GOD is Gracious to me

I was just thinking tonight how gracious GOD has been to me  as I seem to be slowly losing my hearing on my one good side. HE has been so kind to me in my deafness.

Instead of letting me go suddenly deaf, hearing nothing in an instant, HE has slowly let me grow accustomed to my hearing loss. My hearing is fading so slowly that we can only see it over the space of 6 years. What a gracious thing that is from GOD!

Think of it. What if I'd gone from being fully hearing in one ear, to being completely deaf in that ear in an instant? Can you imagine the shock? The fear? It was scary enough realizing I was losing my hearing slowly in my one hearing ear, can you imagine the terror if I suddenly had no communication with my family other than writing? Some people DO go deaf that quickly, from sickness or a sudden blow to the head. That could have been me!

Instead, GOD has been so good to me! HE's letting this happen slowly. I have time to adjust, time to get comfortable for it. I have time to prepare for increasing hearing loss. I have had time to learn ASL so that I can communicate when I can't hear what people are saying. I have had time to tell my family what is going on and to discuss plans for how to communicate with me in the future! I have had time to start making ties to the Deaf community and gain support in that community! There have been so many things I am able to do in this time GOD is giving me!

GOD is so gracious! How many people get this chance? And how many get the chance to ease into it, so that the changes are gradual and easier to get used to?  It's a blessing from GOD!

Isle of hope, Isle of ears...

So, I mishear songs. A LOT! And sometimes, it's hilarious. Though not so much when I mishear hymns. (I regularly accidentally destroy hymns for my mother by saying the misheard words, which makes her laugh.)

However, there was one song that I really liked growing up that the second verse made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me; and it's from "Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears."

Here are the PROPER lyrics;

In a little bag she carried all her past and history
And her dreams for the future in the land of liberty
and courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
But there's no future in the past
When you're 15 years.

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Kinda sad, I know. But lovely song. I tried finding a good version with lyrics posted on youtube, but no luck. Anyhow, my mishearing.

My mistake was in the first line, "In a little bag she carried all her past and history..." Now, see, I heard it as, "In her little pachydermy she carried all her past and history..." And I always wondered why she had a tiny elephant that held all her things. Was it a tiny elephant purse? Or was it a mini elephant that held her things in it's trunk? It never made sense to me.

What funny lyrics have you misheard?

Never hearing silence

Most people think that Deafness means silence. No sound whatsoever. And that going deaf (physical deafness) means that sound gradually fades out, and that is all there is to it. Most people never talk about tinnitus.

As you know, I was born deaf on one side, and now have lost some hearing on my right side. What I expected was that the more deaf I became, the quieter my world would be. And most of the time that holds true.

However, what is most surprising in all that, is that I have never actually heard complete silence. To me, silence has been everything going quiet with a small, high pitched ringing in the background. My world has gotten quieter, but I still have sound in it, but it's not externally generated. My own ears and nerves are generating sound and it's kind of weird and a bit annoying.

Oh, and by the way, tinnitus isn't always high pitched ringing. Sometimes it is, yes. But sometimes it's a low pitched grinding noise which sounds like you have a base chord on an electric guitar being strummed while you're sitting next to a rock grinding machine. Quiet unpleasant, actually.

Oh, and just because I'm losing some hearing doesn't mean that sound doesn't hurt. Sometimes it means that sound hurts more. Sometimes, the noises that break through the silence hurt because you're not used to those sounds. OR it's because of a phenomenon called "recruitment," which is what happens when one range of sound dies out, and the remaining nerves and cillia from that range are "recruited" to another range that is still working, which makes anything in that range seem louder.

Being Deaf isn't the problem. The problem is the process of your body getting used the the quiet, or how your hearing changes unexpectedly before you go fully deaf. Like having tinnitus or recruitment in different hearing ranges.

Thankfully, I grew up with this, so it doesn't bother me too much. But now I wonder....what does silence sound like?

