Post Thanksgiving Musings

blondon704 said:
I am one of those parents^^ I just want advice. Jazzberry seriously had that been one of my children you better believe I would have a mini freak out. I was born with 2 holes in my heart, I have murmurs upon svt upon all kinds of other craziness going on in there. It causes me to have episodes and when I was little my hands would draw up to my chest I would be gasping for air basically like a little fish out of water. My mother never cared she was basically the definition of pathetic excuse for a human being, my older sister would rip me apart for it telling me I was just trying to get attention and that I was faking it all, so I basically got bullied for something I couldn't control. But when we would go stay with my dad and he would witness her being that way with me he acted the way I feel like I would if one of my children were bullying the other for any reason.

Parents are supposed to protect their children not just leave them to the dogs (or their siblings)
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I am truly sorry that you had to experience such trauma as a child.
 
Jazzberry said:
That was a great idea to hire a typist for the holidays and also when your dad passed away. I'm glad that your family has been able to accept your strengths along with your hearing loss.

From what I've observed in my family and others is that often families will dismiss relatives with hearing loss (esp. those that have hearing loss from childhood) because that makes it easier for them to justify not putting effort into communicating with them.

Do you mind if I ask if you are late-deafened?
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Yes I am LD. I started losing my hearing in my early 20's I am the only deaf member of my family. I am very lucky that my family is very supportive. That wasn't the case in the beginning. Quite the opposite, they thought I was faking and that my vertigo was just laziness.
 
TXgolfer said:
Yes I am LD. I started losing my hearing in my early 20's I am the only deaf member of my family. I am very lucky that my family is very supportive. That wasn't the case in the beginning. Quite the opposite, they thought I was faking and that my vertigo was just laziness.
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:eek3:

Any theories as to why they came around? And if you don't mind my asking -- about how long did it take?
 
Jazzberry said:
:eek3:

Any theories as to why they came around? And if you don't mind my asking -- about how long did it take?
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A few years. After I started having surgeries (4 total) they started to realize it was real.

Edit. It took over 10 years for things to feel normal family wise though
 
TXgolfer said:
A few years. After I started having surgeries (4 total) they started to realize it was real.
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Amazing story. It reminds me a little bit of another poster's recent story -- a hearing daughter wants to see her deaf mom's audiogram before she will sign regularly to her.
 
Jazzberry said:
Amazing story. It reminds me a little bit of another poster's recent story -- a hearing daughter wants to see her deaf mom's audiogram before she will sign regularly to her.
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Yes I saw that
 
TXgolfer said:
Yes I am LD. I started losing my hearing in my early 20's I am the only deaf member of my family. I am very lucky that my family is very supportive. That wasn't the case in the beginning. Quite the opposite, they thought I was faking and that my vertigo was just laziness.
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LD? Learning Disability?
 
Abby Nicole said:
Jazzberry, we had the same Thanksgiving experience. How ironic the very holiday that is based on being thankful makes us feel quite the opposite? And your car experience? Ugh all the way. My solution to staying preoccupied in the car is to play Scrabble on my iPod touch (highest word score: 131 points on "lasering", a triple word play - can you tell I play quite a bit?). This keeps the pressure off of talking, and also keeps my mind off of the fact that I CAN'T talk in cars.

Your party was exactly like mine except my parents add a little something special to the mix: watching family home videos. They had all their camcorder tapes converted to DVDs, tapes covering vacations we took when I was a kid. I have to sit and watch my whole family laugh for two hours, mostly at things the kid-me was saying on the videos - I couldn't follow along because obviously home videos are not captioned. And the extra annoying part is when the laughter dies down, someone turns to me and says, "Did you hear that funny thing you said?" and they repeat it for me, but it fails to be funny long after the fact. This year, I took my leave in the middle of the home videos viewing, it wasn't even 7pm.
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Experience very similar situation August with sort of family reunion because father is sick so all kids, spouses, we get together for BBQ. Older brother comment on voice change *so* much since he see me 4 year ago. Then he kind of tease (talk behind hand) and so leave to take bad dog home and do not want come back. Boyfriend encourage us to go back but same feeling you have. Just get tired of people forget *ALL* the time and I WAS BORN THIS WAY!!! :roll:
 
mbrek said:
Let me just say this, DS. Your family sucks. You can flip them off and come have Thanksgiving with me!
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She could come my house, too. We have Thanksgiving in October. Each year she can rotate. Go Canada. Go America. Lots and lots of Thanksgiving. :hug:

