Hey everyone,
Today I want to talk about the social effects of hearing loss. This is a topic I have seen pop up on message boards a lot recently and it also comes up a lot from medical professionals when they are trying to convince me about the cochlear implant thing.
When I think of my social experience in context of being Deaf, there are 3 common scenes that come to mind.
Scene number 1:
I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, the seats around me remain empty. Soon I glance around to notice the room is almost filled to capacity, yet I still have a bubble of space around me. No one ever approaches me, looks at me, or tries to communicate with me in anyway. As far as they are concerned I am contagious. They isolate me.
Scene number 2:
I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, someone sits in the seat next to me. She pulls out a blank piece of paper and writes “Hi, how are you today? Are you worried about the quiz next week?”. From there we start a written conversation about our class, our quiz, our professor, and before we know it the lecture is starting and our conversation must end. During the brief breaks we take the opportunity to chat some more, just like the rest of the students.
Scene number 3:
I walk into the large lecture hall about 15 minutes before the start of my class. It is relatively empty which gives me the chance to get the best seat possible to allow me to access as much of the visual information as I can. As the class fills up, someone sits in the seat next to me. We strike up a conversation, recapping the weekend that had just concluded. Our hands are moving extra fast as we try to use every valuable second of social time we have. As the class starts we find ourselves still drawn into our conversation. Slowly we relinquish the hope of continuing for an hour and pay attention to the class. Every time there is as much as a brief pause, we catch the opportunity to chat.
For me, these three scenarios come up often. My preference is number 3. The third scene is played out when I am around people who use my language to communicate. For me the social effects of hearing loss are the same as the social effects of being dropped into a new country where you can’t speak the language. When I am surrounded by people who don’t know ASL, I do my best to communicate and often they do the same, but I am - and always will be - most comfortable around Deaf people and using ASL. To me, saying that I am “suffering the social effects of hearing loss” is the same as saying that someone is “suffering the social effects of being French”.
Jenny
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4 comments:
Interesting point, and thanks for making it. When hearing people leave that space around a deaf person (like in scenario #1), is it possible that there is another explanation than that they think deafness is contagious?
My guess is that people get nervous because they can't sign, and aren't sure if you would prefer to communicate in writing or orally. I think a lot of hearing people are afraid to do the "wrong thing" around deaf people, and then therefore do nothing.
That way, it is not them individually that did something to actively insult or isolate you, but rather the entire group passively isolating you.
Still sucks either way, though.
Oh, I know they are afraid of me! Communication is scary when it doesn't happen in the 'normal' way!
Sadly, most people in general are afraid of anything outside the routine. They are the less for it.
Very interesting. I guess if ONLY most people could chance to encounter your single blog entry once in their lives it would be sufficient to change their behavior. All that would be necessary for a lot of people is to give a single conscious thought to #1.
Remembering back to high school, there was a girl with an interpreter in one of my science classes. Thinking back, I didn't consciously or with a single thought in my brain ever decide not to try to write something to her or talk through her interpreter, I avoiding doing something like that without ever consciously thinking a single thing negative or positive but purely on an emotional basis of the fact that I avoid anything "new" that I haven't done before without putting ANY thought into it. (Example: Sometimes I call up companies expecting an automated computer voice to answer the phone and end up hanging up when a real human answers because it can be kind of intimidating.)
Then again, I guess my account is completely irrelevant since I never saw fit to speak with a single person in high school. It's funny because I'm imagining that if it was *I* who was in need of an interpreter, I might have felt a little bad about being isolated now and then — and perhaps never known that being hearing would make no difference as I would be isolated in my own artificial way since, in reality, I never made a single friend or talked much with anyone in 4 years of high school though nothing prevented me from doing so.
(If only I could have been so lucky to have a socially acceptable excuse! People are paranoid about silence, and my simple failure to talk with anyone actually made people think that I hated them and intended to come into school and murder everyone. It was quite shocking to find out.)
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