You’re Not Really…Deaf, Are You?
You’re not really deaf– are you?
I stared at my teammate. We had played volleyball together for many years and she had interpreted for me and another deaf teammate during our huddles. This was the first time she had ever asked me questions about being deaf.
Yes, I said, nodding my head.
“But you’re not as deaf as David, right?”
“Actually, our audiograms show that he has better hearing than me,” I explained. She looked at me with a puzzled look.
“But you have such good speech!”
So I explained more. How I couldn’t use the phone nor understand anything on the radio. I explained my speech discrimination scores– the scores that show how well someone can understand speech by auditory means alone. I score a zero in my left ear and a six percent in my right ear, a score obtained by a lucky guess. The squiggly lines on the audiogram start at 90 and hover around 110 decibels. This is the level that I begin to detect sound without my hearing aids. The hearing aids help me to hear when someone starts speaking but without lipreading, captioning or sign language, the information coming in auditorily makes no sense.
She paused and looked at me in silence. “You have some great lipreading skills,” she said. I could see that she was digesting all this information in a new light.
This isn’t the first time that this has happened–it is something that happens frequently. That’s why hearing loss is often referred to as the “invisible disability.” Often people are unaware at the incredible amount of work it takes to gather information and understand communication that goes on around us on a daily basis. And others are often unaware of how much just slides by, because it’s physically impossible to get 100% access to all that goes on around us when the sense of hearing isn’t all there.
At a social gathering in Chicago, I chatted with fellow writers, most who knew me as Deaf Mom but were meeting me for the first time. I think few realized that I was lipreading entire conversations and there were chunks of the evening that I missed. For example, when the hosts got up in front and started talking, there really was no polite way to interrupt the middle of their speech and say, “Hey, can you say that again, I missed what you said?” So that kind of stuff slides right by. And to the casual onlooker, it probably seems like I’m getting access to the communication– there’s nothing to indicate that it’s sliding right over my head.
At a friend’s wedding, I was meeting an older woman for the first time and I missed something that she said. “Oh the music is so loud!” she said, and then proceeded to explain again what she said. I still didn’t understand what she said and I explained that I was deaf. She cocked her head to the side a bit, looked at me and said…
“Oh! But you seem so normal!”
Save to Browser Favorites
Ask
backflip
blinklist
BlogBookmark
Bloglines
BlogMarks
Blogsvine
BUMPzee!
CiteULike
co.mments
Connotea
del.icio.us
DotNetKicks
Digg
diigo
dropjack.com
dzone
Facebook
Fark
Faves
Feed Me Links
Friendsite
folkd.com
Furl
Google
Hugg
Jeqq
Kaboodle
linkaGoGo
LinksMarker
Ma.gnolia
Mister Wong
Mixx
MySpace
MyWeb
Netvouz
Newsvine
PlugIM
popcurrent
Propeller
Reddit
Rojo
Segnalo
Shoutwire
Simpy
sk*rt
Slashdot
Sphere
Sphinn
Spurl.net
Squidoo
StumbleUpon
Technorati
ThisNext
Webride
Windows Live
Yahoo!
Email This to a Friend
If you like this then please subscribe to the 
One of my friends that a met at the gym - I didn’t realize he was deaf for a long time. Not until after I had started on DeafRead, and been learning about deafness, did I realize it.
I live a town with a long history of oral deaf ed….
To flip it, I was at a workshop a few weeks ago, and the interpreter was not keeping up, so I couldn’t follow what the deaf speaker was signing….
Karen, what a thoughtful post about the different sorts of communication barriers that get in the way of understanding.
Thanks
Joanna Youngs last blog post..Words of Remembrance
Amen!
Yes, I get the “But you look so normal!” comment frequently.