What *SO* amazing about *our* gal is she *SUCH* huge advocate for deaf. She almost always first person to provide link or helpful information to parents of newly found deaf child. Bother me her family do not realize amazing woman they have in family and that get to call related to her. Just crazy! Would be *PROUD* to call her sister. In fact, I will! So, uhm, yeah!!! :giggle:
 
Jazzberry said:
Family can be complicated. Way back when, one of my roommates was going for a masters in social work and I use to skim a lot of her books. I've always loved to read (at times it was the only way I could get info) and it was an interesting topic.

One common idea that many of the textbooks spoke about was that families have values and even goals, and each family member is normally assigned a role. So, in reality, all of them were bullies -- my brother was just given the role of acting out in that particular situation. I have had enough experience with each family member to be able to say that that idea the textbooks spoke about made sense in my particular family history. I just don't recall the name of that particular idea or theory.




I get along better with my friends also. I'm thankful that despite the role I was given in my birth family, I have been able to relate to people in a completely different way as an adult. As for my birth family I have very little to do with them these days. My mother has passed away, I call my father occassionally and exchange holiday/birthday cards with my brother and sister-in-law.

Given the personalities involved, for the most part I'm fine with that.

The only exception is that even though in many ways my dad was not a good dad I'd like to visit him more and be of more help to him, but that is not possible. I have had some serious financial punches that I haven't recovered from yet so that makes affording long distance travel not feasible. Of some of the decisions made for him I don't agree with -- but I decided not to make an issue about it. My sister and brother didn't develop their attitudes in a vacuum -- my parents were largely responsible for it. I don't by nature normally take a back seat -- but I have decided to go along with it in regard to my dad's care. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, but I sincerely believe that my dad would be extremely unhappy if I took a more assertive role even if it ended up with better decisions being made for him.

My situation is that most of my friends and acquaintences think that I'm very competent and a source of good ideas, and my birth family likes to think that I'm incompetent and defective in many ways including intelligence. To say that the difference in attitude between the two groups is huge would be an understatement.
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Very sorry birth family like that. You probably know my story so just know understand.

Found *very* interesting you comment about, how say, 'Role?' VERY interesting. Is like each family is a little play and each member play character in play? Like actors in movie?
 
rebeccalj said:
Very sorry birth family like that. You probably know my story so just know understand.
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Yes. I think my mother would have gotten along with your mother.

Found *very* interesting you comment about, how say, 'Role?' VERY interesting. Is like each family is a little play and each member play character in play? Like actors in movie?
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Seems that way. :)
 
TXgolfer said:
A friend of mine had no plans so I invited her for Thanksgiving to eat and paid her to type.

When my dad passed away I hired someone that could type really fast because we had to make alot of plans....he went unexpectedly and I am like the family boss anyway. :lol: . I pretty much followed along with HAs and lip reading and when I got lost I would hold up a finger for them to pause and I would look at the screen to catch up. It worked well.

I am trying to get my church to do something similar on our screens because we have lots of elderly members.
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*VERY* envious that you able to have this in life. That people 'respect' just hold up finger and everyone wait for you to catch up. :eek3: Seem like Eutopia. :giggle:
 
rebeccalj said:
*VERY* envious that you able to have this in life. That people 'respect' just hold up finger and everyone wait for you to catch up. :eek3: Seem like Eutopia. :giggle:
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Ah, what TXgolfer didn't tell you is that his finger is attached to the hand that holds the whip. :whip:
 
Jazzberry said:
In regard to ENTs, audis, speech therapists, etc not recommending ASL ...





It sure would be nice and mature of them if instead they thought that their job was to help us communicate and acknowledged that some people need more than one tool in the toolbox.

I am glad that I can speak well and understand most people one on one with a combination of hearing and lipreading in a quiet room. That is very helpful. But it's really not enough.

Its very childish not to acknowledge that. It's exactly like a 5 year old saying we are going to play my game or we aren't going to play any games!

More than one game is often a good idea.

Unfortunately most parents look to the professionals for answers and often will not think of asking other D/d/HH adults for their opinions.
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^^^^^^ A *big* (cha :giggle:) HELL YEAH to that!! :h5:
 
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