My Kind of Deaf

Celebrating Diversity in Disability

On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I’d like to highlight the enormous diversity in the disability community. There is no one way to experience a disability. In the d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing community alone, there are many different, as well as some intersecting, challenges that accompany each kind of deafness. Late deafened individuals often mourn the loss of something they once had. Babies born deaf don’t have this sense of loss, but they have the challenge of acquiring language before their learning plasticity drops precipitously as they age. Parents are tasked with choosing a path for their deaf child: to sign, to speak, or do both; to have hearing aids, Cochlear Implants, or wait until the child is old enough to decide for themselves.

The “right way” to raise a deaf child is passionately disputed within the community and has caused a huge rift between those who believe signing is imperative and those who are strong proponents of taking an oral, more “mainstream” route. Language deprivation is a serious issue with deaf children, but how to combat this is a hotly contested issue.

To raise awareness, I would like to talk about what it’s like being ‘my kind of deaf’ —

I was born profoundly deaf and after much research, my parents decided to go down the Oral Education Route. I wore high powered hearing aids until I was able to get my first Cochlear Implant at age 16 and a second one in my 30s. I was in an Oral deaf program in a mainstream public school and had frequent speech therapy sessions until I went to college.

The change from analog hearing aids to digital Cochlear Implants was not an easy one, but it is one for which I am so grateful now. It took me about two years to retrain my brain to hear in this entirely new way and even now, two decades later and another CI in my left ear, the sound can still seem a bit harsh and robotic; the amount of sound I get, however, is far more than I ever got with my hearing aids. My Cochlear Implants are my lifeline.

When I wear my hair up in public I open myself up to stares, questions from curious children, and the occasional look of pity from strangers. My deaf experience is one most people do not seem to be aware of. As a result, I often encounter ill-informed, albeit well-intentioned, people making often incorrect assumptions about me. People over enunciate, or ignore me and talk to the people around me instead — some even start signing at me.

My kind of deafness has prevented me from integrating into the Deaf Community because I do not sign, in spite of the fact that my hearing loss is no different from many people who do sign. And yet, I am different: I can use my voice to speak for myself and I can even hide my Cochlear Implants under my hair. People more readily assume my accent is because I am a foreigner, rather than a deaf woman.

I am completely verbal and I appreciate the flexibility this affords me, but of course I have my own challenges. I don’t feel comfortable talking on the phone, so I don’t. I have to watch television and movies with Closed Captions or subtitles, otherwise I only catch a word here and a sentence there. Large crowds and loud restaurants in low lighting can make communication challenging for me, too.

Strangers don’t know to look directly at me when speaking and I often have to explain to people that I’m deaf and need to read lips, which oftentimes brings up a plethora of questions — most of which I’ve had to answer time and time again. It’s not an emotionally sensitive issue, but it’s a boring and repetitive one for me. Usually I just smile and nod, hoping I’ve responded appropriately to whatever has been asked.

There is no one right way to have any kind of disability. We come from different backgrounds, have different levels of education, and we need different things for equal access. Assume nothing.

Fellow disabled folks who feel like they have to explain their kind of disability — I’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #KnowMyDisability to share your stories.

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