I wore hearing aids for the first nine years of my life before deciding to ditch the hearing aids and pass as hearing. I had been constantly teased, and was ashamed to admit anything was wrong. If people...well WHEN people noticed I did not hear well, I would just say I have a bit of a hard time hearing. I totally downplayed the severity of my loss and for the most part I got away with it. I would get caught though-taking hearing tests at school, I would get caught cheating by watching when the others pressed the button, or I would flat out fail the test. Whenever the game telephone was played, it was always revealed that I was the one that mangled the message. At sleepovers, when lights went out, I had to struggle trying to understand...after too many times of parents telling us to be quiet, I started pretending to fall asleep right away. I even had a serious accident where I walked off a 6 foot cliff, resulting in a skull fracture, because I misheard don't go that way as go that way. Now days I make it pretty clear I am deaf by having a vest on my dog with hearing dog patches and picking the color blue for my hearing aids. I am planning on re-taking ASL I, as it has been two years-maybe I will be a TA for the class instead, and then finally taking ASL II like I intended to back when I finished I. Once I get back into that I want to seek out my local Deaf community and see how I fit with them.
