7. Idiots Were Muted Till Further Convenience
- Focus.
I’d take off my hearing aid in class whenever I wanted to get on with work like maths questions and story-writing. It worked well, I got good grades. I had an indefinite advantage, with the ability of not being able to hear, I couldn’t get distracted from other children. - Good sleep.
Again, having only one good ear has meant that if there’s a loud thunderstorm, or party next door, all I had to do was roll over onto my good side and leave only my deaf ear exposed. Worked, magically…. - People.
Interestingly, my moderate to severe loss in my left ear (almost deaf ear at the time) was predominantly a loss in varying pitches. There were some pitches I just could never hear, unless they were infallibly loud. Since I started school within months of my 4th birthday (I grew up in England) I had to learn to read people on their other ques like body language and lip-reading. In spite of the challenge that is hearing certain pitches, I then would learn pretty quickly the high degree of correlation between rhythm of tone in speech and emotional status of a person, of which I still rely on today. - Work Ethic.
Again from the time I started school I can remember from a young age coming home and being told,
“You did well today. But we have to go over what you learnt — because when they move on to the next topic tomorrow you are still going to be half deaf and it is still going to be harder for you than a lot of the other children you’re with.”
I had to know from day one that if I want anything, I would have to work two or three times harder than what would be expected from other children. This has not left me with a victim mentality, because that’s just the way it is and I’ll take that in my stride. Shout out to my awesome parents of course, they instilled this work ethic and in spite of being hearing impaired throughout my childhood education — I am fortunate to have the means to live a life I really love today!
5. Self-respect.
Gone are the days in the playground where I had to explain that I can’t hear very well and if we’re going to play, we must be very loud, but not too loud to annoy everybody but yes, if we’re not loud enough I won’t hear you. Explaining that every day became as routine as saying my name.
God, how I hated it.
These days, it’s not an issue. Sure it can be a barrier sometimes but like people who have any other preventative existing health condition I know in my heart it’s not something I can change thus, not something to feel ashamed of. I’ll proudly state I’m hearing impaired (albiet it isn’t half as bad now as it used to be — )and I’ll respectfully ask for someone to repeat their words if I need to. If they don’t, I move on to people of friendlier and kinder characters. Because to say you have values of looking after the less able and then not following suit is to me, a mark of incoherent character values. Because even if I weren’t born this way, I’d rather avoid those who don’t put their money where their mouth is.
6. Witty Comebacks. (At least, I’d like to think so…)
What? I’m too loud for you? Ah-a but I’m half-deaf you see, if I don’t talk loud enough I can’t hear myself…
Yeah so sometimes this lead to laughter, sometimes it did not. Good thing I’m better at reading a room these days and can use this line more suitably…
7. Idiots Were Muted Till Further Convenience.
So… if ever didn’t like anyone or got bored of conversation ( — or sometimes both,) I’d switch off my hearing aids! It was a truly excellent coping mechanism… that is, till my older brothers figured it out. I realised this when we were at the dinner table one day and they said something like,
“All those who want ice cream say No.”
Me, who had gotten bored and subsequently switched off my hearing aids ten minutes earlier was alternating between responses of,
“Mmm,” and “Mmm, yes — ”
Saying this all while nodding — you know, much alike the coveted technique of ‘Smile and Wave’ from The Penguins of Madagascar.
I nearly missed out on a rather a lot of ice cream that day, as keeping things fair meant my share arguably should be re-distributed to them. I still got ice cream and I learnt if this technique were to actually work — it’d need incremental further refining. As that would would take a lot of effort I decidedly chose to put it off for a while.
I’m 21 years old now and no, I still don’t have a refined technique for that. But then, I honestly think everyone has something important to say — so no, I won’t be refining that any time soon.
Admittedly, it was a lot of fun while it lasted.
So there you go, it’s been years since I lived with a moderate to severe hearing loss and I have been incredibly lucky to receive the heath care to give me a more normal upbringing in spite of the circumstances.
To date, being hearing impaired at a moderate to severe degree is still some thing people need a lot of help with and yes, it is still classed as a disability.
I encourage everyone to help those with a hearing impairment but not to pity us too much… because if you annoyingly ask a lot about it —
