Hearing is so basic. It's not like the color of your skin. Your skin works fine in any color, with a few exceptions. Hearing is a basic sense. Could you imagine not being able to feel something? If you couldn't feel, think about how that would change you. People with neuropathy experience this in a limited way. Normally a person is not consciously aware of their ability to feel. Suddenly, parts of your body cannot feel and it's a big deal. A person's limbs aren't working right. It changes how a person functions. Those limitations must be integrated into the self. The same with hearing. How can being deaf/hoh NOT define a person? Of course, this assumes that a mentally healthy individual has a strong integrated sense of self. Often, someone does not have an proper integration of self and that's when adjustment problems exist. In an extreme case, it's borderline territory.
