#hearing impairment
Is this my trauma?
I was up at 3 in the morning after a heavy conversation with my best, pouring forth my unfiltered thoughts and gutting my heart on paper the stream of consciousness of a deaf, black male who has to balance those two predominant spheres (along with being queer) while battling the never ending introspective thoughts that constantly make me question my self worth and whether or not my friends are REALLY my friends, or just people who pity me and are being polite while I misread all of their cues and tones, all the while addressing the fact that I have avoided confronting the real issue that my disability is an obstacle when it comes to building genuine (ergo, romantic) relationships, while people won’t actually SAY it….we all know it’s there, and it’s great that I’m like this “AMAZINGWONDERFULGENUINETALENTEDFUNNY” guy, but I’m still “too deaf,” “too black,” “too intimidating.” And internalizing THIS message, this stream of consciousness, in a way that people cannot look at me and go, “Nah, you’re being a #paranoidminority” or “you’re #attentionseeking and #playingthevictim” because we are often taught that our experiences are invalid. That it’s all in our heads. But it’s me holding up a portrait of myself that contains fragments belonging to different places while not fully belonging anywhere.
I’m not asking for pity or your opinion. There isn’t a right or wrong. It’s just me. My experiences as the results of biology and fucked up circumstances and being a clusterfuck of star stuff.
Yeah that’s my headspace.
Nobody ever takes you seriously. They’re all too blown away by the fact that you can speak and breathe, and do things like other people. It’s like you’re some other creature pretending to be human. They don’t see you for who you really are, and then wonder why we either overcompensate or retreat and isolate ourselves.
HOH tip
Sandwich yourself in between two hearies at all possible times when out and about to create a halo of hearing detectors.
Well I’ve been using one hearing aid the past couple of weeks, and it is easy to listen without all the useless noise and that is hard for me to admit. But I have been missing wearing it: the sensation of wearing it and the noise. I constantly feel that there is a part of me is missing - I don’t feel whole at the moment. Every time I look in the mirror and see my ears I am reminded that one is broken. I used to feel broken growing up with deafness, and then I became whole in myself accepting my deaf identity. Now I feel that has been taken away from me. This is strange thing to be feeling because I was deaf before and after, so why do I feel like this?
I have on occasions put my hearing aid in as I find I can slightly hear isolated noise, so I use it to listen to music via my hear hooks.(loudly might I add). When I take it back out, I miss it even more. I could leave it out 100% of the time, but I don’t feel strong enough to resist. I would miss it less and less over time if I didn’t wear it, I want to wear. I want to hear the useless noise, it makes me feel like it’s still working and hasn’t given up haha!!
Overall it sucks! and at times I’m struggling! I don’t verbalize this to the people, but at times I’m not okay! I find it easier to smile and say everything is okay.
They say time is a great healer, but how much time do I need? How long is acceptable?
