I grew up in a hearing family, was "diagnosed" with a "mild, cookie bite hearing loss" when I was 4 years old. The audiologist recommended hearing aids, so my parents bought a pair of CICs and I refused to wear them. The fact that you could still see them in my ears was mortifying to me. I was 5.
The "hearing loss" progressed throughout my life. We revisited hearing aids when I was 11. Got another pair of CICs. I wore them in class a few times, but then this girl I liked saw them and asked, "What's in your ear?" And I was, again, mortified. I never wore them again. I was always socially clumsy, shy, and pretty enraged growing up. I felt like I was constantly left out and it infuriated me. I never dated anyone throughout all of grade/high school. And I NEVER told anyone about my "hearing loss."
In college, I really noticed the impact because I was always around people. In grade school, you go to school and then you come home and I would isolate when I was at home. But in college, you have roommates, there is a lot more social activity, etc. Plus with the "progressive" nature, I perhaps felt its impact more strongly. I started to tell people about my "hearing loss," mostly because I was in such close contact. I told my closest friends and my roommate, etc.
I was so depressed in college. I found drugs (weed, mostly) and got super into that. (Didn't love drinking.) I would skip class and play video games alone or stay up until 6am smoking weed, binge watching shows (before streaming, I was OG binging), etc. I did exceptionally well in grade school and high school and my test scores were really high, I took a lot of AP classes and basically tested out of my Freshman year of college. In college, as an engineering major, I got Cs, Ds, and Fs the first year or so. Part of it was I was in a lot of sophomore classes so I had no real "on ramp" introduction of how to "be in college." Sophomore year I did better, I think because at the very least I was accustomed to college life a bit more. Junior year, I went on anti-depressants and I decided to get hearing aids, another pair of CICs, but I only wore them for class, never socially. I lost my virginity Junior year but still never had a girlfriend. I dropped out second semester Junior year. Senior year, I re-enrolled but then dropped out again and left school after first semester, moved back home.
Back home, I got a job waiting tables and met my first girlfriend. I was wearing my CICs more often now -- I literally had to as I waited tables for a living lol -- and I was dating this person I predictably fell utterly in love with. We broke up after 6 months and it shattered me. I started a series of very unhealthy patterns re: relationships in which I would become obsessive and try to get back together, only for it to go the same way again. It is a really dark part of my life that I regret. It's not an excuse, but I was so miserable and mired in such unfathomable darkness, it all feels like a blur.
I started performing stand-up comedy. I think it was a way for me to express myself in a world where I felt like I couldn't. It was also nice because I got to talk and the audience listened. (Most of the time.) They came out with a new hearing aid called the Lyric (from Insound, later bought by Phonak). What made the Lyric special was that it was 24/7 wearable and it was fully invisible. Literally. It sat inside the ear canal so deeply that nobody could see it. And the battery was housed inside the unit, so you wore them until the battery died and then your AuD replaced them. It was a subscription model. I got those pretty early, around 2008, and sort of never looked back. They allowed me to hear well enough (I thought) and called zero attention to themselves. There were some rough edges with them, but it was by far the best "solution" I had ever seen. The underlying darkness, depression, anxiety didn't go away, but I felt like I had resolved something.
Over the next 15 years, I continued to wear the Lyrics. My "hearing loss" "progressed" and probably took me out of range for Lyrics, but I kept using them anyway. I couldn't fathom a world in which I switched to a different, visible hearing aid. I didn't even let myself think about the prospect of my hearing changing, I pushed it out of mind as much as I could.
In my late 20s, early 30s, I started to be a bit more open about it. I talked about it on stage, I would tell people I wear hearing aids, I would allow myself to say "what?" more often. (I used to not let myself say it. Ever.)
Around 37, I got an ear infection which meant I couldn't use one of the hearing aids. I noticed that with only one, I could barely function in the world. I felt isolated. This also coincided with a bout of tinnitus that nearly ruined my life. As dark as life got, and as depressed as I was throughout it, I was never suicidal. Tinnitus was the closest I had ever come to suicidal ideation. I didn't want to kill myself, but I couldn't imagine living this way for the rest of my life. I was so depressed and alone. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't going outside. I just sat in my apartment (this was post-Covid, so it was like a reprise!). I went to an ENT for both the infection and the tinnitus. The infection eventually cleared up, but the tinnitus remained. The ENT asked me to send him all my hearing tests throughout my life, so I went to gather them. Seeing them all at the same time, looking at the progression, it was a bit shocking. I sent them in and he said, "Your hearing loss is severe." Which is a word I hadn't heard before. He said I was a candidate for a cochlear implant, which was a jaw-dropping thing to hear. He also said that he had no idea it was so severe because of how well I interpolate. I didn't know what he meant, but he explained that I must be figuring out what people are saying in my head. And on some level I knew I did this, but nobody had ever named it before or given it contour. He said, "You must be working really hard."
And I broke. I don't even remember the rest of the appointment. My whole life flashed before my eyes. I was sobbing on the train on the way home. I FaceTimed my best friend's mother (who is a HoH hearing aid user and an AuD herself) and just sobbed 37 years of life out into a phone. Every single moment of my life was suddenly made clear to me. The LABOR it all required, was suddenly laid bare. This thing I denied was suddenly staring at me in the face. I just needed to say it. The thing that I had not wanted to say my entire life. That I had tried so hard to prevent people from knowing...
