Sunday 1 May 2016

Who's the disabled one around hear?

I love being 'nearly' deaf (Caveat being that I have enough residual hearing to be able to hear most things with the help of my hearing aids).

But I get the option of whether to put them in or not....this means I can live in my lovely quiet World until I actively opt-in to being able to hear what is going on around me.

I sleep undisturbed, even though the flat above is apparently noisy.
I travel undisturbed, even though my fellow commuters are apparently noisy.
I work undisturbed, even though my colleagues are apparently noisy.
I live my life undisturbed, even though life is apparently noisy.
Peace and quiet is an underrated state. I love it....

I don't consider my inability to cope with a hands-free conference call a bad thing....

I don't consider the need to say 'pardon?' several times to the quietly-spoken a chore....

I don't consider gloriously mis-answering a mis-heard question an embarrassment....

And I don't consider the ongoing frustration of people (who have known me long enough to know better) over my failure to hear them if I can't see their mouth move at the same time to be my failure, but rather theirs...

To the point that I genuinely now consider ably-eared people the disabled ones (not the other way round, as I have grown up being labelled....)

Disabled from shutting off the noise.
Disabled from uninterrupted focus.
Disabled from living a quiet, peaceful day-to-day life.

A controversial opinion, of course. And never, ever to underplay the challenges met by the profoundly deaf.
But please stop defaulting to sympathy and the expectation of struggle and adversity for my condition....I'm pretty sure my life is more peaceful than yours ;)