Quote:
Originally Posted by PhotoButch24
Believe it or not, I got the cochlear implant for my family, not myself. I was happy being deaf, but they made no real effort to try to communicate. It was always done on their end. Meaning, I have to make things work, I have to read lips, I have to ask them to speak up or speak clearly. So, it was necessary that I should get the cochlear implant.
There are times where I wished they tried, and that I never got the implant. I do wish I met more deaf people growing up, that I wasn't always mainstreamed. I wish I had a chance to chose so to speak. After getting the implant I was right back where I started decades ago when my parents realized I had progressive hearing loss. I am stuck between two worlds, the deaf and the hearing. Both of which are incredibly judgmental.
Do I regret it? I don't know.
I do wish to date someone in the same boat as me, or someone deaf. I want to gain a new experience, a new world and a chance to see where I truly belong.
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Thanks for your comment you bring up a very interesting topic something that is always discussed about in the Deaf Community. I am hard of hearing I have been wearing hearing aids since I was 2 and now I am 32, I was born with my hearing loss. As I have gotten older in the past 10 years my hearing has progressively gotten worse. My audiologist and I have spoken about this, and where this could lead me to in the next decade of my life. I am already wearing high powered hearing aids with amplification that's at a high level currently. As for getting more amplification, these will last me probably another 5 yrs or so before I may have to get a cochlear implant. I was raised mainstream, and I took 10 years of speech therapy growing up. The only thing is I don't really know ASL. I have tried to take classes for it, but I just can't remember it enough to use it. But what I find bizarre and interesting is when I am with friends who can't hear or are deaf but still able to communicate by mouth movements and slight voice. I typically will sign the basics of what I know currently. My situation growing up was the opposite then yours, I had too much hearing so therefore I was told to learn speech and not waste my opportunity to live in the mainstream world. But yet I feel so lost sometimes because I don't purely fit in the hearing world or the deaf world 2 very different cultures.