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.

Living a double life on the Deaf and hearing fence

I wake up in the morning to the feeling of my alarm, shaking and vibrating my bed. I hear the low rumbling as I stagger from my bed to my alarm clock as I hit the snooze button. I'll probably hit it twice. I crawl back in bed in the eerie green glow from my alarm clock. Light highlights the cracks of my bedroom door. I know Mum and Dad are awake.

When I finally emerge from my room and bathroom, to our main family room, the room is bright; brighter than my almost pitch black bedroom. The constant noise of Mum and Dad's bathroom fan annoys me as I walk out of my room. It helps with their tinnitus, but it only annoys mine. My tinnitus isn't high; it sounds like someone shoved my head into a machine room where someone tossed a ton of rocks into the machines. When my ears ring I can almost feel them vibrating, like there's more sound coming from my head than there is going into my head. There is very little that can touch how low the humming is. Thankfully, I don't generally mind it. I don't even know how much I hear it, since it seems to be the backdrop of my world.

I'm greeted by my Mum and Dad with a cheerful good morning. I wander into the kitchen to use our keurig, and I listen to the sounds of the machine sputtering and spitting. The world sounds noisy to me, but apparently I'm missing quite a bit. Though, the spluttering sounds from the coffee maker and the whining, almost static of the bathroom fan don't really leave me with a desire to hear more. More noise just sounds annoying.

Throughout the day, I hear things dropped or moved. Dad talks to me. I crank my music up loud so I can enjoy it.  If I can't figure out where a sound is coming from, the cat probably knows, and if she's ok with it then it's probably nothing to worry about. Only occasionally do I have to ask Mum and Dad to repeat themselves, though this is occurring more often, and I struggle to hear anything outside of the room I'm in. But if you just met me and saw me in my home, you'd think I was normal.

But put me in a crowd or a group and everything changes. My eyes flit from face to face. I tilt my head to understand and hear better, and across my face spreads a half understanding smile. I can feel the pressure in my chest rising, as I beat down my frustration at being pushed out of a conversation by other people. Their words jumble off their lips like marbles, as I switch from looking at one face and mouth to the next. I catch a sentence here and there. Words flutter past, some clearer than others. The more people, the more I can't understand. And the further away they are, or the louder the crowd, or the more people in the group, the more they just blend into the backdrop of static and murmuring. I look away and I understand nothing. It's amazing how much my eyes play into how much I understand of what is said. And I feel alone in a crowd, often times of people I love.

But then I go to a Deaf event. I see hands flying. Facial expressions clarify the meanings of what is said. I don't have to struggle to hear what is said; I see it. If I ask for clarification, no one rolls their eyes or tells me to ask later. I have equal access to what is said, same as everyone else. And I watch as the hands of the signer across me flies in front of them, creating concepts and ideas and building pictures within the space in front of them as they tell stories, or relate their histories, or share their dreams for the future. My hands fly too, as I relate my stories, or my history, or my dreams, or whatever we are talking about at that instance. And all around me are people who understand what it's like to be left out, and willingly include me.

And I am caught in a place where I feel like I am neither Deaf, nor hearing, but am both. My day to day life I live in the hearing world with a hearing family. I am expected to act and speak in the norms of the society around me. But then, in those few precious hours when I am with the Deaf, I am free to act as Deaf. I am free to be Deaf and not play the role of being hearing. And I know then that I am Deaf. But when I leave, I am only hard of hearing, or hearing impaired, or at most, half Deaf; I'm expected to function as hearing as I possibly can. And I'm stuck in two worlds, two cultures, and it is a life that is very different from anything I ever dreamed I would have. And some days it is hard, and other days it is easier. But I never stop feeling this strain of being expected to be two things at once. 

Deaf children: Hearing world vs Deaf world

When my parents found out I was Deaf, there was a level of devastation and a level of denial that happened. In fact, I think there is still some denial, since I speak so well. My grandparents struggled with it, too, and still do. For a hearing family. a Deaf child is a tragedy. A broken child. One you struggle to connect with; a problem child.

