Preferred language

It's been a long day today. I travelled back from the States with my parents. All in all, we travelled for 24 hours, on one train and 3 planes. And a hell of a lot waiting around in airports. I do have difficulty with planes - I find the change in pressure and all the noise (the airco, people talking etc etc) messes with my hearing aids and I can hardly hear a thing.

I was sitting a few seats away from my Mum. She tried to ask me something. No matter how hard I concentrated, I just could not hear her. And my lip-reading isn't good enough to be able to understand full sentances - at most I can pick out one or two words and generally figure out what is being said. But, being so tired from travelling, I just couldn't understand what she was saying.

Eventually, a lovely air-hostess acted as a go-between. We explained that I'm deaf and she was fine. She said she had had no idea. Since I was born hearing and have lived most of my life hearing, my voice sounds 'normal' and not the kind of voice people expect a deaf person to have. This air hostess was lovely, and for waking me up she touched my arm - when I'm asleep no amount of shouting at me will wake me up. I just don't hear it. So I need physical contact to wake me up.

Anyway, before the air hostess helped us, we were both getting frustrated. I couldn't hear. So I tried signing to my Mum. I've been teaching her some signing - we mostly fingerspell to each other. However, Mum was tired so couldn't concentrate on the signing, and I was tired so couldn't concentrate on lip-reading. Very frustrating.

Another thing which most people don't understand is that I prefer signing. I still have a long way to go before I'm fluent in BSL, but I know a lot of basic signs, and what I don' t know I fingerspell. My parents, and most people, find it hard to understand why I prefer this. After all, I grew up hearing and talking, so surely it should be my preferred method of communication?

But it's not. Even with my hearing aids in, I have difficulty judging the sound of my voice, whether I'm speaking too softly or too loudly. I'm very conscious that because I can't hear, I sometimes talk too loud. Or I think that I might be talking loud so speak quietly. It's very hard to find the normal range. It's probably an adjustment period and with practice I'll get used to it. I know people that have been deaf from birth or early childhood and have speech that have no problem with speaking in the normal sound rage. So it probably is because I am gradually losing my hearing that I have a problem with it.

But I do find it slightly embarrassing. So I prefer signing. Especially when I'm tired and don't have the energy to lip-read or try and judge whether I'm speaking too loud or too quiet. Of course, for my Mum it's the other way round - when she's tired, she doesn't like to sign. This is something we need to work on - we both need to adjust.

Of course, amongst my hearing friends that can't sign, I talk. But some of them know a few signs and again, I prefer signing those as opposed to talking.

Perhaps my parents are afraid that I will revert completely to signing and stop functioning in the hearing world. This will never be the case. I am more at ease at signing the few words I know as opposed to speaking them, but I don't expect everyone I know to learn BSL. So I will always speak - even if I go completely deaf, I will still have speech and lip-reading.

Some people prefer to talk in spanish or french or dutch - I prefer to sign.

But again, it's all about adjusting and finding a way to accept changes. I will always talk. But I will also sign.

Deaf Girl