How did you handle your deafness/hoh while growing up?

DeafBadger

DeafBadger

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Just thinking back on my experience growing up hoh/deaf.

Let's see...

My background...

I was born with severe to profound hearing loss in both ears. This was not discovered until I was about 2 or 3 years old, whereupon I was fitted with hearing aids.

I went to an HI program in grade school and was fully mainstreamed in Junior High and High School. I was solitary from Junior High on.

I used an auditory trainer in classes from grade school through high school. I was not taught sign language.

I tried to go to college after high school. I could not hear well enough in class. Everything got away from me and I kept flunking.

I tried to go to college four times over a 16 year period. Only the fourth time stuck (in 2011) because I finally have a classroom captioning set-up.

I passed my first college semester in Spring 2011 and am working on my Fall 2011 semester as I type this.

What it was like for me...

When i was growing up, I tried to keep a very positive attitude about things. As I mentioned in a previous thread, I was not told that I was deaf and I basically thought of myself as a "struggling hearing person".

But it was f**king difficult.

Apparently, I had something of a mild depressive episode in sixth grade. My parents took me to see a shrink. Saw that person once who talked to me and said I was fine. I think I was just sad from all the isolation.

I tried connecting with hearing people frequently and wasn't all that successful. A lot of fellow students just didn't have time for me. I thought the problem was me.

By high school I was spending most of my free time in the school or public library. I just read, read, read anything I could get my paws on.

It was pretty much the only accessible world to me.

Like I said, I tried to keep a positive attitude about it. I would tell people that I didn't feel cheated by having a hearing loss. And they'd say how proud they were of me.

But going in college, I ran into serious trouble. I couldn't hear well enough in class.

No one told me what to expect going into college. The auditory trainer didn't help to keep pace with the class. I didn't know sign language. I didn't know it was an option. I didn't know that deaf students got interpreters for class.

If I had known, I probably would have said, "I don't need sign language; I'm not deaf." Because that's what I was told.

I really got depressed that semester. I felt out of place. My few hearing friends from high school weren't in the same college with me and had moved on. I knew no one, was completely isolated. Things weren't working out and I had no answers. I flunked out. I felt like a stupid person. Like a failure.

In the intervening years, I tried college several more times with similar results. I took various jobs to pay the bills and dealt with crap from employers. One of whom required me to do tech support over the phone. :roll: So I left that job.

I credit the fact that I got going in college this time around to a very nice and persistent lady in the school's Student Accessibility office. She got hold of my contact info and was persistent about letting me know what my options were in the classroom.

She's the one who told me that I could use a captioning option in class. I had never heard of it before. I had never used one before. This has made all the difference for me this time.

How do I feel about my hoh/deaf experiences now? Well, I look back with equal measures of "pissed off" and "oh well, those experiences made me who I am."

I had been getting more pissed off and depressed in recent years. Sometimes, internally, I would rant and rage, thinking back on how things could have been different. Focusing on some "pivotal" point where things should have been done differently.

Like:
  • When I was tested for IQ and found to have high IQ, why didn't teachers or parents give me more exposure to science? I love science!
  • Why didn't the HI teachers make sure I was keeping up in classes in K-12? Why didn't the low grades send up red flags?
  • Why wasn't I told about things like Science Olympiad? I didn't know about that stuff, I would have loved it.
  • Why didn't they teach me sign language in anticipation of going to a deaf college?
  • Why didn't they tell me about deaf colleges?
  • Why didn't they have a follow up program for students after grade 12? I really would have benefited from someone checking in a year or two after high school.
  • Why didn't anyone make sure I had hoh/deaf friends after grade school? People I could relate to instead of feeling so f**king alone?

I gotta stop there. It's making me pretty ticked off just to list this.

I'm glad that I'm finally moving things along in college, but I'm so royally f'ing pissed off that I spun my wheels for 16 years because I couldn't hear. Why the f**k didn't anyone say something, anything???

And I don't want to be pissed off, it's not healthy.

But joining this forum, reading other people's stories is making me feel a lot better.

:ty: Thank you everyone for being here.
 
