Posted by The independence you get by being deaf or hard of hearing is beneficial but it’s also a downfall. Being deaf or HH (hard of hearing) means that some of us have the choice to hear and others do not. A lot of skeptics think that just because we are “deaf” means that we CAN’T HEAR. Now that’s not true, we all hear but at different decibels; except for those who are truly deaf who can’t hear anything at all – no sound, COMPLETELY DEAF, none nada zilch! The difference between “true deaf” and I is that I can wear an hearing aid and cochlear sound processor if I want and if not I have the freedom of choice to do so. Which leads to the points of communication.
With the ability to have freedom of choice many of us deaf and HH rely on lip reading more than any other kind of communication such as Auslan because we live in a hearing world. Stats from the Australian Network on Disability shows 1 in 6 Australians are affected by hearing loss. There are approximately 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss so you work out the amount of hearing people in the Australian population of 23,540,717.
Many of us, deaf & HH, jump straight into the deaf culture because it’s just easier for us to communicate that way and I must admit I’m one of those. My mother found out I was deaf at 2; I am profoundly deaf. My right hearing had dropped rapidly in the last two years and hearing aid wasn’t helping much so I had cochlear implant. My left hearing remains the same and still wearing hearing aid. Distance is an issue and yes lip reading is a job in itself but we must do it to stay connected (at least for me) with the hearing world. With this comes complications though; we miss a lot of valuable information because we lip read and assume that we got everything that was said. For instance, when I was younger at school I was teased because I would hear one thing and when repeated what I thought was said it sounded funny to others. I look back now and laugh, even sometimes get a little upset only because I didn’t know any better back then.
Typically if someone asks me something in the distance I almost always have to concentrate 3 times harder than a normal person. Many of us have this challenge. Now like I said before, we don’t have to lip read it by choice, just like its our choice to wear hearing aid. Lip reading is one form of communication that obviously helps us in life but there is also Auslan (Australian Sign Language) that helps our lifestyle.
With the benefit of having the freedom of choice comes independence. For me, my independence comes from growing up and doing things on my own, learning to read, cleaning tactics and even learning sign language. It could also be because of my stubbornness however, here’s a downfall that many deaf and HH people don’t or won’t have. However with being bilingual is no use for me in the working field, I’ve had to find jobs and even create jobs for myself to get by. Our personal independence may be good because we can do many things on our own but we also must depend on others to get by and find our way into the job corps. This brings me to the world we live in. The world we live in is obviously hearing. About 93% of the people I know are hearing; don’t quote me on this statistic, it may be different for you depending on who is in your social group. My social groups are normally hearing, Medium size group ranging from 7-13 people on an average day and when at work or I go out to events it’s an even bigger group, the numbers never end.
However, that’s where our downfall and challenge comes in. Big groups of people in small to medium rooms don’t do us deaf/HH any good hearing. Us hearing in that kind of environment means, concentrating on one person and listening to background noise where you can’t figure out if what you hear is what’s right or wrong. I’m not saying it’s impossible what I’m saying is, it’s a difficult task to live with.
Take it like this, the world we live in doesn’t adjust for us, we adjust for the world by choice, information, communication and the community we live in with our personal independence.
Blessed be,
Cynthia xo
Cynthia A. The life of a deaf introvert! 