Any hard-of-hearing ppl raised in the hearing world?

rjcon88 said:
I grew up in a hearing environment, my parent decided that they wanted me to be "normal" and be in regular classes, they decided that learning ASL would be a complete waste of my time (nice how they decide whats wasteful). In school my teachers did not believe I was hard-of-hearing, they would always tell me I should stop lying about it and just pay attention. For about 6 months in Elementary school the school district provided a wireless FM system for me to use with my hearing aids... they decided I didn't need it so I lost the ability to use that, but it really did help me tremendously when I did have it.

Other students on the other hand, were very vicious... on several occasions other children would say that requiring hearing aids meant I was mentally retarded and other mean jokes like that. Eventually I just stopped socializing with my peers and I decided to drop out of school... worse mistake ever.

Working, however, I found that my co-workers were much more supportive of my disability and helped me whenever they could. The only time I really ever ran into trouble was when I was working the drive-thru at Jack in the Crack, but thankfully I could turn the headset up loud and lip read most of what my customers at the pay window said (I'd run the whole drive-thru myself on a regular basis)

Now I'm working at UPS with two other deaf guys who are helping me learn ASL which is pretty cool.

So all in all, I think what the major problem is that the educational professionals that deal with hearing students lack the training necessary to help hard-of-hearing student achive their full potential... but thats just my opoinion :D
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U should see this other thread "Change the future for a Deaf Child" ...talks about these things u mentioned.

U arent the only one who was pressured to meet the standards of the hearing life. I was too.

Glad u are learning ASL!
 
I grew up hard of hearing. I was not born hard of hearing though, I was born with the problem that made me deaf at around age 1. Its not until several years after through many surgeries, oralism being forced on me, and the use of hearing aids that I became hard of hearing.

I am now deaf again.

Its Only throughout my elementary education and on into high school that I was hard of hearing. Through that time I did not find it difficult to function in the hearing world. I had pretty good hearing aids and could understand people pretty well. I had good English speaking skills as I grew up orally and studied English very extensively in Elementary school. That all helped me a lot. Having good English skills helped me a lot in communicating orally, with voice, and through the use of written English.
 
i know just how you feel i feel the same way to i am hard of hearing and it like when your with a grop of people that are hearing then you feel left out. you are talking to some one who is the only one that is deaf and hard of hearing in her family and it hard. all i can say is tell them how you feel and teach them about being deaf may be that will help
 
I've found that people (hearing) don't really want to know what it's like, just how it will affect them. It comes off a lot like a sob-story honestly.
 
No, most of them really don't want to know... and when you try to tell them the woes and things that are difficult they just act like you're trying to find pitty when in actuality all you want is to either answer their question or explain why something is harder for you, like for example my cellphone isn't compatible with my hearing aids,... it'll interfere with them badly, so all I can really do is text with it and since it's my only source of communications (other than my laptop) I cannot call work. I was explaining that to my supervisor and he gives me this attitude and says he doesn't care about a sob story, I was just like 'DUDE! you wanted to know why I couldn't call!' LOL.
 
WOW. I just read all of these responses here and WE ALL feel the exact same way while growing up, yet we still feel alone unless we speak up here on this forum. Feeling like a group hug now?! heh . as haywain says ALOHA! :grouphug: I Love you all !!:wave:
 
I live in a hearing world with my one-sided deafness. I was one and I got meningitis and it fried my brain. I can hear about 10% in the left. Since i was young when it happened I sort of adapted. I have habits that I cannot deviate from. I sit on the very left of any room (movie theaters included) I read lips most of the time. If you whisper in my left ear I will drop something and turn as I pick it up and ask you to repeat. I am an EMT, I have plugged the left side of my stethoscope with rubber cement. I HATE it when somebody says something and I missed it so I ask them to say "what" "huh" etc. and they finally say never mind. I had a girlfreind figure it out from watching me. One day she asked me to carry a conversation on the phone while she stepped out. I was already on the phone on my good ear. She called me out right there. She was creapily attentative to details.
 
Hello I also was raised in the hearing world ...I'm HOH and I'm postlingual .I read all this and I think mabey I had some twin sibilings I didnt know about.Having this hearing loss has changed my life in many ways and has left many challenges yet to overcome.I also have problems in crowded rooms background noise is distracting and leaves you unabel to focus on who your trying to communicate with .I started to lose my hearing about age 6 I got the loss from my father it's a genetic.I went to public school with consultive services for my entire education.I belive my parents didnt make the right decison not letting me get special education .Because Now I'm 40 and still have severe bilateral hearing loss and no asl skills and I'm actually the living Mr.Magoo in the room...I have extream difficultiy wanting to do the basic things in life ...It's tough losing one of your major life activities and trying to live as best as you can .I'm not trying to make excuses but It gets tireing to have to Identify youself as someone who has this condition.It is the Invisibel disability and basically seems to be Ignored by everyone, everywhere....
 
I wish people, especially educators and people working with children, could just take us seriously and give us the accommodations we need. So many people have stories about how they didn't get what they needed in school. I just don't understand what is so hard about providing children with the adaptive technology and alternative they need to reach their full potential.
 
Nika said:
I wish people, especially educators and people working with children, could just take us seriously and give us the accommodations we need. So many people have stories about how they didn't get what they needed in school. I just don't understand what is so hard about providing children with the adaptive technology and alternative they need to reach their full potential.
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I agree with you completely, I am doing a university course in Mental Health nursing and it took months before I got the accommodations I needed i.e. fm system, amplified stethoscope etc. In the mean time I had to manage as best I could. Since receiving these accommodations I still struggle to hear in class, yet everyone, including lecturers, expects me to function just like everyone else. I have virtually given up handing my fm transmitter to lecturers because although they wear it for a while, at break times they take it off and it gets left either in the teacher's pocket, on a desk next to a noisy computer or even once at the back of the room! Nowadays I sit at the front with the transmitter on my desk hoping it will pick up the lecturers voice. Sometimes I go home feeling really depressed and wondering whether it is worth my continuing with the course.
 
