Messages By: honestheart

Hello.  There are countless people in the world who suffer some type of disability or other.   Seems to be that there are more organizations available and more moral support for those who have "physical" disabilities.  Yes, there are programs for almost everything.  However, the programs are not available "across the board" and it is almost difficult for people who are on an invisible borderline to access these programs and benefit from them.

   For instance, I am legally and for all intents and purposes, deaf.  I can not hear a thing.  Hearing aids only amply noise for me, like a knock on a door, car horn, etc.  I have to concentrate extremely hard to lip-read and it is draining.  People just have no idea how mentally/physically draining it is to have to concentrate so hard to have a conversation.  And then they wonder why I am so tired all the time?  Someone like me, who lives in the middle of nowhere practically, is more isolated than a completely deaf person.  There are so many countless things for deaf people to do, etc.  Thing is, deaf people at an early age qualify for programs that integrate them into their life.  People who are severly hearing impaired, like me, are out of place with completely deaf people.  There is a cultural difference.  Hard to beleive isnt it?  We are stuck between the deaf people and the hearing people.   No real place to be and trying to/struggling to make it out there is hard.  Very hard.  Then, because some of us talk pretty well, most hearing people think we are lying when we tell them we are almost deaf and treat us as if we are trying to pull something.  It is hurtful.  Deaf people have a great network of other deaf people to talk to.  Hearing impaired people do not.  And yes, I know that deaf people feel that well, because hearing impaired people speak and move around in the hearing world our life is easier: it is not. It is fraught with misunderstandings and frustrations.  Because we have to deal with not only the issues in life, but also others misconceptions that cause the hearing impairment to be more of a disability than it should be.  People think because I am smart and always smiling that my life is so upbeat.  I try to have a positive outlook for life.  But, I keep running up against roadblocks (people) that are slowing sanding away my positive outlook and cheerfullness.   I am now at a point where I would like to just give up.  All my life, I have worked and tried to live a productive life.  But all this is wearing me down terribly.  Yes, the Lord has blessed me by not having to hear all the bickering going on all over the world, my husband's loud music (;-), but I know it is happening and it still affects us.  The body language, changes in the room, the putting up the hands to cover conversations that a whole group in your room can hear, people talking about you while you are in the room knowing you cant hear them (rude...you are still there)....the list goes on and on.   We have trouble getting jobs we qualify for or have the apptitude for.  We have trouble getting/giving correct information to doctors, administrators, etc. that closes or slows things down.  

   So,  I feel for everyone who has some type of disability. Just please, realize that being hearing impaired is disabling too.  You cant see it, but it is there.  It is one of the silent killers of hope and dreams, almost like cancer or lukemia.   It makes you want to retreat from life, become reclusive.  The internet is basically the only thing keeping me connected.  Thank the good Lord I like to read !

Hello.

What I have is called sensenoral nerve damage.    I have had it for about 32 years now.  It was noticed when I was in about the fifth grade in school. 

I think society, each community needs to be flooded with an awareness alert similar to all those cancer/wheelchair/lukemia tv commercials/ads they put on tv all the time.  Something to address the issues to everyone that each person is an individual issue, not to treat anyone deaf as if they are 'dumb' and if we can speak that it is a blessing, not a crime; that we are isolated, in terms of making human contacts and learning experiences and more prone to depressions; that there are similarities in needed services for the severly hearing impaired and the deaf and there are also different needs that need to be addressed.    There are at least 5 different levels:  born deaf, deaf later in life, severly hearing impaired at birth/later in life and then just hearing impaired.  There are different needs for all these and different capabilities.  Did you know that people born deaf qualify for all kinds of wonderful services but severly hearing impaired people don't?  That to get almost any kind of services, we usually have to become legal age and then practically blunder around looking for different things that we can access?  Especially when you do not live in a cosmopolitan area?  Training for rescue/medical/law enforcement is bad.  When the state requires training, they train a couple of top people who are to go back and train the rest of their people.  Well, lets say they do this...(or not, there is no follow-up to guarantee they do this), the turn-over rate of people in those professions practically guarantees that there is always still not going to be anyone really trained to work with hearing impaired/deaf people.  I have come across this repeatedly.  And also, how about this.....the department of vocational rehabilitation, who is in charge of working with hadicapped poeple of all handicaps, when a deaf person calls, a lot of times the person answering the phone has no patience to talk with hearing impaired people and keep hanging the phone up ! (unless it is the caseworker working with deaf people).  Aggravating.  And then, all these people and businesses you try to call and talk with???  They keep hanging up before you can two words in edgewise.  If you apply for a job (without listing you are deaf) and they like your application/skills and would like to hire you until they find out you are deaf?  People seriously need to be made more aware.  I was denied so many times in my life, things I should have been able to get/qualify for, that could have enriched my life more to the fullest...but society has let me down.  I am just so tired of pushing against the machine.

Let me stop now before I get totally carried away.  Thank you for your response.  I hope that in all my prattling, I answered the questions you ask !

Bless you !