The Secret Deafie is a series of anonymous columns written by different writers. Today’s Deafie tells us about an incident in the street…
One day, I went shopping to my local Tesco.
I was walking back to my flat along the high street, laden down with three or four heavy bags when I paused at a side street to check for cars coming. An electric wheelchair pulled up beside me.
I moved aside slightly to give them more room, checked for cars and crossed the side road. Suddenly, my bags on one side were barged out of the way as the electric wheelchair zoomed past me, its middle-aged male occupant turning back to glare at me as though I were a piece of dirt.
Confused, and trying to work out what I had done to deserve this, I watched as he trundled up the street and very soon, all became clear.
He hadn’t got ten feet before a small family was in his way. Suddenly they reacted, saw him, and moved aside for him, all smiles and “aren’t we nice for letting the disabled man through” and he waved at them jauntily as he went by.
I realised he must have called out to get their attention. Hearing him, they moved aside.
He must have called to me to get my attention and ask me to make room. Except, being deaf, I didn’t hear him.
Rather than checking to see if I was wearing a hearing aid, he had clearly assumed that I was ignoring him, and was therefore the scum of the earth.
I’ve had this from able-bodied people, but more fool me, I thought that disabled people would know better, that deaf and disabled people would be paying a bit more attention.
I couldn’t believe the arrogance of the man, who clearly thought it was his god-given right to have people move out of his way immediately, and who had clearly made an assumption based on the fact that I hadn’t heard him.
I was furious and I nearly, so very nearly, abandoned all my shopping and ran after him to have a damn good row and remind him that not all disabilities are obvious. Only the fact that I couldn’t face having to go back and pick up all my shopping after I’d confronted him stopped me.
But do you know what, sometimes, just sometimes I wish I’d just said ‘sod it.’
I really do.
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Penny
March 26, 2012
I’m sure we’ve all encountered similar incidents. My favourite one is that a middle aged woman was zooming past on a motorized chair/scooter giving me dirty looks! She wore a t-shirt with ‘Life is a Bitch’ across the back. I had to laugh! Eventually I caught up with her by the pedestrian crossing. By then quite a few people congregated around waiting for the ‘green man’ The woman looked at me scornfully so I said very loudly ‘Sorry I couldnt move out of the way for you because I cant’ hear you coming! You are not the only one with problems! By the way, does your t-shirt describes your view of life. Have a good one!’ She blushed whilst others sort of sniggered!!!
detrich
March 26, 2012
Once upon a time a long long time ago i was receiving intensive speech therapy to learn how to talk.
one of my tasks was to take to the streets and do a survey of the public. it was very difficult and very embarrassing to ask people to stop and ask my questions.
one guy limped past me without acknowledging me in the slightest and i thought it was the rudest thing ever. I followed him down the street hurling good offensive language at him. it made no difference to him at all so i jumped in front of him and remonstrated.
He asked me which side i had been speaking from and i told him,. He said, “i had a stroke and you are talking on my blind/deaf side. if you had been on the other side i would have stopped. Anyway can i help answer your questions now”.
I became very red faced and said “nope its ok”.
I guess sometimes we are intolerant of each other. Sometimes our impairments lead us into scrapes we would prefer not to be in. Would i do anything differently now. I can’t say that i would. It would depend on a lot of things not least my mood.
I know i have a lot of things to learn and in learning i will make mistake after mistake.
But are you sure you want to be first to cast a stone?
barakta
March 26, 2012
I know a few wheelchair users and from talking to them it seems that often people ignore them even when they call out to let them know they’re coming. So they end up stuck in a crowd of people at arse-level not moving to let them pass and then having to barge their way through to get anywhere in a timely manner. I’ve noticed this when I’m using my recumbent trike.
It’s one of those difficult clash of the impairments things and 90% of the time it is probably people not paying attention rather than being HOH or deaf. While it hurts us when people get cross with us for not hearing it’s helpful to try and remember where they are coming from if they themselves are obviously disabled as we may not know what shite they deal with every day.
My partner stuck a ‘deaf symbol’ on the back of my trike so that if I’m approached from behind people might notice it and not get pissy when I don’t move out of the way. I can’t hear anything useful while cycling because of wind noise in the hearing aids so they’re usually off/out.
barakta
March 26, 2012
I know a few wheelchair users who say that their normal experience is that people don’t move out of the way to let them past, even when they call out. They end up stuck in a crowd of people at arse level and have to barge past or they spend their lives saying “Hello?” to no avail.
It’s one of those clash of the impairments things and in this case I’d say deafies probably need to be a bit sympathetic because it sucks being ignored all the time. I’d also hope wheelchair users would remember some people are deaf, but in reality 90% probably could hear them and just didn’t care enough to move or pay attention.
deaflinguist
March 26, 2012
I’ve been in that situation with a scooter user, a very similar story to Penny, really. I was coming up to a crossing at a corner where there were barriers wrapped around the corner itself, so you had to cross down a side road. Inevitably there was a narrow pavement there and it wasn’t till I reached the crossing that I became aware that a man on a scooter was trying to get past and effing and blinding at me. (Very easy to lipread, those particular words . . . )
I wouldn’t have minded the impatience, but I’m not one to take being sworn at in public lying down. As he vroomed off I took to my heels and caught up with him and said if he was disabled he might be disposed to understand that other people have other impairments, and there might have been a reason I didn’t know he was behind me, i.e. I was deaf.
I get that it is an impairment clash – and I’ve seen the funny side and maddening side of quite a few different impairment clashes – but a bit of give and take and civility should be enough to get everyone through these situations.
Irene Winn
April 15, 2013
I am completely deaf in my right ear and one day I was waiting for a sewing pattern catalogue to come free when someone barged past my deaf side shooting me a glare as she did so. I said that i was sorry I hadn’t heard her but that I was deaf in my right ear. She went red and exited the shop within 60 seconds of me finishing my sentence. People tend to assume when they should first assess. We are all guilty of it to some degree. Perhaps we should all learn the difference between assume and assess and then do more of the latter.
Deafser
October 22, 2013
You cannot blame people for not realising that we are deaf.
I have made the same mistake with people with Ushers. Sometimes I have felt that I am being ignored by someone who did not respond to me, and started to be annoyed, then realised that they had Ushers, and therefore were not aware that I was speaking to them, because I was out of the line of their vision.