About SomewhatSilent
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October 8th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Hi Lette
Yes I think it would be safe to say we most likely all feel this way from time to time and I dont see anything wrong with letting off steam every once in a while. As you say we look, speak, act just like everyone else and I think you should feel you cope so well. You should be proud that people dont realize it as that shows just how well you cope. You deserve a great big pat on the back. I know its hard to feel good when people say “oh I never would have known if you hadn’t said” but it just goes to show how well you manage. I have long since stopped covering if I miss something if you were meant to hear something then your friends should not mind repeating themselves. I have often got things so wrong and everyone will laugh and when I hear what I was meant to hear comes out I laugh to as it is usually really funny. It helps both you and your friends make it easier to accept something. I dont believe you should have to cover any missed conversation nor feel you have to cover up. If you have good friends they wont mind repeating themselves and if it came out all wrong you can all laugh together. You say you wear 2 aids so you can do your best to communicate and if its a bad day you can take them off and give yourself a well deserved day off. Dont beat yourself up its hard work trying to hear, lipreading etc you either deserve a pat on the back or a day without your aids where you can recharge your battaries. Just remember you aren’t alone.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:17 am
yeah I guess
thanks mela 
October 12th, 2006 at 1:48 am
Hi Lette
Just want to apologise for the garbled reply but I am sure you understood what I was getting at.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:06 am
I sure do thank you, im over it now, like you said we all get down days
October 15th, 2006 at 2:57 am
the whole passing yourself off as normal thing is exhausting. none of my sighted friends get how blind i am. none. they always think, ‘well you get around pretty well, you must be fine all the time’ or something. which would be fine, if ya know i actually DID get around as well as they think. they think i just walk slow, but actually its more of the hanging back and watching them to see if they step down or up or something. and it usually not that bad, but lately it seems to either be getting worse or i’m just tired of pretending. walking into doors is hard to laugh off when no one realizes it wasn’t a joke. *sigh* anyway. just know that you’re not alone, lette.
October 22nd, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Yes. Much for the reason people have mentioned already. While theoretically I enjoy not fitting into people’s narrowly defined boxes, it is tiring not to ‘belong’ in many places.
I am lucky, I do have places that I belong, for being myself and not for any label or identity which someone might try to place upon me. The places where I belong have individuals who are understanding about how tiring it is to be deaf, and make things a lot easier. I know I can say to these people “I’m not going to be able to understand you for X reason” and get understanding and sympathy probably accompanied by cups of tea or equivalent.
I made a decision a number of years ago, not to waste my time on people who couldn’t respect and at least make an effort to understand me. I am very much the way I am because of my deafness amongst other things. My manner of interacting with people is often perceived as intense and indeed discomforting because I pay a lot of attention to people while speaking and look them directly in the face/eye.
I find that people are often willing to understand if I can explain things to them, relate my experiences to their own. Many hearing people have had ear infections, or a cold which dampened down their hearing a little. It may be nothing compared to the ‘deafness’ we experience on a daily basis, but it is a small step towards understanding. Many remember feeling tired because they couldn’t hear, or nervous because they could no longer locate sounds accurately.
Everyone is different and has different ways of coping. I am direct to the point of bluntness at times which suits the type of people I spend my time with. When I am really not coping, which is often of late because of my balance problems I make sure I have time-out options. Time and space where I can do something to recuperate my energy and not have to worry about hearing. A little bit of time out can sometimes help with the horrible missed the punchline feeling days…
October 24th, 2006 at 6:05 am
:)
thanks 
that makes me feel lots better, I know im not alone in how I sometimes feel, but when u get low about it, you do feel like the only person in that situation in that time!! 
thanks guys 
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:28 pm
I got mennigitis when I was 3 years old and with my aids I can hear some sounds but never able to decipher speech. I have
to read lips. Up until 4th grade I signed and went to a deaf school but my family stressed the oralism and I went to
speech therapy almost everyday until I was in 8th grade. Well.. When my parents decided to mainstream me at 4th grade, i hated
the fact that I was the only deaf student and I refused an interpreter and I refused to sign. If anyone signed to me I would
ignore them. I was very stubborn and I would pretend I was hearing all the time. I am sure people knew because of my voice
and not knowing what was going on but I kept with it. I look back and wish I hadn’t done this soooo bad because my childhood
really really really sucked because of this. I had hardly no friends. Then in high school my grades started to plummet and
i met a man that taught signlanguage at my school. He took an interest in me and talked me into getting an interpreter and
because of him i went to gallaudet for 2 years. Well, by this time it was too late and my family talks to me so I have to be
oral with them. I have noticed that in class if I start using my voice then people hear it and think wow.. she talks pretty good
so she must be able to hear pretty well and they start talking to me. It pisses me off soo much. So the past year I have given
up.. even though I speak clearly enough I take notepad and pen with me whereever I go and I make hearing people write stuff down.
when I have an interpreter with me, i use them fully. I suck at ASL because I learned it later but I am good at signed english.