Most hearing parents are devastated when they find out their child is Deaf. They go through the stages of grief. They try pretending nothing is wrong, and only a small number actually take steps to reach their child on the child's level, with sign language. Many, however, try to make their child "normal," by working on their speech and lip reading. And they continue grieving. A Deaf child is a tragedy in the hearing world.

But in the Deaf world, a Deaf child is a treasure. Deaf parents love both hearing and Deaf children, but their Deaf child has a special connection with them, because that child is part of the history and culture of the Deaf. It is that child's birthright. They can connect with their parents, their parents understand their struggles. They share a common bond. And when Deaf parents have a Deaf child, they celebrate. Here is a child that they can give all that they never had growing up but truly needed to help them grow and mature. Here is a child that can take a place in the heritage of the Deaf who have gone before them, and move forward with the Deaf into the future. To the Deaf, a hearing child is a dream come true.

Yes, Deaf will always love their hearing children. But there are things that hearing children go through that Deaf can't protect them from. Words are said that the Deaf parents can't hear but the children do. Things happen that the Deaf don't know about, but their hearing child does know about. And because we live in a society saturated in sound, it is harder to protect what our hearing children hear, than what our Deaf children see. Because we cannot hear what they hear, we cannot stop them from hearing what should not hear. But Deaf children our different; all that they have access to, we can access as well, and we can guard them against things that would hurt them. For us, Deaf children are treasured children, and very rare for us to have. Approximately 90% of Deaf children are born into hearing families. That means only 10% get to grow up in a Deaf home, with Deaf parents and Deaf siblings. And thus, not only are they treasured, but they are rare. 

First Joining Deaf Culture, and Family Conflict

When I first found Deaf culture, it was a friend who introduced me to it. It was a Deaf event at a highschool, where I saw Deaf accepted as they are. I was literally in tears, watching as people told stories in ASL, sharing many experiences that were much like my own.  Because of the beauty of what I saw and for the first time, feeling like I wasn't the only one like me, I started learning ASL in the fall of 2014.

When I joined the class, we were assigned some books to read about Deaf culture, and as I read, I felt this amazing connection to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in the stories. I was amazed. I thought I was the only one, but I'm not. And I started chasing after Deaf culture. It became an idol (something I still struggle with), and I began figuring out my Deaf identity.

All of this took place very rapidly, especially in the eyes of my parents. They watched as I changed from struggling to hear and trying to pretend I was like everyone else, to accepting the norms of Deaf culture and telling them what it was really like for me. They watched as I chased after Deaf culture and they became afraid.

I was entering a world neither of them knew. I was entering a culture with norms that hearing culture doesn't accept. I was fighting to find an identity that was reshaping who they knew me to be. I was standing up for rights, demanding equal access for the first time, and they had no idea what to do. For the first time, I let no one call me broken. For the first time, I let everyone see the Deaf side of me, instead of pretending to be hearing. And much of this change took place in a matter of a few months.

And we fought. How we fought. They thought, in some ways, Deaf meant inferior. That a Deaf person couldn't have a high ranking job. They thought that I would have nothing in common with Deaf because I had learned so much from hearing culture. And they were scared of how rapidly I was changing.

To be fair, I don't change quickly as a general rule. I think and ponder for months, slowly deciding and weighing options. I often remember things from months ago and bring them up in conversation. I don't often change quickly. But when I saw Deaf culture, I did change very quickly. And this rapid change would scare any parent, but even more so with me entering a culture they virtually nothing about.

And I was scared, too. I was afraid, entering a world about which, I knew nothing, either. But I knew that I wanted a place where I wasn't excluded from conversation, where I didn't feel ashamed of  having to say "what?" over and over again. I wanted a world where I was normal and accepted, not that token friend people wanted to have to show that they weren't biased, or to feel like a novelty in a group of people. I was tired of sitting on the outskirts of conversation, being left out, and having to stare at my plate at big family dinners because I was missing much of what was going on. So my longing to not be left out overcame my fear of the unknown. My parents did not have that same desire to overcome their fears.

