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| My new hearing aids |
So I have learnt waiting later in the day is harder to write, I have been mulling over ideas on what to write about today and I know what I want to write about but I still have left it for later in the day like I usually do with things that needs to get done. So through out the day they are constantly hover around my mind - ' You haven't done it yet' - Now is your chance go for it. So now its 10 am in the night and here I am finally gotten myself to blogging and for you to know that topic that is been mulling in head.
Teenage years
Okay here I go - I learnt about this during my teenage years that I was partially deaf - there was a preliminary test done when I moved from India to start high school in the US. Before then I had no idea, my speech was fine and I didn't feel any different in the sense that I was like every normal child there going to school or I mean I didn't feel that I was lacking in my hearing sense. But that summer when I moved to my aunt's place in Los Angeles, I was given the very back bedroom which was fine with me, I was feeling quite different moving to a new country, new people - it was a bit too drastic for me. I still thought my hearing wasn't bad because I could still converse with people but overtime if I look back now, I did hold myself back, more so I thought because I was shy and reticent. I lived in a family where everyone was highly educated and the talking smart critically about worldly events was the norm. I struggled fitting into this I just felt I was the dumber of the lot and more shied away from verbose intellectual conversations. I don't know if it was this or whether I really couldn't hear that made me back off socially - it could have been both.
The Marriage
During the year I got married my father was adamant to get me hearing aids. We were in India and as I know with my dad he always buys the most costliest one and although I tried to deter him - he still bought me the priciest hearing aids possible. But my first experience wearing them, they were very loud and especially in India with the traffic - the horns are blown every few minutes, - it was taking a toll on my ears. But just being in India and with a whole new group of my family - I felt like I was back home and I was back conversing as I usually did.
Another new destination
Then after marriage my new destination - London. I think I was here for a year and it was one miserable year because it took me a year to get a job here. And being by myself in that one year - I became under confident, I hardly wore my hearing aids - I was with myself - I didn't need it to converse with and I believe my whole attitude changed towards it. I wanted to feel normal, I was normal, I could hear per say, I didn't need the hearing aids. I would wear them only when my husband was around because he hated repeating things to me. Over time I wore them occasionally, until they broke just about few months back .Slowly I realized that my hearing had gotten a bit worse, this being when I tried participating in conversations, I was talking about something so off the topic that my friends were speaking about and I was most naturally embarrassed by this.
Here I am now
I got my new hearing aids - thanks to the NHS just a few days ago and I think having them now I feel a resurgence of new energy that I can confidently converse again. I believe overtime that my environment and my attitude shaped my perspective about my HEARING. I decided to let it go and be okay that I have a sense of disability - and its not so bad after all - its okay not to be NORMAL.
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