How do you feel about having hearing loss?

Three Events that Shaped Who I Am:

(1) From kindergarten to grade 11, I was not comfortable with myself and very self-conscious due to having a hearing aid attached to my head, which was stared at by my peers.  The hearing aid is a constant physical reminder that I have a hearing loss. When I was in grade 7, I tried to pass as a "hearing" person by growing my hair a bit longer to cover my hearing aid and my surgery scar.  The outcome of passing as a "hearing person" made it a bit worse as it requires too much effort. After grade 11, I cut my hair short which revealed my hearing aid and my surgery scar when I accepted myself as a person with a hearing loss.  This was the first event of my life.

(2) The second event happened at York University, when I signed up for a class called Introduction to American Sign Language (ASL). I enjoyed learning from my ASL teacher, who is Deaf herself. In winter 2013, there was an event that destroyed my self-confidence towards ASL. In the course, students were required to go to the Deaf Culture Centre in the Distillery District in Toronto (capital D Deaf refers to individuals who use ASL as their primary language and small d refers to individuals who have hearing aids/cochlear implants and use spoken English).  Here, I approached a woman and attempted to communicate with her through ASL. The woman's ASL skills were very advanced and I had no idea what she was saying. I asked the woman to slow down her signing skills and repeat  many times. Even though she tried, I still didn't understand what the conversation was about. I was very frustrated and this event made me give up learning ASL altogether.

 For the very first time in my life, I felt stuck between both worlds: the Hearing world and the Deaf world.  I don't belong with the Deaf world because of my limited ASL skills. I don't belong with the Hearing world as there were some times that I missed the inside jokes during group conversation and I hated asking them to repeat again, only to have them say "I'll tell you later" or "Nevermind". 

(3) From spring 2017 and carrying forward, I am now motivated and consider myself to be fluent in ASL. My goal is to become bilingual in ASL/English in the next five years.  I remembered watching an episode from the TV series called Switched At Birth, where the teacher (played by actress Marlee Matlin) talked about the difference between hearing loss and deaf gain to Deaf students.  After thinking about the definition of deaf gain and my personal experiences, this led to my third event: I no longer think of myself having a hearing loss. I think of myself as a person with a deaf gain. 

Here are some benefits of having a deaf gain and maybe some of the aspects relate to you as well.

Closed-captioning:  Using these helps me to improve my spelling, grammar structure, pronunciation, and the whole English language.  This all helps me to improve my reading level for school. 

Better sleep quality: With my hearing aid off, I no longer have to worry about noisy sounds from my environment (i.e. footsteps, raining thunderstorms, dog barking at night, 911 vehicles blaring through the night), while hearing people are often woken up by these noises in the middle of the night.

FBI Behavioural Analyst: People with a deaf gain notice visual cues more quickly than hearing people.  I have noticed that when interacting with a person or a group of people, I can tell who is comfortable socializing with me and who is uncomfortable with me by looking at their body language.  Through visual cues of their body language (i.e. eye contact, twitch of their nose, mouth movement, direction of their feet, movement of their torso), I can tell when a person is not honest with me.

Meeting People Just Like You: This applies to both people with a CI/hearing aid AND people who use ASL as their primary language.  The experiences that you have in your lifetime will correlate strongly with other people who share the same struggles.  This forms a deep and personal bond of friendship.

I don't consider myself as a person with a hearing loss, but with a DEAF GAIN!  I know that each person is different, but for me, I am extremely lucky because being deaf has taught me empathy, compassion, and an understanding of the true value of good work ethic.