hearing-impaired people here? (6)

1 Name: Anonymous : 2008-06-30 17:21 ID:p0RVlWfH

i wonder if there are people here who are hearing-impaired or deaf...
(got inspired by the learning/speaking disorder topic)

i'm hard hearing-impaired since birth and i also learned the sign language by deaf mother.
when i was six i was sent to a boarding school for hard hearing children - about 100 kilometres far away. stayed there for 10 years and i have to say - it was the hell...
because i was the worst who could hear ... so i never understand the whole thing the other kids were saying to me and they didn't want to repeat every senctence...
and my speaking was very poor ... there was no one who could understand me.
that's what i hated my life long.... i don't understand everyone and everyone doesn't understand me...
yeah i did speech therapy but it didn't help a lot. at that time some kids started to bully me and i couldn't do again that, because i never knew what they were saying to me. (if i knew it i might be able to say something against them...) i just knew it was not nice.

but this time seems to be over now... i thought a while ago. btw. i never had real friends (the only i ever had... the last time i saw them was on graduation's day 2 years ago...)
but it really doesn't bother me... i just have my internet friends and i'm happy with it... because there is no communication barrier. :)

but in reallife there is really one. i started some kind of apprentice ship on scholar basis... and it was my first time to be with hearing students in a class.
there was no interpreter for me, so i was most of the time isolated. it was very difficult for me to near them... so i just often write them something if i had to do teamwork with them.
however i quit it after a year and now i'm doing kind of distance studying (over internet)... and i'm feeling better with doing it.
i like it to be at home.
but... now i'm always scared of meeting other people... even if it's the aunt i played with often in early days.
might say i had developed some kind of social phobia.
sigh
but i always think about my future. someday i must be able to get a work and earn money...
but i'm afraid of it.
if i didn't had this disability... i would be a translator or interpreter for foreign languages. i love languages! :)
i can only write french, spanish, japanese and and... but i had never learn how to speak or understand them. that's a big disadvantage. :(

my family think about to sent me to a work school for hard hearings... but you'll learn there trade occupation like painter, bookbinders, gardnenrs...:(

short to say:
whatever i could get, i don't want it ... and whatever i want, i can't get it.

  • because of IT...

sorry... it surely has been a confusing story... but i'd be glad if there are others who are in the same situation as me and could tell about their experiences...? :)

and of course - hearing people are welcome :)

2 Name: Anonymous : 2008-06-30 22:22 ID:+8XTv8L1

I've always wondered this, when you read, what voice do you hear?

3 Name: Anonymous : 2008-07-01 02:27 ID:dqC/bYd7

>>2
Do you hear a voice when you read? Now you've said it, I kinda imagine mine reading aloud in my head, but usually don't hear anything.

4 Name: Anonymous : 2008-07-01 09:13 ID:W+iUp2Oz

>>2

uuhm... never heard a voice while reading. that's new to me (and i'm really a bookworm) :)
does that happen to you?

5 Name: Anonymous : 2008-07-01 11:49 ID:punr1vsS

That happens to me too. Also when I think or when I write.

When I hear an influential voice, for instance at school someone told me a really long story, then that voice will be stuck in my head for a while.
Or when I marathon an anime with a male lead that has an odd voice, then I'll think with it too.

I can also suppress it while reading (or doing other mental tasks), but it's not as comfortable.

6 Name: Anonymous : 2008-07-12 00:22 ID:KXqlVlXx

I'm hard of hearing. Not nearly as bad as you, it sounds like, but I understand the frustration of having to repeatedly ask someone to repeat themselves. The inner ear of my left ear never developed, so I'm completely deaf in that ear. I always laugh when I don't hear someone say something, so they go "What are you? Deaf?" And I respond "Actually, yes!" and they look absolutely mortified. I also like to tease people that my left ear is purely ornamental, 'cause it doesn't work.

One of the most frustrating things is I have no directional hearing. It takes a long time for me to find someone who's calling my name if I can't hear them (I hate it when people respond "I'm over here! I have no idea where "here" is!!) and woe unto me if I lose the phone.

I also love languages, and I'm much better at reading them than writing them. You could try to be a text-only translator, OP. I want to be an ASL interpreter, as I can hear well enough to get by without most people noticing (especially if they're speaking English, I have a really hard time understanding people with accents)and who only knows how deaf I'll end up being, as the hearing in my good ear degenerates with age.

I would have loved to major in music, but the only stable job as a musician is to be a music teacher, and I wouldn't be able to hear my students well enough to give them the individual attention they deserve.

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