Jenny Hersh: That child with big ears and weird speech? They might be deaf!

I’m going to start by revealing myself as the author of the Secret Deafie post “Wearing a Hearing Aid Changed my Life”, for context.

I was born with severe to profound high frequency sensorineural deafness in my left ear, which somehow fell under the radar. There is something that has always confused me as to how this happened.

My ears have been a source of ridicule and misguided aesthetic concern since the moment I was born. I also have a genetic history of severe and profound deafness in the women in my mother’s paternal family.

According to my mother, when I was born, the first thing a close relative said was that my parents should get my ears pinned back.  I think a “congratulations of a healthy baby” would have been more appropriate, personally!

Throughout my childhood, I heard people say to my mum “ooh you should get her ears pinned back”, to the extent that I begged my mum for several years to let me get the surgery to look more “normal”. I’m actually very relieved my mum never let this happen, looking back, as nowadays I appreciate my ears for the hearing they do allow me.

My left ear is a funny shape, it’s quite square and sticks out to the side. Ironically, it’s a very comfy anchor for my hearing aid, as there’s a perfect sized gap for it.

I was always embarrassed about my ears. I hated, hated, hated wearing my hair up, especially at school. There were always whispers and laughter, even at secondary school, and comments calling me “dumbo”, charming!

The only time I ever wore my hair up was for PE, and even then I would take my hair down as soon as I was allowed to. I still prefer not to wear my hair up, and when I have to, at work, there are some children who laugh. More often than not, now I have my hearing aid, I get a lot of questions about what my hearing aid is, which I’m happy to answer.

My other, very obvious, tell of being partially deaf is my voice. I always hear about “deaf voices” and I have one myself.

My voice sounds quite robotic at times, something that I was of course, bullied about. My main problem is that I cannot pronounce words with a “rr” in them or words like “red”. Until a year and a half ago, I had never heard that sound. The first time I heard it, it all began to click.  Why I couldn’t say “three” or “tree” or “squirrel”.

As touched on in my Secret Deafie post, I had a maths teacher who, rather than ever asking if there was something wrong with my hearing, found it really funny to ask me questions which had a “three” in them. If there was a “three”, you bet she picked on me for the answer. I mentioned this to a friend recently, and he also remembered this teacher doing this to me!

At primary school, a teacher asked the class what we could see in the grounds outside. I put my hand up and said “trees”. She said, “Jenny, there’s no cheese outside”, and the entire class started laughing.  This happened 18 years ago, and I still cringe at the memory.

The funny thing in all this? At NO point did anyone, teachers, friends parents, or friends, enquire as to whether or not I was struggling with my hearing.

Until last year, there were only a handful of people I’d ever confided my concerns to. Despite this, I managed to pass my German A Level, despite a disastrous AS level exam where I could not hear the listening part and failed miserably. It’s possible to learn another language, despite being unable to speak your own first language clearly!

If I had been diagnosed, I wonder how different my life would have been. Would my speech be better now? Would I have been bullied for having a hearing aid? Would I have been bullied less? Would teachers have thought I was more intelligent when predicting my GCSE and A Level grades, most of which were higher than my mocks? Would I have been less shy and introverted? Would I have had more self confidence?

If you’ve read this post, and know anyone whose child, or even an adult themselves, who has a strange voice, and malformed ears, please send them the link to this post. My parents always were aware of my poor speech, but didn’t realise there was anything wrong, due to the lack of resources and awareness. As far as they knew, the concerns as a baby were dismissed, and that was that!

Now that I’m “officially” deaf, I want to share and encourage as many people to get their ears checked, so no one has to struggle in the way I did growing up.

Jenny says: “Diagnosed as partially deaf at the age of 23, I want to share my experiences in the hope that other people’s deafness doesn’t fall under the radar too. Major music lover despite deafness.”