Considering learning German

...I'm considering something completely insane. Something absolutely illogical... I'm half Deaf with slow hearing loss, and I am actually considering trying to learn spoken German. As if spoken English wasn't hard enough...I'm thinking about trying to learn another spoken language. To be honest, I have good reason, since I know so many people who speak German, and we have close connections with a church in Germany. What I'm really wanting to learn German Sign language, but I don't know anyone who knows it! So I'm actually tempted to go for spoken German. I must be NUTS. But imagine being able to say I'm half Deaf, and am losing my hearing, but I still know three different languages, two of which are spoken. Wouldn't that be AWESOME??! Sort of like, "Can't stop me now! I might be Deaf but I can still speak more languages than most Americans!" But then again, it's completely illogical. I'm half Deaf! It's going to be a royal pain! And....I'm arguing with myself right now! I need someone to be a tie breaker! What do I dooooo??

Fake British Accents and stereotypical boxes

So, have I ever told you that when I'm nervous in a conversation with non-signing strangers, especially when I don't have my hearing aids in, I sometimes I get a random accent? I sometimes sound like I have a fake British accent. Why do I do this? Because I am afraid that, because I can't always hear how I'm pronouncing things, I'm going to pronounce something wrong and they'll make fun of me. So to compensate for this, I OVER enunciate my words, which then sounds a bit British. I also use bigger and more elaborate words, as well.

See, this is what happens when you're half Deaf and you can't just say that you're Deaf, because people will call you a liar, and you can't call yourself hearing because you genuinely can't hear people in many circumstances. You can't be yourself fully, because people try to make you fit into this little box in their heads. "Deaf means you can't hear anything." "Hearing means you're able to hear everything." And I don't accept hard of hearing because it makes me feel like I'm trying really hard to reach the mark of hearing, but I'm failing; which is not the case.

To be honest, I'm just me. I love being half Deaf. It's a quieter world, and I like it. It's part of what makes me me. And I like being half hearing. It connects me to my hearing family, part of which, due to chronic diseases, struggles to learn sign language to communicate with me. And I like music. And I like signing. I like my times of quiet, and sometimes I just like to crank the music up and be loud.

The biggest "problem" with being half Deaf is that people try to put you in a category and then try to define you by that category. And if you stray from the norms of that category, they get mad at you and call you a liar for not fitting into their little box. What if THERE IS NO BOX FOR ME? What if, in order to understand me, you actually have to get to know me?

What if I'm like you? What if I don't want to be defined by your stereotypes any more than you want to be defined by mine? I'm a person, not a label. My life is complex. I will never be able to fit into a box. And honestly, you want to know something? Most people won't fit into a box. Most people are bigger than any box you can come up with.

5 Reasons Why I like Deaf events

I go to Deaf events fairly often. I go to an evening Deaf Bible study, I go to Deaf mall, and a Deaf event at a coffee shop. I work with other Deaf in a school program, subbing for paraeducators with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. And that's on top of having an ASL class two nights a week, and volunteering as voice cop, sometimes. There are weeks when I use more ASL than I use English.

But Deaf events really stand out as one of the highlights of my week. And here's why:

1. Everyone signs.
They're Deaf, it's kind of a "duh" in this case. However, hearing people don't really get how important that is for someone who is Deaf, Half Deaf, or Hard of Hearing. To most hearing people, it's just another social event, but for us? It's so much more than that.

Being Deaf, Half Deaf, or Hard of Hearing, in most conversations we have, we rely heavily on trying to figure out what a person's lips are saying, combining that with whatever body language they're using, and whatever hearing we do still have. It makes your average conversation a very tense and stressful situation, because I could be nodding my head and smiling to you saying your Dad got in a car accident; which is the exact opposite reaction I should be having. Not only that, but most social events involve groups, and once you have more than two people in a conversation, the whole conversation just disappears into the crowd. 

At a Deaf event, you don't have to hear. In fact, most don't if you go to a Deaf den. Instead of relying on our hearing, or lack thereof, we rely on our vision, which in most cases, is really good. Deaf tend to have very good vision and typically better than average peripheral vision. There are, of course exceptions. But to be in a conversation where we get to use our strongest sense is such a relief.

2. They get us.

When I tell a normal hearing person about how hard it is to talk with another person in English, or about the dumb things hearing people sometimes do or say to me, they don't get it. They just don't. They don't get why it's so frustrating to have someone ask if you're really Deaf. They don't get how it feels to be continuously left out because you can't hear, or how insulting it is to be told that it's rude to sign when other people can't understand you. I tell your average hearing person, and they just ask me why I don't get a CI to fix it; which brings a whole host of problems itself. You can see my thoughts on THAT topic HERE.