Tishia Cs last blog post..Relay phone calls when stressed out
Yeah– I hate that, “but you have such good speech” comment– as if I’ve accomplished the impossible. I have a born Deaf friend who doesn’t have good speech. Her audiogram shows she have better hearing than mine, though our patterns our similar. When we first met, my hearing was slightly better. Over the years mine has progressed, so it’s worse now. Her’s has renaimed relatively constant since birth. My audiologist once said if I had grown up with the hearing I have, I would have had a hard time learning to speak. Gosh– ‘NORMAL?!” What does she expect Deaf people to look like? hahaha!
Kims last blog post..Proposition Eight
You described well in your post how we deafies differ, Karen! I couldn’t do it better
I could use your post as an example to explain to hearies that I come across, if you don’t mind.
The most common question I get asked is: “Can you drive”?
And another good explanation how hearing aids work: They magnify, NOT clarify the sounds! Hearies seem to get this when the most usual assumption that hearing aids work a miracle.
@Bill If you’re ever in a situation where the interpreter isn’t keeping up, please do try and let the deaf person know in some way as they cannot monitor the quality of an interpreter’s voicing ability.
@Joanna I hope that gives you a little more insight about me.
@Tisha & Kim: My new tag line: “Me? Normal? Why thank you!”
@Nita You’re welcomed to use this post in any way.
So, do people think we deaf folk don’t have ears or something? Loved your post and can relate.
Hey Karen, I’m just getting back into the groove after a week overseas and a speaking engagement the week before that. I’m visiting some of my favorite bloggers again.
This article brought a smile to my face and a nod of recognition for I have experienced the same exact things. People say stuff like that all the time. And you couldn’t be more right when you say people, when observing us in a social or meeting situation, think we’re absorbing it all because there’s nothing to indicate we aren’t getting it.
Good stuff here - it’s helping everyone who reads this understand a little more about what it’s like to be deaf. Nice job.
Ya know, us SHs (stupid hearies) could use a better information guide.
Even a blind guy said to me today, “deaf people can drive”, like I am a stupid hearie (or see-ie?). (Well, I am, but I DO know deaf people drive, have sex, …).
To be fair, he is one who’s had people at our theatre hand him a reflector for Mopix - while he’s carrying his white cane!
There are tons of stupid hearie questions that could be answered - I have a friend who’s wiling to answer my questions without seeming to condescending.
We need a safe place to ask questions like ‘Do deaf people have any equivalent to “ear worms” - the songs that get stuck in your head, and play over and over?’
@Nita, or whoever - the hearing aid thing does confuse me. If you can explain why it helps…?
As hard of hearing, I get that question all the time. “Are you as deaf as this person or you can hear better than that person?” I am stuck in the middle. Both Deaf and Hearing people often do not know that I have a hearing loss unless they know who I really am. Its a struggle in this world for me as a hearing-impaired individual who is trying to live my life in both deaf and hearing worlds. There’s nothing wrong to live in a Deaf culture and there’s nothing wrong to live in a Hearing culture life so I don’t have to choose one but rather “both”. People with disabilities make up one of the largest minority group in the country because many of our disabilities are invisible. We are often stuck between the popular assumptions what we face and the actual experiences of we face.
Jims last blog post..Pictures of my 2 dogs and cats
Great post! I am another SH (Stupid Hearie lol) - except, I think having a son with mild-moderate hearing loss has certainly made me much more aware of stupid commetns like the “I thoght you were normal” one (oy!).
I find that people either always think the worst (like he can’t do anything because he wears HA’s) - or they question wether his hearing loss even “counts” as a hearing loss since he’s mainstreamed, etc.
Sometimes i’s frustrating. The better he does in school, or at whatever, the more people think he doesn’t really need his HA’s or the FM… instead of realizing how hard he works, and how those things are helping him do as well as he is.
debcny
debcnys last blog post..Mild Hearing Loss or ADD??
Hi,
Great post and you do explain it so well. I’m also caught between the two worlds as my rather poor hearing degenerates over time. Hearing aids help raise volume, but they do not restore lost hearing or sounds. I’ve spent most of my time in the hearing world and I know that I do need to move in the direction of signing because I truly do miss alot of what is spoken even though I wear hearing aids.