So how do I balance their need for assurance that I am still me, still their daughter, and that they will always have me, while still reaching out for my place in Deaf culture, where I'm not an outcast, or a novelty people bring up in conversation?  It is not easy. With at least three grandparents in the medical field, and other family members who were connected with the medical community in the past, we all grew up, me included, with the medical perspective that Deaf means broken, or inferior. We were all generally unconnected from the Deaf community until I entered ASL classes. This was, and still very much is, entirely new, uncharted territory for us, that no one else in my family has ever fully explored like I am doing now. It's new, it's scary, and it takes courage.  And some of my family will never even try to understand. But for me, I truly want my parents to understand, because they are the two people on earth who are closest to me. And to fix all the conflict, there is no simple, easy answer. It's a tough situation, where no one but GOD has all the answers. I certainly don't. 

Deaf Community Vs. Hearing Community: Maybe they don't have to be at war

I've said before that between the Deaf community and the hearing community, I'm in two cultures. It's a very difficult position to be in at times.

You might ask, why? Why is it difficult? You have both communities. You are generally accepted in both. Why is it hard?

It's hard because, while I am generally accepted in both, the two cultures aren't always accepting of each other as a place where they think that I should spend most of my time. And the norms in one culture are not always acceptable in another. And the strange thing is, both cultures are pulling at me to be fully immersed in them, with only a little time spent in the other.

For example, most Deaf don't live with their parents like I do. They leave to establish their independence and to help affirm their Deaf identity. In a few cases, they are almost totally separated from their families, because the lines of communication have dropped. And they don't understand why I still go to a hearing church, even though I'm establishing my Deaf identity in the Deaf community.

And part of my hearing family is afraid of 'resigning' me to the Deaf community, afraid that the Deaf community will hold me back. They're afraid of the unknown. They are afraid of the cultural differences. And they want to tie me to the hearing world, afraid that they will lose me.

This leaves me in an awkward place to stand. Both communities wish me to be tied to them, almost exclusively, ignoring the opposite communities. This leads to needing much wisdom for balancing these two very different cultures. 

I love my Deaf community. I truly do. They are amazing people. They are so welcoming, so friendly, and so ready to open up the doors of communication that are often so hard for me to open on my own. I love seeing sermons in ASL from my fantastic Deaf pastor, and seeing how they apply Scripture to their lives, and growing in my different relationships with the Deaf there. And my Deaf church is becoming a second family to me. But I also love my hearing community that doesn't quite understand me, but many of whom try their best to understand me. I love the fellowship with other believers at my church (when I can hear them), and sitting under the teaching of the godly pastor of my hearing church on Sundays. And I treasure sitting under the mentorship of the godly women in my hearing church. 

And I sit here with these two cultures, one in each hand, and I see that I have been given these communities from the hand of GOD. And though they war against each other, they are not mine from man, but mine from GOD. I have been put in this position for a purpose that I can't comprehend, but that GOD will use for HIS glory. And I am not willing that I should lose either. My personal life cannot be relegated solely to one or the other. I cannot say that I will only go to a Deaf church and Deaf social events, because I love the people in my hearing church who have become so precious to me. But neither can I ignore the fact that my Deaf community has so much to offer, and that it has become a community that is also very precious to me. It is a place where all my oddities that come from being Deaf, all my differences, are accepted and even reflected back to me by the other Deaf. It is a place with open access to me, where I'm not excluded, but am accepted with open arms (sometimes, quite literally).  It is where I share so many experiences with other Deaf, and am encouraged by them.

