All that i can ever be is nothing more than myself

‘coming out’ about getting a CI

so as my surgery date of June 11th approaches i am very excited and nervous. i have alot of emotions, feeling and opinions revolving around cochelar implants. 

but as the days to my surgery dwindle i realized i havent told anyone other than close family and 2 close hearing friends about my decision.

 my d/Deaf identity is somewhat blurry. i dislike the binary of deaf vs hearing. i partcipate in both the Hearing and Deaf communities. so the best i can identify as is hard of hearing, even though i am techinically deaf, and i am Deaf as well. d/Deaf identites are a complicated matter.

anyways, how do i come out and tell my Deaf friends about my decision?

i want the Deaf community to know that i am not turning my back on them, i still love them, i still want to stay involved and i dont think CI users are any better than other Deafies.

but also want the Hearing community to know that i am still Deaf. getting a CI is not some ‘miracle cure’. its not going to improve my quality of life, because i have a very nice quality of life, thank you very much, because there is nothing wrong with being deaf. or Deaf. im proud to be Deaf. 

i chose to get a Cochlear Implant for myself. not for d/Deaf or Hearing people. but for me.

if i lose friends in either community because of it. so be it. they werent worth my time anyways.

i just have to figure out how to explain things to people..

Deaf PSA!

thelegalizeddeafies:

najalater:

I know I make a lot of these, but here’s something to ponder on before you reblob the cute baby:

Deaf people don’t wear hearing aids or get implants to benefit themselves. They do it to benefit you.

I can’t speak for all deaf/Deaf people, and I know a lot of HOH folk feel that they owe it to hearing people to use machines to function, and enjoy those machines (there must be someone on this planet somewhere who actually likes  wearing hearing aids… somewhere) but really? We do these things to ourselves so you don’t have to speak up or make an effort. We do it because we’re raised to believe we’re a burden. As the person with a disability, it is our job to make the abled feel normal, because normality is a privilege and the dichotomy must be upheld by the oppressed. Why do you think hearing aids are so discreet? It should never be asked of hearing people to even acknowledge, let alone adjust their behaviour for, deafness.

You may have to speak up and reiterate sometimes. It’s frustrating, I know. So is wearing gobs of plastic in your face that chew batteries and screech randomly and facilitate physical and audiological discomfort more often than not. Meet me halfway here sometimes. That’s why we’re friends.

Just my opinion; may not necessarily reflect the others.

just because one person makes a decision for themselves about their body, doesnt mean that decision is right for someone else. stop forcing your beliefs on other people.

ghosthustler:

party-cat-anthem:

sassy-lesbian-vriska:

kawaii-jake-english:

squidmama:

sassy-lesbian-jake-english:

classysassygay:

vamprosa:

people who criticize that adorable gif set of a baby hearing its mother’s voice for the first time with cochlear implants because he should have grown into his “deaf identity”

Wait, did somebody seriously say that?

What?

yep

oh my god

are you fucking kidding me

tumblr

Pretty much all of y’all in this thread who can hear/are able-bodied or aren’t deaf can back the fuck out. Cochlear implants aren’t a magical cure-all that make folks suddenly able to hear, they’re incredibly expensive, require intense maintenance, and involve very invasive surgery.

Not only that, but the kind of hearing that they give people isn’t entirely analogous to what the hearing are used to, and is in itself, imperfect as well. Often a deaf child is better served by being brought up manualist than going through the excruciating medical ordeal that is a cochlear implant and the often-times humiliation of oralist education (speaking as somebody brought up oralist).

It’s not just an issue of the Deaf community being “backwards” or something and thinking “everyone should be deaf!” it’s understanding that being deaf isn’t the end of the world (unless the hearing kind of just see us as dysfunctional cripples mad about how shit everything is, because we can get by, just fine) and that being deaf doesn’t necessarily exclude you from music or other ‘hearing’ experiences. ASL is a viable language in its own right, and while I can certainly understand how most of you wouldn’t want to be deaf, especially since a lot of us deaf people have to cope with feelings of inadequacy sometimes, you’re more or less inadvertently ableist in diminishing the opinions of deaf people, and in fucking butting in on something that you’ve got no perspective on.

