forum Is anyone here deaf?
Started by @Lavy-the-Nerdy-Sci-Fi-Birdy
tune

people_alt 43 followers

@Story_Siren group

I'm half deaf, at least 70%. It changes your whole life. Firstly, you have to accommodate for it. At the beginning of each new trimester, I have to tell the teacher I have to sit in the front to both see (I'm short and short-sighted) and to hear. When I talk to someone, I have to make sure they're on my good ear side, or non hearing-aid ear side. This is especially important in the cafeteria. Having one on- your ear hurts at the end of the day. I have a more high-tech one I believe, and I usually wear my head down. The way it was made, i can turn the hearing control up or down, to be able to hear more or less. The "higher" the control is, then the more sound i can hear, but if my hair brushes against it, I hear static and it's REALLY annoying. I mishear conversations A LOT, and in the weirdest ways. Someone says something completely innocuous, and I hear something bad. I have to make sure I know where it is- they're quite small, and easy to lose, especially if your character is using the adult version. Hope I helped :) If you have anymore questions, just DM me!

@Story_Siren group

Yes! Oh yes, and depending on how long you character has had them, they'll be VERY annoying. For example, I usually only wear my hearing aid at school. I sometimes will have turn it off or take it out in the cafeteria however, because if I have it on, I hear everything. So I can hear my friends' conversations, but also everyone else's. If your character just got hearing aids, or recently became deaf, this will be a BIG problem for them. I was deaf from a kid, so I've been wearing them since I was five, and I'm in high school now, so I've been able to filter out the noise. Another thing along with that though: I mishear questions A LOT. SO I have to ask the person to repeat themselves. More often than I'd like, I still don't understand, so I ask them a second time, and sometimes a third time. After that, if I STILL don't know what they said, I try to think about their body language- in that, did it seem they were asking me about something serious, or silly?- and nod or frown based on my guess. I get it wrong, and they'll call me out, but I have to play along more often than I like. Because no one wants to repeat their question twenty times, right?

@Becfromthedead group

I've lost a little over half of the hearing in my left ear. I don't wear a hearing aid anymore, but I used to (I don't because I have full hearing in the right and hearing aids are a pain). I can second just about everything Luna said. Accommodations at school (I didn't need a whole lot, but I can imagine someone with worse hearing would), having to ask people to talk into your good ear, definitely noise amplification (which is part of why I stopped wearing). If your character does any sort of music, doing it with hearing aids is probably going to be terrible. I had to take mine out to play piano or sing, and even listening to music with them in was not fun. My hearing aid was also really touchy and went out a lot… And I recall one time, I was in the car during a thunderstorm, and after a big lightning strike, it cut out and started blaring loudly in my ear.
Taking a hearing aid out is weird. It's a little like listening to your surroundings from underwater, for lack of a better description.

@Story_Siren group

I totally agree with becfromthedead, music sucks. I always always, always prefer earbuds. And I always need to make sure that the left side is in my worse ear, and vice versa.

Margaret Louisa Dale

Most of my family is 75% deaf, mostly to conversational tones. One thing I've noticed is that their little quirks have rubbed off onto me and my mother. For instance, when someone says "what?" or "huh?" after I say something, instead of just repeating it I also face directly at them and speak louder, because that's what I have to do at home. And subtitles on TV, I can't watch anything without them, even though I have perfect hearing. If your OC is around the same people a lot, and they have had hearing aids for a while, these sorts of things will rub off onto the other characters.
Another thing, while some hearing aids amplify background noise, the kind my family has actually cut it out. With hearing aids in, my sister can't hear the AC after a few minutes. The hearing aids cut out constant background noise like a fan or a motor running. I'm not sure if its just the kind she uses or what.
My family also plays the deaf card all the time, even if they perfectly heard what was said. It adds a bit of humor, I guess. My sister just ignores people and when they confront her she says something about not being able to hear, and then later recounts details of the conversation. It's pretty funny.
Ok, last thing. The age you start wearing hearing aids can have an affect on how often you wear them. My dad go his hearing aids when he was ten, though he needed them from a very young age. He still struggles with wearing them because he never really got used to them. We have to remind him a lot. He likes taking them out because it bothers him. My uncle got his hearing aids around the age of 16. He is an adult now, and owns a pair of hearing aids, but never wears them. Ever. Because he doesn't like how they feel. They bother him. This trend continues in multiple other family members. My aunt and my sister, however, got their aids at the age of 5 and 3. They are the ones who consistently wear their hearing aids, because they were so young when it began. My sister doesn't like taking hers out. She actually gets really frustrated when she can't wear them. So, yeah. That's what I've got.

@TeamMezzo group

Yep. You can have one or both, depending on you type of hearing loss. My family all wear two, people with loss in only one ear would wear just one.

I use a single!