Late Deafened....When did you Come out of the Closet

AJWSmith said:
Me too! I was born with severe-profound hearing loss, but grew up oral and mainstreamed, pretending to be hearing and hiding my HAs under long hair (until I went bald!). All my friends and family are hearing, including my wife and children. But in the last six months or so, my hearing has got worse and now I cannot follow what my hearing friends are saying unless it's a one-to-one conversation. I feel very isolated. Also I don't know any deaf people so have never signed or been part of that community. A couple of weeks ago I came across AllDeaf.com and it looks like I should be able to find people in a similiar position to me. The problem is that it's big and has SOOOO many threads, that I don't know how to find the ones that are relevant to my situation. This is the nearest one I found so far so I'm finally chipping in even if it's a bit late...
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:wave: Welcome to AllDeaf AJWSmith! Just take your time and read through whichever threads meet your eye first. If you have something to contribute from your own experience, just like you have in this thread, then by all means post your thoughts. You will find your way around in no time. After a while we will all get to know each other and you will begin to feel more at home here.

Enjoy yourself.
 
AJWSmith said:
Me too! I was born with severe-profound hearing loss, but grew up oral and mainstreamed, pretending to be hearing and hiding my HAs under long hair (until I went bald!). All my friends and family are hearing, including my wife and children. But in the last six months or so, my hearing has got worse and now I cannot follow what my hearing friends are saying unless it's a one-to-one conversation. I feel very isolated. Also I don't know any deaf people so have never signed or been part of that community. A couple of weeks ago I came across AllDeaf.com and it looks like I should be able to find people in a similiar position to me. The problem is that it's big and has SOOOO many threads, that I don't know how to find the ones that are relevant to my situation. This is the nearest one I found so far so I'm finally chipping in even if it's a bit late...
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Hey AJWSmith...welcome...

Its never too late to post something worthwhile. I started losing my hearing at 27 (3 years ago) and have progressed to the point of being severely HOH/Deaf. I have not reached out to the Deaf community in my city so like you I look to the folks on Alldeaf for insight and support when I feel I need it.

I can rarely follow a convo unless it is one on one and even then I ask to repeat fairly often. I have a real hard time on the telephone and therefore rely on email and texting alot along with the kindness of others such as my fiance.

I agree that Alldeaf can be intimidating but dont try to read every old thread here, but if you are interested in a certain topic eg late deafened use the search feature to bring you just the results you want. I also tend to follow the newest threads, you will find many of the categories only get 6 or so new threads a day so it can be pretty easy to keep up.

Hope you find some answers you are looking for.

See you around.

Pat
 
Never tried to hide my late onset deafness.. It was just something I had to deal with and learn to adapt to. It took me a long time to get comfortable with it. But I never once pretended to be a hearing person since.
 
My uncle is a late HOH (in his 30:is) and "is out of the closet". He wears his hearingaid proud but my father who is also HOH doesn´t accept it, he doesn´t use his his hearingaid and rely on reading lips which often leads to missunderstandings.

My friends is deaf/severely HOH on his right ear, and has (don´t know what it is called in english) lower hearing on his left ear. It took him five year to tell me and he tryies to hide it for others, althought he got deaf/HOH as a child.
 
I went deaf when I was twelve, and so my family and friends have known since then. Now I can lip-read a bit, so I don't tell people that I'm deaf unless I don't understand them, although my speech is a bit funky so I think people guess anyway.
My family, though, won't learn to sign (except for my little brother) so I'm used to hearing culture.
All in all, I sort of try to avoid interacting with people I'm not very familiar with, because I tend to get negative reactions when I tell people that I'm deaf. Even my family treats me like I'm a complete idiot sometimes! It can get uncomfortable....
 
A quote:

"Not only is there life outside the box, there's leg room."

A person on another forum came up with this. Sorry that I can't attribute it to her.
 
sallylou said:
A quote:

"Not only is there life outside the box, there's leg room."

A person on another forum came up with this. Sorry that I can't attribute it to her.
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Somehow, sallylou, I can't imagine you ever being in the box.
 
I am not ashamed about being late deafened. I still am trying to adjust to lip reading but, normally I can make out enough words to understand. I have severe loss in high frequency and profound to hardly none in low. I normally don't talk to people anymore. To much work for me. I've kind of been a recluse all the time though. I want to learn ASL and trying to get into college this fall even though my boss isn't thrilled about the idea of me leaving 30-45 minutes earlier to drive to our community college an hour away from her house for evening classes. I just try to be happy.
 
I thought every one knew, but i just found out last week that I my boss doesn't know... so I didn't tell hem.
 
I'm new to this but... I honestly don't tell people, still. I mean, I'm sure people have noticed. But I hide my hearing aids, I try to read lips and function as best I can. I've refused any sort of disability assistance at my college.

I'm not really sure why/how I should or what it would change.
 
See I knew I wasnt the only one....its funny though...as I can now hear better with the CI....I am more prone to tell people I am HOH...So I am not quite as HOH now but more likely to admit I am....weird

Plus with the CI I have never been self conscious about wearing it in public...the HA's which gave me almost no help I was highly conscious of....perhaps if they had worked better I might not have cared as much
 
Everyone in my life already knew that I was HOH, but recently (in the last year) my hearing has gotten a lot worse and I sort of hid that from most of my friends and family. In that way, I just "came out of the closet" about a month ago. I posted a message on facebook explaining what was happening and that it was time for me, my family, and any of my friends who want to to start learning ASL. I don't think anyone believed that I would really go deaf at some point, which I understand because my hearing loss has happened over a span of 20+ years. Choosing a time to make "the announcement" was tough, because it was easy to keep putting off. I finally just did it though, and I'm glad that I did.
 
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