I was born HOH and quite nearly blind. I got glasses in grade two, got my first HA at 19 years of age. i grew up in a mainstream school, they treated me badly, as if I was a non-desirable mentally handicapped child (funny, now I work and advocate with that population). Mu speech was very slow and I had a speech impediment. How the heck no one caught onto the fact that I wasn't hearing still blows me away today. But, I don't dwell on it, my childhood sucked and my adult life rules, onward I go.
As a child and young teen I was convinced I was an alien, nothing in this world made any sense to me, I lived in fear and choas (of course the physical and verbal abuse from teachers and sexual abuse didn't help either).
When I got my first HA I was floored, I had to learn how to socialize, I still interrupt people too much, am never sure when it is my turn to talk. I know some sign, and used sign with my son when he was little, he signed with me at 4 months of age and his first words were a sentence at 11 months old. We still use some sign, but no fluently, mostly to fill in the gaps or empasize the topic or key words.
I need to push myself to get social and go take more sign courses and practice with my son and b/f as my hearing is rapidly decreasing these last few months. Without my HA I can only hear if someone is talking right into my ear, I think I was able to learn to talk cause my older sister would hold me close and she had a very very loud voice. I tend to be very perceptive and when I got my HA I had to learn and still sometimes struggle with just pretending I know what the person is saying. yup, that is my story in a nut shell.
I have very much enjoyed reading the other posts in this thread, thankyou for sharing everyone.