My professors and classmates have no idea that I can actually speak. I knwo this is bad but i am fed up trying to lip read and
missing stuff all the time because people think i can just read lips. I hate being ‘inbetween’ worlds and sometimes I just want
to be in one or the other and of course i can’t be in the hearing. it helps a lot and reduces stress but i work as a cashier and
have to use my voice/read lips so when people from class or a teacher come in come in i feel like ive been ‘busted’ because
they are like ‘i didn’t know you could talk’. sometimes i really wish i was raised just using sign language and no hearing aids
then i wouldn’t be in this predictament. sometimes just want to move to another state where noone knows me and start over.
i really really hate being stuck. “you have the best of both worlds” is bullcrap!
November 3rd, 2006 at 4:47 am
Hi Forestxfaerie
I can understand just how you must feel. I
was always in a main stream school and it sucked big time as I couldnt follow what was being said. My mom tried to get me into a school for the deaf but they turned me down. I wore 2 hearing aids and lipread. I have always spoke clearly and lipread extremely well. I also learnt to piece sentences together. Because of this people tend not to believe that I am deaf. I am now totally deaf and wear a Baha. I so wish I had been given the chance to learn sign. Like you I dont fit in the deaf world and I also dont fit into the hearing world. I find it a very lonely, frustrating place to be. As you say lipreading is exhausting so I am planning on signing up for sign language classes next year. Take heart there are others who feel just as you do.
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:09 am
Hi faerie, it’s ok to release your pent up feelings and frustrations
here. We deeply understand you. I hope and pray you’ll be able to sort
out your problems by and by. Relax but dont give up. Take things one
at a time and dont you forget even if life sucks and we’re stuck, God
feels our pain and His affection for us is very deep.
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:35 pm
people tell me i need to just get over it and live my life. people that tell me that have no idea what it is like. it is not
something that can be forgotten like a wheelchair or missing an arm. being deaf affects my everyday life in tremendous ways.
i am always being discriminated, ignored, etc and I have to struggle everyday. In middle school I would come home and cry
a lot because people would be sitting around talking and I had no idea what was going on.. I was sooo left out. I would get
called on and I felt like a retard because I had no idea what the question was. When we do the stupid introduction thing
on the first day of class where you go around and introduce yourself and tell about yourself a little.. i wouldn’t know when
it was my turn and when someone told me i would not know exactly what I was supposed to say and embarrass the heck outta
myself. when i would have to give presentations, the teacher always tells me to speak louder and sometimes repeat things because
it was not understandable. i hate the hearing world, i hate hearing people. my fiance is hearing and when he hears me say this
sometimes, he gets so upset “I am hearing, do you hate me??”. sometimes i do because he doesn’t always sign everything when
we are hanging out with his friends. i hear him and his frineds laughing and i just want to die. i think it is better to not hear
that at all then i don’t know what i am missnig. like.. if there is music on.. i can hear it but i have no idea what the words
are saying..i can’t make out even ONE word.. it is pathetic and it upsets me so if i don’t wear the aids then i don’t hear the music
and don’t get upset….
when i went to gallaudet, it was so awesome because I didn’t wear my hearing aids for 2 years.. i didn’t
have to speak to hearing people at all and if i did, they knew sign language. well i came home and my family complained because
they couldn’t understand my voice and my dad took me out to lunch one day and cried.. he begged me to wear my hearing aids
again because i speak so well with them and function so well. it made me put them back on and i cried that i have to go through
this identity crisis again. when someone needs glasses, they put glasses on and they can see almost perfectly. it is not the same
with hearing aids.. i can not hear perfectly at all and i have top of the line digital hearing aids. $4000 a pop. as much as
they have helped me speak well, i hate them so much. i want to throw them in the road and drive over them with my car or throw
them over a cliff, burn them.. anything.. but i can’t. my inner self is at a constant war. a tug of war.. i am being tugged constantly
and i am having a serious identity crisis only because my family and other people will not understand if i submerge myself
in the deaf world. my family looks down upon the deaf culture and they tell me if i benefit from the aids then i am dumb
for not wearing them. they don’t understand why i would want to be completely deaf when with the aids i can hear noises.
the fact that i can hear a little bit is what makes me have this stupid identity crisis. i just wish they knew how i felt.
