My partner is colourblind, about 70% red deficient (protanopia). She can’t see the difference between some yellow/green/oranges, blue/purple/grey, brown/orange/red, she effectively sees ‘white’ as ‘cyan’, greys as a kind of greeny colour. I’m used to “OY, come here, what colour is this poo-coloured wire” type requests.

   I promised her I would never lie about the colour of something, as she promised she’d never lie about the sound of something. It’s strange, but I have been lied to about sound related stuff all my life, it was the sort of thing horrid bitchy girls - who claimed to be my friends, thought was funny. Actually it just left me feeling stupid because I had no proof that they were lying, except where they were caught out, or admitted it, or someone else told me. Kim has been lied to about what colour things are too…

5. alli :
   May 13th, 2006 at 7:31 pm

   Does it slow you down a lot or something? I certainly wouldn’t mind telling someone what colour something was.

   Nah it doesn’t slow me down, I just have quirks. Like my friend J always forgets that I’m blind in my right eye so she gets annoyed when I don’t see her point at things (we haven’t known each other that long so I’ll forgive her that) I think its more of a reaction than an annoyance. My sighted friends don’t think I “act blind” I don’t carry a cane usually, I don’t have a dog (well I do have a dog, but not a seeing eye dog). So i think their reaction is “oh, she’s not as normal as we thought” ya know?

   Luckily I haven’t had that lying horrid bitchy girl thing, all my good friends are as blind as I am, so any joke/lie is meant in good fun. I can count my fully sighted friends on one hand, so they don’t bother me much.

6. Sara (User Verified) :
   May 14th, 2006 at 2:09 pm

   I will stop talking if the other person looks away, which annoys people immensely.

   I do that, too. I go into “pause”, and the person has to prod me to continue.

   Alli- I’d most likely point, too. It’s one of those deaf things. I can’t say “go left”, I have to point. “Left” and “right” are totally lost to me, so my brain doesn’t quite grasp that pointing isn’t the best thing to do. This annoys people when I’m the navigator in the car. When pressured to say “left” or “right”, I’ll typically say the wrong one! But I think I’d get over it quickly with you. Just a matter of learning another paradigm.

7. barakta (User Verified) :
   May 14th, 2006 at 6:35 pm

   Alli: Heh. I’m glad you never had the bitchy girl thing, if it hasn’t been my hearing it’d have been “you are too fat/thin/ugly” or “your nose is too big” like my able-bodied little sister got for years.

   I’d probably do all the pointing thing too, although I’ve got a friend who always describes the location of things as “there There THERE!” which is useless and drives me batshit. I’ve got worse for the pointing thing since I started learning sign.

   I recently realised if I can’t hear someone properly I’ll flip into sign mode and start signing while I’m speaking. I guess my brain is desperate and figures someone might sign back.

   I spent all day today signing at my dad cos I couldn’t hear most of what he was saying, changed my batteries and still felt really DEAF, I let kim sign what I didn’t hear at me. I wish he’d learn to sign - maybe when he gets made redundant.

8. Sara :
   May 14th, 2006 at 9:11 pm

   I recently realised if I can’t hear someone properly I’ll flip into sign mode and start signing while I’m speaking. I guess my brain is desperate and figures someone might sign back.

   Oy. I do that, too. Usually when someone’s having a hard time understanding ME. With surprising amounts of success. Part of it is that when I’m signing, I tend to speak a lot louder and more slowly so people generally understand me better. Part of it is that a lot of ASL is pretty gestural (especially compared to BSL!) so a lot of words used in extremely casual can be caught by the average non-signer)

   And when I’m having a hard time understanding THEM, it helps a bit as well, as they become somewhat gestural too, and it conveys the fact that yes, I really am deaf. No, I’m not just pretending, and yes I’d appreciate if you point instead of telling me, or write it down instead of insisting upon repeating yourself 15 times after I’ve handed you a notepad and a pen.

9. alli :
   May 15th, 2006 at 1:06 am

   Pointing in general doesn’t bother me, I do it all the time for emphasis when I talk but the “there” pointing is useless. If you can point and give me an actual description that’s fine, but the vague “oh its over there” *motions to the left* is blech…

   I’ve slipped into sign before when someone wasn’t understanding me. I don’t sign very well or very much, I can usually get what I want across. I do miss doing sign all the time: a few of the students at my HS were blind/deaf so we learned a bit to be able to talk to them. That was kinda fun actually.

10. alli :
    May 15th, 2006 at 1:09 am

    Oh and I had the “normal” bitchy horrid teenage girl thing, but it wasn’t as vicious as the lying about what they saw/heard thing. I don’t think anyone is immune from the horrors of HS, I lived with those people for 4 years… 8 months outta the year…. that was hell… but I’m sure it could’ve been worse….

11. barakta (User Verified) :
    May 16th, 2006 at 11:56 am

    Alii: I am eternally grateful I didn’t live at my highschool. At least at home I was happy enough, and could avoid the worst people. My best friend went to a deaf boarding school and it is very clear the impact that had on him as a person. He has this bizarre mixture of ‘only child’ selfishness and ability to switch off while surrounded by people.

    Sara: I never knew ASL was more gestural than BSL, I’d never thought about it before. Some BSL is pretty clear to a hearing person, especially animal signs and stuff, and various verbs like walking, falling, sitting, speaking etc etc…. I have been known to speak and sign and have non-signing hearing friends exclaim “I understood that sign” or “That sign is so cool”.

    Interesting that you do it when you aren’t understood, I have been known to do that because I admit to talking very fast. I blame the fact that if I listen too carefully to what I say I start to stutter and stumble over words.

12. Sara :
    May 16th, 2006 at 2:37 pm

    if I listen too carefully to what I say I start to stutter and stumble over words.

    Me, too. The signing thing slows me down without making me pay too much attention to how I’m speaking. Which works marvelously. I wonder if I just think of the signs as I say the words, if it would have the same impact.

13. barakta (User Verified) :
    May 16th, 2006 at 3:36 pm

    My speech becomes very ‘deaf sounding’ when I sign at the same time. This is always commented upon by hearing people who know me well because my speech does not sound deaf.

    I find that I am often not believed to be as deaf as I actually am because of my speech, people don’t seem to realise even profoundly deaf people can sound a lot less deaf than people expect.

14. alli :
    May 17th, 2006 at 3:47 am

    if I listen too carefully to what I say I start to stutter and stumble over words.

    Heh. That is disturbingly like me. If i think about what i’m saying then suddenly i start sounding like a 3 year old… cannot make a coherent sentence if my life depended on it.

15. lette :
    May 17th, 2006 at 4:23 am

    Im lucky in that department, I dont sound deaf at all, I dunno if that will change in the future, but right now my speech is very good, the only thing that givs away that im deaf at all would be the times that i stare hard at people I dont know, and I also lean my ‘better’ ear towards people!! and of course the hearing aids, other than that!! and most people dont even notice the aids!! which I find odd as, I think they are big, but apparently not as bug as I make out!!

16. lette :
    May 17th, 2006 at 4:24 am

    OH and my spelling too, it sucks big time, and its obvious I picked that up as I couldnt hear the best in school, but hey! thats what spell check is for!!

17. barakta (User Verified) :
    May 18th, 2006 at 6:39 pm

    Lette: I am constantly astounded by how people don’t notice stuff. I have 4 digits on each hand, I was born without thumbs and had my index fingers surgically converted into thumbs. The number of people who don’t notice for a long time is high, including when I am signing!

    There are two types of people in this world, those that notice hearing aids, and those that don’t. The ability to notice hearings aids does not of course correlate to the deaf awareness of the individual in question - sadly.

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