I was quite old (like...13) when I finally realise not everyone deaf like me. I think I know this before, but never fully understand until about 13. I have no hearing whatsoever, so I never miss it / wish for more / struggle understand. Always sign, family support, excellent family. I never feel "broken" or "less than" hearie siblings. My family treat me same like siblings. I grow up feel like Sunny, not like Deaf Person. My family make so I know I person first, deaf second. My deafness secondary who I am. I never feel like my deafness was something I had handle...it just part of me...same like blue eyes, love raspberries, silly humour, one crooked tooth...all just part of me.
 
I have a good family, too. I've never felt less than a person in my family.

I just wish someone, somewhere would have thought things through better.

Maybe things just seem more obvious to me...thinking things through to their natural conclusion.

If a deaf boy is born to the family, it follows he needs a few extra things.

If a deaf girl shows an aptitude in science and is tested by the school system to have above average IQ, it follows that one should provide her with extra intellectual stimulation and opportunities.

It especially follows that their progress is monitored.

I swear that sometimes in the HI program, I felt like a guinea pig. Like I was being experimented on with their pet theories. I felt like that in grade school.

But I didn't know I could say anything about it. I didn't know there were other options.

I have to be patient with my history, present and future. It's the only one I've got and nothing will change it.

Last year (2010) I was so depressed. I had serious discriminatory crap from coworkers. I couldn't sleep at night because my upstairs neighbors were partying at night. (I can still hear that.) So i was getting by on something like 2 hours sleep a night, dealing with crap from work.

I would go upstairs to ask the people up there to please be quiet at night. (dumb i know, but I was groggy and not thinking straight). The punk would charge out of his apartment door and get right in my face. He would stop just short of fighting me. It didn't come to blows, I'd just stand there and look him right in the eye. But I reported him to the apartment manager and they didn't do anything. I moved out before school started in 2011.

Like I said, I'm glad college is finally working out, but I am still pissed about having "wasted" 16 years. I just don't get it. Why did it happen? Why couldn't teachers and parents figured things out?

Don't get me wrong I love my parents a ton, and I think they were doing what they thought was best. They were advised by the HI teachers and they, for the most part, followed the HI teachers advice.

If I could do it over, I would have learned sign language growing up and gone to a deaf university. Probably gone into biology or astronomy or something like that. After I get my two year IT degree and get into that work, I plan to continue taking 2 classes a semester... except I'd probably would focus on biology or something. Just for my personal edification.

Anyway... that's life.
 
Don't mind me, I'm just ranting. I'll be my normal self in a bit. :P
 
DeafBadger said:
Don't mind me, I'm just ranting. I'll be my normal self in a bit. :P
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it. It's something a lot of us feel. You are lucky that you are getting on the right track long before you come to the end of your life.

You will have plenty of time to enjoy happiness.
 
Bottesini said:
Don't worry about it. It's something a lot of us feel. You are lucky that you are getting on the right track long before you come to the end of your life.

You will have plenty of time to enjoy happiness.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :)
 
You're not the only one. One of the BIGGEST beefs I have with oralism is the fact that it's very heavily " you only need THIS approach" to magiclly fit in with hearing society. It seems like the end goal of oralism is assimulation into hearing society. I also really dislike that almost all oral programs end after elementary school. I know that that style of oralism was inspired by Clarke. But I do think that a lot of the middle school/high school problems are brushed under the rug by the " Oh ALL they need is oralism" advocates.
I would be a little less anti oralist, if perhaps in addition to oralism kids were ALSO taught ASL. Kids can develop oral skills yes....but they still tend to have hoh delays, and not be able to develop post fourth grade skills. That's not to say I think that's the perfect solution. Idealisticly, I would encourage families of dhh kids to pursue an education where ASL was emphasized, but oral training was ALSO offered.
 
I was diagnosed as severely-profoundly deaf at 9 months old and given hearing aids at 1 year old. From 3yrs I attended a school for deaf children, but as I was growing, prob from 5 onwards I was told by my parents that I was deaf( I knew it anyway with having hearing siblings). I was placed in an oral class, but sign was still used by teachers especially at headphone time(reading books with just headphones) Being deaf was normal to me since I knew nothing different! But as I got into my teen years I started to realise and got down about being deaf but there's nothing I could do about it, but i guess every deaf or hoh person goes through that stage at some point or the other.
 