@Jim I often tell people that there’s one world and I’m a part of all of it.
@Debcnys Yes, I can totally identify with what you said. When people talk with me and I handle the conversation well, they simply think I can do that in all situations.
@Jenny My whole world opened up even more when I learned ASL. Happy learning!
okay, big admission here. I am severely HoH and even I have made variations of the “normal” comment. And even I have said “nevermind”. I hate these comments as much as anybody, but we have to try not to be too sensitive because these things have implied meanings.
example:
they SAY “oh I thought you were normal”
they MEAN “oh I thought you could hear like the average (normal) person”
technically speaking, we deafies will never be “normal” until we rank above 50% of the population.
and as annoying as “nevermind” is, someone pointed out in another blog how hearing people sometimes talk incessantly about a whole lot of nothing, saying things they realize are stupid, and for this reason do not wish to repeat.
[...] life right now, I forget. As irony would have it, I returned home to find a piece written by Karen Putz in my inbox. It included the following: “…hearing loss is often referred to as [...]
In my experience working and playing with deaf people, and handling my own health problems, I think I’ve found that invisible disabilities bring out the goofiest questions from people. I guess it’s the ones who can’t handle that disconnect that occurs between “person looking ‘normal’” (whatever that is) and “person is disabled.” It’s the moment where, if there’s any discomfort, it all comes out — sometimes in the form of ridiculous comments or questions — whereas with a visible disability, people are better able to prepare themselves, if it’s necessary.
The funny part of this is I’ve been telling my deaf students for a while now that I’m disabled due to chronic illness, but the day I first came to class using a cane everyone asked “What happened to your leg??”
I think you know I work hotel security. The other night a few guests complained about a banging noise in the vicinity of a particular room, and when I showed up to investigate I encountered a young woman in the hallway.
She asked if I was security. She asked if there was anything I could do about the noise. Yes on both counts, but I realized a minute or so in that she was lip reading me. “Excuse me for asking, but it’s just entirely out of curiosity.. are you hearing impaired?”
She explained that she was, yet the noise was bothering her. At the same time, she could hear my voice but couldn’t understand what I was saying without lip reading. Turned out someone else had called, because she doesn’t use a phone either.
Different levels of impairment, I guess.
The noise was from the hotel engineer working on a pipe. I radioed him to knock it off because even the deaf guests were complaining.
Okay, I didn’t really say that.
RhodesTers last blog post..“I’ve got him at gunpoint”
Great post! You nailed it when you said, “Often people are unaware at the incredible amount of work it takes to gather information and understand communication that goes on around us on a daily basis. And others are often unaware of how much just slides by…”
My heart breaks sometimes for my deaf-in-one-ear / HoH in the other son… he is working SO HARD to “get” what is going on, and very few folks realize the effort he puts out.
Thanks for articulating it so well,
Julie
Julies last blog post..In which it is Winds-day… a Blustery Day
Thanks for keeping us “hearies” educated. I find that since I’ve known you, I am much more careful to face people when I speak to them and speak just a tad more slowly and distinctly, whether I think they have impaired hearing or not.
groovyoldladys last blog post..Where oh Where Did My Stamina Go?
I get the same questions all the time.
I have progressive hearing loss (which is now ~95 dB across the board) and I speak well. People often comment that I can’t “really” be d/Deaf because I talk. That one pisses me off. But I’ve known ASL since I was 5, I can’t hear without my BTEs, and I rely on captioning. To me, that qualifies me a deaf. That and the profound hearing loss.
There is some humor in people’s questions.
Once I was explaining to a stranger that I was deaf so they would need to speak louder. The person looked at me and said, “Well, you don’t LOOK deaf!”
I had to harness every ounce of my self-control not to reply with, “Well you don’t look stupid.”
Clares last blog post..Fill in the blanks