What's the fuss?

Someone called Lee wrote:
All the people around them are hearing and can understand them just fine.

Ohhhhhhhh!!!!!! I'm not going to flame you Lee, but I'm going to share......because just this simple little line got my ire up!!! I mean IRE!!!!!!!!!

Jeez.......That's the line I hear ALL the time.....I speak clear, People have no problem understanding me, that my speech is almost perfect, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah! Yeah right! People understand, and that's obviously IMPORTANT from a HEARING Point of View!

What I don't understand is why, WHY can't people get it through their thick f---ing skulls that communication is a TWO-WAY street. Yeah, sure.....I could speak and talk alllllllll I want, but what IF I want to listen......then what happens. Not important???????? NOT IMPORTANT????? Hell, to be honest with you, I think the art of listening is the most VALUABLE communication tool any human being could have.

I lip-read like a pro......BUT a lot of my lip-reading is getting harder as I get older, and it's is more tiring than ever before. In fact, When I was working in a hearing environment some years ago, I found myself burned out before lunch hour drew near, and I had only been at work for about 3 hours. Day after day, this is what I went through, and day after day, I came home exhausted and depressed until finally I decided this BS had to stop. it took me 4-1/2 years to recuperate from this experience.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I would not let myself continue, and IF I was ever asked by hearing parents of a deaf kid for advise, I'll be bluntly honest with them.

To whose benefit was my speech and lipreading abilties for? For my teachers? For my family??? Now that I'm all grown up and on my own for some years, I never saw those teachers again. What the hell does my family need from me???? We hardly ever talk, except when neccessary and I have long ago accepted the fact that this is how life is going to be.....and I can no longer please the members of my family as well as hearing people in general. I got too many other important things to do than worry about lip-reading and speech......they are irrelevant to me these days because I already have the skills...so why obsess on it???? Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Yes, I am post-lingually Deaf, and through NO CHOICE of mine, I had to attend all hearing schools and then mainstream schools until graduation. If any of my teachers are reading this I'm very happy to tell them all their teaching was a miserable failure.....I learned most of my education and social skills AFTER I graduated from high school. I got nothing out of High school or the years before that!

I am not going to dwell on this....because today.......TODAY, my life is good, I finallllllly F----ing got to where I want to be, after hard work, therapy (yes Mainstream is a mind- f--k) and coming to accept my own idenitity as a person, however late that is.....they do say, "better late than never". Thank god!!!!!

So......back to all the people who can understand me just fine........thanks, but now it's their turn......I've done my part 9,999%.

Vikee.......letting out a lonnnnngggggggg sigh...............