OH MY GOD. the fact that this thread even exist just disgusts me. holy fucking ableism. and this isnt even some militant Deaf person saying the invention of CIs is destroying the future of the Deaf community and totally horrible evil technology.

its just someone saying they think its wrong to force an invasive surgery on an infant without their consent. and people are actually offended by that? wow. and then hearing people wonder why i get so angry about this topic.

lets get this straight.

i am Deaf. i have nothing against implants other than the fact of parents forcing it on a child without their consent. i think its totally possible for people to have CI’s and have a Deaf identity. its not wrong to want both. and its possible to have both. but individuals should be able to chose for themselves.

sure, sometimes the Deaf community reacts very strongly against implants and it may seem like an over reaction but when shit like this happens all the time its hard not to build up strong defenses.

but regardless, the thing that bothers me most about implants is not the implants themselves, but rather how hearing people treat CIs as this miracle creation that has somehow been brought upon this earth to save all us poor deaf people.

there is nothing wrong with being deaf or Deaf or hard of hearing. there is nothing wrong with having implants, hearing aids or no hearing devices. 

so all the hearing people getting appalled by the fact that some people dont want implants forced on infants. sit the fuck down. your opinions are invalid. and irrelevant. 

and lets not forget to point out the fact that someone put Deaf identity in scare quotes.

hearing people, come collect your kind. this crockery is bullshit.

(Source: whitepowermilk)

Shit Hearing People Say to Deaf and Hard of Hearing People:

• “Excuse me, Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! WHAT ARE YOU?!?! DEAF?!?!”
• “Wow, I never would have known you are deaf!” 
• “You don’t look deaf.”
• “What’s reading braille like?” 
• “Can you have children?”
• “You speak so well!” 
• “You don’t sound like a deaf person.” 
• “You dont need captions. I’ll just turn up the volume.”
• “Oh, never mind. I’ll tell you later.”
• “Turn up your hearing aid!”
• “Why don’t deaf people just get cochlear implants?”
• “Oh, I love sign language! “A… . .B… . .C…”
• “Why don’t you ever listen to me?” 
• “I bet you are just pretending to be deaf, huh?”
• “GEEZ! I…SAID… WHAT…DO…YOU…WANT…TO…DO?!!!”  
•  ”Doesn’t it make you sad that you won’t hear your child say, “I love you.”?
•  ”Can you read their lips and tell me what they are saying?” 
• “Oh, how do you sign @#%^, *#$%, %@!*&, and !@@#$%& ? 
•  ”Can you hear me now?” (laughs)
•  ”You don’t need an interpreter. We can understand what you are saying.”
• “Oh, you are deaf? Like Helen Keller! Cool!” 
• “Gosh, you deaf people are so angry and militant!” 
• “Look! He has a hearing aid, just like you!” 
• “Didn’t you hear that? oh.. uh sorry.”
• “Oh, you’re deaf? Sorry.” 
• “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW??”
• “i can see your hearing aids, WHY CANT YOU HEAR ME?”
• “I’ve always wanted to learn sign language!” 
• “this one time.. on a bus.. i saw some Deaf people!”
• “Your accent is interesting! Where are you from??”
• “So like, what CAN you hear??”
• “Does it hurt?”
• “Dont you wish you could hear music?”
• “So what does this mean??” (waves hands randomly)
• “You are SO lucky you dont have to hear those annoying people talking”
• “Can you have sex?”
• “I wish i could just, turn my ears off!”
• “Sorry im deaf must be your best excuse right??”
• “I know you can talk, why dont you just talk?!?!”

Some reasons why I cant stand “Sound and Fury “

“Sound and Fury” is a movie about 2 families with Deaf children and their decisions towards, the cochlear implant. One family has Deaf parents and the other has Hearing parents.

the hearing mother of the Deaf child, happens to be a CODA, and yet her attitudes towards the Deaf community are absolutely repulsive. She clearly views Deaf people as uneducated and as less. her greatest “tragedy” was that her son was born Deaf. she and her husband decide to implant the child.

the brother in law has a Deaf family, he and his wife are Deaf and all their children are Deaf. they sign and their children are happy Deaf children. but the oldest begins asking for a CI. and so chaos ensues.

first of all, the hearing members of this large family are all obviously audist. the mother of the Deaf father, is hearing and constantly berates, the little girl, with, how “if you get a CI you can do this.. and this.. and this…” because ”right now you, cant.. cant.. cant..” instead of, “look, you CAN do anything except hear” the hearing grandparents, see their own Deaf son as not good enough.

second, in the movie the CODA mom is shown, “oh boo hoo i grew up CODA i hated it, and now my son is Deaf, please doctors! please help us!” and everyone except the Deaf community supports her and agrees with her.

while the proud Deaf father is show ALWAYS angry, and is called abusive by his own family. 

so, Hearing mom, shown as tragic, Deaf father shown as abusive.

the way the Deaf community was portrayed by the movie is all anger instead of showing all it has to offer, the movie shows the defensiveness of the Deaf community towards the idea of the CI, and blown out of proportion reactions. while the hearing community is shown as a savior and paints a picture of “trying to give a better life to the Deaf child”. it infuriates me.

“Sound and Fury” is extremely Hearing slanted and this is just in reference to the editing and compilation of the movie. 

not even getting into the family dynamics, which i could analyze for days.

but im trying to be nice here and not lose my temper, or offend anyone. also, im trying to keep it readable length since like i said i could write for days, on the topic of this movie.