DeafBadger said:
Just thinking back on my experience growing up hoh/deaf.

Let's see...

My background...

I was born with severe to profound hearing loss in both ears. This was not discovered until I was about 2 or 3 years old, whereupon I was fitted with hearing aids.

I went to an HI program in grade school and was fully mainstreamed in Junior High and High School. I was solitary from Junior High on.

I used an auditory trainer in classes from grade school through high school. I was not taught sign language.

I tried to go to college after high school. I could not hear well enough in class. Everything got away from me and I kept flunking.

I tried to go to college four times over a 16 year period. Only the fourth time stuck (in 2011) because I finally have a classroom captioning set-up.

I passed my first college semester in Spring 2011 and am working on my Fall 2011 semester as I type this.

What it was like for me...

When i was growing up, I tried to keep a very positive attitude about things. As I mentioned in a previous thread, I was not told that I was deaf and I basically thought of myself as a "struggling hearing person".

But it was f**king difficult.

Apparently, I had something of a mild depressive episode in sixth grade. My parents took me to see a shrink. Saw that person once who talked to me and said I was fine. I think I was just sad from all the isolation.

I tried connecting with hearing people frequently and wasn't all that successful. A lot of fellow students just didn't have time for me. I thought the problem was me.

By high school I was spending most of my free time in the school or public library. I just read, read, read anything I could get my paws on.

It was pretty much the only accessible world to me.

Like I said, I tried to keep a positive attitude about it. I would tell people that I didn't feel cheated by having a hearing loss. And they'd say how proud they were of me.

But going in college, I ran into serious trouble. I couldn't hear well enough in class.

No one told me what to expect going into college. The auditory trainer didn't help to keep pace with the class. I didn't know sign language. I didn't know it was an option. I didn't know that deaf students got interpreters for class.

If I had known, I probably would have said, "I don't need sign language; I'm not deaf." Because that's what I was told.

I really got depressed that semester. I felt out of place. My few hearing friends from high school weren't in the same college with me and had moved on. I knew no one, was completely isolated. Things weren't working out and I had no answers. I flunked out. I felt like a stupid person. Like a failure.

In the intervening years, I tried college several more times with similar results. I took various jobs to pay the bills and dealt with crap from employers. One of whom required me to do tech support over the phone. :roll: So I left that job.

I credit the fact that I got going in college this time around to a very nice and persistent lady in the school's Student Accessibility office. She got hold of my contact info and was persistent about letting me know what my options were in the classroom.

She's the one who told me that I could use a captioning option in class. I had never heard of it before. I had never used one before. This has made all the difference for me this time.

How do I feel about my hoh/deaf experiences now? Well, I look back with equal measures of "pissed off" and "oh well, those experiences made me who I am."

I had been getting more pissed off and depressed in recent years. Sometimes, internally, I would rant and rage, thinking back on how things could have been different. Focusing on some "pivotal" point where things should have been done differently.

Like:
  • When I was tested for IQ and found to have high IQ, why didn't teachers or parents give me more exposure to science? I love science!
  • Why didn't the HI teachers make sure I was keeping up in classes in K-12? Why didn't the low grades send up red flags?
  • Why wasn't I told about things like Science Olympiad? I didn't know about that stuff, I would have loved it.
  • Why didn't they teach me sign language in anticipation of going to a deaf college?
  • Why didn't they tell me about deaf colleges?
  • Why didn't they have a follow up program for students after grade 12? I really would have benefited from someone checking in a year or two after high school.
  • Why didn't anyone make sure I had hoh/deaf friends after grade school? People I could relate to instead of feeling so f**king alone?

I gotta stop there. It's making me pretty ticked off just to list this.

I'm glad that I'm finally moving things along in college, but I'm so royally f'ing pissed off that I spun my wheels for 16 years because I couldn't hear. Why the f**k didn't anyone say something, anything???

And I don't want to be pissed off, it's not healthy.