But how do I tell both sides that I can't let go of either of them? Some understand, but others cannot comprehend this delicate balancing act. And switching between the cultural norms is really, truly hard. Some things that are not appropriate in hearing culture are fully accepted in Deaf culture, but in Deaf culture there are things that are that are not appropriate that are commonplace in hearing culture. And as I enjoy the precious treasures of both cultures, I also feel the strain of having to change my behavior to fit the norms of both cultures. Sometimes I don't succeed at fitting into the culture that I'm in and it can turn out quite badly.

In the end, it is truly a struggle, but the cost is worth having so many precious people in my life. And sometimes it hurts when these people don't understand each other, and there is conflict with how they want me to view the other culture. But I gladly pay the price, because this is where I have been placed, and this is where I need to be. But I will always need prayer to walk this line, because it is far from easy. 

Two worlds, two perspectives

           It's confusing, being me. I'm stuck between two worlds, well, four really, but for here we'll deal with two of them. One is a world which hears and loves sound, and heaven help anyone who gets between a hearing person and their music. The other is the Deaf world, which has varying levels of access to sound, and enjoys the quiet of their Deaf or limited sound world. I am stuck between the two.

I was born half deaf (small "d" for physical deafness), only one ear hearing. My family is hearing and cannot imagine a life of silence. I grew up speaking and, for the most part, appearing to hear as well as everyone else. But understanding what is said has always been hard. However, there has always been the unspoken expectation that I behave like I hear, and keep my deafness secret.

Then I met Ms. J. (name concealed for privacy), an ASL interpreter. She encouraged me to learn ASL, and to interact with the Deaf community. So I took up ASL at my local community college and the Deaf world was burst upon me. I was accepted, my deafness wasn't a dirty little secret that I had to hide, it wasn't something that made me inferior. I wasn't broken, just different. My deafness was shown to be an undeniable part of me that I could treasure, instead of hiding.

And therein lies the tension. I'm not broken, but everyone thinks I am. I'm not to be pitied, but everyone does. I could just as easily pity you for living in a world more saturated with sound than a wet sponge, as you can pity me for not hearing what you hear.

The truth is, the more I accept my deafness, the more I like it. I like my cozy quiet. I like not being bombarded with sound. It's me, unaltered, unashamed.

But the fact remains, most people I know hear and don't sign. I love them and I want to connect with them, so I wear hearing aids to connect with them more easily. But I don't need hearing aids. The hearing aids don't make me more equal. They simply bridge the gap between me and you.

Yesterday, I went to the audiologist, and they told me I need to wear my hearing aids more to get used to all the background noise. But I don't want the background noise. I don't need to hear all that. She thinks I'm broken, and she needs to fix me so I can be that elusive thing they call "normal." But I'm not broken; I'm different. I'm not looking for a fix; I'm looking for a bridge between me and others, like a man from Japan coming to America with a Japanese-English dictionary in hand. He is not broken, nor is he deficient. He is simply different. My hearing aids are my dictionary for your speech, and sometimes, even then, they don't have the words you say because they do not change me to be like you; they simply bridge the gap.

But because my loved ones struggle to bridge that gap themselves, often not knowing how to do it, I wear my hearing aids to become that bridge. But it costs me.

How does it cost me? Well, monetarily, hearing aids can cost as much as a used car. They are very expensive. But more than that, I have to forego my own desire not to speak and my own wish to live in quiet, to speak with my loved ones. It takes effort, especially in crowds, to understand what is said. It is, quite literally, exhausting. And in the process, I feel like I have to deny myself, my deafness, which is an intrinsic and precious part of me, to communicate in the culture and norms of my hearing family and friends.

And this causes a great tension within me, as I walk the line between two radically different, and often directly opposing cultures. To be honest, there are days where I loathe the sounds that are all around me, longing for total silence, and yet, there are other days where I long to wrap myself in the cloak of normalcy, to be like my loved ones. Yet neither is something I can fully be, and I walk each day with that inner tension, pulling me towards two different worlds.