Daily stuggles of a my life as a person with CI

Everybody have a good and bad day.



When you wake up in the morning and everything just make sense. You were on the time for your job. Everybody smiles at you as you walked by. Your best friend gave you a free coffee. That is an average good day for most people.



When you wake up in the morning and everything goes wrong. You woke up late. Your boss was very angry at you. Your co-workers sneered at you. You just found out that you owe Con-Edison 100 dollars more than usual. That is an average bad day for most people.



For me, I have very different good and bad day than most people. Sure I experienced these average good and bad days. However I also experienced different kinds of good and bad days. I have a good and bad HEARING day.



I just can't explain why I have good and bad HEARING day. What makes one day that everyone spoke clearly to me that day, what other days people don't? Or mixed? I could have a great day with bad HEARING day or vice versa.


Another struggle:

Everyone loves to be center of attention. Why? Because people looked at a person and admired/disgusted by that person. It shows that person have a life and people regonized him/her. That's one of the reasons why people committed sucide because they think nobody cares about them.



If you know me, I have a spilt personality (don't take that term literally). In group setting, some days I was quiet and observing people around me. It looked like I was withdrawn and uninteresting of topic among groups. Therefore people was awkward around me or ignored me.



In other side of personality, I am a loud person. I constantly talking to people in group setting. I kept moving and talking to one person to another person. That is my favorite time of group setting of course. Because everybody looked at me and treated me like I am goddess.



A hearing person would read that sentence "Because everybody looked at me and treated me like I am goddess" would judged me and said, "Wow, she needs that feeling to be center of attention, that sounds like she was insecure"



You (hearing people) kept forgetting that I am DEAF. I had no idea what people talking about in group setting so I got bored.....



Five years ago my very wise counselor from my seminary told me a very important advice. She said, "Eventhough you have no idea what they are talking about, just throw a topic and you will be surprised that people will drop their topic and will respond to you very quickly" She was right. I never understood a group dynamic and never will be unless my hearing will improve. But if someone explained to me a small lesson about group dynamic in very logical sense, it will improve my social skills in group setting. Let me tell you, Rome don't built in one day. It takes me couple years to improve my skills. Even today, I still made mistakes. It was a trial and error for me everyday.



You may wondering why I talked about two different struggles of my life as a deaf person in one post. The answer was they both overlapped of each other.



Let me tell you couple stories:



Last Thursday, I was in a car with lovely older couple to Montreal. I could not understand a word from a man but I understand very well from a woman with face to face. Therefore I only have conversation with woman not man. No, you can't say woman spoke clearly than man. I also have couple experiences that I only talked to man not woman. It all depends on how clearly they spoke and their accent not pitch. Therefore that day I had mixed good and bad hearing days.



Later on Thursday, I went to restaurant with four girls. We were so wild. Why? Because that restaurant was so noisy and I had no idea what they are talking about. Therefore I blurted a lot of werid things to get their attention therefore these four girls looked at me and talking to me DIRECTLY. I felt more included in group setting. I don't like to kept saying "What? What are you saying?" Eventhough I said a load of times but after in a while, I was scared they get sick of repeating stories for me so I created myself into very loud person so they don't need to repeat their stories to me again because they are looking at me. As you see, I am not insecure just want to understand what they are saying. Everybody wants to be feel included but I need an extra help. If nobody is helping me, then I help myself.....



On Friday night, I and other hearing three girls went to someone's house in Montreal and these family were very stiff and only spoke French. They are not so welcoming to help us to be include in their conversation. Other three girls and I was feeling left out. We were so bored. I can't help but thinking, "Wow, these hearing girls are experiencing what I am dealing with everyday" I am only one who know how to create situation to be center of attention. Do you know what I did? I starting to make random conversations. The host offered a drink to me, I said with very strong voice, "SURE!" Everybody cracked up. I was storming with ideas in my head in that moment. I noticed these people were very materialistic and their idea of fun was drinking..... Therefore I kept making the host to pour a drink for me. Suddenly everybody spoke English to me and other three girls. I got up from the table and started to walk around the table because I was getting little tipsy so in order to think clearly by walking around. People thought I am very loud person so they starting to shred their stiffness and trying to include me in their conversation. I never had so much fun in that table in my entire life. As you see I took my wise counselor's advice in that situation and many other situations.



In a different time, I was dating my husband in that time. I and my husband went to my friend's for a lunch. There was 12 people on the table. Some reasons, I was so quiet in that time.
I don't know why, each time I was quiet I may get the feeling that I can't jump in the conversation. Why? Depends on situation, I may felt like I will look like I was rude and sound like I am insecure to get attention from these people or I wasn't in mood to make effort to be loud person. I don't know why in certain days I was quiet and other times, I was loud it was depends on my moods LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. I apologized to my husband that I was very quiet because he only saw me as a loud person until now. He said, "You just don't want be a rude and be center of attention but you could just drop any random topic in the conversation, that's what everybody doing..." I had a flashback memory what my counselor said. It was very creepy...



Yes I experienced bad and good days PLUS good and bad hearing days in individual and group setting. After all the work I put into effort to be include in social setting and understand people in individually made me very tired in end of my day. Everyday I need nine hours of sleep to be fully functional person, if I don't then my moods will be roller coater on that days.

Please pardon me if you caught me being very tired or very quiet.