But joining this forum, reading other people's stories is making me feel a lot better.

:ty: Thank you everyone for being here.
Click to expand...

My favourite place in the world growing up were libraries too. Books were my salvation and my escape from isolation and loneliness and bullying. I fell asleep with the book on my face every night. It was a nightly routine for my mother to come into my room to take the book away and turn off the light.

Went through similar experiences - and I especially understand the pissed off part - and wishing that my life was different, that my childhood and education was different. That my parents did things differently. That school was easier and not such a lonely place to be, the list goes on. I always wished for what I didn't have. It was always "woulda, coulda, shoulda"

At some point, you have to let it go otherwise it dominates your mindscape and your emotions and your psyche - it affects how you relate to other people. All the anger and wishing in the world will not turn back time. One can't be happy if they're filled with anger and resentment. And one can't get out of depression if they're dwelling on the past they should have had. I had some dark periods in my life where I felt alone, utterly alone and in great despair.

It was when I made a conscious decision to let the past go, to let the "I should have had this life instead, things should have been handled differently, I should have had ASL and deaf friends growing up, etc etc etc" - once I let it go and shifted from the past to the present and the future, then I became happier and far more hopeful and optimistic.

I truly understand your sentiments, believe me.

Don't think about how you wasted 16 years or wish that you had this or that. It's destructive and it's exactly that kind of thinking that will lead you into depression over and over again.

You're here on AD, making friends and finding that others have been in your shoes and understand you. That alone is very gratifying and really helpful psychologically. Learning sign language and making some deaf friends will go a long way in making you feel at ease in your skin and comfortable with who you are. The happier you are in the present, the more you'll be able to move on from the past.
 
I hate it when hearing people remark on how good my speech is. By whose standards, pray tell??? :squint:
 
Good morning AD. Things always look a bit different after letting the Earth rotate a bit. ;)

I'm not usually like this, spilling my guts everywhere like this. A bit of alcohol loosened the fingers and made them fly across the keyboard.

Thanks for reading and for your support. :ty:
 
Good morning DeafBadger :wave: (though it's afternoon here in the UK as I type this)

I haven't got time to reply in detail, but after reading your story I wanted to say that I understand so much of what you went through having had many similar experiences myself (including depression). And one of the most helpful things that has happened to me has been finding AD and meeting other people with similar stories to tell. There's a strength I can draw upon now that I didn't have before.

Thank you AD:ty:
 
sunny_signs said:
I was quite old (like...13) when I finally realise not everyone deaf like me. I think I know this before, but never fully understand until about 13. I have no hearing whatsoever, so I never miss it / wish for more / struggle understand. Always sign, family support, excellent family. I never feel "broken" or "less than" hearie siblings. My family treat me same like siblings. I grow up feel like Sunny, not like Deaf Person. My family make so I know I person first, deaf second. My deafness secondary who I am. I never feel like my deafness was something I had handle...it just part of me...same like blue eyes, love raspberries, silly humour, one crooked tooth...all just part of me.
Click to expand...

Sunny, in many ways I envy people like you and postsfromhell and the others whose parents opted for full sign, and voice off rather then a "hearing impaired" approach. It took me YEARS to come to terms with the fact that I am HOH....Especially since I grew up in a VERY snotty town. I was talking to a friend of mine, and she (relativly normal) was all " Yeah it's so fucked up we had to discover who we actually were was OK, instead of growing up in a cookie cutter suburb, where any "difference" was totally demonized. It's like yeah...I am glad I can talk and I love my hearing aids.....but that doesn't mean I think there isn't something seriously screwed up with the whole attitude about oralism......basicly making a dhh kid "normal" But on the other hand, at least I have come to fully embrace myself as a Deaf person.
 
deafdyke said:
Sunny, in many ways I envy people like you and postsfromhell and the others whose parents opted for full sign, and voice off rather then a "hearing impaired" approach. It took me YEARS to come to terms with the fact that I am HOH....Especially since I grew up in a VERY snotty town. I was talking to a friend of mine, and she (relativly normal) was all " Yeah it's so fucked up we had to discover who we actually were was OK, instead of growing up in a cookie cutter suburb, where any "difference" was totally demonized. It's like yeah...I am glad I can talk and I love my hearing aids.....but that doesn't mean I think there isn't something seriously screwed up with the whole attitude about oralism......basicly making a dhh kid "normal" But on the other hand, at least I have come to fully embrace myself as a Deaf person.
Click to expand...

