Maintaining boundaries in the Deaf Community with interpreters

JennyB said:
Last semester I experimented with voicing for myself. I did for pretty much everything for about a month. Then, I just kind of stopped. It wasn't an active choice, it just happened. I realized how much easier and less stressful my life because when I did that and now I have a very strict "voice off" policy for everything at school. Now no one expects me to speech read or speak and it is a lot better.
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I've noticed the same thing happening to me. I think for two reasons in my case. Like you, Jenny, when I have a terp present it is less stressful to use ASL than try to speech read. People expect that you can hear...maybe they'll just speak a little louder to you...if you voice for yourself. The other reason is that people are noticing that I now have a Deaf accent and, while I'm certainly not ashamed of being Deaf, I feel uncomfortable with my voice and volume in some settings. :|
 
DeafDoc1 said:
I've noticed the same thing happening to me. I think for two reasons in my case. Like you, Jenny, when I have a terp present it is less stressful to use ASL than try to speech read. People expect that you can hear...maybe they'll just speak a little louder to you...if you voice for yourself. The other reason is that people are noticing that I now have a Deaf accent and, while I'm certainly not ashamed of being Deaf, I feel uncomfortable with my voice and volume in some settings. :|
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I stopped speech therapy a while ago and my voice is not as understandable as it used to be. I also sign about 90% of the time these days.

Right now I am home for reading week (spring break) and I am oral only all week. I have noticed more and more people making me repeat myself. I had to say "grapefruit" about 10 times yesterday before just writing it down.

If I meet a new person I am very uncomfortable with my voice. There are a few that I am comfortable with but not many!
 
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