But, on the flip side, if I tell a Deaf person how frustrating it is to interact with ASL students who want me to entertain them and carry the conversation, they'll get it and sympathize. If I tell them how lonely I feel at a hearing social event, or how I stood up for my right to use sign language, they'll share their own stories of their struggles. 

3. They have ideas for how to deal with situations 

Deaf or Hard of hearing all share one thing in common; we really can't hear, or at least struggle to hear. Which means that in a hearing world, where everyone is saturated in sound, we do have some struggles, mostly those involving interactions with other people. By talking with other Deaf, we can get advice on how to deal with family situations if our family is hearing, on how to deal with rights violations, and other really important topics that most hearing people are ignorant about, because they don't have to deal with it. I have the right to use ASL. I have the right to reasonable accommodation. I can get help from various organizations. And there are Deaf who can give me a better deal on things than hearing, because we share the same community. Which leads me to the next one:

4. Networking and sharing information

Deaf love networking and sharing information about how to get thing done and they're really good at it. In Deaf culture, if you withhold information, and someone else suffers because if it, their suffering is your responsibility, because you didn't tell them what could have helped them. And because of that, they are good at connecting Deaf to other Deaf who are good at certain jobs, like mechanics, or electricians, or different job positions that they know are available. They are also very good at telling you where to get good deals.

To compare hearing and Deaf culture, here's an example: in hearing culture, if someone says to you, "That's a nice shirt you have. I like it!" your typical response is to merely say "thank you," and move on. In Deaf culture, however, they will tell you where they bought it, how much it cost, and if they've since found a better place to buy it, or multiple places to buy it. 

5. We actually get to meet other Deaf

That seems like a no-brainer, but I can tell you, I almost never see other Deaf outside of a Deaf event. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen other Deaf outside of a Deaf event or outside of my job which actively works with Deaf students and Deaf teachers/paraeducators. To put that in context, in the past two years of growing closer to the Deaf community, I've seen Deaf out side of a Deaf event or Deaf social setting less than five times. That's how rare that is. 

Not only that, Deaf don't carry a sign around with them that says, "Hey, I'm Deaf!" No. Even if we meet another Deaf whom we haven't met before, unless we see them using ASL, we could pass them on the street and never know that they were Deaf like us. So we don't even know all the Deaf in our area, UNLESS we meet them first at a Deaf event or in a Deaf social setting. 

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And there you have it; 5 reasons why I like Deaf events. 

Good things people can do around Deaf

I had a good day a while back, when two people were fantastically patient with me! It was marvelous!

See, when I'm out in public, unless it's very quiet around me or I know the person I'm talking to, I generally don't speak very much. I typically just sign, because I'm tired of saying "what?" over and over again. After a while, you start losing the other person's interest if you say "what?" too many times. If I do speak, I tend to sign at the same time. It helps other people be more patient with me.

But I had two experiences that stood out from the myriads of other difficult conversations. The first was at Safeway. I had gone to the checkout to buy something, and the cashier said something to her coworker, but I missed it. I signed and voiced, asking her what she had said. Her response was to apologize, because she didn't know I had been lip-reading her. She then told me that she had been teasing her coworker, and then proceeded to speak clearly and directly to me, without being condescending. (You Deafies know what I'm talking about. People over-emphasizing their facial expressions to  try to "help" you understand them, and they typically end up contorting their faces into unreadable expressions.) I left a note for her manager, saying what an awesome worker he had.

Then, on the bus ride home from work there was a man sitting across from me listening to his phone. What he didn't know was that his camera light was on, so I signed to him that his light was, indeed, on. He then proceeded to sign, "thank you." I then signed to ask him what he was listening to, and he showed me on his phone. A few stops later, he moved across the aisle to sit next to me and started typing notes to me on his phone, and I did the same. And for the rest of the ride home we talked about music, jobs, deafness (he's going deaf), and other things. It was so cool! He actually made the effort to chat with me about things when I was obviously not going to be able to hear him. That never happens! (And no, he was not interested in dating me. He was WAAAAAY older than me. I just have a funny face that makes people open up more to me.)

And that, my dear readers, is how you make a Deafie's day. Hooray!I dealt with other people that day who were completely ignorant, too, but let's not focus on the negative. I met two really awesome people, and it really made my day.