I envy people who had parents that where not abuser or had the backbone to stand up to the abuser!
 
DeafCaroline said:
My favourite place in the world growing up were libraries too. Books were my salvation and my escape from isolation and loneliness and bullying. I fell asleep with the book on my face every night. It was a nightly routine for my mother to come into my room to take the book away and turn off the light.

Went through similar experiences - and I especially understand the pissed off part - and wishing that my life was different, that my childhood and education was different. That my parents did things differently. That school was easier and not such a lonely place to be, the list goes on. I always wished for what I didn't have. It was always "woulda, coulda, shoulda"

At some point, you have to let it go otherwise it dominates your mindscape and your emotions and your psyche - it affects how you relate to other people. All the anger and wishing in the world will not turn back time. One can't be happy if they're filled with anger and resentment. And one can't get out of depression if they're dwelling on the past they should have had. I had some dark periods in my life where I felt alone, utterly alone and in great despair.

It was when I made a conscious decision to let the past go, to let the "I should have had this life instead, things should have been handled differently, I should have had ASL and deaf friends growing up, etc etc etc" - once I let it go and shifted from the past to the present and the future, then I became happier and far more hopeful and optimistic.

I truly understand your sentiments, believe me.

Don't think about how you wasted 16 years or wish that you had this or that. It's destructive and it's exactly that kind of thinking that will lead you into depression over and over again.

You're here on AD, making friends and finding that others have been in your shoes and understand you. That alone is very gratifying and really helpful psychologically. Learning sign language and making some deaf friends will go a long way in making you feel at ease in your skin and comfortable with who you are. The happier you are in the present, the more you'll be able to move on from the past.
Click to expand...

On the other hand Deaf Caroline, ranting like this can be cathathic. I think that mainstream school can and does cause PSTD. It can ALSO alert the lurkers of mainstreamed oral dhh kids that maybe just MAYBE it might be a good idea to add ASL and Deaf culture.
 
DD what you mean 'Maybe'?! , no ...no no NO, they SHOULD add it, not a maybe, its an imperative!
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I envy people who had parents that where not abuser or had the backbone to stand up to the abuser!
Click to expand...
That brings up another good point. The social issues that mainstreamed and oral dhh kids deal with are bordering on ABUSE and neglect. If the social issues that mainstreamed and oral kids deal with, were seen in the family, the kid would be removed from the family immeditaly! But yet the experts yammer on and on and on about how wonderful and glorious mainstreaming/inclusion is. I remember when i vended at the Clarke School mainstreaming conference it took ALL I had to keep from speaking out. Heck, not only are we bullied and ostracized a lot, we don't even get proper social emotional development. Some of us do survive that. Which is good. Heck I did....but the only reason I did was b/c I went to an AMAZING all girls camp as a teen. But then again we get SO many dhh kids turn into dhh adults who are emotionally and socially stunted. I can tell you horror stories.....Like the girl who was solotaired and she was so lonely and had such crappy self esteem that she "fell in love" with a guy who was mentally abusive and controlling, and did coke, and brake fluid. He told her that if he killed her they would never find the body?!?! But she had never really gotten attention or love and was so desperate for love, she stayed with him b/c he was so sweet?!?!?!
Then I know another girl who is in with "friends" and a "boyfriend" who basicly uses her. Again she was solotaired and had a crappy social life in school....I rmemeber one time she signed onto Facebook and her check in showed that she was at Mcdonald's with her boyfriend and some friends. I asked her why she wasn't talking to her boyfriend and she said that he didn't like talking to her?!?!?! :shock: I keep encouraging her to dump him, and to find another guy who she could start out as friends with, instead of "oh we're boyfriend/girlfriend...Time to have sex instead of developing a honest to god realtionship" sort of dealie. She says she starts out with realtionships. Quite frankly I don't even think she even KNOWS how to make friends, and is just going to end up scewed up emotionally looking for "love" in all the wrong places.
 
deafdyke said:
On the other hand Deaf Caroline, ranting like this can be cathathic. I think that mainstream school can and does cause PSTD. It can ALSO alert the lurkers of mainstreamed oral dhh kids that maybe just MAYBE it might be a good idea to add ASL and Deaf culture.
Click to expand...