I'm HOH and live in the hearing world. I've worn bilateral hearing aids since kindergarten. Initially, I was classified as a handicapped student, but my parents fought this and had me mainstreamed in school. I was enrolled in speech therapy and lip-reading through elementary school. My parents first began to suspect that I had a hearing problem when I would sit very close to the television and bend my ear forward or I just wouldn't hear them at all.

Since being diagnosed with a severe loss on the left side and moderate loss on the right side, I've worn many different brands and types of hearing aids. During high school I switched over to CIC hearing aids for purely vanity reasons. I was like any other self-conscious kid in high school.

Only recently have I gone back to the BTE models. I never learned sign language, but I'm starting to teach myself and plan on taking courses at a local college to immerse myself in it. I chose the BTE mainly so that people WILL see them. I want people to know I'm HOH, it that makes sense.

Deaf culture and ASL is still very new to me. I only just discovered this forum today, and look forward to interacting with people here and learning. I've never let my hearing prevent me from doing anything. I'm now an ICU nurse in one of the best hospitals in the country, and it's been a rewarding experience.
 
Agreed on ALL

I cannot even begin to express how gratful I am to have FINALLY met other like myself....whoh goes thru the same problem as myself. So many years i felt like a loner with this hoh condition. I have sensorial hearing lost which is gradual. I was born hearing and heard pretty well up until junior high school ( where now i know why i kept asking other to repeat themselves too often) Then at age 25 being an inventory manager at a paging company i think I pretty much lost 70% of my hearing and really didn't know it. I thought i was hearing like everyone else. When i got my hearing aids (at age 31) my audiologist said "how in the world were u able to function" Mind you I had a kid and all. I couldn't tell you then but now i realized I became a great lip reader and could make up pretty much what i missed that was said by body language and facial expressions. Then if what i thought was correct wasn't..I just said to myself " oh well it's not meant for me to hear" and i'd just let it go. I became QUEEN of just laughing along with the convo...and whatever facial expression they gave, I gave without CLUE to what was actually said. If hey laughed hartely then i gave a big laugh..I would just amuse myself at my decieveableness..after a while my friends began to find me out and say "ok ure laughing..what did i just say" I would really crack up then and probably mention the 1st two words and that's it....we'd all laugh then...they have now learned how to talk to me....

It's such a serious struggle. In background noise i tell everyone from the get-go....I may not hear everything..don't worry about me I'm jut happy to be in the midst and I'll catch whatever it is I'm mean to catch. So with that someone would just relay it all to me.

Although i say I'm like whatever to what I don't hear, it's not really how I feel about it all the time...I've just accepted it. There are times I want to engage in conversation and laugh and make people laugh but can't due to the noisey environment....Guess what it hurts sometimes...no most of the time....but again like I've stated...that's just how it is and i"ve accepted it....So i've learned how to avoid those situations or would position myself so that I can catch something while lip reading and reading body language and facial expressions..what's jacked up is that I have a LOT of friends and a very large family...a lot of times how i wish i could just pick up the phone and laugh away.....I love good conversation.

There's so much more but gotta get off of here...i'll be back. In the meantime everyone BE ENCOURAGED!!!!!! We can't stop just b/c our ears have....we have to find a way around it...accept it and make it work the best u can.....
 
Response - to hear again

yes hear again...thanks...onet thing I never was was a quitter....I may have been "delayed" but never a quitter....ha
 
People like u are inspiring....both my hearing aids are visible too...like u I want people to see then ask so I can educate ...a tiny step to rid just one more person from discriminating against us....:)
 
MeNoHear said:
People like u are inspiring....both my hearing aids are visible too...like u I want people to see then ask so I can educate ...a tiny step to rid just one more person from discriminating against us....:)
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it's ironic you should mention that menohear because i tend to wear my ci's over my hair whenever it is tied back in a braid or ponytail. i have no qualms about people seeing my implants. besides, it's a good way to help educate the public about something they may not understand. every person that is reached is one less person that discriminates. :)
 
I'm trying to get dark red casings over my next hearing aid, not only because it looks good, but I'm done with hiding them now. If I have any problems with choosing something more conspicuous I can always wear my hair long again. Save me some money on hair cuts too.
 
I guess I should consider myself lucky as I grew up in both the Deaf and the Hearing world.

As for schooling--I was homeschooled by both parents and grandmother who was a stickler for perfect speech. My parents taught sign to all of us kids whereas grandma taught speech.

The only problems that I had was going to new countries that weren't exposed as much to deaf/hoh people. It was always an eye-opener when we meet the local natives that had hearing problems as well. Especially their own version of sign language. Our family taught them ASL as well as incorporate some of the local signs. To this day we occasionally sign some of signs that we have learned when living abroad.

The only time I felt like a second-class citizen was being back in the United States especially my first year in college. I lived in the dorm that did not have adequate fire alarm for the deaf and I slept through the fire alarm......

Good thread as you see--you're not the only one that has been raised in the hearing world.
 
Completely deaf (but with a cochlear implant since 1998 - turned off when not communicating) and grew up in a hearing world.

I know a couple of deaf people through family friends but that's it.

The hearing world can be cruel at times but I wouldn't give it up for anything. The key to making peace with the hearing world is to set your expectations low with regards to communication. I don't expect to understand everything 100% of the time, don't expect to be part of group conversations, don't expect to use the phone normally (except for webcaptel which is not that useful due to time lag and deaf accent), etc. If you can figure out creative ways to work around that, then you're golden.
 
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