The Secret Deafie is a series of anonymous columns written by different writers. This one comes from a Deaf man who has tried internet dating…
I was born profoundly deaf. My parents found out when I was only 2 years old, having not responded to my name being called but to a thumping foot vibration on the floor.
At that point, my parents realized I was deaf and took me to an audiologist and it was confirmed. The audiologist offered cochlear implants and my mom refused and left.
She bought a book to learn Sign Exact English (SEE) so she could teach me how to communicate with her early on. I learned ASL when I got older because my mom did not like ASL; she preferred SEE at home only.
When I entered mainstreamed elementary school, I was forced to wear hearing aids that were strapped to my chest. My parents also bought me hearing aids to wear at home when I was not in school.
I grew up, remembering all these crazy vibrations blasting into my ears. Often times, it’d make me feel like my head was a maracas (balls booming around inside my head causing too much vibrations and no sounds). I hated experiencing it all the time and trying to focus on my interpreter signing while feeling the vibrations from the teacher’s voice.
I started refusing to wear hearing aids at home as I got older. My mom asked me why I did not want to wear them and I said it bothered me. She understood my frustration and decided to let me not wear hearing aids anymore at home. I am thankful to have a wonderful mom who wants to make sure I’m happy.
However, I worethe l hearing aids strapped to my chest in elementary school until I entered middle school.
My first year in middle school, I finally had to stand up for myself and call it quits. I told my teacher I wanted to stop wearing it. She was shocked and told me she couldn’t let me do that because she believed it helped me pass classes.
This led to a parent and teacher meeting to discuss this issue and I was there in the meeting with both of them. I explained to them that I couldn’t hear a thing and all I feel was vibrations.
It annoyed me so much – I knew I did not really need it.
My mom debated pretty hard about this issue with the teacher and it caused the teacher to burst into tears! Finally, at the end, both agreed to let me stop wearing hearing aids for a month to see how my grades were doing.
I was doing really well in classes with my interpreter and passed with A’s and B’s. It totally shut up my teacher and she finally let me go without hearing aids ever since.
Of course, the other deaf kids at school were jealous of me and asked me how I did it. I simply told them that I cannot hear at all and I don’t really need it. Most of them were hard-of-hearing and can hear a little bit so they needed hearing aids more than I do.
After this incident, I did very well and graduated from high school. Then I attended college and graduated with Bachelor’s Degree with High Honors. I currently have a good job. All of this without hearing aids!
I hope my story inspires you to think twice and understand that hearing aids are not really for everyone. It may help others hear better but it did not for me, so there was no point for me to wear one.
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donaldo of the wasatch
July 7, 2014
Were CI’s available? Sad that your Mom turned that down. I was also diagnosed at age 2 as deaf, dumb and incorrigible. My experience was the opposite of yours. Personally I would say that your audiologists did not serve you well. What you went through was deplorable, just deplorable. Glad that employment has worked out for you. That is awesome. But you are a rare exception with a good job – very rare. Is your job within the deaf spectrum or elsewhere? Curious. I have met so many deaf adults who are unable to write, read and comprehend much of anything in English. Even there ASL skills are limited. So sad. Glad your’s worked out. The big challenge for the deaf starts at that magic 40 years of age. Hard for everyone, harder for us.
Jocelyn V
July 15, 2014
Are you kidding me? Do you have the proof of statistics of deafness with illiterate and unemployment rate? People you met, are probably from the period where they reprimanded them for using ASL and forcing them to take up oral. That approves cochlear implants, hearing aids and oral DOES NOT work very well. Now, I was born in the decade where they started experimenting cochlear implant and it was disaster. I’m grateful that I did not get one because many friends of mine had broken cochlear implants. They gave up using it because it was not up-gradable, caused them infections and unbearable statics from electronics. I grew up with ASL as my first language and it helped me extremely with picking up English. I stopped using my hearing aids in middle school. It was worthless for me and I only could recognize people calling me by my name. That makes me feel like I am a dog, not a good feeling.
Now your audiologist and doctor did not serve you well because they labeled you deaf, dumb and incorrigible. This is wrong label. Only if they gave your parents proper choices and better research then you would have better life. My parents fought and did research themselves and again I’m grateful. Because of my parents, i grew up educated, soon to be graduate with master degree. There are many deaf people like this author.
Anonymous
July 7, 2014
Since you are at least in your early 20’s, the first problem is your Mom not getting you implanted back in the late 80’s — early 90’s, as you must have a left corner audiogram — If even that, as the standards back then were extremely rigid back then.
However, an issue remains: What do you plan to do to make a living, without having your employer or government pay someone to be your interpreter?
Natalya D
July 7, 2014
Wwhat’s with the nipping at someone who’s parent made a valid choice not to use CI? Especially in an era where it wasn’t clear if they were safe for children.
CIs are not magic you know. People with CIs still often need communication support such as STTR/palantypy or electronic notetaking.
Jocelyn V
July 15, 2014
By the ADA law, government and employers are required to provide an interpreter. Now, the author already proved he is capable of getting good paid job without hearing aids and cochlear implant. What more do you want? As Natalya D mentioned, what is the point of nipping at someone’s parents when they made a valid decision and believed it was best for their child.
My parents also made the choice to not have cochlear implant especially during 80’s where many children got infections and could not be near computers because of cochlear implants. Even if some deaf people decided to get new improved cochlear implants now, it is still dangerous. Because of my parents, I was able to learn languages much more faster than children with cochlear implants because they allowed me to learn ASL. So many deaf children was throwing tantrums because they could not understand a word they just said out of their mouth. My best friend went through this. Eventually, she finally picked up English along with ASL.
Now I am not against cochlear implant because they can work for few people. I’m emphasizing on FEW people because it depends on their hearing level and how much they can understand by hearing.
Cindy King
July 8, 2014
I had similar experience as yours. I am grateful my parents understood and even had to fight with school administrators to allow me not wearing hearing aids. I only could “hear” vibrations or noises such as books slamming shut and metal legs of chairs squeaking on floor when moving and I would often get headaches after schools. Most of time, I had my hearing aids turned off. I have Master’s degree in Environmental Management and I work for federal government. I used sign language interpreters at school. There is a lot of accessibility via technology such as Video Relay Interpreting and Dragon Dictation. I use interpreters or real-time captioning for large meetings.
dana
July 15, 2014
I grew up using ASL (my family is Deaf). My father is an aeronautical engineer (he is Deaf and does not wear hearing aids). My mother is a teacher in the local public schools. We had the best family dinners, lots of laughter and the normal family stuff, because we were able to communicate WITHOUT barriers or “I’ll tell you later” and “it wasn’t important”. I took AP classes in high school with interpreters and graduated with a gpa of 4.2. Got a scholarship and graduated with honors. This, all being done without speech, cochlear implants, hearing aids, etc. Currently I have a job as a Java developer/programmer in the federal sector. I have a video phone and federal governments are required to provide them. My next goal: RFID chip technology. I do not consider myself “smart”, just extremely, extremely fortunate to have family who let ME make my own decisions and allowed me to use ASL as my primary language.
That being said, I strongly believe to each to his own. LISTEN TO YOUR CHILD.
A P
July 17, 2014
Thats dope. It shows everyone is different. Society is scared so they fall back on research and then apply it to everyone. There are so many factors in a persons life that make them different from the next case. It is great that you knew what you needed and fought for it.