Ranting can be VERY cathartic, especially when ranting to an audience that understands you and where you're coming from. When i first started posting here in April, I practically projectile-vomited rants, wrote long long posts about growing up oral deaf. And truth be told, the first month of hanging out here, I cried practically every day...40 years of pent up feelings came pouring out, and it was such a relief for up until this year, I was just about the only deaf person I knew personally.

Deafbadger - hope I didn't give the impression you can't let it all out. You definitely should. AD has done so much in terms of helping me achieve self-acceptance as a deaf person and as a result, I'm much happier for it. I give AD and its members a LOT of credit for that. I hope it does the same for you :)
 
DeafBadger,
I had a very similar experience as you. I was diagnosed as deaf at age 4, but they said I had some hearing in my right ear. I was never fitted with hearing aids and instead I was put in speech therapy classes. I struggled quite a bit in Kindergarten and first grade. In second grade I was given an FM system to use and OMG - I started making all A's and B's in my schoolwork. Sadly, some other kids were jealous that I was getting all of this extra attention so the FM system was taken away when I started third grade. My grades were so horrible that year - I borderline I had to attend summer school. Mostly because I didn't understand what was being said in the classroom and no one seemed to see this. Because I was often a loner I would pour myself out through art, books, and writing. From grade 3 on, I was known as the deaf girl that could draw really well. There was no art program at my school to speak of so this wasn't really all that well nurtured or encouraged. Art at my school was basically the history of various art forms and classical art from the Greeks and Romans as well as the famous four artists. (Da Vinci, Michealangelo, Raphael, Picasso)

I was continuously picked on and bullied. I was always the different one. I even remember I was 13 years old and my dad even told me that I was different and not in a good way. I knew I was deaf but I was always taught to hide it as best I could. My mom told me to always fake it. So I would just smile and nod my head because this got immediate positive results from people, although I never had a clue as to what was actually going on.

I wanted to play basketball, but my parents forbade me to because I couldn't hear. Finally after years of begging, I was allowed to practice with the 8th grade team and suit out for games but I never got any game time unless we were ridiculously ahead or ridiculously behind. I think I did OK, at least until we got a new coach in grade 10. I didn't like him so I left basketball to run cross country and track full time. Boy am I glad I did that. I got to the point that I couldn't do anything else so I would just go out running all the time.

I had no support services, nothing. My dad thought I had low IQ so whenever I would pick my electives, he would run to the school before I could ever have a chance to see my schedule and he would take me out of all of the regular classes and convince the school to place me in remedial classes. This is kind of funny because later I was tested at VRS and they said my reading, writing, and mathematical concepts were at college level or above. They said my writing was on par of someone who was writing a paper for grad school. So that told me that I wasn't stupid, I just wasn't given the chance.

For years I went around feeling just stupid really. The mainstream schools made me feel this way. My parents were fed a bunch of audist crap and they never allowed me to have a say in anything. I felt like what I was feeling didn't matter.

Well recently I've been going through this transformation so to speak and now I've got people telling me left and right that I need to be writing this stuff down. I keep telling myself; "I don't know. I mean, yeah now it sounds good but what will it sound like four or five years down the road from now?"

Sadly, our stories are all too common within the deaf community. Deaf and hard of hearing children seen as 'broken hearing children'. It's like we need to be fixed before we can be accepted (assimilated) into hearing society. I just wish for all of you that have similar stories that you would have someone that loves you just the way you are.

As for me - when I look for a companion, I wish I could be with someone who has gone through what I've gone through. I don't want to be made inferior and I don't want my companion to feel inferior the way we've felt inferior. I want to feel equal and loved just the way I am.

Deaf or hard of hearing - I think you're amazing just the way you are! :hug:
 
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