Hi all, I’d just like to say that i found this site by accident but I’m glad I have! I was actually using google because I wanted to find out about what the link is between my hearing imparement and my voice.
Let me start from the beginning……
I was born deaf (profound in the right, moderate in the left) because my mother caught rubella when she was pregnant with me. I was raised in a hearing family and I was educated at a mainstream school. I had speech therapy for many years and now lead a “normal” life, however normal one can be! I don’t allow my hearing problem to cause me barriers in my life, I’ve got to university, I’ve had relationships and I’ve had jobs where I’ve used the phone and worked with customers 1-2-1. As I’m sure your all aware that its not completely fuss free! I still have days when I go out for a night and my battery runs out half way through and I dont have a spare on me, or when I’m doing things like swimming or having a shower it can be annoying because I cannot hear very much at all and rely on the vibrations to get by…..but like I said, its not a big deal!
I haven’t had a proper chance to look at the site so appologies if I mention something that has already been spoken about but, the thing I cant shake off in all of this is my voice. I know its different. Speech wize I’m more or less normal- again I use the term normal loosely! and my pronoucation is fine, but I HATE my voice. I know most people do but I can hear the difference and I can feel the difference too, sometimes I think its ok and others I feel like yuck! stop talking! Even though I have my friends who don’t judge and I dont care for people that find my hearing/voice an issue, I can still tell when someone is thinking, hmm her voice is different.
BASICALLY!! what my question is: what experience have others had with their voice? Has anyone got any advice on what I can do to change it? I think its mainly to do with my breathing but I don’t know how to change it! I don’t want to do this for anyone else, I’m not trying to prove anything I just know that if my voice wasn’t so obviously different, I’d be alot more confident and self assured! THanks for taking the time to read this!
x
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:59 am
firstly welcome. I dont know what u can do but I just want to say I also no fluctuations in my voice. Somedays it is way soft and others too loud. Somedays people battle to understand what I am saying also when I am tired.
I hope there is someone here with an answer for you, I think its a tough question.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
welcome aboard hun
Im like Mela with my voice, depending on weather I am tired, or have that thing happen me, of which i spoke about in another tread where it feels like im breathing through my ears, my voice goes very low because inside my head its loud, then other days im wearing my Bi lateral aids, and im shouting at people beside me!!
I too find that when im tired I find i slur my words a bit but My family and Fiance say they dont hear this, perhaps its just a self concious thing with me!! and perhaps with you too???
I dunno, but any questions you may have will be discussed thorughly here and we usually come up with an answer
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Hi and welcome! You’re lucky even if your other ear has profound
hearing loss, the other is just moderate. That was also my case during
my late teens that’s why I was able to finish college in mainstream
school and was even able to teach for seven years afterwards. Now
my hearing loss has deteriorated to severe to profound and to the
point that I can’t hear my own voice anymore. As in I can’t control its
volume. Sometimes I speak embarrasingly loud and at other times
people can’t hear me when I speak. And yes my voice is also different.
I tend to think my voice is ugly as no one ever said it’s beautiful. Lol.
Most find my voice different and some find it sounds strange. I’m
also tone deaf and sing out of tune people laugh at at my singing
so I dont sing anymore. My daughter is the most annoyed with my voice,
my volume and my singing as she is a soft-spoken, ‘peace’ loving person
so she tried to teach me how to speak softly. She said I should always
remember to speak as if I’m telling a secret or a confidential info so
that I will also remember to speak softly. This partly solved the voice
and volume problem as long as I remember to remember.
I think the best we can do about our predicament is just to improve
more on our personality, to speak with warmth and humility and
kindness, etc. so people will be impressed and will not notice the
peculiar voice.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:11 am
Welcome
May 24th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I found this site randomly (maybe) because I was looking up Deaf blogs.. I am involved in the Deaf community and learning ASL because I have a son who is not Deaf, but MUTE only (he cannot speak but he can hear FINE) due to an extremely rare neurological disorder. He is fine cognitively, very smart. So he is learning to communicate using ASL. His life will be very difficult in many ways.. he will never be fully part of the Deaf world, or the hearing world, he is totally different from both of these. He doesn’t really “fit in” anywhere.
So coming from my perspective– I am sure you can guess what I will tell you about your voice !
Be thankful you have a voice at all !
and number 2, EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE has something about themselves that they just can’t stand.. for some it’s their nose, a big butt, an artificial eye, our laugh, whatever… we all dislike parts of ourselves.. but you just live with it and make the best of it.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
i wish i could hear my voice too. everytime i meet someone new they always ask me where i am from and when i say ‘here’ they say ‘no way, you have a strong accent’. i will respond with ‘yeah its a deaf accent’ then they are all shocked and have to go thru that whole thing again “wow u do so well, etc etc” i know my voice sounds different but i have no idea. i do feel my voice is ugly and people say its really soft (because my mom always scolded me when i spoke too loud so now ive a habit to talk really softly), and monotone, nasaly, slurred.. the only way to solve the problem is just to sign. i try to sign as much as possible. ive always struggled with these issues.. i am deaf but i have been blessed with coherent speech so people assume i am just hard of hearing.. i think its getting worse though because people have been having a harder time understanding me than normal. sometimes i just want to pitch my hearing aid & just be my natural self.. stop trying to be hearing.. stop trying to make sense of all the noises with my aid. i think we all try too hard to be normal.. why don’t we all just accept eachother for who we are and forget the hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc.. just make do with what we are god-given?