I am Deaf.
And with that came so much grief and anger, so much crying... but also so much clarity. Oh. I'm deaf! Like if I stopped fighting it, all of this energy got freed up. It was liberating. I felt lighter.
The first thing I did was go to my audiologist and tell him I wanted new hearing aids, the right hearing aids for me. He fit me with a RIC from Phonak and it was night and day. I of course did not realize how much I was missing. I was like a poster child for a hearing aid company... "And then I go hearing aids, and I could hear everything!" Of course it doesn't work like that. But it was a significant improvement. The world sounded so different. I went to lunch with my cousin and I thought we were talking way too loudly lol. Also they helped manage the tinnitus, which never went away but eventually habituated.
I went on like that for about a year. One surprising side effect of these hearing aids was that they were more traditional. Where the Lyrics stayed in your ear 24/7, these hearing aids went on and off. You could wear Lyrics in the shower, to sleep, etc. But these new ones, I had to take them off to shower, to sleep, to charge, etc. I was more often in touch with my Deafness. My body, without hearing aids, was something I experienced more often. And it started to change how I viewed myself, and hearing aids. Hearing aids started to feel like a costume I had to wear in order to matter. In order to be considered valid. In order to be worthy of my friend's or family's time. If I didn't put these on, then what? Who is going to meet me here? Do I just cease to exist? Do these relationships disappear? It was confusing. And it made me sad.
A year after the ENT appointment that rocked my life, I started to think more about the "progressive" nature of my "hearing loss." And I thought, in the future, what if it gets to the point where hearing aids don't allow me to function the way I'm used to. Maybe one day I will "need ASL." So I thought, maybe I'll start learning it now, might as well get a head start.
I signed up for a class, 6 weeks, low commitment. I knew zero ASL beforehand. (Maybe I knew half the letters?) I was so Deaf-ignorant, I even emailed the school and said, "Your website says there is no voicing in class. How will people who don't know any sign language be able to learn?" They emailed me back, very nicely, and said, "Don't worry, we use slides and everyone comes in with little to zero knowledge!" I felt more comfortable.
I showed up for the class and it was a bit strange to see a purely Deaf space. Chairs in circles. Multiple classes in the same room. A flashing light doorbell. I had ZERO Deaf friends and had never really met a Deaf person before.
From minute one, from the first sign... I was completely transformed. Within 10 minutes, I thought to myself, "I think this is going to change my life." And that was an understatement. I fell so utterly in love with this language. It was all I talked about. All I wanted to do. I studied as much as I could online. I started going to Deaf/ASL events. ASL museum tours. ASL happy hours. ASL interpreted shows. I was in way over my head, but the more I went, the more I improved. I started taking multiple classes at the same time. I signed to myself as I walked around town. As I sat on the couch and watched TV. I met Deaf and HoH people. I met hearing signers, interpreters, CoDA, etc. After 6 months or so, the school asked ME to teach Level 1. I was rapidly improving and I couldn't get enough.
To be in a space where I didn't have to work to be there... I can't explain what that did to me. At ASL social events, it was the first time I never noticed time passing. I wasn't scanning the room or noticing things around me; I was so locked in on the conversation, the person I was chatting with. I was a fundamentally different person. I didn't even know this was possible. I never dreamed something like this could exist.
The class also included bits about Deaf history, Deaf culture, Deaf identity, Deaf awareness, etc. One slide said, "Deaf children who grow up without access to sign language or the Deaf community can feel depressed or have low self esteem." All the hearing students were like, "Oh interesting." And I was like... sobbing.
It fundamentally reshaped how I saw myself. My identity. I feel like myself in ASL even though I'm so new to it. I didn't realize how MUCH I was carrying in order to function in hearing spaces, and how much that was interfering with my ability to connect. To relate. To exist.
I've spent the last 2.5 years immersing myself as much as I can in ASL. I still lead a bit of a "split life." Because I am so adept at "passing" I have a lot of tension around it. I have friends, family, work... relationships that are all built on my "passing." But I don't want to pass hardly ever anymore. So the inertia of my life is in conflict with the momentum of my identity. This is something I am trying to resolve, but my goodness, I am so glad to be here rather than the darkness I was in for so long.
My point is not that everyone has to go "full Deaf" or "hate the hearing world!" My point is that without sign language, without knowing other Deaf/HoH folks, I could never understand myself. Without giving myself the exposure to what life is like when you DON'T have to work, or pass, or carry the burden of interpolation... I would never know how much it was costing me. I would never be able to CHOOSE how I want to show up in the world. And I think it is a birth right for every Deaf or Hard of Hearing person, at any age, to be able to CHOOSE. And sign language is the key that makes that choice possible. To be denied it or to be without it is to be denied choice, to be denied agency, to be denied IDENTITY. And I don't care who you are, nobody on earth deserves the pain of that level of denial. You deserve to decide what it means to be YOU.
TL;DR -- Sign language is the most beautiful thing on the planet.