November 3rd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
foxfairie,
I’m deaf/Hoh…and wear one analog hearing aid..and used to have digital. I thought they were’nt all that. Sometimes digital is good for listening to music when playing the iPod and sometimes analog works well for bass and treble purposes.
I grew up in an oral environment and am able to read lips and talk and hardly ever hang with deaf people where I’m at because I used to live in a larger city area in the midwest, I moved to Vermont a year ago (long story).
My problems are sort of the opposite of your’s..but not quite. I know I’m living between both worlds but in the same time, it angers me how deaf people discriminate against their own (ie. Gallaudet). I think it’s wrong for them to think the female president to be forced out when she was just learning to sign.
All they had to do was help teach her their language and she’ll teach them her world.
Most deaf people are usually unsure of me here in Vermont because they don’t know my academic upbringing in the oral environment and I have no need for an interpreter. But in the same time, I find it difficult to socialize time to time and am always on my own especially when one is in their early to mid 30s.
Hearing aids are the only way I can function. Without them, I’d go insane…trust me. I would not be able to function without hearing for more than a week and would have a much more difficult time getting a job and making my cell phone un-necessary. Although I like using the Blackberry for professional reasons on my line of work.
and oh..I was born with congenital defects which caused my deafness, if I have’nt mentioned it.
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:00 pm
well well I have a twin in you Faerie
thats exactly how I feel tho I use my voice everyday and I talk as a hearing person would, well, often I slip into lazy speech but this inbetween world you speak of is the same for me, and because people hear me talk or see me with headphones on automatically think, wait a minute, theres nothing wrong with her hearing!!, whereas I do like to listen to my ipod but its just the noises of music I love, I dont get all the sounds or voice and a lot of what I hear is clipped!!
my sign sucks, I have basic conversational sign, so I cant use interpreter, but I do lipread all the time, and people dont think how exhausting that is only for us (WE GET TIRED AND PISSED OK) well I do anyhow, and I go away ant take out both my aids and the silence literally is bliss!! noise hurts!! Im deaf and that even sounds wierd to me, im deaf but noise hurts me, it takes everything to try and desypher all the different noises and put them in their place, and I just give up and walk away!! life is better without the aids, but without them I think i would fail college!!! they do help but only a tiny bit!!! I hate them and yet will gladely wear them so people will see the aids and go Ok she has those things on, better talk to her more slowley or what ever, and when I dont wear them they forget about my deafness!! it doesnt go away because I take them out, it gets worse and the silence is really nice, I hate that silence some days and others its soooo welcomming!! and like you said, the best of both worlds is a crock of sh1t! it doesnt work like that folks!! my fiance sais it too, but I never hate him, he is brilliant, he signes his best to me if needs be and he is so patient, he the best and im very lucky to have him, but baby, I dont have the best of both worlds!!!
the only difference is tho, I dont hate hearing people, I just hate the few who have absolutly no idea how to deal with a deaf person or with people with disabilities!!! and they never use their common sence, if they dont know all they need to do is ask!!!!and I hate the fact that deafness is hidden so its hard to explain my problems, and I hate that I feel like a broken record explaining myself over and over again to the same people!!!! and I hate that im not fluent in sign so I dont act like a deaf person, so I dont fit in with them, and I dont live up to hearing peoples expectations of what deaf is, and I hate saying that im deaf!!……….there I said it but I never actually vocalise it, I give a letter to my tutors but I hate saying ’sorry im deaf so ill be a bit of a pain in the arse this term!!’ its so friggin frustrating!!!
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:02 pm
….and I also hate that no one seems to know why my hearing is dieing!! iv had 8 operations to make it better and each op has made it worse!! and now its continuing to die and all i can do is wave it off!!….
I am sorry, theres an awfull lot of hate flying round in here!!!
November 4th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Sanctum - our faerie is not a fox fairy.
Faerie - Cheer up! We love you.
November 4th, 2006 at 11:17 am
:) yup we do
November 4th, 2006 at 11:37 am
awwwww. thanks guys! love you all too.
i guess it builds character. also its weird how much i hate being deaf that i won’t get a CI. the thought of getting a CI freaks me out.
November 4th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
lette, im surprised you still want to listen to music even though you are not hearing it right. i hate the sound of music,
i do like techno though.. i like the beats but the only time i can really feel the beat is when i turn it up in my car
because if i turn it up in my apartment, people would call the cops. i can’t wear headphones cuz they cause my aids to
squeal. my fiance loves classical music and the radio.. whenever he plays it i have to turn my aids off cuz it drives me
insane. so how much do you get from it really?
