What It Is Like Being Deaf Blind And Hard of Hearing

Zaakirah Muhammad 0:00

My name is Zaakirah Muhammad and you are listening to the living legacy podcast. This weekly podcast features women of purpose sharing stories of resilience. they are wives, artist, entrepreneur, they run businesses and here they will share their stories of how they overcame obstacles and how they're juggling it off. If you ready to learn about professionalism, entrepreneurship, business, travel, life, and love, you're in the right place. You will you will have survival. Now it's your turn to be inspired to step out of your own comfort zone. I am a cancer survivor brand cultivating strategist, world traveler and a professional photographer. I'm your host of the living legacy podcast. Let's get into

today's episode is all about the deaf and hard of hearing culture. Apparently, I don't think I've talked about this but I also don't think many people don't realize this about me. I'm actually impaired Oh hard of hearing. But the way that they actually called me is that I am deaf blind. Now I have a very loud here in LA. Well, I do have vision in one eye, I do have 2020 vision in one eye, but no vision at all in my right eye. So technically I'm a cancer survivor. I don't think I've really explained how life is being hard of hearing. I'm going to talk about the good, the bad, the ugly. How am I able to survive being a music photographer? How did I survive? Being able to edit the podcast? Thank goodness for here now. I have been wearing hearing aids Now technically, since I was about three years old. I'm using hearing aids and technology improves all the time. So I've always had to just update my hearing aid every five years without hearing aid. If I don't know your voice, you know like I know the voices in my family members. Everything else even mumbo jumbo. So for me I won't be able to comprehend producing I will hear that you said something but I will not be able to comprehend my hearing it declining by the day as I get older but because of hearing aid is not declining as fast. Those hearing aid was expensive but honestly, if it wasn't for the audiologist, the wonderful idea is a lot of them were female audiologist still able to hear the language to feel comfortable with navigating life. The thing is, I miss out on a lot of conversation, because I simply won't be able to comprehend them, though in some difficult accents and now really cannot participate in the conversation that I also step away from Gossip one I won't be able to hear one arm in the name of who you even talking about. I didn't even participate in it anymore. I've also had to strengthen myself when it came to Knowing when people are backbiting about me and knowing when to not care people have asked about me all the time because they just do not understand me. And I get it. I'm especially human being. I also picked up on body languages. I can tell when I'm being talked about the way my hearing and my hearing aid is set up. I cannot exactly hear behind me. So a lot of time is so easy for people to try to keep the conversation going. And they walk away. Because I've also lived with that I'm not within close enough of proximity to you to understand and comprehend which goes day. If you turn your back on me, then I really won't be able to understand what you're saying. If you're trying to talk to me and I happen to walk away because I think you finish talking I get finished reading you live. I thought you finish the sentence. I'm not ignoring you. I literally did not hear you. So I get that a lot. It kind of hard. Now that I'm And I'm working. It just gets difficult where I would need to advocate for myself and apologize. Like, I'm sorry, I literally did not hear you. But I'm sorry. You're talking way too fast for me to even hear you. And then come the difficult part about asking people to repeat themselves, which not a lot of people like to do. I don't even like to do it. So then I sometime become insecure and I feel bad. I feel guilty sometimes because I wouldn't be able to understand what you're saying because unfortunately, I would hate to ask you to repeat yourself. I especially hate asking people to be themselves on the phone. Because I guess they think would say just a one to one communication. way of communicating that I should be able to comprehend every single thing they said, being hard of hearing. has me also very insecure about my voice, my voice I you know, gain a deep voice as soon as it hits but that Partially because of the Polycystic Ovarian syndrome that I have, which I talked about in Episode Two, if it wasn't for me not being able to adequately hear, because the level that I can hear myself is louder than a level that is out there. Sometimes I hear like the very stuff simply because it took a lot of therapy audiologists for me, for me to be able to pick up on what loud enough, what's not loud enough. How are you liking the living legacy podcast episode what had been your favorite so far? leave us a review on Apple podcast, iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher

gets challenging being out of here and require me to really advocate for myself, especially with my family. I know my parents, they had to be patient with me, my husband who had to get used to being patient We've just had some people will happily yell at away the tone to elders whose hearing have declined, does not mean that they are considered to be dumb down. Just because they're hearing it not that doesn't mean the other four senses are not working well at least other three senses in my case because I already have half of vision between being blind in one eye. Maybe I also get along so well with my elders because it excites me to be able to see them. When they have hearing aid on if I'm at work today for them. I happen to see that they have here in a I get my summer camp training hat on because when I was about 13 years old, I was a summer camp counselor to both deaf and blind or visually impaired students to that allows me to be more empathetic to others because I know that if I can see the back of your head that you have hinted on A 5050 chance that you're not going to hear me say hello, how are you? How can I help you? But that's just all the tough thing that has to do with knowledge talk about the good thing. The good thing is that anything I don't want to hear, I think to not go I'm not wasting my energy on anything that did not entertain, I was able to learn a new language, I was able to learn sign language because it's important that I do know sign language, just in case my hearing does go because even though thank goodness for technology, now I can type a message, text message, whatever I want to say, if I really wanted to communicate with my new friends who I know are completely deaf. I wanted to at least try to speak their language. However, even though I took a course in high school and we had a winters recital where we perform sign language to some of our favorite voted songs. I still wanted to be able to speak their language however I do not interact with enough deaf or hard of hearing people. Now, so I've only really mastered the alphabet. But I get so excited when I see someone who doesn't know sign language I tried to think I know with his name, I'm still able to enjoy music but first time going to a music festival by myself. I enjoyed it so much because all I had to do was take my hearing aid out and it wouldn't be too loud you know how a lot of people have put on a music festival as my active by putting it out and just enjoy it. I do it fill in the base of music in my heart. And that's pretty much what I enjoy the most about me. I've picked up on music before music. That's probably what makes me what I consider a or not, you know, ironically I always predict my favorite artists next single if they just released an album I'm able to predict a single I know that the beat, everything when it comes Well, I hope you learned a little bit from this episode. If you want to learn more about it definitely Google Helen Keller. Helen Keller is an amazing woman. There's also a book out by Haben Girma an Eritrean/Ethiopian nationality and heritage and she has an amazing book she enjoyed about living life and growing up in California as a deaf blind attorney. There's a few Deaf comedians if you really want to watch on YouTube, search deaf comedies not DEF- DEAF comedy. I did want to encourage you to learn more about life in a non hearing world as they call it. If you want some days to remember WORLD hearing day is march 3 or the first week of March every year. In Deaf Awareness Week is the last week of September.

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