Deaf Child VS Deaf Adult

Yes it has been ages since my last post. The vlog will explain my absence a bit. Unfortunately the vlog is quite blurry so I'm not sure how much you will be able to understand :\ But I'm including a transcription though... Eventually I'll have to figure how to make my webcam work better... or get a better one? I was pretty excited about this vlog because it shows how much my signing has improved since moving back to Canada and being around more people who sign, and it was the first time I just went ahead and made a vlog and didn't freak out if I made a mistake. Usually it takes me like 50 times to get a vlog out without any mistakes, heh.

I made this vlog three months ago:



Transcription:

Hello, Hello! I haven't vlogged in a long time because I recently moved back to Canada, about three months ago. I lived in Texas but just moved back to Canada in BC. I've been really busy. New job, new home... Seeing my family for the first time in a long time, meeting friends, etc.

Anyway, I finally set my webcam up again, and have been thinking about how I'd like to vlog about how I have been pondering on the past.... thinking about my experiences growing up as a deaf person in a hearing world.

One moment *drinks tea* *points at tea* Good tea!

When I was little, I was very open, I didn't really notice how different I was from my hearing friends. Yeah I was deaf but I really didn't care or put much thought into it. I'd basically just go up to people and be like "Hi my name is Zoée, want to be friends?!" I spent a lot of time playing and having fun. I never really got nervous about how people would react to me being deaf. I simply didn't care. For example, I moved from school to school several times and was mainstreamed... Meaning that I was the only deaf student. I remember how on the first day of school, I would show up and announce that my name was Zoée and that I was deaf without any signs of discomfort or insecurity. It simply was never a big deal to me.

But as I grew up and became a teenager, somehow things changed... slowly but surely changed. I think the biggest thing was how communication became more important. You don't really spend all your time playing anymore. You need to communicate and that's when I really started to notice a difference. Of course, writing to people was easy for me to do. No problem, but... I think a part of it is that there's bigger groups of teenagers getting together. Conversing. Doing things together. Being bad....whatever... being rebels haha. Anyway... In a group, that's where I feel deaf. One on one, I can write and we understand each other fine. But in a group with everyone conversing, I'm lost. I cannot understand what everybody is saying. One on one, fine. Group conversations... I can't understand, I feel disconnected, not involved... That's where I really notice that I'm different from them. I can't join the group conversation... I can't lip read or speak. That's when I really notice that I'm different and am unsure of what to do. I was unsure how to deal with that. I kept trying and trying but noticed how a lot of people seemed to not really care about involving me in the group. They did not bother telling me what was being discussed. Which was just an awkward experience for me, to sit there and watch people gab away and being completely clueless. My self esteem took a nose dive. I didn't know how to show them who I was... I felt insecure. I eventually felt like what's the point? Why bother going out with groups of people if they won't converse with me? I started to think that it was better to just go home instead of spending time with a group of people because I wasn't able to communicate in a group setting. I began to decline going out and stayed home a lot more. When I was about seventeen or eighteen, I realized one day that I barely even went out anymore. I declined a lot of opportunities to meet new people. I was too nervous, I didn't know how to communicate, I felt that it was too hard, I was also nervous of how they would react to my deafness. I didn't want to be seen as different. So i preferred to hide as much as I possibly could. Well, I still had one on one outings and conversations, but I avoided group outings as much as I could. Same with new people. I would only spend time with old friends.

That's what I noticed... My child self and my adult self... What a difference! As a child... I played all the time, I was happy, I had fun, I was careless etc. As an adult I declined, I stayed home, I didn't want to go out, I didn't want to be different, I was scared. The extreme difference between the two is just sad.

A few years ago, I decided that I needed to start going out more often, and meet new people again. I had to realize that yes I'm deaf, but that's fine, nothing is wrong with that. I had to accept that, yes I still can't understand group conversations, but that's fine. I have to make the best of it. This is my life. If i keep hiding, I would not see much out there. So i should just go "Oh well, I can't understand group conversations, but... so what? Move on." I still do struggle at times when I find myself thrown into a group setting and there's a group conversation occurring. I feel all awkward and unable to contribute/communicate. What I do in those situations though is to try to not think too much about it and focus on one-on-one conversations with several people while the group is conversing. No more focusing on the negative but focus on the positive instead. I'm trying to be more like what I was when I was a child instead of what I was like as a teenager/young adult.

The one thing I recently realized, if i continue to avoid conversing with new hearing people, it would show them... well hearing people who look at me as the only experience they have with deaf people... they would notice how I'm quiet and avoid interacting with people... They would go "So that's Zoée and she's deaf... but she's really quiet and kind of strange." They wouldn't have much to say about me because I don't provide anything positive. Instead if I'm assertive and approach them and explain that they will have to write to me in order to communicate etc. They would then look at me differently like "So that's Zoée, and she's deaf... She's really nice and friendly!" Basically if I give something positive, I will get a positive reaction back more often than not.

It's interesting though, how while growing up, your view on yourself, and your deafness really changes. I wonder if you all have had similar experiences or was it different for you? Go ahead and make a vlog about it, tell me about it...

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It has been difficult for me to keep this blog going because I don't always have something Deaf-related to discuss. These days my thoughts are mostly about bicycling and food. I've been getting really into bicycling everyday, and also getting involved with the local foods movement, and finding a balance between local foods and eating mostly vegan. I'm trying to get back into fibre art and there's just so much on my mind. I want to try and do more vlogs though, just to express myself through my hands/face/body, and I can't say the vlogs will always be about being Deaf and whatnot. I will most likely blabble on about other things that I have been thinking about. I just need to figure this damned webcam out!