November 4th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
am….its really hard to explain my hearing loss is pure wierd!!! I hear certain sounds perfectly and other frequencies are completely dead to me!!! low basey sounds are impossible to hear, so most mens voices are out the window!! some high frequnces are completely dead and most midle ones are, there are only a few left really!! and anything I do hear is more tonal than actual clear sound!!! Yet I love to listen to music, I listen to new songs for weeks b4 I get the hang of them and if I like them ill hang on to the song and if I dont like it I wont bother!! with music a lot of what I hear is clipped like I said, the magority of what I hear isnt what I hear at all, only the memory or recognative process filling in the gaps in my head!! that sounds nuts but I really do think thats what happens, I usually lisen to music turned up to the last and I have an excellent pair of headphones, and even they are getting useless for me now as my hearing dies further and other frequencies fall out of the loop, but ill keep trying!! I dont think id ever miss the human voice, but I do love music and Iwant to try to hold onto that!!
its wierd like, usually a load of sounds jammed together drives me insane especially voices, like the canteen in college or that house party I went to the other night everyone was talking together and all it was to me was a monotone hum!! and it drove me mental I hated being there!! I couldnt break down the noise to hear an individual person and relied almost completely on lipreading and body language!, yet the pile of sounds music throws out is somehow different! I take the time to try and listen and break down what I hear, and piece together what I think I hear!! and then there are some days I dont listen to music at all I just give my head a break!!
obviously big heavy beats in music makes a hell of a lot easier!!! 
turn it up and feel ur brain bounce :p hehehe!
November 4th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
forestxfaire then..I mis-typed due to a caffeine rush…was juggling between projects like crazy…
RE: CI..cochlear implants? I don’t think they’d work on me…for one, my hearing loss might not need it due to the severe level on the left side while the right has profound loss..it’s weird, I know. But I’d rather avoid it due to the extreme cost of it…:/.
Analog hearing aids are a good bet for me and they’ve been pretty reliable although I do miss out on certain consonants/vowels, etc from other’s speech patterns..lip reading is the main thing I utilize…and it can be much more exhausting when I take off my hearing aid…..
November 7th, 2006 at 8:28 am
as for the music. thats interesting. i think its better not to hear at all than to hear stuff like that. but thats cool you
like music and can get at least that much out of it. i love techno clubs and i used to be a hardcore raver. i never thought to
ask what the lyrics were and now whenever i am blasting music in the car i have my hearing friend interpret for me and its
really interesting. i think the reason why hearing people are so creative with their words is because they are constantly
listening to music/lyrics and i am deprived of that so my creativity in writing sucks. id love to go to raves some more but
my fiance doesnt really like it even though i dragged him to one once. he said the loudness hurts his ears and he doesnt consider
techno as real music. grrr. and my current friends aren’t into it either sheesh. i think the only two songs i know by heart are
’stand by me’ and ‘the beautiful people’. thats only because i read the lyrics along w/ the song and i just did it so many times
that i could actually follow along with it. i can’t say if i was really ‘hearing’ it or if i just imagined that i am lip synching
it because its confusing when theres instraments along with it and i can’t seperate the two (voices & instruments).
as for the CI: i don’t want one because #1 they freakin cut open your head #2 it hasn’t been around long enough so i don’t trust
it as for what problems it may present years down the road #3 im scared it won’t work then id be hopeless. i met a girl at gallaudet
that had CI done on both ears and they didn’t work at all so now she is stuck with absolutely no residual hearing and if something
sprouts up in technology in a few years, she won’t be able to utilize it. my hearing aids do allow me to hear some sounds but
is that enough? i don’t know why i torture myself with it. i guess its either 1/5th way or nothing…
November 8th, 2006 at 3:56 am
I also cant follow the lyrics from songs. I read them. My kids also sing along and I lipread so I do get some idea of what is being sung. If it is a song I really like and dont have the lyrics my hubby looks them up on the net. I must say though I still listen to music from the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. I know the lyrics so I really enjoy listening to them.
I was offered a CI many years ago but said “no” as I had been told that you cant hear music with them. I was told you can only hear conversation and that it was very tinny in sound. I am glad I waited and have the BAHA it has been worth the wait.
November 8th, 2006 at 6:40 am
what evers up with my ears, a BAHA or CI wont work for me!!
April 27th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Personally, I totally agree with you.
April 27th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
…inflatables for sale???? LOL HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! forgive me its late in the evening, and that name could be taken up wrong in sooooo many ways!!! hehehehehehehehe!!!